Even then for the first few minutes he thought it
might prove love's labour's lost, so bright and unreal was Lucia.
He had half crossed Shakespeare's garden, and had clearly seen her
standing at the window of the music-room, when she stole away, and next
moment the strains of some slow movement, played very loud, drowned the
bell on the mermaid's tail so completely that he wondered whether it
had rung at all. As a matter of fact, Lucia and Peppino were in the
midst of a most serious conversation when Georgie came through the
gate, which was concerned with deciding what was to be done. A party at
The Hurst sometime during Christmas week was as regular as the festival
itself, but this year everything was so unusual. Who were to be asked
in the first place? Certainly not Mrs Weston, for she had talked
Italian to Lucia in a manner impossible to misinterpret, and probably,
so said Lucia with great acidity, she would be playing children's games
with her _promesso_. It was equally impossible to ask Miss Bracely
and her husband, for relations were already severed on account of the
Spanish quartette and Signer Cortese, and as for the Quantocks, did
Peppino expect Lucia to ask Mrs Quantock again ever? Then there was
Georgie, who had become so different and strange, and ... Well here was
Georgie. Hastily she sat down at the piano, and Peppino closed his eyes
for the slow movement.
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