“And then,” said Mr. Wake, “an old chap who had been down to Florence, and had gotten his favorite gray suit so wet that he didn’t think that it would ever come back to shape, heard the tinkle of the bell of his gate and said, ‘The devil,’ because he was half way up to the house and everything had tried him that day anyway. But he turned back, and he opened the gate, and he found—heaven!”
Then I knew that Sam and I should move!
“Sam,” I said, “may I see the picture that you’re working on now?”
“Yes,” Sam answered, and we stood up.
It made us both very happy to leave those two dear people whom we loved so well, and who had been lonely, there together.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HOMEWARD BOUND!
The end of May! And all over again I felt the excitement that comes with a journey, for I was started for Genoa on the twenty-fifth with Miss Meek to see that I got aboard the White Star ship safely, and Sam to see that Miss Meek and I weren’t bored.
Miss Bannister had gone to England, and Leslie had gone to join her Mother in Paris where they were to buy a trousseau that would be worn on a ranch for the benefit of one man and a one-eyed Chinese cook who could spit eight feet! And Viola had started out with her Madame Heilbig, who had suddenly decided to tour Switzerland and some of the Italian cities that are popular in summer—the lake and seashore points. Mr. and Mrs. Wake had started out in a smart tan motor one morning, after a little wedding in the American Church—and we didn’t know where they were, and Mr. Hemmingway had taken up residence in Mr. Wake’s villa.
In spite of the scattering, however, I had a few people to see me off, and to wish me everything good.
Miss Julianna, who cried, stood by me in the station saying that she knew that God and the Virgin would see that I was happy because I should be, which I thought so kind; and Mr. Hemmingway, who had come all the way to town, stood near with a bouquet that he had picked for me, trying so hard to remember when he had first seen Genoa—but he couldn’t fasten it. Miss Meek, who was to join her Italian family in June, stood close with Sam saying, “My eye, how I’ll miss the jolly flapper!” And altogether it was warming, but it made my throat lump too, the way that things that are too warming sometimes do.