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She it was who had come to him at Roquebrune, one day weeks ago, asking for news of Prince Della Robbia, of whose acquaintance with him she was evidently informed. She was dressed more elaborately this afternoon. The curé had described her to Vanno as wearing a gray travelling dress.
It seemed to have slid from a taller height above, and to have been arrested by miracle before much harm was done; and Vanno remembered the curé's first letter which had told him the legend of the place: how Roquebrune in punishment for the sins of its inhabitants was shaken off its high eyrie by a great earthquake, but stopped on the shoulder of the mountain through intercession of the Virgin, the special patron sainte vierge of the district.
Days passed, and Vanno's project which concerned Mary and the curé was still in abeyance, for the priest was not free yet to leave Roquebrune. The man whose death was daily expected had not died, and the curé spent as much time with him as could be spared from other duties. But Vanno Della Robbia was not the only one who sought the services of a friend in order to "help" Mary.
He passed near enough to hear that Schuyler was telling the legend of the place: how the nuns played a joke on the men of Roquebrune, the appointed guardians of their safety, by ringing the alarm bell to see if the soldiers of the castle town on the hill would indeed turn out to the rescue.
He goes star-gazing in the desert, I believe, consorting with Arabs, and learning all sorts of Eastern patois." Vanno had been more than once to Roquebrune since the first day, and knew that the curé had called twice upon Miss Grant, without finding her at home.
"Downstairs?" "Only my expression for going down there. I always say that I live upstairs, here at Roquebrune. And I like the upstairs life best." "Well, you must come down and dine with me, anyhow. Then you will see her, and tell me what you think." The curé broke into a laugh, like a boy's. "Me dine at your Hôtel de Paris, my son? That is a funny thought. You're inconsistent.
I fixed the place, right hand of the road to Roquebrune, just by the railway cutting, and the time five-thirty of the morning. It was arranged that I should call for him. Disgusting hour; I have not been up so early since I fought Jacques Tirbaut in '85. At five o'clock I found him ready and drinking tea with rum in it singular man! he made me have some too, brrr!
The driver of a landau that climbed the hill, and a chauffeur driving an automobile down toward the lower Corniche, paid the same reverence to the little coffin, giving right of way to the procession before moving on. The funeral turned in the direction of Roquebrune, and Mary and Vanno guessed that it was going to the church there, and the curé.
He called on me when I was out. I don't know why he came," she said. She looked a little guilty, because she would have gone up to the church of Roquebrune after the second call if she had not been afraid that the curé had been sent to see her by some one at home who had found out that she was on the Riviera.
But she did not make time to go to Roquebrune, and show a little graceful gratitude for the curé's kindly interest. The desire grew stronger in Vanno to speak to her, to know something of her besides the perhaps deceiving beauty of her face, but he clung in firmness or obstinacy to the resolve of which he had told his friend.
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