“You—haven’t?” For an instant she felt certain he did not believe her, and then while his dark, velvety eyes rested on her face, with its faultless bone formation and magnolia pale skin, its slightly drooping crimson mouth and downcast eyelids, an idea occurred to him. “It is the old signora—Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett—who would like you to marry him but you—you are in love with someone! Is that it?” Rose couldn’t see any reason just then why she should deny the truth, and she made a faint inclination with her head.
“It is the tall Englishman—Sir Laurence Melville?” Camillo decided at once with sudden shrewdness.
Rose felt embarrassed because he had picked so immediately on the one man out of all the other men in the world whom she loved with the whole of her heart and soul.
“Sir Laurence was my guardian,” she admitted a little falteringly, confusedly smoothing the skirt of her gown, “and I have always been very—well,
I have liked him always!”
“And he? He still likes you very much, but not as anything more important than a—ward?”
Rose made another miserable inclination of her head.
“Then, in that case,” Camillo said explosively, “the man is a fool! In fact he is worse than a fool — he is a blind ingrate! I don’t mind telling you, Rose, that if you had ever displayed any tendency to fall in love with me, I would have asked you to marry me, and forgotten that I had very little to offer you!” Rose smiled up at him gratefully.
“And Francesca?” she inquired softly.
He sighed.
“Francesca is, of course—Francesca! But what is the use of dwelling upon her”—he made a slight shrugging movement with his shoulders—“when nothing can ever possibly come of it? We have known each other for years, and sometimes I think I am desperately in love with her, but at other times I am not—not quite so sure.” He looked down into her face searchingly. “Why not forget this Englishman,
Rose—forget that my uncle is planning to ask you to marry him—and try and pretend to yourself that you are just a little in love with me? The love might grow—in time it might be all that you would ask of life, and I would try and persuade my uncle to make sure— well, to make sure that we should never starve!”
“Then you do realize at last that I haven’t any money at all of my own?” Rose asked, looking straight into his eyes and embarrassing him a little with the undeviating directness of that regard, and the knowledge which lay behind it.
He picked up one of her hands and played with the slender fingers, taking note of the fact that there was no emerald bracelet on her rounded wrist tonight.
“So you know I took you at first for a kind of heiress?”
“I was afraid that was what you did,” she answered, very gravely.
He looked at her ruefully, and she smiled at him.
“It doesn’t matter,” she assured him, gently. “I never have had any money, and Sir Laurence paid for my schooling and all my expenses for years. He was my father’s friend.”
“And now you are in love with him?”
She looked away quickly.
“It’s just the foolish thing that does happen sometimes in cases of this kind, but I’ve got to forget all about him and be sensible. He—” “Don’t tell me he is seriously interested in the Signora Bardoli?”
“No; but there is—someone else . . .”
“I see,” he said, and squeezed her hand. Then he carried it ardently up to his lips. “Forget him,
Rose,” he urged. “Forget him, say ‘no’ to my uncle— and marry me! I swear that I will make you a devoted husband, and love you for the rest of your life! I will even—if it should become necessary—work for you . . .!”
Rose couldn’t resist the impulse to laugh suddenly and softly, with genuine amusement.
“Have you ever done any work in your life?” she asked.
“No, but I could try,” grimacing a little.
She touched his face gently, a butterfly’s caress, with her slim fingers.
“I like you enormously, Camillo,” she told him, “but I couldn’t bear to see you reduced to such a pass that you had to work in order to keep me! But I do thank you very much for—well, for asking me to marry you! Even if you might have regretted it later on!”
Her second proposal of marriage that night— much more serious this time—came just before the evening drew to an end, when she was walking in the garden with her host. He had not made any excuse to get her outside and away from the others—he had simply told her that he wished to speak to her alone. And in the same little marble pavilion where she had sat with Camillo, looking out across the night-enshrouded garden, with Rome spread out like an illuminated carpet in front of them, he asked her, with a great deal of formality, if she would do him the honour of becoming his wife.
He did not tell her that he loved her, or look at her with passionately devoted eyes; but he told her that he was most anxious to protect her and care for her, and that if she became his wife, he would see to it that for the rest of her life she was absolutely secure. There would be no need for anyone like Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett to condescend to her, or any man like Sir Laurence Melville to imagine a right to interfere in her affairs.
She would have a husband to lean upon who would cherish her as he cherished all the gems in his priceless collections, with the slight exception—and this she gathered for herself, without having it put into actual words—that she would be rather more valuable than the other gems, and for that reason even greater care would be taken of her.
For a single instant, as this proposition was put to her, Rose found herself not actually tempted by the proposition, but inclined to wonder what it would be like if she yielded all at once to an extraordinary temptation to say “Yes.” The beaming smiles of Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett would be a reward in themselves; the fact that in future no man such as Sir Laurence Melville could offer her marriage for some obscure reason of his own, that she would have to stamp out any feeling that she had for him, and that the Heather Willoughbys and Signora Bardolis of this world would no longer dare to look at her as if their instinct was merely to patronize her—and perhaps “use” her, if it suited them occasionally—were all, for that brief fraction of time, excellent reasons why she should grasp thankfully at such a proposal of marriage from a man in the unassailable social position of Prince Paul de Lippi.
But she knew, when the moment of temptation had sped on its way, that under no circumstances could she do anything of the kind. She explained this to the Prince, with the right amount of gratitude in her voice for the honour he had paid her, and although at first she was certain he was surprised, it was gradually borne in on him that she meant what she said. But even so, he declined to accept such an answer as final.
“I have taken you by surprise,” he said. “I have given you very little real time to know me! But I can be patient! I will wait!” He smiled at her, very gently, in the fashion she liked, but which had so little to do with the smile of a lover.
“Yes, I will wait!” he repeated, and she wondered unhappily what Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett would say when she knew about this proposal of marriage, which she had undoubtedly worked for, being turned down.
It was on the way home, in the Prince’s car, that Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett learned the worst. She looked at Rose as if she was certain she was crazy, but instead of appearing annoyed with her, she merely looked almost sad.
“You are more foolish than I thought, Rose,” she told her. “You are behaving as I would have behaved when I was your age! I wanted love and romance—a passionate attachment which never actually came my way! But at least I’ve been secure, and my marriage brought me lasting things. You have turned down the sort of marriage that most girls would give their eyes for, and all because of a man who hadn’t the sense to wait for you!”
“What—do you mean?” Rose asked, looking sideways at her in almost a frightened manner.
Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett made a sound like an actual snort of disapproval.<
br />
“Sir Laurence, of course! He’s like so many men of his type—always confusing the issues! If life was an actual tapestry, the threads he would work into it would be all the wrong colour! Because he can’t even distinguish black from white—pure gold from tarnished silver!”
Rose peeped at her for a more literal explanation, and the old lady gave her one.
“Sir Laurence looked after you for five years, and he should have known that there was something about you that would appeal to him violently one day, just as there’s something about him that prevents you seeing any other man in his true colours. I realized that in those early days of our acquaintance, just before the wedding that never took place, and that was one reason why I wanted to get you away and give you other things to think about that had nothing to do with a man who was willfully blind! You’re too good, Rose, for second thoughts—you should be a man’s first thought and, if possible, his first love! But that, apparently, isn't the way you want it!”
She lay back against the luxurious upholstery looking suddenly a little tired, and all at once very old, and Rose felt almost guilty.
“I’m sorry,” she said gently, “if I’ve disappointed you!”
“It doesn’t matter, child.” Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett sighed. “And it could be, of course, that you’re right, and I’m the one who is confusing the issues. However, we’ll find out about that one day—when
the issues have settled themselves!”
And then she shut her eyes as if she didn’t want to talk any more, and Rose found herself turning over in her mind just one thing she had said, and feeling certain it was not in the least true:
“Sir Laurence looked after you for five years, and he should have known that there was something about you that would appeal to him violently one day!”
She lay back quietly in her own corner and felt a kind of burden of depression wash over her as it suddenly struck her that out of three men she had got to know rather well not one of them felt in the least violently about her. There was Camillo, who was charmed by her and quite ready to fall lightly in love with her if she would encourage him to do so, his uncle who stopped short at admiring her, and wished to possess her because she pleased his artistic eye. And there was Sir Laurence, who thought about her as “Poor little Rose” and could not deny a sense of responsibility where she was concerned.
Rose decided miserably, in the star-pricked gloom of the car, that she almost certainly lacked something—something vital to the igniting of a spark of more ardent need for her in a man’s breast. By comparison with Heather she was both colourless and uninterestingly young.
She noticed that Heather very rarely made her appearance in the dining-room at lunch time, and that if she did appear at lunch she hardly ever appeared at dinner, and for the remainder of the evening she vanished completely.
Miss Sims seemed to be rather a poor sort of chaperon, considering that the Willoughbys were no doubt depending on her to make certain Heather made no more serious mistakes in her life, and for that purpose, and that purpose only, were paying all her expenses. She seemed to know less than nothing about Heather’s comings and goings, except that a mysterious “old friend” was taking her about, and introducing her to the pleasures of Rome.
Rose, knowing so much, realized that she could have given a name to the “old friend” if she had wished. She was so certain of this that she even tried to reassure Miss Sims that there was nothing to worry about, and that Heather’s parents would neither of them be alarmed if they knew what had happened to their daughter so soon after her arrival in Rome.
They would even feel whole-heartedly thankful that they had not quibbled at the expense, or decided that “a change for Heather” was not practicable at that stage, with such a mountain of expenditure only recently met behind them.
Sir Laurence did not make any appearance at the hotel, but one evening when they were looking on at the dancers after dinner she saw Signora Bardoli with a rather elderly escort whom she did not recognize.
The signora was looking as striking as usual, and her escort was plainly very attentive, and Rose found herself watching them—remembering that night when she had first made the acquaintance of the Italian woman.
Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett was growing a little tired of Rome, and she was talking of going onto Venice for a few weeks before trying somewhere altogether fresh, and Rose had a sudden, almost dismayed feeling at the thought of leaving Rome without perhaps seeing Sir Laurence again. She was trying to conceal the fact that she was feeling a little sick with an anguish and an unhappiness that was growing worse lately, when she caught the signora’s eyes upon her and across the room those eyes signalled a desire to speak to her.
When, later, Rose was in the cloakroom, attending dispiritedly to her make-up, Signora Bardoli came up behind her and announced at once that she had followed her.
“I did not wish to join your party, but I was hoping very much for an opportunity to have a word with you.” She came to the point at once. “When did you last see Sir Laurence?”
Rose admitted that she had not seen him for several days.
“In fact, since the Signorina Willoughby arrived he has avoided you, and you have avoided him?” The dark Italian eyes looked shrewdly at the pale face confronting her, with its rather wistful eyes. Rose had just, added a touch of lipstick to her lips, but it was not very much use as protective armour. “I think you are rather stupid,” the older woman said suddenly and very deliberately.
Rose looked at her in rather dull amazement.
“Stupid?”
“Yes.”
The white shoulders rising out of a confection of silver lace shrugged slightly.
“Me, I am so much older than you that I have few illusions left, but I know when a man, in spite of past mistakes, is worthy of saving from the results of those mistakes! Sir Laurence doesn’t take easily to being badly hurt, and once you have been badly hurt it is natural to become over-sensitive, and to imagine that even amongst those people you wouldn’t normally suspect of a desire to wound you there is a tendency to wound, nevertheless! Perhaps Sir Laurence is a little unreasonable, and he has not stopped to think that you are very young—but what is it that you have done to him that has caused him to make up his mind suddenly and leave Rome?”
“I? Cause him to leave Rome?”
Rose sounded so uncomprehending, while at the same time she actually turned a little pale, that the signora put a friendly be-ringed hand and grasped her arm.
“Yes, my dear—when I saw him this afternoon he was already packing! Far from being interested in the arrival in Rome of that young woman he was to marry, he did, I believe, snub her the instant they met again, and she is now amusing herself with a very elderly, but wealthy, friend of my late husband’s whom she met, I believe, a year or so ago! They have been seen all over Rome together, and if she is clever she may persuade him to marry her. But Sir Laurence—for Sir Laurence she will never again have any charms whatsoever, and that is why I say that you are stupid!”
“But I”—Rose fumbled with the clasp of her evening-bag, and looked very young and helpless, and badly in need of a certain amount of well-meant advice—“but the fact that Sir Laurence is leaving is nothing—nothing to do with me . . .!”
“Isn’t it?”
Rose’s face flushed.
“Well, how could it be? I haven’t seen him for nearly a week, and in any case his movements were never dictated by anything I could ever do or say! He has only just stopped looking upon me as a schoolgirl, and he isn’t very pleased with me because I—”
“Because he thinks you’re going to marry Prince Paul?”
“But I’m not going to marry Prince Paul,” with a sudden, very un-youthful dignity.
The Signora Bardoli looked interested.
“Then I think you should let Sir Laurence know that your mind is so definitely made up! And I think you shouldn’t waste any time, because he is leaving his flat almost immediately. Toni
ght it would not perhaps be quite the thing for you to call upon him, but tomorrow morning you must catch him as early as you can.” There was no real friendliness in the hard eyes that studied Rose, but there was a certain curious wryness in her expression. “You will understand that for your ex-guardian I have an— admiration, shall we say? It disturbs me that he should slip away from Rome and the friends he has made recently and do, perhaps, something rather rash! He has work to complete here—work that was beginning to absorb him—and it vexes me that it should be left uncompleted because—because you,” with sudden harsh impatience, “are so very young ...!”
Rose looked at her as if, in spite of her youth, she was beginning to have a faint glimmering of what the other was attempting to convey—astounding though that intelligence was—and deep down inside her feeling of relief because Heather, apparently, had failed to recapture Sir Laurence was growing moment by moment.
Then he must have been mocking her that last time he came to see her . . .!
“Do you think,” she asked, in a voice that persisted in trembling in spite of herself, because apparently much depended on her all at once, “that I can stop Sir Laurence leaving Rome?”
“I think,” the signora answered, as harshly as she had spoken before, “that you can have a try . . .!”
CHAPTER XV
Rose stepped out of the lift on Sir Laurence’s floor and approached the front door of his flat. Her pulses were all hammering so noisily in her ears that she had the feeling that anyone who came close to her would hear them as well, and as she pressed the bell the colour slid away from her cheeks and she not only looked but felt pale as, she waited for the front door to open.
She had very little time to wait, for almost immediately footsteps sounded in the hall, and Sir Laurence himself stood looking at her without making any attempt to conceal his surprise.
“I’m honoured, Rose,” he remarked at last, and then stood aside for her to enter. She didn’t dare to glance at his face, but she had an impression of arched eyebrows and rather coldly set lips. His voice was very dry as he invited her into his sitting-room.
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