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Page 29
As for Gino, he was quite as boyish as ever, and carried
his iniquities like a feather. A favourite speech of his
was, "Ah, one ought to marry! Spiridione is wrong; I must
persuade him. Not till marriage does one realize the
pleasures and the possibilities of life." So saying, he
would take down his felt hat, strike it in the right place
as infallibly as a German strikes his in the wrong place,
and leave her.
One evening, when he had gone out thus, Lilia could
stand it no longer. It was September. Sawston would be
just filling up after the summer holidays. People would be
running in and out of each other's houses all along the
road. There were bicycle gymkhanas, and on the 30th Mrs.
Herriton would be holding the annual bazaar in her garden
for the C.M.S. It seemed impossible that such a free, happy
life could exist. She walked out on to the loggia.
Moonlight and stars in a soft purple sky. The walls of
Monteriano should be glorious on such a night as this. But
the house faced away from them.
Perfetta was banging in the kitchen, and the stairs down
led past the kitchen door. But the stairs up to the
attic--the stairs no one ever used--opened out of the
living-room, and by unlocking the door at the top one might
slip out to the square terrace above the house, and thus for
ten minutes walk in freedom and peace.
The key was in the pocket of Gino's best suit--the
English check--which he never wore. The stairs creaked and
the key-hole screamed; but Perfetta was growing deaf. The
walls were beautiful, but as they faced west they were in
shadow. To see the light upon them she must walk round the
town a little, till they were caught by the beams of the
rising moon. She looked anxiously at the house, and started.
It was easy walking, for a little path ran all outside
the ramparts. The few people she met wished her a civil
good-night, taking her, in her hatless condition, for a
peasant. The walls trended round towards the moon; and
presently she came into its light, and saw all the rough
towers turn into pillars of silver and black, and the
ramparts into cliffs of pearl. She had no great sense of
beauty, but she was sentimental, and she began to cry; for
here, where a great cypress interrupted the monotony of the
girdle of olives, she had sat with Gino one afternoon in
March, her head upon his shoulder, while Caroline was
looking at the view and sketching. Round the corner was the
Siena gate, from which the road to England started, and she
could hear the rumble of the diligence which was going down
to catch the night train to Empoli. The next moment it was
upon her, for the highroad came towards her a little before
it began its long zigzag down the hill.
The driver slackened, and called to her to get in. He
did not know who she was. He hoped she might be coming to
the station.
"Non vengo!" she cried.
He wished her good-night, and turned his horses down the
corner. As the diligence came round she saw that it was empty.
"Vengo . . ."
Her voice was tremulous, and did not carry. The horses
swung off.
"Vengo! Vengo!"
He had begun to sing, and heard nothing. She ran down
the road screaming to him to stop--that she was coming; while
the distance grew greater and the noise of the diligence
increased. The man's back was black and square against the
moon, and if he would but turn for an instant she would be
saved. She tried to cut off the corner of the zigzag,
stumbling over the great clods of earth, large and hard as
rocks, which lay between the eternal olives. She was too
late; for, just before she regained the road, the thing
swept past her, thunderous, ploughing up choking clouds of
moonlit dust.
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