Джин Уэбстер - The Wheat Princess

She stopped suddenly. She had caught a quick glance between her uncle and Sybert. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Do you know what it means?’

‘It means damned impudence!’ said her uncle. ‘I’ll have that editor arrested if he doesn’t keep still,’ and the two men stood eyeing each other a minute in silence. Then Copley gave a short laugh. ‘Oh, well,’ he said, ‘I don’t believe the Grido del Popolo can destroy my character. Nobody reads it.’ He looked at his watch. ‘You’d better go and dress, Marcia. My party begins promptly at eight.’

‘You needn’t use any such clumsy method as that of getting rid of me,’ she laughed. ‘I’m not going to stay where I’m not wanted. All I have to say,’ she called back from the doorway, ‘is that you’d better stop badgering those poor old beggars, or you’ll be getting a warning to leave Rome as well as Naples.’

Marcia rang for Granton.

‘Have you time to fix my hair now?’ she inquired as the maid appeared, ‘or does Mrs. Copley need you?’

‘Mrs. Copley hasn’t begun to dress yet; she is watching Master Gerald eat his supper.’

‘Oh, very well, then, there is time enough; I’ll get through before she is ready for you. Do my hair sort of Frenchy,’ she commanded as she sat down before the mirror. ‘What dress do you think I’d better wear?’ she continued presently. ‘That white one I wore last week, or the new green one that came from Paris yesterday?’

‘I should think the white one, Miss Marcia, and save the new one for some party.’

‘It would be more sensible,’ Marcia agreed; ‘but,’ she added with a laugh, ‘I think I’ll wear the new one.’

Granton got it out with an unsmiling face which was meant to convey the fact that she could not countenance this American prodigality. She had lived ten years with an elderly English duchess, and had thought that she knew the ways of the aristocracy.

The gown was a filmy green mousseline touched with rose velvet and yellow lace. Marcia put it on and surveyed herself critically. ‘What do you think, Granton?’ she asked.

‘It’s very becoming, Miss Marcia,’ Granton returned primly.

‘Yes,’ Marcia sighed—‘and very tight!’ She caught up her fan and turned toward the door. ‘Don’t be hurt because I didn’t take your advice,’ she called back over her shoulder. ‘I never take anybody’s, Granton.’

She found her uncle alone in the salon, pacing the floor in a restless fashion, with two frowning lines between his brows. He paused in his walk as she appeared, and his frown gave place, readily enough, to a smile.

‘You look very well to-night,’ he remarked approvingly. ‘You—er—have a new gown, haven’t you?’

‘Oh, yes, Uncle Howard,’ she laughed. ‘It’s all the gown. Send your compliments to my dressmaker, 45 Avenue de l’Opéra. I thought I would wear it in honour of Mr. Sybert; it’s so seldom we have him with us.’

Mr. Copley received this statement with something like a grunt.

‘There! Uncle Howard, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Mr. Sybert is the nicest man that ever lived. And what I particularly like about him, is the fact that he is so genial and expansive and thoughtful for others—always trying to put people at their ease.’

Mr. Copley refused to smile. ‘I am sorry, Marcia, that you don’t like Sybert,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s because you don’t understand him.’

‘I dare say; and I suppose he doesn’t like me, for the same reason.’

‘He is a splendid fellow; I’ve never known a better one—and a man can judge.’

Marcia laughed. ‘Uncle Howard, do you know what you remind me of? An Italian father who is arranging a marriage for his daughter, and having chosen the man, is recommending him for her approval.’

‘Oh, no; I don’t go to the length of asking you to fall in love with him—though you might do worse—but I should be pleased if you would treat him—er–’

‘Respectfully, as I would my father.’

‘More respectfully than you do your uncle, at any rate. He may not be exactly what you’d call a lady’s man–’

‘A lady’s man! Uncle Howard, you make me furious when you talk like that; as if I only liked men with dimples in their chins, who dance well and get ices for you! I’m sorry if I don’t treat Mr. Sybert seriously enough; but really I don’t think he treats me seriously, either. You think I don’t know anything, just because I can’t tell the difference between the Left and the Right. I’ve only just come to Rome, and I don’t see how you can expect me to know about Italian politics. You both of you laugh whenever I ask the simplest question.’

‘But you ask such exceedingly simple questions, dear.’

‘How can I help it when you give me such absurd answers?’

‘I’m sorry. We’ll try to do better in the future. I suppose we’ve both of us been a little worried this spring, and you probe us on a tender point.’

‘But who ever heard of a man’s being really worried over politics—that is, unless he’s running for something? They should be regarded as an amusement to while away your leisure. You and Mr. Sybert are so funny, Uncle Howard; you take your amusements so seriously.’

‘“Politics” is a broad word, Marcia,’ he returned, with a slight frown; ‘and when it stands for oppression and injustice and starving peasants it has to be taken seriously.’

‘Is it really so bad, Uncle Howard?’

‘Good heavens, Marcia! It’s awful!’

She was startled at his tone, and glanced up at him quickly. He was staring at the light, with a hard look in his eyes and his mouth drawn into a straight line.

‘I’m sorry, Uncle Howard; I didn’t know. What can I do?’

‘What can any of us do?’ he asked bitterly. ‘We can give one day, and it’s eaten up before night. And we can keep on giving, but what does it amount to? The whole thing is rotten from the bottom.’

‘Can’t the people get work?’

‘No; and when they can, their earnings are eaten up in taxes. The people in the southern provinces are literally starving, I tell you; and it’s worse this year than usual, thanks to men like your father and me.’

‘What do you mean?’

For a moment he felt almost impelled to tell her the truth. Then, as he glanced down at her, he stopped himself quickly. She looked so delicate, so patrician, so aloof from everything that was sordid and miserable; she could not help, and it was better that she should not know.

‘What do you mean?’ she repeated. ‘What has papa been doing?’

‘Oh, nothing very criminal,’ he returned. ‘Only at a time like this one feels as if one’s money were a reproach. Italy’s in a bad way just now; the wheat crop failed last year, and that makes it inconvenient for people who live on macaroni.’

‘Do you mean the people really haven’t anything to eat?’

‘Not much.’

‘How terrible, Uncle Howard! Won’t the government do anything?’

‘The government is doing what it can. There was a riot in Florence last month, and they lowered the grain tax; King Humbert gave nine thousand lire to feed the people of Pisa a couple of weeks ago. You can do the same for some other city, if you want to play at being a princess.’

‘I thought you believed in finding them work instead giving them money.’

‘Oh, as a matter of principle, certainly. But you can’t have ’em dying on your door-step, you know.’

‘And to think we’re having a dinner to-night, when we’re not the slightest bit hungry!’

‘I’m afraid our dinner wouldn’t go far toward feeding the hungry in Italy.’

‘How does my dress look, my dear?’ asked Mrs. Copley, appearing in the doorway. ‘I have been so bothered over it; she didn’t fix the lace at all as I told her. These Italian dressmakers are not to be depended upon. I really should have run up to Paris for a few weeks this spring, only you were so unwilling, Howard.’