Marcia found herself growing unexpectedly cordial toward their guest; even the contessa appeared suddenly dear as she was about to be snatched away. She bade her an almost affectionate farewell, and stood by the balustrade waving her handkerchief until the carriage disappeared. ‘Will marvels never cease?’ she asked her aunt. ‘I think—I really think that I like the contessa!’ CHAPTER XXI THE next day—it was just a week before their proposed trip to the Tyrol—Marcia accompanied her uncle into Rome for the sake of one or two important errands which might not be intrusted to a man’s uncertain memory. Mr. Copley found himself unready to return to the villa on the train they had planned to take, and, somewhat to Marcia’s consternation, he carried her off to the Embassy for tea. She mounted the steps with a fast-beating heart. Would Laurence Sybert be there? She had not so much as seen him since the night of her birthday ball, and the thought of facing him before a crowd, with no chance to explain away that awful moment by the fountain, was more than disconcerting. Her first glance about the room assured her that he was not in it, and the knowledge carried with it a mingled feeling of relief and disappointment. The air was filled with an excited buzz of conversation, the talk being all of riots and rumours of riots. Marcia drifted from one group to another, and finally found herself sitting on a window-seat beside a woman whose face was familiar, but whom for the moment she could not place. ‘You don’t remember me, Miss Copley?’ her companion smiled. Marcia looked puzzled. ‘I was trying to place you,’ she confessed. ‘I remember your face.’ ‘One day, early this spring, at Mr. Dessart’s studio——’ ‘To be sure! The lady who writes!’ she laughed. ‘I never caught your name.’ ‘And the worst gossip in Rome? Ah, well, they slandered me, Miss Copley. One is naturally interested in the lives of the people one is interested in—but for the others! They may make their fortunes and lose them again, and get married, and elope and die, for all the attention I ever give.’ Marcia smiled at her concise summary of the activities of life, and put her down as a Frenchwoman. ‘And the villa in the hills?’ she asked. ‘How did it go? And the ghost of the Wicked Prince? Did Monsieur Benoit paint him?’ ‘The ghost was a grievous disappointment. He turned out to be the butler.’ ‘Ah—poor Monsieur Benoit! He has many disappointments. _C’est triste, n’est-ce pas?_’ ‘Many disappointments?’ queried Marcia, quite in the dark. ‘The Miss Roystons, Mr. Dessart’s relatives,’ pursued the lady; ‘they are friends of yours. I met them at the Melvilles’ a few weeks ago. They are charming, are they not?’ ‘Very,’ said Marcia, wondering slightly at the turn the conversation had taken. ‘And this poor Monsieur Benoit—he has gone, all alone, to paint moonlight in Venice. _Ce que c’est que l’amour!_’