A Room With A View | Page 7

in England. Signora Bertolini is so
English."
"Yet our rooms smell," said poor Lucy. "We dread going to bed."
"Ah, then you look into the court." She sighed. "If only Mr. Emerson
was more tactful! We were so sorry for you at dinner."
"I think he was meaning to be kind."
"Undoubtedly he was," said Miss Bartlett.
"Mr. Beebe has just been scolding me for my suspicious nature. Of
course, I was holding back on my cousin's account."
"Of course," said the little old lady; and they murmured that one could
not be too careful with a young girl.
Lucy tried to look demure, but could not help feeling a great fool. No
one was careful with her at home; or, at all events, she had not noticed
it.
"About old Mr. Emerson--I hardly know. No, he is not tactful; yet, have
you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most
indelicate, and yet at the same time--beautiful?"
"Beautiful?" said Miss Bartlett, puzzled at the word. "Are not beauty
and delicacy the same?"
"So one would have thought," said the other helplessly. "But things are

so difficult, I sometimes think."
She proceeded no further into things, for Mr. Beebe reappeared,
looking extremely pleasant.
"Miss Bartlett," he cried, "it's all right about the rooms. I'm so glad. Mr.
Emerson was talking about it in the smoking-room, and knowing what I
did, I encouraged him to make the offer again. He has let me come and
ask you. He would be so pleased."
"Oh, Charlotte," cried Lucy to her cousin, "we must have the rooms
now. The old man is just as nice and kind as he can be."
Miss Bartlett was silent.
"I fear," said Mr. Beebe, after a pause, "that I have been officious. I
must apologize for my interference."
Gravely displeased, he turned to go. Not till then did Miss Bartlett reply:
"My own wishes, dearest Lucy, are unimportant in comparison with
yours. It would be hard indeed if I stopped you doing as you liked at
Florence, when I am only here through your kindness. If you wish me
to turn these gentlemen out of their rooms, I will do it. Would you then,
Mr. Beebe, kindly tell Mr. Emerson that I accept his kind offer, and
then conduct him to me, in order that I may thank him personally?"
She raised her voice as she spoke; it was heard all over the
drawing-room, and silenced the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. The
clergyman, inwardly cursing the female sex, bowed, and departed with
her message.
"Remember, Lucy, I alone am implicated in this. I do not wish the
acceptance to come from you. Grant me that, at all events."
Mr. Beebe was back, saying rather nervously:
"Mr. Emerson is engaged, but here is his son instead."
The young man gazed down on the three ladies, who felt seated on the
floor, so low were their chairs.
"My father," he said, "is in his bath, so you cannot thank him
personally. But any message given by you to me will be given by me to
him as soon as he comes out."
Miss Bartlett was unequal to the bath. All her barbed civilities came
forth wrong end first. Young Mr. Emerson scored a notable triumph to
the delight of Mr. Beebe and to the secret delight of Lucy.
"Poor young man!" said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had gone.
"How angry he is with his father about the rooms! It is all he can do to

keep polite."
"In half an hour or so your rooms will be ready," said Mr. Beebe. Then
looking rather thoughtfully at the two cousins, he retired to his own
rooms, to write up his philosophic diary.
"Oh, dear!" breathed the little old lady, and shuddered as if all the
winds of heaven had entered the apartment. "Gentlemen sometimes do
not realize--" Her voice faded away, but Miss Bartlett seemed to
understand and a conversation developed, in which gentlemen who did
not thoroughly realize played a principal part. Lucy, not realizing either,
was reduced to literature. Taking up Baedeker's Handbook to Northern
Italy, she committed to memory the most important dates of Florentine
History. For she was determined to enjoy herself on the morrow. Thus
the half-hour crept profitably away, and at last Miss Bartlett rose with a
sigh, and said:
"I think one might venture now. No, Lucy, do not stir. I will
superintend the move."
"How you do do everything," said Lucy.
"Naturally, dear. It is my affair."
"But I would like to help you."
"No, dear."
Charlotte's energy! And her unselfishness! She had been thus all her
life, but really, on this Italian tour, she was surpassing herself. So Lucy
felt, or strove to feel. And yet--there was a