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Wheat Princess

<h2 class='c009'>CHAPTER XVII</h2></div> For the next week or so Marcia steadfastly avoided meeting people. There were no visitors at the villa, and it was 175 easy to find pretexts for not going into Rome. She felt an overwhelming reluctance to meeting any of her friends—to meeting any one, in truth, who even knew her name. It seemed to her that beneath their smiles and pleasant speeches she could read their thoughts; that the words ‘wheat, wheat, wheat’ rang as an undertone to every sentence that was spoken. Her horseback rides were ridden in the direction away from Castel Vivalanti, and if, by chance, she did meet any of her former friends the villagers, she galloped past, looking the other way. Mrs. Copley was engaged with preparations for the coming ball. It was to be partially in honour of the Roystons, partially in honour of Marcia’s birthday, and all of Rome—or as much of it as existed for the Copleys—was to be asked to stop the night either at Villa Vivalanti or at the contessa’s villa in Tivoli. Marcia, her aunt complained, showed an inordinate lack of interest in these absorbing preparations. She was usually ready enough with suggestions, and her listlessness did not pass unnoticed. Mr. Copley’s eyes occasionally rested upon her with a guiltily worried expression, and if she caught the look she immediately assumed an air of gaiety. Neither had made the slightest reference to the subject of that evening’s scene, except upon the arrival of a characteristic cablegram from Willard Copley, in which he informed his daughter that he was sending her a transport of wheat as a birthday present. ‘You see, Uncle Howard,’ she had said as she handed him the message, ‘it is possible to do good as well as harm by telegraph.’ Copley read it with a slight smile. ‘After all, I’m afraid he’s no worse than the rest of us!’ and with that, wheat was a tabooed subject. For the future, however, he was particularly thoughtful toward his niece to show that he was sorry, and she met his advances more than half-way to show that she had forgiven; and, all in all, they came to a better understanding because of their momentary falling out. Mrs. Copley accounted for Marcia’s apathy (and possibly nearest the truth) on the ground that she had taken a touch of malaria in the old wine-cellar, and she dosed her with quinine until the poor girl’s head rang. 176 It happened therefore that when the evening came to attend a musicale at the Contessa Torrenieri’s villa, Marcia could very gracefully decline. The occasion of the function was the count’s return from the Riviera; and although Marcia had some little curiosity in regard to the count, still it did not mount to such proportions that she was ready to face the rest of the world for its sake. Tivoli and Villa Torrenieri were a long nine miles away, and Villa Vivalanti that evening dined earlier than usual. As Marcia came downstairs in response to Pietro’s summons, she paused a moment on the landing; she had caught the sound of Sybert’s low voice in the salon. She had not seen him since the tempestuous ending of the San Marco festa, and she had not yet determined on just what footing their relations were. She stood hesitating with a very slight quickening of the pulse, and then with a decided thrill of annoyance as an explanation for his unexpected visit presented itself—he had returned from Naples and come out to Villa Vivalanti for the purpose of attending the contessa’s musicale. Marcia went on downstairs more slowly, and entered the salon with a none too cordial air. Sybert’s own greeting was in his usual vein of polite indifference. His manner contained not the slightest suggestion of any misunderstanding in the past. It transpired that he knew nothing of the impending party; he was clothed in an unpretentious dinner-jacket. But he expressed his willingness to attend, in spite of the lack of invitation—it was doubtless waiting for him in Naples, he declared—provided his host would lend him a coat. His host grumblingly assented, and Sybert inquired, with a glance from Mrs. Copley’s velvet and jewels to Marcia’s simple white woollen gown, what time they were planning to start. ‘About eight; it takes almost two hours to get there,’ said Mrs. Copley. ‘Marcia is not going,’ she added. ‘Why not, Miss Marcia?’ She looked a trifle self-conscious as she put forth her excuse. ‘I’ve been having a little touch of malaria, and Aunt Katherine thought perhaps the night air——’ ‘I remember, when I was a boy in school, I used frequently to have headaches on Monday mornings,’ said Sybert, with a show of sympathy. 177 Marcia sat in her room till she heard the carriage drive away, then she dragged a wicker chair out to the balcony which overlooked the eastern hills, already darkened into silhouettes against the sky. She sat leaning back with her hands clasped in her lap, watching the outlines of the old monastery fade into the night. She thought of the pale young monk with his questioning eyes, and wondered what sort of troubles people who lived in monasteries had. They were at least not her troubles, she smiled, as she thought of Paul Dessart. Suddenly she leaned over the railing and sniffed the light breeze as it floated up from the garden. Mingled with the sweet scent of lilies and oleanders was the heavy odour of a cigar. Her pulses suddenly quickened. Could——? She pushed her chair back and rose with an impatient movement. Pietro was holding a rendezvous with his friends again, and entertaining them with her uncle’s tobacco. The night was chilly and she was cold. She turned into the dark room with a little laugh at herself: she was staying away from the contessa’s musicale to avoid the night air? She groped about the table for a book and started downstairs with the half-hearted intention of reading out the evening in the salon. A wood fire had been kindled that afternoon, to dispel the slight dampness which the stone walls seemed to exude at the slightest suggestion of an eastern wind. It had burned low now, and the embers gave out a slight glow which was not obliterated by the two flickering candles on the table—Pietro’s frugal soul evidently looked upon the lamp as unnecessary when Mr. and Mrs. Copley were away. Marcia piled on more sticks, with a shake of her head at Italian servants. The one thing in the world that they cannot learn is to build a fire; generations of economy having ingrained within them a notion that fuel is too precious to burn. The blaze once more started, instead of ringing for a lamp and settling down to her book, she dropped into a chair and sat lazily watching the flames. Italy had got its hold upon her, with its spell of Lethian inertia. She wished only to close her eyes and drift idly with the current. Presently she heard the outer door open and close, and 178 steps cross the hall. She looked up with a start to see Laurence Sybert in the doorway. ‘What’s the matter—did I surprise you?’ he inquired. ‘Yes; I thought you had gone to the party.’ ‘I was in the wine-cellar just as much as you,’ he returned, with a little laugh, as he drew up a chair beside her. ‘Why can’t I have malaria too?’ His sudden appearance had been disconcerting, and her usual self-assurance seemed to be wandering to-night. She did not know what to say, and she half rose. ‘I was just going to ring for the lamp when you came. Pietro must have forgotten it. Would you mind——’ Sybert glanced lazily across the room at the bell. ‘Oh, sit still. We have light enough to talk by, and you surely aren’t intending to read when you have a guest.’ He stretched out his hand and took possession of her book. ‘I don’t flatter myself that you stayed away from the contessa’s to talk to me,’ she returned as she leaned back again with a slight shrug. ‘Why else should I have stayed?’ he inquired. ‘Do you think, when it came to the point, your uncle wouldn’t give me a coat?’ ‘Probably you found that it didn’t fit.’ Sybert laughed. ‘No, Miss Marcia; I didn’t even try. I stayed because—I wanted to talk with you.’ She let the statement pass in silence, and Sybert addressed himself to a careful rearrangement of the burning wood. When he finally laid down the tongs he remarked in a casual tone, ‘I owe you an apology—will you accept it?’ ‘What for?’ ‘You appear to have several counts against me—suppose we don’t go into details. I offer a collective apology.’ ‘Because you called me “the Wheat Princess”? Oh, yes, I’ll excuse it; I dare say you were justified.’ He leaned forward with a slight frown. ‘Certainly I was not justified; it was neither kind nor gentlemanly, and I am sorry that I said it. I can only promise to have better manners in the future.’ Marcia dismissed the subject with a gesture. ‘Let me tell you about the good your money has done.’ ‘No, please don’t! I don’t want to hear. I know that 179 it’s horrible, and that you did the best with it possible. I’m glad if it helped. My father is sending some wheat that will be here in a few weeks.’ ‘Miss Marcia,’ he said slowly, ‘I wish you wouldn’t take this matter so badly. Your uncle was out of his senses when he talked to you, and he didn’t realize what he was saying. He feels awfully cut up about it. He told me to-night that he was afraid he had spoiled your summer, and that he wouldn’t have hurt you for the world.’ Marcia’s eyes suddenly filled with tears and she bit her lip. Sybert leaned forward and poked the fire. ‘I should like to talk to you about your uncle,’ he said, with his eyes fixed on the embers. ‘He is one of the finest men I have ever known. And it is not often that a man in his position amounts to much—that is, as a human being; the temptations are all the other way. Most men, you know, with leisure and his tastes would—well, go in for collecting carved ivory and hammered silver and all that rubbish. Nobody understands what he is trying to do, least of all the people he is doing it for. He does it very quietly and in his own way, and he doesn’t ask for thanks. Still, just a little appreciation would be grateful; and, instead of that, he is abused at every turn. This wheat business increased the feeling against him, and naturally he feels sore. The other evening he’d just been reading some articles about the trouble in a Roman paper, and I had been telling him about your encounter with the village people when you came in. It was an unfortunate moment you chose, and he forgot himself. I wish you would be as kind to him as you can, for he has a good many critics outside, and—’ Sybert hesitated an instant—‘he needs a little sympathy at home.’ Marcia drew a deep breath. ‘I understand about Uncle Howard,’ she said. ‘I used to think sometimes—’ she hesitated too—‘that he wasn’t very happy, but I didn’t know the reason. Of course I don’t blame him for what he said; I know he was worried, and I know he didn’t mean it. In any case, I should rather know the truth. But about the wheat,’ she continued, ‘my father is not to blame the way you think he is. He and Uncle Howard don’t understand each other, but I understand them both, and if I had 180 known sooner I could have stopped it. He didn’t have the remotest idea of harming Italy or any other country. He just thought about getting ahead of a lot of others, and—you know what men are like—making people look up to him. He’s very quick; he sees things faster than other men; he knows what’s going to happen ahead of time, and you can’t expect him not to take advantage of it. Of course’—she flushed—‘he wants to make money, too; but it isn’t all that, for he doesn’t use it after he gets it made. It’s the beating others that he likes—the power it gives him. I’m afraid,’ she added, with a slightly pathetic smile, ‘that I shall have to go home and look after him.’ ‘Oh, certainly, Miss Marcia, we all know that your father had no thought of deliberately harming Italy or any other country. And, as a matter of fact, the American wheat corner has not had so much to do with the trouble as the Italian government would have us believe. The simple truth is that your father has been used as a scapegoat. While the Roman papers have been suggestively silent on many points, they have had much to say of the American Wheat King.’ ‘Have the things they said been very bad?’ Sybert smiled a trifle. ‘There’s not been much, to tell the truth, that he will care to cut out and paste in his scrap-book.’ ‘Our party, next week, seems heartless, doesn’t it—sort of like giving a ball while the people next door are having a funeral? I wanted to give it up, but Uncle Howard looked so hurt when I proposed it that I didn’t say anything more about it.’ ‘No, certainly not. That would be foolish and useless. Because some people have to be unhappy is no reason why all should be.’ ‘I suppose not,’ she agreed slowly; and then she added, ‘The world used to be so much pleasanter to live in before I knew there was any misery in it—I wish I didn’t have to know!’ ‘Miss Marcia, I told you the other day that it was a relief sometimes to see people who are thoroughly, irresponsibly happy; who dance over the pit without knowing it’s there. A man who has been in the pit, who knows 181 all its horrors—who feels as if he reeked with them—likes occasionally to see some one who doesn’t even know of its existence. And yet in the end do you think he can thoroughly respect such blindness? Don’t you feel that you are happier in a worthier sense when you look at life with your eyes open; when you honestly take the bad along with the good?’ She sat silent for a few minutes, apparently considering his words. Presently he added— ‘As for your party, I think you may dance with a free conscience. You’ve done what you could to help matters on, and you’ll do a great deal more in the future.’ ‘I’m afraid that my conscience didn’t have much to do with wanting to give up the ball,’ she acknowledged, with a slightly guilty laugh. ‘It’s simply that I can’t bear to meet people, and feel that all the time they’re talking to me they’re calling me in their minds “the Wheat Princess.”’ ‘That, I suppose you know, is very silly. It’s the price you have to pay, and I haven’t much sympathy to offer. However, you need not let it bother you; for, as a matter of fact, there will not be many men here, who would not be wheat kings themselves if they had the chance—even knowing beforehand all the suffering it was going to bring to this trouble-ridden country. And now, suppose we don’t talk about wheat any more. You’ve thought about it a good deal too much.’ ‘You’re not very optimistic,’ she said. ‘Oh, well, I’m not blind. It takes an Italian to be optimistic in this country.’ ‘Do you like the Italians, or don’t you?’ she asked. ‘Sometimes you seem to, and sometimes you act as if you despised them.’ ‘Yes, certainly I like them; I was born in Italy.’ ‘But you’re an American,’ she said quickly. He laughed at her tone. ‘You surely want to be an American,’ she insisted. ‘As Henry James says, Miss Marcia, one’s country, like one’s grandmother, is antecedent to choice.’ She studied the fire for some time without speaking, and Sybert, leaning back lazily, studied her. Her next observation surprised him. 182 ‘You said the other day, Mr. Sybert, that every man lived for some idea, and I’ve been wondering what yours was.’ A curious expression flashed over his face. ‘You couldn’t expect me to tell; I’m a diplomatist.’ ‘I have an idea that it is not very much connected with diplomacy.’ ‘In which case it would be poor diplomacy for me to give it away.’ ‘Mr. Sybert, you give a person a queer impression, as if you were acting a part all the time, and didn’t want people to know what you were really like.’ ‘An anarchist must be careful; the police——’ ‘I believe you are one!’ she cried. ‘Don’t be alarmed. I assure you I am not. But,’ he added, with a little flash of fire, ‘I swear, in a country like this, one would like to be—anything for action! Oh, I’m not a fool,’ he added, in response to her smile. ‘We’re living in the nineteenth century, and not in the thirteenth. Anarchy belongs to the dark ages as much as feudalism.’ ‘You’re so difficult to place! I like to know whether people are Democrats or Republicans, and whether they are Presbyterians or Episcopalians. Then one always knows where to find them, and is not in danger of hurting their feelings.’ ‘I’m afraid I can’t claim any such respectable connexions as those,’ Sybert laughed. ‘Half the time one would think you were a Catholic by the way you stand up for the priests; the other half one would think you weren’t anything by the way you abuse them.’ ‘This mania for classifying! What difference if a person calls himself a Catholic or a Baptist, a Unitarian or a Buddhist? It’s all one. A man is not necessarily irreligious because he doesn’t subscribe to any cut-and-dried formulae.’ ‘Mr. Sybert,’ she dared, ‘I used to be terribly suspicious of you. I knew you weren’t just the way you appeared, and I thought you were really rather bad; but I’m beginning to believe you’re unusually good.’ ‘Oh, I say, Miss Marcia! What are you trying to get at? Do you want me to confess to a hair shirt underneath 183 my dinner-jacket?—I am afraid you must leave that to our friend the monk, up on his mountain-top.’ ‘No, I didn’t mean just that. Flagellations and hair shirts strike me as a pretty useless sort of goodness.’ ‘It does seem a poor business,’ he agreed, ‘for a strong young fellow like that to give up his whole life to the work of getting his soul into paradise.’ ‘Still, if he wants paradise that much, and is willing to make the sacrifice——’ ‘It’s setting a pretty high value on his own soul. I should never rate mine as being worth a lifetime of effort.’ ‘I suppose a person’s soul is worth whatever price he chooses to set.’ ‘Oh, of course, if a man keeps his soul in a bandbox he can produce it immaculate in the end; but what’s a soul for if it’s not for use? He would much better live in the world with his fellow-men, and help them keep their souls clean, even at the risk of getting his own a little dusty.’ ‘Yes, perhaps that’s true,’ she conceded. ‘Such dust will doubtless brush off in the end.’ ‘It certainly ought, if things are managed right.’ ‘I can’t help feeling sorry, though, for the poor young monk; he will be so disappointed, when he brings out his shiny new soul, to find that it doesn’t rank any higher than some of the dusty ones that have been dragged through the world.’ ‘It will serve him right,’ Sybert declared. ‘He ought to have been thinking of other people’s souls instead of his own.’ ‘“‘Tis a dangerous thing to play with souls, and matter enough to save one’s own,”’ quoted Marcia. ‘Oh, well,’ he shrugged, ‘I won’t argue, with the poet and the priests both against me; but still——’ ‘You think that your speckled soul is exactly as good at other people’s white souls?’ ‘It all depends,’ he demurred, ‘upon how they kept theirs white and how I got mine speckled.’ ‘Our frate has afforded a long moral,’ she laughed. ‘Ah—and I suspect he didn’t deserve it. He looks, poor devil, as if his heart were still in the world, in spite of the fact that he himself is in the cloister.’ 184 ‘In that case,’ she returned, ‘he’s lost the world for nothing, for his prayers will not be answered unless his heart is in them.’ ‘There’s a tragedy!’ said Sybert—‘to have lost the world, and then, in spite of it, to turn up in the end with a dusty soul!’ They looked at each other soberly, and then they both laughed. ‘Philosophy is a queer thing,’ said Marcia. ‘You may go as far as you please, but you always end where you started.’ ‘“Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break on vain philosophy’s aye-bubbling spring,”’ he repeated softly, with his eyes on the fire; and then he leaned toward her and laughed again. ‘Miss Marcia, do you know I have an idea?’ ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘It’s about you and me—I have a theory that we might be pretty good friends.’ ‘I thought we’d been friends for some time,’ she returned evasively. ‘I am sure my uncle’s friends are mine.’ ‘Really, I hadn’t suspected it! But it’s the same with friends as with politics and religion: they don’t amount to much until you find them for yourself.’ She considered this in silence. ‘I should say,’ he added, ‘that we’d been pretty good enemies all this time. What do you say to our being friends, for a change?’ Marcia glanced away in a sudden spasm of shyness. ‘Shall we try it?’ he asked in a low tone, bending toward her and laying his hand palm upward on the arm of her chair. She dropped her hand into his hesitatingly, and his fingers closed upon it. He looked at the fire a moment, and then back in her face. ‘Marcia,’ he said softly, ‘did you ever hear the Tuscan proverb, “The foes of yesterday become the friends of to-day and the lovers of to-morrow”?’ A quick wave of colour swept over her face, and a faint answering flush appeared in his. She drew her hand away and rose to her feet, with a light laugh that put the last few minutes ages away. 185 ‘I’m afraid it’s getting late, and Aunt Katherine would be scandalized if she found her malaria patient waiting up for her. I will leave you to smoke in peace.’ Sybert rose and followed her into the hall. He chose a tall brass candlestick from the row on the chimney-piece, lighted it, and handed it to her with a silent bow. ‘Thank you,’ said Marcia, with a brief glance at his face. She paused on the landing and looked down. He was standing on the rug at the foot of the stairs, watching her with an amused smile. ‘Buona notte, Signor Siberti,’ she murmured. ‘Buona notte, signorina,’ he returned, with a little laugh. ‘Pleasant dreams!’ <div class='chapter'> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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