“You have never shown me quite so much of this theatrical side.”
“No? We women have it about us somewhere, and certain topics are likely to call it out. There is convention—you and I agree that is senseless and boring. There is intelligence—you and I value that quite highly enough. And there is life and honour and love: on such matters you are not fitted to talk, and I grow theatrical. If you will ring that bell in the arbour, Pina will bring you some wine and cigarettes. There are the voices of Mr. Jennings and Molly. We have had just time enough for our little understanding, Mr. Simeon Erard.”
She nodded to him pleasantly, and walked into the villa with a light step.
CHAPTER X
The night was so still and hot that no one proposed to try for sleep in close chambers. They sat in the garden watching the little villages go out into darkness, snuffed out like candles over the plain and hills. Only Fiesole, solitary on its lonely pinnacle, sent one stream of steady light across the valley. The gloomy palaces below them were utterly quiet, as if empty and desolate. The stars in the heavens shone distantly in the immense blackness. At last the men strolled down to the gate, smoking and talking.
“I am so very, very happy!” Molly Parker whispered, crouching down by her friend’s chair.
“I was thinking that I am so very sad,” Mrs. Wilbur replied dreamily. “But I was wrong. I have sloughed off a delusion, and I am alive again. I have broken with myself. But what has happened to Molly? Is she at last in love?”
For an answer the younger woman put her arms about Mrs. Wilbur and rested her head upon her shoulder.
“So it is all right, Molly, at last!”
“Yes, I knew it must be, though I was afraid and sad when I came away from Chicago.”