At the Villa Massina by Celine Conway

Luisa is sleeping upstairs tonight.”
    “Bueno.” He paused, looking down at her without expression, except that the dark eyes were a fraction narrower than usual. “I was talking with Mario Perez in the smoking-room of the yacht this evening. He was vaguely ligero ... what you call, in the clouds. I do not blame him for that,” though to Juliet he looked as if he did, “but there was a thing he said which stayed with me. We spoke of the marriage of my estate manager, which I shall attend for an hour tomorrow in Cadiz, and in jest he mentioned that I might soon attend my own wedding. He is young, and it is unlike him to speak of what does not concern him, but he had taken an unusual quantity of champagne.”
    The stole Juliet was holding crumpled into her hand, and tension was audible in her voice. “Yes, senor?”
    “He recounted part of a conversation with you. You asked him, it seems, what would happen if I fell in love with the daughter of a fisherman.”
    A nerve throbbed visibly in Juliet’s throat. She knew that flippancy wouldn’t come off at this hour and in these circumstances, yet how else could one handle this? Bother Mario!
    “Well, it’s a point, isn’t it?” she answered reasonably. “Not for you, particularly, but for any man in your position. I know I shouldn’t have discussed you with Mario, and I apologize. I won’t do it again.”
    “I am glad of that. It is not that I mind your thinking these things, you understand? But, please, if you are truly interested, bring such questions to me yourself. I will answer them.”
    Her eyes widened. “Really? Without getting furious?”
    He smiled, with a trace of cynicism. “I cannot promise that, because you have a way of using words that occasionally reminds one of a small knife plunging about without direction but unconsciously seeking a sensitive spot. But whatever you ask, you shall have your explanation.”
    “Even of that particular question—the one Mario repeated?”
    “Yes, but not tonight. It cannot be compressed into a sentence.” He lifted a hand and for an insane couple of seconds she thought he was going to brush her cheek with it; her skin actually quivered and tensed. But he let the hand fall negligently to his side. “You must be very sleepy, my child. You look ten years old and hardly able to prop open those large grey eyes. That is what comes of ignoring the siesta. Go to bed.” Then brusquely, as he drew the door wide open, “One last word. It is unlikely that Mario Perez is falling in love with you. He is merely bewitched for the first time in his life—which is something that happens to every young man. I tell you this, senora, so that you will guard your own heart. Buenos noches.”
    He was gone. The lock snicked, and a minute later the car started up and slid away from the Villa Massina. Juliet switched off the lights and crawled upstairs to bed.
    “Jolly good,” chanted Tony next morning as he performed a laborious somersault on his bedroom floor. “Jolly, jolly, snipping, snapping good.” He sat up and watched Rina primly tidying his bookshelf. “I bet you’ll be seasick.”
    “I shan’t. I wasn’t seasick on the boat from England.”
    “But this will be a cockleshell, and it’ll smell of fish. Juliet!” he called. “You didn’t tell us what sort of boat we’re going in.”
    “I don’t know yet,” came the answer from the next room. “Luisa’s arranging for her son to take us.”
    “Then it will be a motor-boat. Goody, golly, goody.”
    Tony’s was by no means a complex personality. Nothing worried him very much and at the smallest sign of impending pleasure he let off steam, so that he was never strung up and seldom more than mildly excited. He had attended Rina’s private school for a few months and emerged untouched, and his mother had once commented with a laugh that Tony would never need to learn very much: he was going to grow into one of those engaging youths who ride roughshod over