Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/38

 dick was watching him and that she was blushing. There was an odd flicker of sympathy between them. Neither was very young and both were without experience. Suddenly he thought her appealing and young (though she must have been at least thirty-five) beside the hardness of the notorious d'Orobelli, the cold worldliness of Father d'Astier and the florid pretense of Mrs. Weatherby.

They set the statue against the wall of the garden above a soft mattress of green ilex and then, with Mrs. Weatherby floating before them in a cloud of white, they turned back toward the villa. Winnery found himself walking beside Miss Fosdick, for he already detested his hostess and was shy and frightened in the presence of such creatures as the d'Orobelli and Father d'Astier. A sense of depression still haunted them all. Once Winnery, feeling embarrassed by this unnatural silence, murmured to Miss Fosdick, "It is a beautiful thing—that statue."

To which the answer came quickly with blushes and an unexpected passion. "No, I think it's horrible."

He knew then that the story of her being a deaf-mute was not true.

They had tea in a great room painted a faded pink and decorated with a series of frescoes depicting the amorous excursions of Jupiter to the earth. These frescoes might well have been called The Apotheosis of Anatomy, for they were done by