“Carmela, I am not really antipatica?”
“What foolishness! No.”
“Why does Gemma hate me then? No one else does, or if they do they hide it, but she looks daggers at me always.”
Carmela had been invited to tea in her cousin’s bedroom. The water did not boil yet, but her mouth was already full of cake.
“What happened the other night when Gemma let you in?” she mumbled.
“Did she say anything to you?”
“No, but I am not blind or deaf. You have not spoken to each other since.”
Olive lifted the kettle off the spirit lamp. “You like it weak, I know.”
“Yes, and three lumps of sugar. Tell me what happened, cara.”
“Well, as I came up the stairs that night I noticed a strong scent of tobacco—good tobacco. Sienese boys smoke cheap cigarettes, and the older men get black Tuscan cigars, but this was different. It reminded me of— Oh, well, never mind. When I came to the first landing I felt sure there was someone standing close against the wall waiting for me to go by, and yet when I spoke no one answered. You know how dark it is on the stairs at night. I could not see anything, but I listened, and, Carmela, a watch was ticking quite near me, by my ear. I could not move for a moment, and then I heard Carolina calling—she was with me, you know, but she had gone up first—and I got up somehow. Gemma let us in. She said she had been asleep, and I noticed that her hair was all loose and tumbled. I told her I fancied there was someone lurking on the stairs, and she said it must have been the cat, but I knew from the way she said it that she was angry. She lit her candle and marched off into her own room without saying good-night, and I was sorry because I have always wanted to be friends with her. I thought I would try to say something about it, so I went to her door and knocked. She opened it directly. ‘Go away, spy,’ she said very distinctly, and then I grew angry too. I laughed. ‘So there was a man on the stairs,’ I said.”