Daphne | Page 7

think his single-minded devotion is beautiful. You do not know what a refuge it has been to me through all Aunt Alice's receptions and teas.
Do leave New York, and come and live with me near ancient Rome. We can easily slip back two thousand years.
I am your spoiled daughter, Daphne
There was a knock at the door.
"Avanti," called the girl.
Assunta entered, with a saffron-colored night-cap on. In her hand she held Giacomo's great brass watch, and she pointed in silence to the face, which said twelve o'clock. She put watch and candle on the table, marched to the windows, and closed and bolted them all.
"The candles are lighted in the Signorina's bedroom," she remarked.
"Thank you," said Daphne, who did not understand a word.
"The bed is prepared, and the night things are put out."
"Yes?" answered Daphne, smiling.
"The hot water will be at the door at eight in the morning."
"So many thanks!" murmured Daphne, not knowing what favor was bestowed, but knowing that if it came from Assunta it was good.
"Good-night, Signorina."
The girl's face lighted. She understood that.
"Good-night," she answered, in the Roman tongue.
Assunta muttered to herself as she lighted her way with her candle down the long hall.
"Molto intelligente, la Signorina! Only here three days, and already understands all."
"You don't need speech here," said Daphne, pulling aside the curtains of her tapestried bed a little later. "The Italians can infer all you mean from a single smile."
Down the road a peasant was merrily beating his donkey to the measure of the tune on his lips. Listening, and turning over many questions in her mind, Daphne fell asleep. A flood of sunshine awakened her in the morning, and she realized that Assunta was drawing the window curtains.
"Assunta," asked the girl, sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes, "are there many Americans here?"
"Si," answered Assunta, "very many."
"And many English?"
"Too many," said Assunta.
"Young ones?" asked the girl.
Assunta shrugged her shoulders.
"Young men?" inquired Daphne.
The peasant woman looked sharply at her, then smiled.
"I saw one man yesterday," said Daphne, her forehead puckered painfully in what Assunta mistook for a look of fear. Her carefully prepared phrases could get no nearer the problem she wished solved.
"Ma che! agnellina mia, my little lamb!" cried the peasant woman, grasping Daphne's hand in order to kiss her fingers, "you are safe, safe with us. No Americans nor English shall dare to look at the Signorina in the presence of Giacomo and me."
CHAPTER IV
lt was not a high wall, that is, not very high. Many a time in the country Daphne had climbed more formidable ones, and there was no reason why she should not try this. No one was in sight except a shepherd, watching a great flock of sheep. There was a forgotten rose garden over in that field; had Caesar planted it, or Tiberius, centuries ago? Certainly no one had tended it for a thousand years or two, and the late pink roses grew unchecked. Daphne slowly worked her way to the top of the wall; this close masonry made the proceeding more difficult than it usually was at home. She stood for a moment on the summit, glorying in the widened view, then sprang, with the lightness of a kitten, to the other side. There was a skurry of frightened sheep, and then a silence.
She knew that she was sitting on the grass, and that her left wrist pained. Some one was coming toward her.
"Are you hurt?" asked Apollo anxiously.
"Not at all," she answered, continuing to sit on the grass.
"lf you were hurt, where would it be?"
"In my wrist," said the girl, with a little groan.
The questioner kneeled beside her, and Daphne gave a start of surprise that was touched with fear.
"It isn't you?" she stammered. "You aren't the shepherd?"
A sheepskin coat disguised him. The rough hat was of soft drooping felt, like that of any shepherd watching on the hills, and in his hand he held a crook. An anxious mother-sheep was sniffing eagerly at his pockets, remembering gifts of salt.
"Apollo was a shepherd," said Daphne slowly, with wonder in her face. "He kept the flocks of King Admetus."
"You seem to be well read in the classical dictionary," remarked the stranger, with twinkling eyes. "You have them in America then?"
He was examining her wrist with practiced fingers, touching it firmly here and there.
"We have everything in America," said the girl, eyeing him dubiously.
"But no gods except money, I have heard."
"Yes, gods, and impostors too," she answered significantly.
"So I have heard," said Apollo, with composure.
The maddening thing was that she could not look away from him-- some radiance of life in his face compelled her eyes. He had thrown his hat upon the grass, and the girl could see strength and sweetness and repose in every line of forehead, lip, and chin. There was pride there, too,