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"You are seventeen," said Marcello firmly. "I shall be eighteen on my next birthday!" retorted Aurora with warmth. "Then we shall see who is the more grown up. I shall be in society, and you why, you will not even be out of the University." She said this with the contempt which Marcello's extreme youth deserved. "I am not going to the University." "Then you will be a boy all your life.
Are you glad that Regina saved your life?" She bent down again, and her gentle hand played with Marcello's waving fair hair. "What should you have done without Regina?" "I should have died," Marcello answered happily. With much more strength than she had been used to find in him, he threw his arms round her neck and drew her face down to his.
Besides, the girl was very intelligent. She might easily have heard about the real Marcello's disappearance, and she was clever enough to have given her lover the name in the hope that he might be taken for the lost boy at least long enough to ensure him a great deal more comfort and consideration in the hospital than he otherwise would have got; she was clever enough to have seen that it would be a mistake to say outright that he was Marcello Consalvi, if she was practising a deception.
So the time passed, and it was to them as if there were no time. Then the door opened again, and a very pale man in deep mourning was brought in by the Superintendent himself. Regina rose and drew back a little, so that the shadow should not fall across Marcello's face, and she fixed her eyes on the gentleman in black. "This is the patient," said the Superintendent in a low voice.
She made no noise now, though it was almost quite dark, and in another instant she was out on the road to Rome. It had all been done so quickly that she could still hear the jingling of Mommo's mule bells in the distance. She had only a few hundred yards to run, and she was walking at the tail of the cart with one hand resting on Marcello's knee as he lay there wrapped up in the ragged blanket.
"The fellow is alive, and will probably recover," said the Professor, in answer to the unasked question in Marcello's eyes. "It would simplify matters if he died," said Marcello. "Will you walk up to the villa with me and have coffee? We cannot get a cab at this hour on this side of the Tiber." "Thank you," Kalmon answered, "but I must go home.
But you can send for your things and camp in my rooms downstairs. There is a good sofa. You can telephone to the villa for what you want." "Thank you." Marcello's voice dropped and shook. "Will she live?" he asked. "I hope so. She is very strong, and it may be only fever." "What else could it be?" "Pneumonia."
He had probably dined with them, for he was intimate at the house, and Aurora had spoken of Marcello's visit. There was no reason why she should not have done so, and yet Marcello wished that she had kept it to herself a little longer. It had meant so much to him, and it suddenly seemed as if it had meant nothing at all to her.
Marcello's face cleared instantly. Aurora had not told any one that he had quarrelled with his stepfather about her; that was quite evident, for there were not two more truthful people in the world than the Contessa and Kalmon, whose bright brown eyes were at that moment quietly studying his face.
It may comfort her a little, poor thing." "Indeed it will!" Kalmon's brown eyes beamed with pleasure at the thought of taking the kindly message to the dying girl. He rose to his feet at once. "There is no one like you," he said, as he took her hand. "It is nothing. It is what Marcello's mother would have done, and she was my best friend.
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