A sudden red dyed Lucy's cheek.
'Mr. Manisty!—was he there? I hoped he knew nothing about it. I only saw you.'
Eleanor's thought drew certain inferences. But they gave her little comfort. She turned away abruptly, complaining of the heat, and went to the piano.
Lucy sat listening, with a book on her knee. Everything seemed to have grown strangely unreal in this hot silence of the villa—the high room with its painted walls—the marvellous prospect outside, just visible in sections through the half-closed shutters—herself and her companion. Mrs. Burgoyne played snatches of Brahms and Chopin; but her fingers stumbled more than usual. Her attention seemed to wander.
Inevitably the girl's memory went back to the wild things which Alice Manisty had said to her. In vain she rebuked herself. The fancies of a mad-woman were best forgotten,—so common-sense told her. But over the unrest of her own heart, over the electrical tension and dumb hostility that had somehow arisen between her and Eleanor Burgoyne, common-sense had small power. She could only say to herself with growing steadiness of purpose that it would be best for her not to go to Vallombrosa, but to make arrangements as soon as possible to join the Porters' friends at Florence, and go on with them to Switzerland.
To distract herself, she presently drew towards her the open portfolio of Eleanor's sketches, which was lying on the table. Most of them she had seen before, and Mrs. Burgoyne had often bade her turn them over as she pleased.
She looked at them, now listlessly, now with sudden stirs of feeling. Here was the niched wall of the Nemi temple; the arched recesses overgrown with ilex and fig and bramble; in front the strawberry pickers stooping to their work. Here, an impressionist study of the lake at evening, with the wooded height of Genzano breaking the sunset; here a sketch from memory of Aristodemo teasing the girls. Below this drawing, lay another drawing of figures. Lucy drew it out, and looked at it in bewilderment.
At the foot of it was written—'The Slayer and the Slain.' Her thoughts rushed back to her first evening at the villa—to the legend of the priest. The sketch indeed contained two figures—one erect and triumphant, the other crouching on the ground. The prostrate figure was wrapped in a cloak which was drawn over the head and face. The young victor, sword in hand, stood above his conquered enemy.
Or—Was it a man?
Lucy looked closer, her cold hand shaking on the paper. The vague classical dress told nothing. But the face—whose was it?—and the long black hair? She raised her eyes towards an old mirror on the wall in front, then dropped them to the drawing again, in a sudden horror of recognition. And the piteous figure on the ground, with the delicate woman's hand?—Lucy caught her breath. It was as though the blow at her heart, which Manisty had averted the night before, had fallen.