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Page 50
"I suppose I misunderstood Perfetta. Where did you have
your interview, then?"
"Not an interview--an accident--I am very sorry--I meant
you to have the chance of seeing him first. Though it is
your fault. You are a day late. You were due here
yesterday. So I came yesterday, and, not finding you, went
up to the Rocca--you know that kitchen-garden where they let
you in, and there is a ladder up to a broken tower, where
you can stand and see all the other towers below you and the
plain and all the other hills?"
"Yes, yes. I know the Rocca; I told you of it."
"So I went up in the evening for the sunset: I had
nothing to do. He was in the garden: it belongs to a friend
of his."
"And you talked."
"It was very awkward for me. But I had to talk: he
seemed to make me. You see he thought I was here as a
tourist; he thinks so still. He intended to be civil, and I
judged it better to be civil also."
"And of what did you talk?"
"The weather--there will be rain, he says, by tomorrow
evening--the other towns, England, myself, about you a
little, and he actually mentioned Lilia. He was perfectly
disgusting; he pretended he loved her; he offered to show me
her grave--the grave of the woman he has murdered!"
"My dear Miss Abbott, he is not a murderer. I have just
been driving that into Harriet. And when you know the
Italians as well as I do, you will realize that in all that
he said to you he was perfectly sincere. The Italians are
essentially dramatic; they look on death and love as
spectacles. I don't doubt that he persuaded himself, for
the moment, that he had behaved admirably, both as husband
and widower."
"You may be right," said Miss Abbott, impressed for the
first time. "When I tried to pave the way, so to speak--to
hint that he had not behaved as he ought--well, it was no
good at all. He couldn't or wouldn't understand."
There was something very humorous in the idea of Miss
Abbott approaching Gino, on the Rocca, in the spirit of a
district visitor. Philip, whose temper was returning, laughed.
"Harriet would say he has no sense of sin."
"Harriet may be right, I am afraid."
"If so, perhaps he isn't sinful!"
Miss Abbott was not one to encourage levity. "I know
what he has done," she said. "What he says and what he
thinks is of very little importance."
Philip smiled at her crudity. "I should like to hear,
though, what he said about me. Is he preparing a warm reception?"
"Oh, no, not that. I never told him that you and
Harriet were coming. You could have taken him by surprise
if you liked. He only asked for you, and wished he hadn't
been so rude to you eighteen months ago."
"What a memory the fellow has for little things!" He
turned away as he spoke, for he did not want her to see his
face. It was suffused with pleasure. For an apology, which
would have been intolerable eighteen months ago, was
gracious and agreeable now.
She would not let this pass. "You did not think it a
little thing at the time. You told me he had assaulted you."
"I lost my temper," said Philip lightly. His vanity had
been appeased, and he knew it. This tiny piece of civility
had changed his mood. "Did he really--what exactly did he
say?"
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