He
would find that out later from some one else--Francesca, anybody.
"Then I shan't see you again till dinner?"
"Dinner is at eight," was Scrap's evasive answer as she went
upstairs.
He watched her go.
She passed the Madonna, the portrait of Rose Arbuthnot, and the
dark-eyed figure he had thought so sweet seemed to turn pale, to
shrivel into insignificance as she passed.
She turned the bend of the stairs, and the setting sun, shining
through the west window a moment on her face, turned her to glory.
She disappeared, and the sun went out too, and the stairs were
dark and empty.
He listened till her footsteps were silent, trying to tell from
the sound of the shutting door which room she had gone into, then
wandered aimlessly away through the hall again, and found himself back
in the top garden.
Scrap from her window saw him there. She saw Lotty and Rose
sitting on the end parapet, where she would have liked to have been,
and she saw Mr. Wilkins buttonholing Briggs and evidently telling him
to story of the oleander tree in the middle of the garden.
Briggs was listening with a patience she thought rather nice,
seeing that it was his oleander and his own father's story. She knew
Mr. Wilkins was telling him the story by his gestures. Domenico had
told it her soon after her arrival, and he had also told Mrs.
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