"Because you told me to work. And I promised; and I have not," said Nancy.

"Have you done nothing at all since I saw you?" he asked.

Nancy shook her head.

"And have you no thoughts, no ideas that urge for expression?"

"Oh yes!" said Nancy, waving eloquent, impatient fingers. "Ideas and thoughts grow and bloom and blow in my mind like flowers in a garden. Then all these people come and talk to me.... Alas," she sighed, looking round the murmuring, laughing room, "in the evening my garden is barren, for I have cut all my flowers and given them away."

The Englishman forgot that he was English, and said what he thought:

"I wish I could carry you off, and lock you up for a year, with nothing but books and a table and an inkstand," he said.

"I wish you could," laughed Nancy, clasping eager hands. "I should love it. Not a soul would be allowed to speak to me. And I should have my meals pa.s.sed in through the window."

The Englishman laughed the sudden laugh of one who laughs seldom. "And I should walk up and down outside with a gun."

Nancy looked at him, and a quick, shy thought, like a bird darting into an open window, entered her mind for an instant. Surely it would be good to have this strong, kind sentinel between herself and the world; to feel the light firmness of his touch on her shoulder keeping her to her work--to the work she loved, and yet was willing to neglect at the call of every pa.s.sing voice. This stern, fair countenance would face the world for her; these strong shoulders would carry her burdens; these candid eyes would look into her soul and keep it clear and bright.

Then the bird-thought flew out of the window of her mind, for the door opened and love and destiny came in. It was Aldo della Rocca, more than ever visually delectable.

With him came his sister-in-law Clarissa, and Nino. Nino looked depressed and dreary; La Villari was writing to him; his conscience was hara.s.sing him; Aldo della Rocca's self-confident beauty irritated him.

"What, Nino! Here again?" said Nancy, with a laugh. "You said last night that henceforward you would never come to see us more than twice a week."

"That's right," said Nino. "Yesterday was the last visit of last week, and this is the first visit of this week. Besides, Della Rocca told me he was coming, so I felt that I had to come too. Of course, I did all I could to shake him off, but he is as persistent and adhesive as one of his compatriot cab-drivers in Santa Lucia. So that is why I could not come alone."

"How confusing!" said Nancy, turning to greet Della Rocca.

Della Rocca smiled; and his smile was sudden and brilliant, as if a row of lights had been lit at the back of his eyes.

He bent over Nancy's proffered hand. "Signora--your slave!" he said in ceremonious Southern fashion.

Clarissa's high voice rang out. "He has been reading your poems day and night, Nancy. And he has put them to music. Glorious! Quite a la Richard Strauss or Tosti or Hugo Wolff! He must sing them to you."

Then she sailed round, greeting the poets, many of whom she knew. The Englishman was introduced as the Signor Kingsley, and Clarissa asked him many questions about London, and did not wait to hear what he answered, but went off with Adele and Aunt Carlotta to a French lecture on "Napoleon et les Femmes." The poets, as soon as they had had vermouth and biscottini di Novara, also went away.

Then Della Rocca seated himself at the piano, and, preluding softly, strayed from harmony to harmony into the songs he had composed for Nancy. He played with his head bent forward and his soft hair falling darkly over half his face, making him look like a younger brother of Velasquez's Christ. He had the musical talent of a Neapolitan street-boy and the voice of an angel who had studied singing in Germany. Nancy felt happy tears welling into her eyes, and Della Rocca's clear-cut, down-curving profile wavered before her gaze.

The Signor Kingsley sat silent in his corner near the window. Valeria was in the shadow with some quiet work in her hand, and Nino, who was sulky and bored, smoked cigarette after cigarette and yawned.

Nancy bent forward with clasped hands, listening to her own words, the lovelier for their garb of music as children are more lovely when clothed in shimmering robes and crowned with roses. She had sent her thoughts out into the world, in their innocent and pa.s.sionate immaturity, bare and wild. And, behold, he brought them back to her veiled in silver minor keys, borne on palanquins of rhythmic harmonies, regal, measured, stately, like the young sisters of a queen.

Mr. Kingsley's mouth tightened as he watched the back of the singer's black head nodding to the music, and listened to the soft tenor voice rolling over the "r's" and broadening on the mellow "a's" of the tender Italian words. He felt his own good English baritone contracting in his throat, and he wondered what made "these Latin idiots" sing as they did.

Then he glanced at Nancy, who had closed her eyes, and at Nino, who was in the rocking-chair staring at the ceiling; and suddenly he felt that he must take his leave. He rose at the end of the cycle of songs, and Nancy turned to him with vague eyes to say good-bye. His kind clear gaze rested on her face.

"Do not cut all your flowers," he said.

Nancy shook her head. "No, no!" she said. "I won't. I really won't."

"Remember that your masterpiece is before you, and the little poems are done with. Lock your doors. Shut out the world, and start on a new work to-morrow."

Nancy said, "Yes, yes, I will." Then an absent look stole over her light eyes. "Ah! _der Musikant!_" she cried, turning to Della Rocca, who was singing in German, and p.r.o.nouncing as if it were Genovese. "I remember that. Is it not Eichendorff?"

"'Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts,'" said Della Rocca.

"Oh, do you really speak German? I love people who speak German," cried Nancy, on whom the German poet's spell still rested.

"I learned it at Gottingen," said Della Rocca, with his illuminating smile.

"Ach, de Stadt die am schonsten ist wenn man sie mit dem Rucken ansieht," quoted Nancy, laughing.

Della Rocca laughed too, although he did not understand what she had said; then he turned to the piano again.

Nancy felt happy and inclined to kindness. "Do not go yet," she said to Mr. Kingsley. "Sit down and talk to me."

But Mr. Kingsley knew better. Della Rocca's melting notes were drawing the girl's thoughts away again, and he could notice the little shiver creep round her face, leaving it slightly paler, as the silver tenor voice took a high A in falsetto and held it long and pianissimo.

"I will come again some day, if I may," he said. "But I almost hope that I shall find your doors locked."

Again the bird-thought came fluttering into the window of Nancy's mind, as the Englishman's strong hand closed firm and warm round hers.

Then the door was shut on Mr. Paul Kingsley, and the thought flew away and was gone.

"Who is that conceited fool of an Englishman?" said Nino, who felt cross and liked to show it.

Nancy flushed. "Please don't speak like that about Englishmen. My father was English." Then she added, with a little toss of her head: "And he was not a bit of a conceited fool."

"I never said he was," said Nino.

"Oh!" gasped Nancy, "you did!"

"I said nothing of the kind," declared Nino. "Your father was a good and n.o.ble man."

"You know I was not talking of my father," said Nancy.

"No more was I," said Nino.

Nancy turned to Della Rocca, who was preluding carelessly with smooth fingers and all his smiles alight.

"Nino always cavils and confuses until one does not know what one is talking about!"

Della Rocca nodded. "That is just what his celebrated friend, Nunziata Villari, said about him when I saw her in Naples. By the way, Nino,"--he ran up a quick scale of fourths and let them fall in a minor arpeggio like tumbling water--"they say La Villari tried to commit suicide last month. Locked herself up with a brazier of c.o.ke, like a love-sick grisette. Did you hear about it?"

"No," said Nino, "I did not." Then he looked long, mildly, fixedly at Della Rocca, who after a moment got up and said good-bye.

When he had left, Nancy said to Nino: "Who is La Villari? And why did she try to kill herself? La Villari! I thought that was an actress who had died a hundred years ago."