CHAPTER X
Half-past six on Friday morning, and Constance appeared on the terrace;Constance in fluffy, billowy, lacy white with a spray of oleander in herbelt--the last costume in the world in which one would start on amountain climb. She cast a glance in passing toward the gateway and thestretch of road visible beyond, but both were empty, and seating herselfon the parapet, she turned her attention to the lake. The breeze thatblew from the farther shore brought fresh Alpine odours of flowers andpine trees. Constance sniffed it eagerly as she gazed across toward thepurple outline of Monte Maggiore. The serenity of her smile graduallygave place to doubt; she turned and glanced back toward the house,visibly changing her mind.
But before the change was finished, the quiet of the morning was brokenby a clatter of tiny scrambling obstinate hoofs and a series ofejaculations, both Latin and English. She glanced toward the gate, whereFidilini was visible, plainly determined not to come in. Constancelaughed expectantly and turned back to the water, her eyes intent on thefishing-smacks that were putting out from the little _marino_. The soundsof coercion increased; a command floated down the driveway in the Englishtongue. It sounded like: 'You twist his tail, Beppo, while I pull.'
Apparently it was understood in spite of Beppo's slight knowledge of thelanguage. An eloquent silence followed; then an outraged grunt on thepart of Fidilini, and the cavalcade advanced with a rush to the kitchendoor. Tony left Beppo and the donkeys, and crossed the terrace alone. Hisbow swept the ground in the deferential manner of Gustavo, but his glancewas far bolder than a donkey-driver's should have been. She noted thefact and tossed him a nod of marked condescension. A silence followed,during which Constance studied the lake; when she turned back, she foundTony arranging a spray of oleander that had dropped from her belt in theband of his hat. She viewed this performance in silent disfavour. Havingfinished to his satisfaction, he tossed the hat aside and seated himselfon the balustrade. Her frown became visible. Tony sprang to his feet withan air of anxiety.
'_Scusi_, signorina. I have not meant to be presumptious. Perhaps it isnot fitting that any one below the rank of lieutenant should sit in yourpresence?'
'It will not be very long, Tony, before you are discharged forimpertinence.'
'Ah, signorina, do not say that! If it is your wish I will kneel when Iaddress you. My family, signorina, are poor; they need the four francswhich you so munificently pay.'
'You told me that you were an orphan; that you had no family.'
'I mean the family which I hope to have. Costantina has extravaganttastes, and coral earrings cost two-fifty a pair.'
Constance laughed and assumed a more lenient air. She made a slightgesture which might be interpreted as an invitation to sit down; and Tonyaccepted it.
'By the way, Tony, how do you talk to Costantina, since she speaks noEnglish and you no Italian?'
'We have no need of either Italian or English; the language of love,signorina, is universal.'
'Oh!' she laughed again. 'I was at the Hotel du Lac yesterday; I sawCostantina.'
'You saw Costantina!--Ah, signorina, is she not beautiful? Ze mos'beautiful in all ze world? But ver' unkind, signorina. Yes, she laugh atme; she smile at ozzer men, at soldiers wif uniforms.' He sighedprofoundly. 'But I love her just ze same, always from ze first moment Isee her. It was wash-day, signorina, by ze lac. I climb over ze wall andtalk wif her, but she make fun of me--ver' unkind. I go away ver' sad. Nouse, I say, she like dose soldiers best. But I see her again; I hear herlaugh--it sound like angels singing--I say, no, I can not go away; I stayhere and make her love me. Yes, I do everysing she ask--but everysing! Iwear earrings; I make myself into a fool just to please zat Costantina.'
He leaned forward and looked into her eyes. A slow red flush crept overConstance's face, and she turned her head away and looked across thewater.
Mr. Wilder, in full Alpine regalia, stepped out upon the terrace andviewed the beauty of the morning with a prophetic eye. Miss Hazelfollowed in his wake; she wore a lavender dimity. And suddenly itoccurred to Tony's slow moving masculine perception that neitherlavender dimity nor white muslin were fabrics fit for mountain climbing.
Constance slipped down from her parapet and hurried to meet them.
'Good morning, Aunt Hazel. Morning, Dad! You look beautiful! There'snothing so becoming to a man as knickerbockers--especially if he's alittle stout.--You're late,' she added with a touch of severity.'Breakfast has been waiting half an hour and Tony fifteen minutes.'
She turned back toward the donkey-man, who was standing, hat in hand,respectfully waiting orders. 'Oh, Tony, I forgot to tell you; we shallnot need Beppo and the donkeys to-day. You and my father are goingalone.'
'You no want to climb Monte Maggiore--ver' beautiful mountain.' There wasdisappointment, reproach, rebellion in his tone.
'We have made inquiries and my aunt thinks it too long a trip. Withoutthe donkeys you can cross by boat, and that cuts off three miles.'
'As you please, signorina.' He turned away.
Constance looked after him with a shade of remorse. When this plan ofsending her father and Tony alone had occurred to her as she sailedhomeward yesterday from the Hotel du Lac, it had seemed a humorous andfitting retribution. The young man had been just a trifle too sure ofher interest; the episode of the hotel register must not go unpunished.But--it was a beautiful morning, a long empty day stretched before her,and Monte Maggiore looked alluring; there was no pursuit, for the moment,which she enjoyed as much as donkey-riding. Oh yes, she was spitingherself as well as Tony; but considering the circumstances the sacrificeseemed necessary.
When the _Farfalla_ drifted up ready to take the mountain-climbers, MissHazel suggested (Constance possessed to a large degree the diplomaticfaculty of making other people propose what she herself had decided on)that she and her niece cross with them. Tony was sulky, and Constancecould not forgo the pleasure of baiting him further.
They put in at the village, on their way, for the morning mail; Mr.Wilder wished his paper, even at the risk of not beginning the ascentbefore the sun was high. Giuseppe brought back from the post, among othermatters, a letter for Constance. The address was in a dashing, angularhand that pretty thoroughly covered the envelope. Had she not been sointent on the writing herself, she would have noted Tony's astonishedstare as he passed it to her.
'Why!' she exclaimed, 'here's a letter from Nannie Hilliard, postmarkedLucerne.'
'Lucerne!' Miss Hazel echoed her surprise. 'I thought they were to be inEngland for the summer?'
'They were--the last I heard.' Constance ripped the letter open and readit aloud.
'DEAR CONSTANCE: You'll doubtless be surprised to hear from us in Switzerland instead of in England, and to learn further, that in the course of a week, we shall arrive at Valedolmo _en route_ for the Dolomites. Jerry Junior at the last moment decided to come with us, and you know what a _man_ is when it comes to European travel. Instead of taking two months comfortably to England, as Aunt Kate and I had planned, we did the whole of the British Isles in ten days, and Holland and France at the same breathless rate.
'Jerry says he holds the record for the Louvre; he struck a six-mile pace at the entrance, and by looking neither to the right nor the left he did the whole building in forty-three minutes.
'You can imagine the exhausted state Aunt Kate and I are in after travelling five weeks with him. We simply struck in Switzerland and sent him on to Italy alone. I had hoped he would meet us in Valedolmo, but we have been detained here longer than we expected, and now he's rushed off again--where to, goodness only knows; we don't.
'Anyway, Aunt Kate and I shall land in Valedolmo about the end of the week. I am dying to see you; I have some beautiful news that's too complicated to write. We've engaged rooms at the Hotel du Lac--I hope it's decent; it's the only place starred in Baedeker.
'Aunt Kate wishes to be remembered to your father and Miss Hazel.
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'Yours ever, 'NAN HILLIARD.
'P.S.--I'm awfully sorry not to bring Jerry; I know you'd adore him.'
She returned the letter to its envelope and looked up.
'Now isn't that abominable?' she demanded.
'Abominable!' Miss Hazel was scandalized. 'My dear, I think it'sdelightful.'
'Oh, yes--I mean about Jerry Junior; I've been trying for six years toget hold of that man.'
Tony behind them made a sudden movement that let out nearly a yard ofrope, and the _Farfalla_ listed heavily to starboard.
'Tony!' Constance threw over her shoulder. 'Don't you know enough to sitstill when you are holding the sheet?'
'_Scusi_,' he murmured. The sulky look had vanished from his face; hewore an expression of alert attention.
'Of course we shall have them at the villa,' said Miss Hazel. 'And weshall have to get some new dishes. Elizabetta has already broken so manyplates that she has to stop and wash them between courses.'
Constance looked dreamily across the lake; she appeared to be thinking.'I wonder,' she inquired finally, 'if Jerry Junior knew we were here inValedolmo?'
Her father emerged from the columns of his paper.
'Of course he knew it, and having heard what a dangerous young person youwere, he said to himself, "I'd better keep out."'
'I wish I knew. It would make the score against him considerablyheavier.'
'So there is already a score? I hadn't supposed that the game had begun.'
She nodded.
'Six years ago--but he doesn't know it. Yes, Dad,' her tone wasmelodramatic, 'for six years I've been waiting for Jerry Junior andplanning my revenge. And now, when I have him almost in my grasp, heeludes me again!'
'Dear me!' Mr. Wilder ejaculated. 'What did the young man do?'
Had Constance turned she would have found Tony's face an interestingstudy. But she knew well enough without looking at him that he waslistening to the conversation, and she determined to give him somethingto listen to. It was a salutary thing for Tony to be kept in mind of thefact that there were other men in the world.
She sighed.
'He was the first man I ever loved, father, and he spurned me. Do youremember that Christmas when I was in boarding-school and you were calledSouth on business? I wanted to visit Nancy Long, but you wouldn't let mebecause you didn't like her father; and you got Mrs. Jerymn Hilliard whomI had never set eyes on to invite me there? I didn't want to go, and yousaid I must, and was perfectly horrid about it?--you remember that?'
Mr. Wilder grunted.
'Yes, I see you do. And you remember how, with my usual sweetness, Ifinally gave way? Well, Dad, you never knew the reason. The Yale GleeClub came to Westfield that year just before the holidays began, and MissJane let everybody go to the concert whose deportment had been aboveeighty--that of course included me.
'Well, we all went, and we all fell in love--in a body--with a sophomorewho played the banjo and sang negro songs. He had lovely darkgazelle-like eyes, and he sang funny songs without smiling. The wholeschool raved about him all the way home; we cut his picture out of theprogramme and pasted in the front of our watches. His name, father'--shepaused dramatically--'was Jerymn Hilliard Junior!'
'I sat up half the night writing diplomatic letters to you and Mrs.Hilliard; and the next day when it got around that I was actually goingto visit in his house--well, I was the most popular girl in school. I wassixteen years old then; I wore sailor suits and my hair was braided downmy back. Probably I did look young; and then Nannie, whom I wassupposedly visiting, was only fifteen. There were a lot of cousins in thehouse besides all the little Hilliards, and what do you think? They madethe children eat in the school-room! I never saw him until Christmasnight; then when we were introduced, he shook my hand in a listless sortof way, said "How d'y' do?" and forgot all about me. He went off with theGlee Club the next day, and I only saw him once more.
'We were playing blind man's buff in the school-room; I had just beencaught by the hair. It hurt and I was squealing. Everybody else wasclapping and laughing, when suddenly the door burst open and there stoodJerry Junior! He looked straight at me and growled----
'"What are you kids making such an infernal racket about?"'
She shut her eyes.
'Aunt Hazel, Dad, just think. He was my first love. His picture was atthat moment in a locket around my neck. And he called me a _kid_!'
'And you've never seen him since?' Miss Hazel's smile expressed amusedindulgence.
Constance shook her head.
'He's always been away when I've visited Nan--and for six years I've beenwaiting.' She straightened up with an air of determination. 'But now, ifhe's on the continent of Europe, I'll get him!'
'And what shall you do with him?' her father mildly inquired.
'Do with him? I'll make him take it back; I'll make him eat that wordkid!'
'H'm!' said her father. 'I hope you'll get him; he might act as anantidote to some of these officers.'
They had run in under the shadow of the mountain and the keel grated onthe shore. Constance raised her eyes and studied the towering crag abovetheir heads; when she lowered them again, her gaze for an instant metTony's. There was a new light in his eyes--amusement, triumph, somethingentirely baffling. He gave her the intangible feeling of having at lastgot the mastery of the situation.