Ah, this was lovely. So still. Nothing moving—not a leaf, not a stalk. The only sound was a dog barking, far away somewhere up on the hills, or when the door of the little restaurant in the piazza below was opened and there was a burst of voices, silenced again immediately by the swinging to of the door.
She drew in a deep breath of pleasure. Ah, this was—
Her deep breath was arrested in the middle. What was that?
She leaned forward listening, her body tense.
Footsteps. On the zigzag path. Briggs. Finding her out.
Should she run?
No—the footsteps were coming up, not down. Someone from the village. Perhaps Angelo, with provisions.
She relaxed again. But the steps were not the steps of Angelo, that swift and springy youth; they were slow and considered, and they kept on pausing.
“Someone who isn’t used to hills,” thought Scrap.
The idea of going back to the house did not occur to her. She was afraid of nothing in life except love. Brigands or murderers as such held no terrors for the daughter of the Droitwiches; she only would have been afraid of them if they left off being brigands and murderers and began instead to try and make love.
The next moment the footsteps turned the corner of her bit of path, and stood still.
“Getting his wind,” thought Scrap, not looking round.
Then as he—from the sounds of the steps she took them to belong to a man—did not move, she turned her head, and beheld with astonishment a person she had seen a good deal of lately in London, the well-known writer of amusing memoirs, Mr. Ferdinand Arundel.
She stared. Nothing in the way of being followed surprised her any more, but that he should have discovered where she was surprised her. Her mother had promised faithfully to tell no one.
“You?” she said, feeling betrayed. “Here?”
He came up to her and took off his hat. His forehead beneath the hat was wet with the beads of unaccustomed climbing. He looked ashamed and entreating, like a guilty but devoted dog.
“You must forgive me,” he said. “Lady Droitwich told me where you were, and as I happened to be passing through on my way to Rome I thought I would get out at Mezzago and just look in and see how you were.”
“But—didn’t my mother tell you I was doing a rest-cure?”
“Yes. She did. And that’s why I haven’t intruded on you earlier in the day. I thought you would probably sleep all day, and wake up about now so as to be fed.”
“But—”
“I know. I’ve got nothing to say in excuse. I couldn’t help myself.”
“This,” thought Scrap, “comes of mother insisting on having authors to lunch, and me being so much more amiable in appearance than I really am.”
She had been amiable to Ferdinand Arundel; she liked him—or rather she did not dislike him. He seemed a jovial, simple man, and had the eyes of a nice dog. Also, though it was evident that he admired her, he had not in London grabbed. There he had merely been a good-natured, harmless person of entertaining conversation, who helped to make luncheons agreeable. Now it appeared that he too was a grabber. Fancy following her out there—daring to. Nobody else had. Perhaps her mother had given him the address because she considered him so absolutely harmless, and thought he might be useful and see her home.
Well, whatever he was he couldn’t possibly give her the trouble an active young man like Mr. Briggs might give her. Mr. Briggs, infatuated, would be reckless, she felt, would stick at nothing, would lose his head publicly. She could imagine Mr. Briggs doing things with rope-ladders, and singing all night under her window—being really difficult and uncomfortable. Mr. Arundel hadn’t the figure for any kind of recklessness. He had lived too long and too well. She was sure he couldn’t sing, and wouldn’t want to. He must be at least forty. How many good dinners could not a man have eaten by the time he was forty? And if during that time instead of taking exercise he had sat writing books, he would quite naturally acquire the figure Mr. Arundel had in fact acquired—the figure rather for conversation than adventure.
Scrap, who had become melancholy at the sight of Briggs, became philosophical at the sight of Arundel. Here he was. She couldn’t send him away till after dinner. He must be nourished.
This being so, she had better make the best of it, and do that with a good grace which anyhow wasn’t to be avoided. Besides, he would be a temporary shelter from Mr. Briggs. She was at least acquainted with Ferdinand Arundel, and could hear news from him of her mother and her friends, and such talk would put up a defensive barrier at dinner between herself and the approaches of the other one. And it was only for one dinner, and he couldn’t eat her.
She therefore prepared herself for friendliness. “I’m to be fed,” she said, ignoring his last remark, “at eight, and you must come up and be fed too. Sit down and get cool and tell me how everybody is.”
“May I really dine with you? In these travelling things?” he said, wiping his forehead before sitting down beside her.
She was too lovely to be true, he thought. Just to look at her for an hour, just to hear her voice, was enough reward for his journey and his fears.
“Of course. I suppose you’ve left your fly in the village, and will be going on from Mezzago by the night train.”
“Or stay in Mezzago in an hotel and go on tomorrow. But tell me,” he said, gazing at the adorable profile, “about yourself. London has
