“Never mind, if it is not perfectly convenient.” Helen made an effort to appear indifferent.
“Of course it is convenient,” Jack hastened to add, ashamed of his hesitation. “You know how much I have wanted you to do this, and I am perfectly delighted. I am sure it can be arranged and that you can help us a great deal.”
“I wish you knew Italian, Helen, so that you could take my place,” added Inez. “Then Mr. Armstrong would not accuse me of deserting my post of duty.”
“Not at all,” protested Armstrong, impulsively. “Even then I could not get along without your assistance. We can easily find something for Helen to do which will help the work along and encourage her in her budding enthusiasm. This is splendid! Helen interested at last in my dusty old divinities! Perhaps we can even infect Uncle Peabody.”
“Perhaps,” assented Uncle Peabody; “but for the present I shall devote myself to my own researches—even though your masterpiece is forced to suffer thereby. But I will ride down with you as far as the Duomo.”
No one in the automobile, unless it was the chauffeur, could help feeling a certain tenseness in the situation as the car conveyed the party to its destination. Helen’s action was the result of a sudden decision, quite at variance with all the conclusions at which she had arrived during the wakeful hours of the preceding nights. Armstrong had so long since given up all thought of having his wife co-operate with him in this particular expression of himself, and the work upon which he and Miss Thayer were engaged had settled down into so regular a routine, that he was really disturbed by Helen’s change of base, although he had been entirely unwilling to admit it. Inez inwardly resented the intrusion, at the same time blaming herself severely for her attitude; and Uncle Peabody, who saw in the whole affair only a clever ruse on Helen’s part instigated by a tardily aroused jealousy, was in danger, for the first time, of not knowing just what to do.
As a result of all these conflicting emotions, the efforts at conversation during the ride would have seemed ludicrous had the situation been less serious. Armstrong kept up a continuous and irrelevant conversation into which each of the others joined weakly with equal irrelevance. Each was trying to talk and think at the same time. The car reached the Piazza del Duomo almost abruptly, as it seemed, and Uncle Peabody alighted with considerable alacrity, waving a good-bye which was mechanically acknowledged as the machine slowly moved into the narrow Borgo San Lorenzo. At the library, Armstrong led the way through the cloister and up the stone stairs to the little door where Maritelli was this time waiting to give them entrance.
“I will take you to meet Cerini,” said Armstrong.
“While I,” interrupted Inez, “will seek out our table and get all in readiness for our triple labors.”
A gentle voice called “Avanti,” in answer to Jack’s tap upon the door of Cerini’s study, and the old man rose hastily as he saw a new figure by Armstrong’s side.