She left him standing on the terrace, and found her way back through the lower garden, down the Scala di Spagna, across the Piazza to the hotel. Everything stood bathed in sunshine as in a dream. She had a sense that all the people she passed were dream-figures. Everything had become all at once unsubstantial, unreal, shadows of something else.
When she reached the hotel the hall porter put a packet of letters into her hand. Most of them had been forwarded from Florence, as she noticed in turning them over on her way up to her room. One of them was from Rose.
Her bedroom, which looked south, was flooded with sunshine when she entered. She lifted a basket-chair into the balcony, and sinking into it, sat for some time with the letters in her lap. She felt no inclination to open them. She did not want to break the sensation of dreaming which lulled her senses, and banished all the care and worry of the past months. It would be pleasant to sit like this in the sunshine all the rest of her life; never to think, just to know that she was being cared for, that her presence made the joy of another’s life. And why not? Why not an easy, dreamy life in sunny lands, with Dick?
Opposite to her, the old walls and roof of a monastery cut with its irregular lines the brilliant sky. The gay, striped awning above a vine-wreathed terrace at a lower level flapped gently in the breeze. Beneath, the little courtyard garden was a tangle of oleanders in tubs, of orange and lemon trees. And over all lay the sunshine. Cecily, stretching her body lazily in the long wicker chair, instinctively raised her arms towards the sky, as though to clasp its warmth, its deliciousness. It was a long time before she thought of her letters, and then she began to open the envelopes with indifference. None of them were of any importance. She had left Rose’s till the last.
It began with news of the children, of herself, and went on to information about various acquaintances. Then all at once, and quite abruptly, it spoke of Robert. Cecily started when she read his name. She had agreed with Rose that it should not be mentioned in their correspondence. “Robert is back,” the letter ran. “He wrote to me a day or two ago from the flat, and asked if he might come down for the day. He came, and he looked shockingly ill and hopelessly miserable. He came for news of you. I didn’t mention your name at first, till I couldn’t stand it any longer. He followed me about with his eyes like a dog, begging. Then at last we spoke of you. I don’t know what you said before you went, but evidently he has no hope. He looked like my Jim when he’s been naughty and thinks I’m not going to say good-night to him. He was back at the flat, but I persuaded him to go away again for a few days at least. He says he hates the sight of London. I hope you still like Florence. How does Diana enjoy everything?...” Cecily dropped the letter, leaving the latter pages unread.
Mechanically she turned her eyes towards the garden. All the dream-feeling was gone. She was Robert’s wife. She knew the look that Rose meant; she could see his face before her. Everything but that was blotted out. Bending her head down upon her knees, she broke into a passion of tears.
For hours she sat in her room, forgetting the time, forgetting everything but the urgent need of getting home,—home to comfort some one who had need of her.
Presently she rose, and, fetching her writing case, wrote two letters. It was strange to feel no uncertainty, to be no longer racked with doubt, to have no more vacillations. Her course now was plain; she felt no more hesitation than a mother feels when she hears her child is ill.
Hours afterwards, when Diana came in, eager to recount the affairs of the day, Cecily was still in her room.