It was late when Cecilia reached the Palazzo Massimo and went in on foot
under the dark carriageway after Petersen had paid the cab under the
watchful gaze of the big liveried porter. The Countess was already
dressing for dinner, and Cecilia went to her own room at once. The
consequence was that she did not know of her mother's invitation to
Lamberti, until she came into the drawing-room and saw the two together,
waiting for her.

"Did I forget to tell you that Signor Lamberti was coming to dinner?"
asked her mother.

"There was no particular reason why you should have told me," she
answered indifferently, as she held out her hand to Lamberti. "It is not
exactly a dinner party! How is he?" she asked, speaking to him.

"He is better this evening, thank you."

Why should he say "thank you," as if Guido were his brother or his
father? She resented it. Surely there was no need for continually
accentuating the fact that Guido was the only person living for whom he
had the slightest natural affection! This was perhaps exaggerated, but
she was glad of it, just then.

She, who would have given all for him, wished savagely that some woman
would make him fall in love and treat him with merciless barbarity.

CHAPTER XXIII

Cecilia felt that evening as if she could resist Lamberti's influence at
last, for she was out of humour with herself and with every one else.
When they had dined, and had said a multitude of uninteresting things
about Guido, for they were all under a certain constraint while the meal
lasted, they came back to the drawing-room. Lamberti had the inscrutable
look Cecilia had lately seen in his face, and which she took for the
outward sign of his indifference to anything that did not concern his
friend. When he spoke to her, he looked at her as if she were a chair or
a table, and when he was not speaking to her he did not look at her at
all.

In the drawing-room, she waited her opportunity until her mother had sat
down. The butler had set the little tray with the coffee and three cups
on a small three-legged table. On pretence that the latter was unsteady,
Cecilia carried the tray to another place at some distance from her
mother. Lamberti followed her to take the Countess's cup, and then came
back for his own. Cecilia spoke to him in a low voice while she was
putting in the sugar and pouring out the coffee, a duty which in many
parts of Italy and France is still a