After she was thoroughly warmed up and had drunk a cup of scalding tea, Jean found her way up to the room that was to be hers during her visit. It was the sunniest kind of a retreat in daffodil yellow and rich brown. The furniture was all in warm, deep-toned ivory, and there were springlike bouquets of daffodils everywhere.
“Gee, I think this is just darling,” Jean gasped, standing in the middle of the floor and gazing around happily. “It’s just as if spring were already here.”
“I put a drawing board here for you too,” Beth told her. “Of course you’ll use my studio any time you like, but it’s handy to have a corner all your own at odd times. I forgot to mention it before, but we’re going to have a guest for the weekend. A boy whose parents I knew in Sorrento years ago. His name is Aldo Thomas. His father was an American sculptor who married an Italian Contessa. Aldo is also studying art here in New York this winter and lives with his aunt. He has inherited his father’s artistic talent so I know you will find much in common. And I also think you’ll do each other a world of good.”
“How?”
“Well, you’re thoroughly an American girl, Jean, and Aldo is half Italian. You’ll understand what I mean when you see him. He is high-strung and temperamental, and you are so steady-nerved and well-balanced.”
Jean thought over this last when she was alone, and smiled to herself. Why on earth did one have to give outward signs of temperament, she wondered, before people believed one had sensitive feelings or responsive emotions? Must she wear her heart on her sleeve for a sort of personal barometer? Peg Moffat was high-strung and temperamental too. So was Kit. They both indulged now and then in mental fireworks, but nobody took them seriously, or considered it a mark of genius. She felt just a shade of half-amused tolerance toward this Aldo person who was to get any balance or poise out of her own nature.
“If Beth knew for one minute,” she told the face in the oval mirror of the dressing table, “what kind of a person you really are, she’d never trust you to balance anybody’s temperament.”
But the following day brought a trim car to the door, and out stepped Aldo. And Jean, coming down the wide center staircase, saw Beth before the fire with a tall, thin figure, whose clothes seemed to hang on him carelessly as if he wore them as a concession to convention.
“This is my cousin Jean,” said Mrs. Newell in her pleasant way. Aldo extended his hand diffidently. “I want you two to be very good friends.”
“But I know, surely, we shall be,” Aldo said easily. And at the sound of his voice Jean’s prejudices melted. He had very dark eyes with lids that drooped slightly at the outer corners. His thin face emphasized his prominent cheekbones and his skin was fair in spite of his Italian heritage.