'Oh, I don't know,' said Marcia vaguely. 'Lots of people don't like him.'
Melville struck a match, lit a cigar, and vigorously puffed it into a glow; then he observed: 'Lots of people are idiots.'
'Excuse me, but you are all so funny about Mr. Sybert. One day I hear the most extravagant things in his praise, and the next, the most disparaging things in his dispraise. It's difficult to know what to believe of such a changeable person as that.'
'Just let me tell you one thing, Miss Marcia, and that is, that in this world a man who has no enemies is not to be trusted--I don't know how it may be in the world to come. At for Sybert, you may safely believe what his friends say of him.'
'In that case he certainly does not show his best side to the world.'
'He probably thinks his best side nobody's business but his own.' And then, as a thought re-occurred to him, he glanced at her a moment in silence, while a brief smile flickered across his aggressively forceful face. She could not interpret the smile, but it was vaguely irritating, and as he did not have anything further to say, she pursued her theme rough-shod.
'When you see a person who doesn't take any interest in his own country; whose only aim is to be thought a cosmopolitan, a man of the world; whose business in life is to attend social functions and make after-dinner speeches--well, naturally, you can't blame people for not taking him very seriously.' She finished with a gesture of disdain.
'You were telling me a little while ago, Miss Marcia, about some of the people in Castel Vivalanti. You appear to be rather proud of your broad-mindedness in occasionally being able to detect the real man underneath the peasant--don't you think you might push your penetration just one step further and discover a real man, a personality, beneath the man of the world? Once in a while it exists.'
'You can't argue me into liking Mr. Sybert,' she laughed; 'Uncle Howard has tried it and failed.'
Mr. and Mrs. Copley returned shortly to their guests; and the contessa, bemoaning the nine miles, announced that she must go. Mr. Copley suggested that nine miles would be no longer after dinner than before, but the lady was obdurate and her carriage was ordered. She took her departure amid a graceful flurry of farewell. The contessa had an unerring instinct for effect, and her exits and her entrances were divertingly spectacular. She bade Mrs. Copley, Marcia, and the consul-general good-bye upon the terrace, and trailed across the marble flagging, attended--at a careful distance from her train--by the three remaining men. Sybert handed her into the carriage, Dessart arranged the lap-robe, while Copley brought up the rear, gingerly bearing her lace parasol. With a gay little tilt of her white-plumed hat toward the group on the terrace and an all-inclusive flash of black eyes, she was finally off, followed by the courtly bows of her three cavaliers.