‘Citizens of the world,’ Sybert turned the stem of his wine glass meditatively as he repeated the phrase. ‘It seems to me, in spite of Miss Marcia, that one can’t do much better than that. If you’re a patriotic citizen of the world, I should think you’d done your duty by mankind, and might reasonably expect to reap a reward in Benoit’s paradise.’
He laughed and raised his glass. ‘Here’s to the World, our fatherland! May we all be loyal citizens!’
‘I think,’ said Mrs. Melville, ‘since this is a farewell dinner and we are pledging toasts, we should drink to Villa Vivalanti and a happy spring in the Sabine hills.’
Copley bowed his thanks. ‘If you will all visit the villa we will pledge it in the good wine of Vivalanti.’
‘And here’s to the Vivalanti ghost!’ said the young Frenchman. ‘May it lif long and prosper!’
‘Italy’s the place for such ghosts to prosper,’ Copley returned.
‘Here’s to the poor people of Italy—may they have enough to eat!’ said Marcia.
Sybert glanced up in sudden surprise, but she did not look at him; she was smiling across at her uncle.
CHAPTER IV
The announcement that a principe Americano was coming to live in Villa Vivalanti occasioned no little excitement in the village. Wagons with furnishings from Rome had been seen to pass on the road below the town, and the contadini in the wayside vineyards had stopped their work to stare, and had repeated to each other rumours of the fabulous wealth this signor principe was said to possess. The furniture they allowed to pass without much controversy. But they shook their heads dubiously when two wagons full of flowering trees and shrubs wound up the roadway toward the villa. This foreigner must be a grasping person—as if there were not trees enough already in the Sabine hills, that he must bring out more from Rome!