The Girl with the Green Eyes Part 11

JINNY. [_Looking up from her letter._] Oh! what do you think?

AUSTIN. That you're the sweetest woman in the world.

JINNY. No, _darling_, I mean _who_ do you think Geoffrey says is over here and in Italy?

AUSTIN. I haven't the most remote idea! So far as _I've_ been able to observe there has been absolutely _no one_ in Italy but _you and me_.

JINNY. If you keep on talking like that, I shall kiss you!

AUSTIN. What! before the tall, white gentleman? [_Motioning to Apollo._]

I am dumb.

JINNY. [_Very lovingly._] Silly! Well!--Mrs. Cullingham and Peter are over here and have brought Ruth Chester!

AUSTIN. [_Speaking without thinking._] Then it _was_ her back.

JINNY. [_With the smallest sharpening of the look in her eye._] When?

AUSTIN. That I saw just now.

JINNY. [_With the tiniest suggestion of a strain in her voice._] You said you didn't know whom it reminded you of.

AUSTIN. Yes, I know, I didn't quite.

JINNY. But if you thought it was Ruth Chester, why not have said so?

AUSTIN. No reason, dear, I simply didn't think.

JINNY. Well-- [_Sententiously._] --_next time--think!_

AUSTIN. What else does Geoffrey say?

JINNY. Oh, nothing. The heat for two days was frightful--already they miss me more than he can say--

[_Interrupted._

AUSTIN. I'll bet.

JINNY. Father smoked nineteen cigars a day the first week I was gone.

AUSTIN. _I_ haven't _had_ to smoke _any_!

JINNY. Mercy! don't boast!--and he thinks they will all soon go to Long Island for the summer.

AUSTIN. Doesn't he say a word nor a hint at his going West?

JINNY. No, he says he may go to Newport for August, and that's all.

[_Putting away letter, and getting out others._

AUSTIN. Going to read all those?

JINNY. If you don't mind, while I rest. _Do_ you mind?

AUSTIN. Of course not, but I think while you're reading I'll just take a little turn and see if I can't come across the Cullinghams.

[_Rising._

JINNY. [_After the merest second's pause, and looking seriously at him._] Why don't you?

AUSTIN. I'll bring them here if I find them--

[_He goes out Right._

[_JINNY looks up where he went off and gazes, motionless, for a few moments. Then she throws off the mood and opens a letter._

[_Two tired Americans enter Right, a girl and her mother, MRS. LOPP and CARRIE._

MRS. LOPP. What's this, Carrie?

CARRIE. [_Looking in her Baedeker._] I don't know; I've sort of lost my place, somehow!

MRS. LOPP. Well, we must be in Room No. 3 or 4--ain't we?

CARRIE. [_Reads out._] The big statue at the end of Room No. 3 is Diana the Huntress.

MRS. LOPP. This must be it, then,--Diana! Strong-looking woman, ain't she?

CARRIE. Yes, very nice. You know she was the G.o.ddess who wouldn't let the men see her bathe.

MRS. LOPP. Mercy, Carrie! and did all the other G.o.ddesses? I don't think much of their habits. I suppose this is the same person those Italians sell on the streets at home, and call the Bather.

[_JINNY is secretly very much amused, finally she speaks._

JINNY. Excuse me, but you are in one of the cabinets--and this is the Apollo Belvedere.

MRS. LOPP. Oh, thank you very much. I guess we've got mixed up with the rooms,--seems as if there's so many.

CARRIE. [_Triumphantly._] There! I _thought_ it was a man all the time!

MRS. LOPP. Well, what with so many of the statues only being piecemeal, as it were, and so many of the men having kinder women's hair, I declare it seems as if I don't know the ladies from the gentlemen half the time.

CARRIE. Did the rest of us go through here?

JINNY. I beg your pardon?

CARRIE. Thirty-four people with a ga.s.sy guide? We got so tired hearing him talk that we jes' sneaked off by ourselves, and now we're a little scared about getting home; we belong to the Cook's Gentlemen and Ladies.

JINNY. Oh, no, the others haven't pa.s.sed through here; probably they have gone to see the pictures; you'd better go back and keep asking the attendants the way to the pictures till you get there.