As soon as he left her, she sat down at her writing-table and wrote out
a telegram to be sent off the first thing the next day. It contained
only three words, and was not signed.
But the recipient of it, Mr. Hanbury-Green, read it with wild emotion
when he received it in his rooms in London--and immediately made
arrangements to set off to Florence at once.
"I'll beat him yet!" he said to himself, and he romantically kissed the
pink paper. For, "You may come" was what he had read.
CHAPTER XXXI
An hour or so before sunset the next day John Derringham in his motor
was climbing the steep roads which lead to San Gimignano, the city of
beautiful towers, which still stands, a record of things mediaeval,
untouched by the modernizing hand of men.
A helpless sense of bitterness mastered him, and destroyed the
loveliness and peace of the view. Everything fine and great in his
thoughts and aims seemed tarnished. To what stage of degradation would
his utter disillusion finally bring him! Of course, when Cecilia
Cricklander should once be his wife, he would not permit her to lead
this life of continuous racket--or, if she insisted upon it, she should
indulge in it only when she went abroad alone.
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