CHAPTER IX
YOUTH’S TEMPEST
Anne looked up into the Marchese’s face with a quizzical smile. Beneath the staccato uproar of piano and laughter his voice flowed liquid and unbroken. Interesting and even thrilling as were his recent adventures, somehow his account lacked the usual fire. It was difficult to focus her attention. The fervid charm of their intercourse seemed to have vanished. Anne’s smile stiffened upon her lips. Her eyes wandered rather vaguely about the crowded room.
It was the usual olla podrida of mixed professions and nationalities that had gathered in her drawing room for the last four or five years. One or two genuine artists and musicians, a writer of indubitable distinction, an actress of greater renown than ability, several clever pretenders, and the man at her side, whose fame as an archæologist, stood undisputed, and whose dignity and charm were a byword on two continents. A man whose friendship had gratified her for years and whose attentions had more than satisfied a fastidious and pampered vanity.
But somehow, he failed to thrill her to-night. His virile and rather grave personality was overshadowed by one weaker, yet more compelling. Between her and the dark, high-bred face, intruded a pale, sensitive silhouette; the memory of burning, youthful words. Not accustomed to float upon the tide of emotions, Anne was conscious of a bewildered self-contempt.
With a determined effort she shepherded her truant thoughts and turned to the Marchese just as the boy at the piano had banged the last smashing cord of a Sowerby Medley.
“Rather relentless, wasn’t it?” she laughed above the raucous applause.
“Blasphemy, pure and simple,” shuddered the Marchese. “Like a visit to the dentist. The buzzer, you know?” He rolled his r’s and waved a graphic hand. “It sets my teeth on edge completely. How can you bear it, carissima?”
She laughed again.
“It’s rather amusing, don’t you think? Poor Vittorio, are you so old-fashioned as to enjoy a perpetual Celeste Aïda?”
“Yes, thank God,” he exclaimed fervently. “Do you suppose Orpheus would ever have rescued his Eurydice by playing jazz? No, no, the old guardian beasts were too artistic for that!”