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Page 31
Her luncheon was brought up on a tray by the waiter, and some for
Martha also, and the two ate in silence, until Stella suddenly
burst into a merry peal of laughter, it was so grotesquely comic!
A grown up English girl in these days locked in her room with a
dragon duenna gaoler!
"Martha, isn't it too funny, the whole thing!" she said, between
her gurgles. "Can't you laugh, you old goose! and to think how
sorry you will be, you were so horrid, when I am gone, because, of
course, you know you cannot keep me once I make up my mind to go."
"Mrs. Ebley said I was to have no conversation with you, Miss,"
Martha said, glumly, at which Stella laughed afresh.
Meanwhile Count Roumovski had made all arrangements at the
Excelsior Hotel, and after lunch sat quietly in the hall awaiting
his beloved. Mrs. Ebley had felt too upset to go down to the
restaurant, so the two clergymen were there alone, and glanced
wrathfully at the imperturbable face of Count Roumovski seated at
his usual table, with his air of detached aloofness and perfect
calm. They, on the contrary, were so boiling with rage that they
knew not what they ate.
After lunch it had been decided that the party should leave the
Grand and take the five o'clock train to Florence, and their
preparations were made.
Mrs. Ebley had herself been laboriously packing so as not to take
Martha from her post, and orders were whispered to that faithful
Abigail through Stella's letter slide to pack Miss Rawson's things
at once.
Stella watched these preparations serenely, and gave Martha
directions as to what to put on the top. Then when all was
finished and she had donned her hat, she rang the electric bell
for the waiter, and when he knocked at the door she calmly bade
him enter, which, of course, he was able to do with his key, and
she told him in French, which Martha did not understand, to send
the porters there immediately, and have her luggage consigned to
the care of the servant who would be waiting in the passage. This
person would give orders for its destination. The waiter bowed
obsequiously. Had he not been already heavily tipped by this
intelligent Ivan, and instructed instantly to obey the orders of
mademoiselle?"
"It is much better I am before them," Stella thought to herself,
while Martha looked on in rageful bafflement.
"The porters will come up and take the trunks outside, Martha,"
Miss Rawson said. "You can give them what orders aunt told you
to."
Such was her supreme confidence in the methods of her lover that
she felt sure once Ivan was apprised of the fact by the waiter
that the trunks would be consigned to him it would not matter what
Martha said to the porters! So she calmly sat down by the window
and folded her hands, while the elderly maid fumed with the
uncertainty of what she ought to do. And in a few moments the men
appeared, and smilingly seemed to understand the gestures and
English orders of Martha to take the trunks to the door of Madam
Ebley, number 325, round the corner of the passage and on the
opposite side.
They nodded their heads wisely and carried the box out, shutting
the door after them, and then there was silence for a while; and
Stella half-dozed in her chair, it was so warm and peaceful by the
window and she had had so little sleep in the night.
An hour passed, and at four o'clock the Aunt Caroline appeared.
Her face was grim. Had Stella been an outcast in deed and word she
could not have looked more disdainful.
"You must come down with me now, Stella," she said, "we are ready
to go to the station. I will remain with you here until Martha
gets her hat."
Stella rose to her feet and before the astonished lady could speak
more, she had swiftly passed her and gained the door, which she
threw open, and, like a fawn, rushed down the passage toward the
staircase entrance side of the hotel, and by the time her slowly
moving aunt had emerged from the room she had turned the corner
and was out of sight.
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