a letter. "For you, signorina."
It was from Edna.
"DEAR OLIVE"--she had written,--"I could not wait for
trains so papa has hired a car, and we shall motor
straight to Genoa and catch the boat there. I want to go
home to America pretty badly.--Your loving friend,
"EDNA.
"_P.S._--I am still right down glad you told me.--E. M."
One of the servants came to Olive's room presently.
"La Signora Marchesa wishes to see you at once in her boudoir."
The Marchesa had come straight from the motor to her own room, her
head was still swathed in a white veil, and she had not even taken off
her heavy sable coat. She had switched on the light on her entrance,
and now she was searching in the drawers of her bureau for her
cheque-book.
"Ah, well, gold perhaps," she said after a while, impatiently, as she
snapped open the chain purse that hung from her wrist. "Is that you,
Miss Agar?"
Olive, seeing her counting out her money, like the queen in the
nursery rhyme, had stopped short near the door. She paled a little as
she understood this must be the sequel to what she had done, but she
held her head high, and there was a light of defiance in the blue
eyes.
"I have to speak to you very seriously."
The Marchesa, a large woman, was slow and deliberate in all her
movements. She took her place on a brocaded settee with the air of a
statue of Juno choosing a pedestal, and began to draw off her gloves.
"I greatly regret that this should be necessary." She seemed prepared
to clean Augean stables, and there was something judicial in her
aspect too, but she did not look at Olive. "You know that I took you
into my house on the recommendation of the music-teacher, Signora
Giannini. It was foolish, I see that now. It has come to my knowledge
that you had no right to enter here, no right to be with my daughter."
She paused. "You must understand perfectly what I mean," she said
impressively.
"No, I do not understand," the girl said. "Will you explain,
Marchesa?"
"Can you deny that you were involved in a most discreditable affair in
Siena before you came here? That your intrigue--I hate to have to
enter into the unsavoury details, Miss Agar, but you have forced me to
it--that your intrigue with your cousin's _fiance_ drove her to
suicide, and that you were obliged to leave the place in consequence?"
"It is not true."
"Ah, but your cousin killed herself?"
"Yes."
"Her lover was
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