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Page 74
For a fortnight they saw much of their friends, and Mary observed
how her father expanded in the atmosphere of Ernest and Nelly.
They understood each other so well and echoed so many similar
sentiments and convictions.
Ernest entertained a poor opinion of the Italian character. He
argued that a nation which depended for its prosperity on wines
and silk--"and such wines"--must have too much of the feminine
in it to excel. He had a shadowy idea that he understood the
language, though he could not speak nor write it himself.
"We, who have been nurtured at Eton and Oxford, remember enough
Latin to understand these people," he said, "for what is Italian
but the emasculated tongue of ancient Rome?"
Nelly Travers committed herself to many utterances as idiotic as
Ernest's, and Mary secretly wondered to find how shadowy and
ridiculous such solid people showed in a strange land. They
carried their ignorance and their parochial atmosphere with them
as openly and unashamedly as they carried their luggage. She was
not sorry to leave them, for she and her father intended to stop
for a while at Como before returning home again.
Their friends were going to motor over the battlefields of France
presently, and both Ernest and Nelly came to see Sir Walter and
his daughter off for Milan. Mr. Travers rushed to the door of the
carriage and thrust in a newspaper as the train moved.
"I have secured a copy of last week's 'Field,' Walter," he said.
They passed over the Apennines on a night when the fire-flies
flashed in every thicket under the starry gloom of a clear and
moonless sky; and when the train stopped at little, silent stations
the throb of nightingales fell upon their ears.
But circumstances prevented their visit to the Larian Lake, for at
Milan letters awaited Sir Walter from home, and among them one that
hastened his return. From a stranger it came, and chance willed
that the writer, an Italian, had actually made the journey from
Rome to London in order that he might see Sir Walter, while all
the time the master of Chadlands happened to be within half a day's
travel. Now, the writer was still in London, and proposed to stop
there until he should receive an answer to his communication. He
wrote guardedly, and made one statement of extraordinary gravity.
He was concerned with the mystery of the Grey Room, and believed
that he might throw some light upon the melancholy incidents
recorded concerning it.
Sir Walter hesitated for Mary's sake, but was relieved when she
suggested a prompt return.
"It would be folly to delay," she said. "This means quite as much
to me as to you, father, and I could not go to Como knowing there
may be even the least gleam of light for us at home. Nothing can
alter the past, but if it were possible to explain how and why--
what an unutterable relief to us both!"
"Henry was to meet us at Menaggio."
"He will be as thankful as we are if anything comes of this. He
doesn't leave England till Thursday, and can join us at Chadlands
instead."
"I only live to explain these things," confessed her father. "I
would give all that I have to discover reasons for the death of
your dear husband. But there are terribly grave hints here. I can
hardly imagine this man is justified in speaking of 'crime.'
Would the word mean less to him than to us?"
"He writes perfect English. Whatever may be in store, we must
face it hopefully. Such things do not happen by chance."
"He is evidently a gentleman--a man of refinement and delicate
feeling. I am kindly disposed to him already. There is something
chivalric and what is called 'old-fashioned' in his expressions.
No young man writes like this nowadays."
The letter, which both read many times, revealed the traits that
Sir Walter declared. It was written with Latin courtesy and
distinction. There were also touches of humor in it, which
neither he nor Mary perceived:
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