In spite of Paul's manoeuvres, he did not find himself alone with Marcia that afternoon. There was always a cousin in attendance. Mr. and Mrs. Copley, declining the spectacle of the tenebræ in St. Peter's--they had seen it before--left shortly after luncheon. As they were leaving, Mr. Copley remarked to Mrs. Royston--
'I will entrust my niece to your care, and please do not lose sight of her until you put her in my hands for the evening train. I wish no more such escapades as we had the other day.' And, to Marcia's discomfort, the adventures involving the rescue of Marcellus and Gervasio were recounted in detail. For an unexplained reason, she would have preferred the story of their origin to remain in darkness.
Paul's face clouded slightly. 'My objections to Sybert grow rapidly,' he remarked in an undertone.
Marcia laughed. 'If you could have seen him! He never spoke a word to me all the way out in the train. He sat with his arms folded and a frown on his brow, like--Napoleon at Moscow.'
Paul's face brightened again. 'Oh, I begin to like him, after all,' he declared.
Toward five o'clock that evening every carriage in the city seemed to be bent for the Ponte Sant' Angelo. A casual spectator would never have chosen a religious function as the end of all this confusion. In the tangle of narrow streets beyond the bridge the way was almost blocked, and such progress as was possible was made at a snail's pace. The Royston party, in two carriages, not unnaturally lost each other. The carriage containing Marcia, Margaret, and Paul, getting into the jam in the narrow Borgo Nuovo, arrived in the piazza of St. Peter's with wheels locked with a cardinal's coach. The cardinal's coachman and theirs exchanged an unclerical opinion of each other's ability as drivers. The cardinal advanced his head from the window with a mildly startled air of reproof, and the Americans laughed gaily at the situation. After a moment of scrutiny the cardinal smiled back, and the four disembarked and set out on foot across the piazza, leaving the men to sever the difficulty at their leisure. He proved an unexpectedly cordial person, and when they parted on the broad steps he held out of his hand with a friendly smile and after a moment of perplexed hesitation the three gravely shook it in turn.