'You must come in,' said Eleanor, laying her hand on the girl's. 'The chill is beginning.'
Lucy rose, conscious again of the slight giddiness of fever, and they walked towards the house. Half way, Lucy said with sudden, shy energy—
'I do wish I were quite myself! It is I who ought to be helping you through this—and I am just nothing but a worry!'
Eleanor smiled.
'You distract our thoughts,' she said. 'Nothing could have made this visit of Alice's other than a trial.'
She spoke kindly, but with that subtle lack of response to Lucy's sympathy which had seemed to spring first into existence on the day of Nemi. Lucy had never felt at ease with her since then, and her heart, in truth, was a little sore. She only knew that something intangible and dividing had arisen between them; and that she felt herself once more the awkward, ignorant girl beside this delicate and high-bred woman, on whose confidence and friendship she had of course no claim whatever. Already she was conscious of a certain touch of shame when she thought of her new dresses and of Mrs. Burgoyne's share in them. Had she been after all the mere troublesome intruder? Her swimming head and languid spirits left her the prey of these misgivings.
Aunt Pattie met them at the head of the long flight of stone stairs which led from the garden to the first floor. Her finger was on her lip.
'Will you come through my room?' she said under her breath. 'Edward and
Alice are in the library.'
So they made a round—every room almost in the apartment communicating with every other—and thus reached Aunt Pattie's sitting-room and the salon. Lucy sat shivering beside the wood-fire in Aunt Pattie's room, which Miss Manisty had lit as soon as she set eyes upon her; while the two other ladies murmured to each other in the salon.
The rich wild light from the Campagna flooded the room; the day sank rapidly and a strange hush crept through the apartment. The women working among the olives below had gone home; there were no sounds from the Marinata road; and the crackling of the fire alone broke upon the stillness—except for a sound which emerged steadily as the silence grew. It seemed to be a man's voice reading. Once it was interrupted by a laugh out of all scale—an ugly, miserable laugh—and Lucy shuddered afresh.