There were only ten days left before the first recital, and she found Alexis more engrossed in his work than ever. Her little absence had in some measure restored his former independence. Almost automatically, the situation adjusted itself. They saw less and less of each other, meeting sometimes for lunch, sometimes for tea at a quiet restaurant. Anne made only one trip to Long Island. She found Alexis absent-minded, more erratic than ever. His eyes, brilliantly hard, seemed to be focussed entirely upon the future. His manner toward herself was less apologetic, more assured. Anne took up her customary life with indifference. Seeing as little as possible of Ellen and her friends, she treated the former with a cold cordiality which if not an actual declaration of war, constituted a challenge. Gerald Boynton frequented the house as usual, however. A tame cat is a great convenience to a woman like Anne. A necessary escort, he was at her beck and call at all moments, to secure theater tickets, and even to run errands. Caldenas came to see her once or twice, and Anne found herself liking him well enough to promise to sit for her portrait. But all this was merely artificial, a stuffing of cotton into the void of time. Weary of New York as never before, Anne longed for her villa in Florence, her sun-baked terrace, the pungent smell of the black earth awakening in anticipation of spring. Nothing but Alexis and his need could have kept her in New York another day. Later, when the New York concerts would be over, and Alexis had gone on tour, she, too, would flit. Then he could follow her if he desired, and they might meet somewhere on the Continent. But not in Florence. No, not there, where her memories were all of Vittorio. She could not receive Alexis within a stone's throw of Vittorio's mother, that beautiful old lady, who had so often joined her pleas to his. Indeed, she could not find it in her heart to return to Florence at all, if it were not that she was so sure that Vittorio would be in Sicily. Ah, Vittorio! There was a man, if you please! A Grand Seigneur, and yet a worker. One of the best. Where was he now? Still in Mexico digging up Aztec relics, or had the ocean already separated them? Arrived here, Anne would sigh and push the rebellious thought back into her teeming subconscious, much as a careless housemaid sweeps undesirables beneath the bed. By her own action, she had closed the door between Vittorio and all of his forever. Was she not above peeking through the keyhole? She fixed her eyes resolutely upon the actualities of the present. CHAPTER XXI TRIUMPH Carnegie Hall gaped before Anne's eyes, like the yawning jaws of some prehistoric monster. Knees quaking beneath her, she seated herself in the front of the box and motioned to her two companions to do likewise.