LAIRE came down the long cypress avenue, at the end of which was the queer little building, half farmhouse, half villa, in which Cardinge, having brought his negotiations to a successful issue, had taken up his residence. She was bareheaded and dressed for the evening in a gown of some filmy white material. Once or twice she stopped to pluck some of the colored orchises growing in the long grass of the orchard, and though the turf was dry she had to pick her way to avoid soiling her satin shoes. Cardinge came to meet her silently.
“Why do you look at me as though I were a vision?” she laughed, as he almost reached her without any sign of recognition.
“You reminded me of 'Maud,'” he answered. “I was thinking of the days when I was very young.”
“Stupid!” she exclaimed, thrusting her arm through his. “You're very young now—but very dirty. What have you been doing?”
“Showing some of my lazy Italians how to dig trenches,” he replied, smiling. “I am in rather a state, aren't I?”
“Do you know what you have to do?” she asked.
“Wash, presently.”
“More than that. You have to put on your nice dinner clothes and come up to the villa for dinner.”
“A royal command?”
“Madam insists. You can perhaps guess what has happened. Another Virgin has arrived.”
“Who is it this time, I wonder?” he inquired.
She shook her head.
“I was introduced, but the name sounded like a firecracker. He is fat, beaming, and prosperous. Also, I should imagine, Teutonic.”
“I wonder if, by any chance, it is Reinhardt,” Cardinge muttered.
“'Reinhardt,' associated with a fantastic Christian name, it might very well be,” she admitted. “The great thing is, however, that you have about a quarter of an hour to change. I shall come and sit on your piazza and enjoy your gorgeous view.”
HEY had returned to the house by this time, the front of which faced southeast, and looked over the broad, fruitful valley of vineyards, cornfields, and olive groves, mounting on the other side to the village of St. Paulos. Cardinge arranged a chair for his visitor and hurried up to his room. He splashed about for a few moments in the flat sponge bath, left for him twice a day in an empty room leading out of his own, dressed, with that slight irrelevance which a man who has been used to have all things arranged for him generally displays when left to his own resources, and finally made his apologies to a fat, brown lady in the kitchen—apologies which, by the bye, were received most ungraciously.
“Behold,” she exclaimed, pointing to the grate, “the dinner of monsieur three parts cooked. What is to be done? Had I but known half an hour before!”
“But it is only within ten minutes that I have received the message, Marie,” her master expostulated. “Eat the dinner yourself this evening—you and the good man Jean.”
The wife of Jean was indignant.
“Such food for us!” she scoffed. “Of all things the most ridiculous. Jean would drink too much wine and go off to the village. One must do what one can,” she wound up, snatching the pots from the fire.
Cardinge and Claire walked slowly down the avenue, across the strip of dusty road and along a winding path—a short cut through the grounds to the villa.
“How go things, Mr. Farmer?” Claire inquired.
“Well enough,” he confided. “I sent sixty baskets of flowers and vegetables away to-day, and the vines look promising. I need a larger market, though, for my eggs.”
“I will try and eat two every morning, instead of one,” she promised.
“The villa is already my best private customer,” he told her. 'Don't imperil your digestion for my sake, I beg.”
“It isn't my digestion I'm afraid of, it's getting fat,” she confessed.
He glanced at her with an admiration which he tried to conceal. She was tall and slim, with the easy grace of an athletic figure, and yet with a certain stateliness in her movements. The clear sunburn of health had played no havoc with her complexion. Her eyes were thoughtful.
“It's a queer life for you here, child,” he declared a little abruptly.
“You have said that before,” she remarked. “Why queer? From the moment I wake in the morning to the moment I go to sleep at night I am surrounded by beautiful things. What can there be more wonderful than that?”
“You should have more friends,” he argued. “Friends of your own age.”
“I have Armand,” she reminded him, “who is quite reasonable sometimes, and you, who are delightful always.”
“I am not of your own age,” he objected, a little harshly. “I belong to the generation of your elders.”