Mr. Wilkins read the telegram. It had been sent that morning from Mezzago, and was:
Am passing through on way to Rome. May I pay my respects this afternoon?
Why should such a telegram make the interesting lady turn pale? For her pallor on reading it had been so striking as to convince Mr. Wilkins she was receiving a blow.
“Who is Thomas Briggs?” he asked, following her into the dining-room.
She looked at him vaguely. “Who is—?” she repeated, getting her thoughts together again.
“Thomas Briggs.”
“Oh. Yes. He is the owner. This is his house. He is very nice. He is coming this afternoon.”
Thomas Briggs was at that very moment coming. He was jogging along the road between Mezzago and Castagneto in a fly, sincerely hoping that the dark-eyed lady would grasp that all he wanted was to see her, and not at all to see if his house were still there. He felt that an owner of delicacy did not intrude on a tenant. But—he had been thinking so much of her since that day. Rose Arbuthnot. Such a pretty name. And such a pretty creature—mild, milky, mothery in the best sense; the best sense being that she wasn’t his mother and couldn’t have been if she had tried, for parents were the only things impossible to have younger than oneself. Also, he was passing so near. It seemed absurd not just to look in and see if she were comfortable. He longed to see her in his house. He longed to see it as her background, to see her sitting in his chairs, drinking out of his cups, using all his things. Did she put the big crimson brocade cushion in the drawing-room behind her little dark head? Her hair and the whiteness of her skin would look lovely against it. Had she seen the portrait of herself on the stairs? He wondered if she liked it. He would explain it to her. If she didn’t paint, and she had said nothing to suggest it, she wouldn’t perhaps notice how exactly the moulding of the eyebrows and the slight hollow of the cheek—
He told the fly to wait in Castagneto, and crossed the piazza, hailed by children and dogs, who all knew him and sprang up suddenly from nowhere, and walking quickly up the zigzag path, for he was an active young man not much more than thirty, he pulled the ancient chain that rang the bell, and waited decorously on the proper side of the open door to be allowed to come in.
At the sight of him Francesca flung up every bit of her that would fling up—eyebrows, eyelids, and hands, and volubly assured him that all was in perfect order and that she was doing her duty.
“Of course, of course,” said Briggs, cutting her short. “No one doubts it.”
And he asked her to take in his card to her mistress.
“Which mistress?” asked Francesca.
“Which mistress?”
“There are four,” said Francesca, scenting an irregularity on the part of the tenants, for her master looked surprised; and she felt pleased, for life was dull and irregularities helped it along at least a little.
“Four?” he repeated surprised. “Well, take it to the lot then,” he said, recovering himself, for he noticed her expression.
Coffee was being drunk in the top garden in the shade of the umbrella pine. Only Mrs. Fisher and Mr. Wilkins were drinking it, for Mrs. Arbuthnot, after eating nothing and being completely silent during lunch, had disappeared immediately afterwards.
While Francesca went away into the garden with his card, her master stood examining the picture on the staircase of that Madonna by an early Italian painter, name unknown, picked up by him at Orvieto, who was so much like his tenant. It really was remarkable, the likeness. Of course his tenant that day in London had had her hat on, but he was pretty sure her hair grew just like that off her forehead. The expression of the eyes, grave and sweet, was exactly the same. He rejoiced to think that he would always have her portrait.
He looked up at the sound of footsteps, and there she was, coming down the stairs just as he had imagined her in that place, dressed in white.
She was astonished to see him so soon. She had supposed he would come about teatime, and till then she had meant to sit somewhere out of doors where she could be by herself.
He watched her coming down the stairs with the utmost eager interest. In a moment she would be level with her portrait.
“It really is extraordinary,” said Briggs.
“How do you do,” said Rose, intent only on a decent show of welcome.
She did not welcome him. He was here, she felt, the telegram bitter in her heart, instead of Frederick, doing what she had longed Frederick would do, taking his place.
“Just stand still a moment—”
She obeyed automatically.
“Yes—quite astonishing. Do you mind taking off your hat?”
Rose, surprised, took it off obediently.
“Yes—I thought so—I just wanted to make sure. And look—have you noticed—”
He began to make odd swift passes with his hand over the face in the picture, measuring it, looking from it to her.
Rose’s surprise became amusement, and she could not help smiling. “Have you come to compare me with my original?” she asked.
“You do see how extraordinarily alike—”
“I didn’t know I looked so solemn.”
“You don’t. Not now. You did a minute ago, quite as solemn. Oh yes—how do you do,” he finished suddenly, noticing her outstretched hand. And he laughed and shook it, flushing—a trick of his—to the roots of his fair hair.
Francesca came back. “The Signora Fisher,” she said, “will be pleased to see him.”
“Who is the Signora Fisher?” he asked Rose.
“One of the four who are sharing your house.”
“Then there are four of you?”
“Yes. My friend and I
