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After her letter had been read and considered then she could decide on the degree of her confidences. But after all, Barbara's prediction came true. The story that Sonya Valesky had to tell of her acquaintance with Nona's mother was not half so strange as the fact that the mother's history had been concealed from her daughter. The story was unique but comparatively simple.
Above all, she was to make him a written and sacred promise that she would never reveal her ideas of life to her daughter. This Nona's mother had refused to do and so had gone away, expecting to come back some day when her husband relented. Within a year she had died. But here Sonya Valesky's letter ended, for she enclosed another written by Nona's mother to her friend.
The Bishop, who knew perfectly well why the Duke had come to Nona, and why Nona's Duke wanted him there, preached a sermon which the saving Italian virtue of urbanity prevented from being either monstrous or ridiculous. Before the altar the two lords kissed each other.
Yet when one has seen the horrible, the almost useless suffering that I have seen in these few years I have been acting as a Red Cross nurse, well, one can hardly condemn a human being who believes in peace. Still, Madame Valesky is in reality more Nona's friend than mine." Pausing abruptly, Mildred again turned her face to look at the soldier beside her.
Then she stopped, her attention caught, as Nona's had been, by a sudden rustling in the air above them. A moment later a flock of gray and white pigeons was crowding about their feet. These also were the pigeons that haunt the thoroughfares of the east. Personally Nona Davis would have preferred remaining outside in the fresh air.
This portion was hardest of the story to understand, but Sonya Valesky had tried to make it clear. Nona's father had insisted that his young wife give up her views of life. She was to read no books, write no letters, have nothing to do with any human being who thought as she did.
This was a small picture of Nona's mother which was exactly like the one the girl had found concealed in the back of her father's watch. It was the same watch with the same picture that she now wore always inside her dress. Then for nearly an hour the young American girl sat dreaming almost without a movement of her body.
In answer to Nona's protest that she was not well enough to be an agreeable visitor and could not bear the ordeal of meeting strangers, the older woman announced that the girls could live as quietly as they liked. She would let them have a private apartment in her house and they need see no one except the servants who would look after them.
"Nona's message was far too mysterious and vague to consider answering. We must not forget that we are now in a country and among a people whom we don't understand in the least. Besides, I promised both Dick and Eugenia that we would be more careful. How I wish one or the other of them were here to advise us!"
Her face was flushed and her dark blue eyes shining. "You must not stay in this house, not for long at a time," she pleaded. "I cannot explain to you why not, but perhaps when I am strong again I can tell you enough to have you guess the rest. Now you must go." Sonya took Nona's cool hands in her hot ones and held them close for a moment. The next moment the American girl had gone.
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