"A great many things," she said, evasively. "You don't know how a girl is situated. Here is papa coming to town this very morning; Jim and Cicely have gone up to Paddington to meet him. Well, I don't know how he might regard it. If you wanted me to leave the theatre altogether, it would make a great difference; I do a good deal for Jim and Cicely."
"But, Katie," he said, and he took her hand in spite of her, "these are only matters of business! Do you think I can't make all that straight? Say yes!"—and he strove to draw her towards him, and would have kissed her, but that she withdrew a step, with her cheeks flushing prettily through the thin make-up of the morning.
"You must give me time, Percy," she said, with downcast eyes. "I must know what papa says."
"What time?"
"Well—a week," she said.
"A week be it: I won't worry you beyond your patience, dear Kate," said this infatuated young man. "But I know what you will have to say then—to make me the happiest of human beings alive on this earth. Good-bye, dearest!"
And with that he respectfully kissed her hand and took his leave; and so soon as she was sure he was out of the house she rang for breakfast, and called down to the little maid to look sharp with it, too. She was startled and pleased in one direction, and, in another, perhaps a trifle vexed; for what business had any man coming bothering her with a proposal of marriage before breakfast? How could she help displaying a little temper, when she was hungry and he over pertinacious? Yet she hoped she had not been too outspoken in her anger, for there were visions before her mind that somehow seemed agreeable.
That was another anxious day for those people in Piccadilly, for the fever showed no signs of abating, while some slight delirium returned from time to time. Nina, of course, was in constant attendance; and when he began, in his wanderings, to speak of her and to ask Maurice what had become of her, she would simply go into the room, and take a seat by the bedside, and talk to him just as if they had met by accident in the Piazza Cavour. For he had got it into his head now that they were in Naples again.
"Oh, yes, it is all right, Leo," she would say, putting her cool hand on his burning one, "they will all be in time, the whole party; when we get down to the Risposta, they will all be there; and perhaps Sabetta will bring her zither in its case. Then there will be the long sail across the blue water, and Capri coming nearer and nearer; then the landing and the donkeys and the steep climb up and up. Where shall we go, Leo?—to the Hotel Pagano or the Tiberio? The Pagano?—very well, for there is the long balcony shaded from the sun, and after luncheon we shall have chairs taken out—yes, and you can smoke there—and you will laugh to see Andrea go to the front of the railings and sing, 'Al ben de tuoi qual vittima,' with his arms stretched out like a windmill, and Carmela very angry with him that he is so ridiculous. But then no one hears—what matter?—no one except those perhaps in the small garden-house for the billiard. Will there be moonlight to-night before we get back? To-morrow Pandiani will grumble. Well, let him grumble; I am not afraid of him—no!"
So she would carelessly talk him back into quietude again; and then she would stealthily withdraw from the room, and perhaps go to the piano and begin to play some Neapolitan air—but so softly that the notes must have come to him like music in a dream.