“Your rest and chat must not last too long if we are to have the drive we promised ourselves,” said Beppo. He took out his watch. “I will come up and fetch you at a quarter past two. I hope that by then both you ladies will be ready to start?”
“You need not come upstairs,” said the Marchesa quickly. “You can send us a message when you are ready. But pray give us a full half-hour! There’s nothing more disagreeable than motoring just after a meal.”
A few moments later the lift was swinging Lily Fairfield and the Marchesa Pescobaldi up smoothly, almost noiselessly, to the top of the hotel.
As they stepped out of the lift the older woman affectionately thrust one of her jewelled hands through Lily’s arm, in almost schoolgirl fashion.
“Now that we are alone,” she exclaimed, “I want to tell you that I hope you and I, Miss Fairfield, are going to be friends! May I call you Lily? It is a sweet, a delightful name—pure and simple, as I am sure you are yourself. Will you call me by my name too, dear? I am called Livia.”
“It is very kind of you to want to make friends with me—Livia,” said Lily shyly. “I have always longed to go to Rome some day.”
“But, of course, it is because you will live in Rome that I want us to be friends,” said the Marchesa, rather quickly.
As she spoke she withdrew her hand from the other’s arm, and, opening a door, she stepped back to allow Lily to pass through into a very light, gay-looking sitting-room in which were many bowls and vases filled with exquisite flowers.
“You see,” she exclaimed, “how both my husband and Beppo spoil me!”
By far the most beautiful thing in the room was a big nosegay of white lilac, rising from a blue jar which was in itself a thing of beauty.