His heart dilated within him so, when he saw the Goulds on the deck of the Hermes, that his greetings were reduced to a casual mutter. Driving back to town, all three were silent. And in the patio the doctor, in a more natural manner, said—
“I’ll leave you now to yourselves. I’ll call to-morrow if I may?”
“Come to lunch, dear Dr. Monygham, and come early,” said Mrs. Gould, in her travelling dress and her veil down, turning to look at him at the foot of the stairs; while at the top of the flight the Madonna, in blue robes and the Child on her arm, seemed to welcome her with an aspect of pitying tenderness.
“Don’t expect to find me at home,” Charles Gould warned him. “I’ll be off early to the mine.”
After lunch, Dona Emilia and the senor doctor came slowly through the inner gateway of the patio. The large gardens of the Casa Gould, surrounded by high walls, and the red-tile slopes of neighbouring roofs, lay open before them, with masses of shade under the trees and level surfaces of sunlight upon the lawns. A triple row of old orange trees surrounded the whole. Barefooted, brown gardeners, in snowy white shirts and wide calzoneras, dotted the grounds, squatting over flowerbeds, passing between the trees, dragging slender India-rubber tubes across the gravel of the paths; and the fine jets of water crossed each other in graceful curves, sparkling in the sunshine with a slight pattering noise upon the bushes, and an effect of showered diamonds upon the grass.
Dona Emilia, holding up the train of a clear dress, walked by the side of Dr. Monygham, in a longish black coat and severe black bow on an immaculate shirtfront. Under a shady clump of trees, where stood scattered little tables and wicker easy-chairs, Mrs. Gould sat down in a low and ample seat.
“Don’t go yet,” she said to Dr. Monygham, who was unable to tear himself away from the spot. His chin nestling within the points of his collar, he devoured her stealthily with his eyes, which, luckily, were round and hard like clouded marbles, and incapable of disclosing his sentiments. His pitying emotion at the marks of time upon the face of that woman, the air of frailty and weary fatigue that had settled upon the eyes and temples of the “Never-tired Senora” (as Don Pepe years ago used to call her with admiration), touched him almost to tears. “Don’t go yet. To-day is all my own,” Mrs. Gould urged, gently. “We are not back yet officially. No one will come. It’s only to-morrow that the windows of the Casa Gould are to be lit up for a reception.”
The doctor dropped into a chair.
“Giving a tertulia?” he said, with a detached air.
“A simple greeting for all the kind friends who care to come.”