I spent the spring at Monte Carlo, and in May, the month of flowers, found myself back at Bindo’s old villa in Florence, gloomy to me on account of my own loneliness. The two English dogs barked me welcome, and Charlie Whitaker that night came and dined; for Bindo was away.
After dinner we sat in the long wicker chairs out in the garden beneath the palms, taking our coffee in the flower-scented air, with the myriad fire-flies dancing about us.
At table Charlie had been in his best mood, telling me all the gossip of Florence, but out in the garden, with his face in the shadow, he seemed to become morose and uncommunicative. I asked how he had got on during my absence, for I knew he was friendless.
“Oh, fairly well,” was his answer. “A bit lonely, you know. But I used to come up here every day and take the dogs out for a run. An outsider like I am can’t expect invitations to dinners and dances, you know;” and he sighed, and drew vigorously at his cigar.
“By the way,” I said presently, “you remember you once mentioned that you knew Vivi Finlay in the old days in town. I met her in Palermo in the winter.”
He started from his chair, and leaning towards me, echoed—
“You met her!—you? Tell me about her. How did she look? What is she doing?” he asked, with an earnest eagerness that surprised me.
Briefly I explained how I had walked and chatted with her in the gardens of the Igiea at Palermo, though I did not tell him the subject of our conversation. I tried, too, to induce him to tell me what he knew of her, but he would say nothing beyond what I already knew.
“I wonder she don’t marry,” I remarked at last; but to this he made no response, though I fancied that in the half light I detected a curious smile upon his face, as though he was aware that we had been lovers.