He sounded a little more cheerful.
“I think I’ll write the note, Gaspare, then. And you might take it some time—whenever you like. You might come and fetch it in five minutes.”
“Very well, Signora.”
He moved away and she went to her writing-table. She sat down, and slowly, with a good deal of hesitation and thought, she wrote part of a letter asking Emile to come to dine whenever he liked at the island. And now came the difficulty. She knew Emile did not want to meet the Marchesino there. Yet she was going to ask them to meet each other. She had told the Marchesino so. Should she tell Emile? Perhaps, if she did, he would refuse to come. But she could never lay even the smallest trap for a friend. So she wrote on, asking Emile to let her know the night he would come as she had promised to invite the Marchesino to meet him.
“Be a good friend and do this for me,” she ended, “even if it bores you. The Marchese lunched here alone with us to-day, and it was a fiasco. I think we were very inhospitable, and I want to wipe away the recollection of our dulness from his mind. Gaspare will bring me your answer.”
At the bottom she wrote “Hermione.” But just as she was going to seal the letter in its envelope she took it out, and added, “Delarey” to her Christian name.
“Hermione Delarey.” She looked at the words for a long time before she rang the bell for Gaspare.
When she gave him the letter, “Are you going by Mergellina?” she asked him.
“Si, Signora.”
He stood beside her for a moment; then, as she said nothing more, turned to go out.