Meanwhile Aunt Pattie was whispering to Eleanor.
'He was wonderful—quite wonderful! I did not think he could—'
'He can do anything he pleases. He seems to be reading aloud?'
'He is reading some poems, my dear, that she wrote at Venice. She gave them to him to look at the day she came. I daresay they're quite mad, but he's reading and discussing them as though they were the most important things, and it pleases her,—poor, poor Alice! First, you know, he quieted her very much about the money. I listened at the door sometimes, before you came in. She seems quite reconciled to him.'
'All the same, I wish this night were over and the doctor here!' said Eleanor, and Miss Manisty, lifting her hands, assented with all the energy her small person could throw into the gesture.
* * * * *
Lucy, in the course of dressing for dinner, decided that to sit through a meal was beyond her powers, and that she would be least in the way if she went to bed. So she sent a message to Miss Manisty, and was soon lying at ease, with the window opposite her bed opened wide to Monte Cavo and the moonlit lake. The window on her left hand, which looked on the balcony, she herself had closed and fastened with all possible care. And she had satisfied herself that her key was in her door. As soon as Miss Manisty and Eleanor had paid her their good-night visit, she meant to secure herself.
And presently Aunt Pattie came in, to see that she had her soup and had taken her quinine. The little old lady did not talk to Lucy of her niece, nor of the adventure of the afternoon, though she had heard all from Eleanor. Her family pride, as secret as it was intense, could hardly endure this revelation of the family trouble and difficulty to a comparative stranger, much as she liked the stranger. Nevertheless her compunctions on the subject showed visibly. No cares and attentions could be too much for the girl in her charge, who had suffered annoyance at the hands of a Manisty, while her own natural protectors were far away.
'Benson, my dear, will come and look after you the last thing,' said the old lady, not without a certain stateliness. 'You will lock your door—and I hope you will have a very good night.'
Half an hour later came Mrs. Burgoyne. Lucy's candle was out. A wick floating on oil gave a faint light in one corner of the room. Across the open window a muslin curtain had been drawn, to keep out bats and moths. But the moonlight streamed through, and lay in patches on the brick floor. And in this uncertain illumination Lucy could just see the dark pits of Eleanor's eyes, the sharp slightness of her form, the dim wreath of hair.