Marcia Copley, however, had heard little of the gathering trouble. She did not read the papers, and her uncle did not mention the matter at home. He was too sick at heart to dwell on it uselessly, and it was not a subject he cared to discuss with his niece. His family, indeed, saw very little of him, for he had thrown himself into the work of the Foreign Relief Committee with characteristic energy, and he spent the most of his time in Rome. Marcia's interest in sight-seeing had come to a sudden halt since the afternoon of Tre Fontane. She had ventured into the city only once, and then merely to attend to the purchase of clothes for Gervasio. The Roystons, on that occasion, had been out when she called at their hotel, and her feeling of regret was mingled largely with relief as she left her card and retired in safety to Villa Vivalanti.
She had not analysed her emotions very thoroughly, but she felt a decided trepidation at the thought of seeing Paul. The trepidation, however, was not altogether an unpleasant sensation. The scene in the cloisters had returned to her mind many times, and she had taken several brief excursions into the future. What would he say the next time they met? Would he renew the same subject, or would he tacitly overlook that afternoon, and for the time let everything be as it had been before? She hoped that the latter would be the case. It would give a certain piquancy to their relations, and she was not ready--just at present--to make up her mind.
Paul, on his side, had also pondered the question somewhat. Events were not moving with the rapidity he wished. Marcia, evidently, would not come into Rome, and he could think of no valid excuse for going out to the villa. His pessimistic forecast of events had proved true. Holy Week found the Roystons still in the city, treating themselves to orgies of church-going. As he followed his aunt from church to church (there are in the neighbourhood of three hundred and seventy-five in Rome, and he says they visited them all that week) he indulged in many speculations as to the state of Marcia's mind in regard to himself. At times he feared he had been over-precipitate; at others, that he had not been precipitate enough.