The ruins in the dim light looked a fit harbour for ghosts. The crumbling piles of masonry were almost hidden by the dark foliage, but the empty fountain stood out clearly in a little open space between the trees.
The group paused on the edge of the trees and stood with eyes turned half expectantly toward the fountain. As they looked, they saw, with a tremor of surprise, the dim figure of a man rise from the coping and dissolve into the surrounding shadows. For a moment no one uttered a sound beyond a quick gasp of astonishment, and an excited giggle from Margaret Royston. Paul was the first to rise to the occasion with the muffled assertion that he recognized the fair and warlike form in which the majesty of buried Denmark did sometime march. Before any of them had recovered sufficiently to follow the apparition, a second ghost rose from the coping and stood wavering in apparent hesitancy whether to recede or advance. This was more than tradition demanded, and with a quick exclamation both Copley and Sybert sprang forward to solve the mystery.
A babble of noisy expostulation burst forth. The ghost was vociferous in his apologies. He had finished his work and had desired to take the air. It was a beautiful night. He came to talk with a friend. He did not know that the signore ever came here, or he would never have ventured.
The tones were familiar, and a little sigh of disillusionment swept through the group. The two men came back laughing, and Paul apostrophized tragically:
‘Another lost illusion! If all the ghosts turned out to be butlers, how unromantic the world would be!’
The young Frenchman took up the tale of mourning.
‘But the true ghost, Monsieur le Prince, whom I was preparing to paint; after this he will not deign to poke his nose from the grave. It is an infamy! An infamy!’ he declared.
They laughingly turned back toward the villa, and Marcia discovered that she was walking beside Paul. It had come about quite naturally, without any apparent interposition on his part; but she did not doubt, since he had the chance, that he would take advantage of it to demand an answer, and she prepared herself to parry what he might choose to say. He strolled along, whistling softly, apparently in no hurry to say anything. When he did break the silence it was to remark that the tree-toads were infernally noisy to-night. He went on to observe that he wasn’t particularly taken with her butler; the fellow protested too much in the wrong place, and not enough in the right. From that he passed to a flying criticism of villa architecture. Villa Vivalanti was a daisy except for the eastern wing, and that was ‘way off in style and broke the lines. Those gingerbread French villas at Frascati, he thought, ought to be razed to the ground by act of parliament.
Marcia responded rather lamely to his remarks, as she puzzled her brains to think whether she had done anything to offend him. He seemed entirely good-humoured, however, and chatted along as genially as the first time they had met. She could not comprehend this new attitude, and though it was just what she had wished for—such is the contrariness of human nature—she vaguely resented it. Had M. Benoit seen her just then he might have accused her, for the third time, of being distraite.
The ghost-hunters, upon their return, shortly retired for the night, as the festa at Genazzano would demand an early start. Before going upstairs, Marcia waited to give orders about an open-air breakfast-party she was planning for the morrow. In searching for Pietro she also found her uncle. Mr. Copley, very stern, was engaged in telling the butler that if it occurred again he would be discharged; and the butler, very humble, was assuring the signore that in the future his commands should be implicitly obeyed.