In the beginning of her speech, Barbara Thornton had taken her guest’s hand and kissed it with characteristic swiftness and sweetness. Now, before Sonya Valesky could reply to her, she had turned to her other visitors.
“Forgive me if I was rude. I am so glad to see you, although we have never met one another before, I am sure I know who you are. This is Bianca and this is Mr. Navara. You see, I have had letters about both of you from Italy.”
And then Barbara led the way into her drawing-room, while Sonya explained.
“Nona will be here presently. She had to attend to some important business. I believe she wishes to stay after we have gone and talk the matter over with you, Barbara. I don’t like to tell you what it is, but I hope you will try to dissuade her.”
“Something about which you have tried and failed?” Barbara inquired. “Then I am sure I shall not be successful. You see, Eugenia always said that Nona was the most difficult of us all to influence because she seemed to be the gentlest.”
Barbara had seated herself at her tea table and was now trying to serve her guests; the maid had immediately brought in the ice, and cold and hot tea as well. Barbara wished that she had not so much to occupy her as she would like to have been able to devote more attention to studying her guests.
Bianca, the little Italian girl whom Sonya had brought home with her to the United States as a protégée, Barbara found less interesting than Nona’s description of her had led one to expect. Bianca was very pretty, of a delicate, shell-like type that one would not expect in an Italian. At present she seemed either very shy and frightened, or else she was merely demure. Then Barbara remembered that this was exactly what Nona had written was especially characteristic of her. Bianca was not all Italian, her father having been an American, and one must not judge her wholly by appearances.
Moreover, if, as Nona had also said, Sonya had returned to the United States partly because she wished to see less of the young Italian singer whom she had cared for during his convalescence in Italy, apparently she had not been successful thus far.
Even as she looked after her tea party Barbara could see that Carlo Navara, if it were possible, never looked in any other direction than toward Sonya. He was, of course, a great deal younger than Sonya and it was immensely tragic that in fighting for Italy a wound had destroyed the beauty of his voice; nevertheless, Barbara could not but feel that his attitude was delightfully romantic.
Sonya treated him almost as she did Bianca, in a half maternal, half friendly fashion, and yet Barbara wondered if she felt in the same way toward them both. As Barbara had not seen the young Italian-American during the crossing to Italy, when he had seemed to be merely a crude, vain boy, she could not appreciate what Sonya’s influence had done for him. Barbara now saw a remarkably good looking young fellow of perhaps something over twenty, with dark eyes and hair, charming manners and an expression of quiet melancholy which his tragic loss rendered appealing. At present there was little in Carlo’s artistic face and manner to suggest his origin, or the little Italian fruit shop in the east end of New York City, where his parents worked and lived and where Carlo was also living at this time.