“It doesn’t matter,” I answered.
“I hope it won’t be cold,” he said.
“I don’t care,” I responded. Then he said he was sorry, again, and he hoped it wouldn’t be cold, again, and I told him it didn’t matter, again, and then we reached the point we’d both been waiting for, which was, his saying, “Well, when can I see you again?”
And after I told him—I said, “day after to-morrow,” because I didn’t think it was nice to rush things—I went in. I expected to hear Mr. Hemmingway reminiscing in the dining room, but no sound came from there; the place seemed strangely and unpleasantly still. I had expected also to encounter Beata carrying in one of the later courses, but when my eyes accommodated to the dim light I saw that Beata was sitting by the table, with her head in her arms, crying.
“Beata,” I broke out quickly, “not Pietro?” for I was afraid that something had come along to change the course of her plans, which all led up to and centered around a wedding which was to be early in February.
Beata looked up; “Signorina,” she said, “la cablegram—la Signorina Harrees-Clarke—la poverina, la poverina!”
That was all I stopped to hear. I hurried down the corridor to Viola’s room, and at that door I paused, for Leslie was sitting on the bed by Viola, holding both of her hands in hers, and saying, as she stroked them, “There, dear, there!”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHANGES
I found the cablegram that had come for Viola told her that her father was dead; the father whom she had not written since her complaining, begging letter of Christmas time.
It made me feel so sorry for her that I didn’t know what to do; for I knew that the sorrow would be enough for her without acute regret attached to it; and I knew that she was going to suffer from that too.