"And we leave to-morrow," she said. "My husband is coming home, signor. I must fly to meet him."
"He could come here," said Luigi Frascatelle. "You are not fit to travel."
"He hates Italy. This was my fancy—this coming here."
Her fancy! The big, bare rooms had made Esmé nervous and irritable; she had chafed during the dullness of waiting; had grown fretful and afraid. She hated the big room she had lain sick in, with its ornate bed, its bare, polished boards; the fire of chestnut wood. How often she had woken in terror, dreading what must come to her in it. Then there was constant need of caution; the strain of remembering had told on the woman who ought to have been with her own people, with her hours full, her time taken up.
She could have played bridge, grumbled to her friends, learnt comfort, been with her husband.
"No, Madame is nervous; not well," said the little Italian, "run down. Better if Sir Blakeney came here to take Madame the journey. Madame does not know that there were difficulties which have weakened her."
Esmé went away irritably. Denise, laughing, excited, came in.
"She will be all right," she said impatiently. "It is nothing, surely, mere natural strain."
"Che lo sa?" said Frascatelle, half to himself. "There is a nervousness, Madame, as if from mental strain—and there were complications at the birth."
"It's this Italy," Denise said carelessly, "so depressing."