Tea at a Renaissance villa, if he had ever meditated
it, was now impossible. Lucy and Miss Bartlett had a certain
style about them, and Mr. Beebe, though unreliable, was a man of
parts. But a shoddy lady writer and a journalist who had murdered
his wife in the sight of God--they should enter no villa at his
introduction.
Lucy, elegantly dressed in white, sat erect and nervous amid
these explosive ingredients, attentive to Mr. Eager, repressive
towards Miss Lavish, watchful of old Mr. Emerson, hitherto
fortunately asleep, thanks to a heavy lunch and the drowsy
atmosphere of Spring. She looked on the expedition as the work of
Fate. But for it she would have avoided George Emerson
successfully. In an open manner he had shown that he wished to
continue their intimacy. She had refused, not because she
disliked him, but because she did not know what had happened, and
suspected that he did know. And this frightened her.
For the real event--whatever it was--had taken place, not in the
Loggia, but by the river.
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