Roman Summer Read Online Free

opened the door and went in, but Cicely lingered in the doorway, looking after the car.
    ‘He’s dreamy, isn’t he— Erle , I mean?’ she murmured. ‘I’ve been in love with him since I don’t know when — ’ an extravagance which startled Ruth and which she thought it best to ignore.
    S he showed Cicely to her room, with which Cicely professed to be delighted, then donned an apron and set about preparing the supper she had planned. She was putting out a bottle of wine when Cicely came into the room, her face falling at sight of the laid table.
    ‘Oh, couldn’t we go out somewhere tonight—my first night?’ she pleaded. ‘Somewhere gay. Wouldn’t Erle take us?’
    ‘I f he’d meant to, he’d have invited us when we were with him. ’ Ruth demurred.
    ‘ I don’t know. He might have thought you had something planned for me. Could I ring him and see what he says?’
    Ruth thought of the offices she had visited, and had begun , ‘I doubt if he’ll be there — ’ when she realized Cicely meant to ring his apartment, the address of which she did not know. When told so, Cicely said, ‘Well, he’ll be in the book, won’t he? May I look? How do you ring up in Italy anyway? Will you do it for me?’
    Ruth got the number for her, handing her the receiver. ‘If you say “ Pronto ” when he answers, he’ll think you’ve begun to learn some Italian already,’ she smiled, and left the room.
    When she came back a few minutes later Cicely, looking crestfallen, had rung off. ‘I didn’t get him,’ she announced.
    ‘He was out?’
    ‘I don’t know. An Italian woman answered. She said “ Pronto ” and then what sounded like her name—Stella Somebody—and waited. Then, when I said—in Eng l ish, of course—was Erle there, she said, in English too, but with a foreign accent, “He is not free” and hung up on me. Shall I try again?’
    ‘I shouldn’t, if I were you,’ Ruth advised.
    ‘Well, will you?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Why not? And who was that woman?’
    ‘Because if he’d wanted me to reach him at his private address he’d have given it to me. And “Stella”, I think, must be Stella Parioli, a famous singer who’s one of his clients. She sings mezzo-soprano roles like Carmen.’
    ‘Never heard of her,’ said Cicely blun tl y. ‘I suppose that makes me a philistine. But what was she doing in Erle ’s apartment?’
    Ruth’s gesture was of supreme ignorance. ‘My dear girl, how do I know? Perhaps she could say he wasn’t free because she knew they were going on somewhere.’
    ‘Or were spending the evening there, just the two of them,’ forecast Cicely darkly. ‘Anyway, what do we do now?’
    Ruth said briskly, ‘I suggest we have our supper as I planned—it’s just ready. And afterwards we’ll go for a walk round the houses and you can have your first taste of Rome. We won’t have coffee here, we’ll have it out.’
    ‘Oh, O.K.’ But Cicely could not leave her grievance. ‘In Erle ’s apartment at night; answering his telephone; sounding as if she owned him! “He is not free”,’ she mimicked the accent cruelly. ‘So what do you suppose that makes this Stella person? His current girl-friend at least?’
    Ruth said, ‘Again I don’t know.’ As she went to bring in the dishes she was wondering at her reluctance to feel sure just what was the relationship between Erle and Stella Parioli. Jam ...?

 
    CHAPTER TWO
    As Erle had warned, Cicely showed no warm interest in the antiquities of Rome. It was the city of the luxurious shops, the shabby palazzos of the district across the river, the thousand fountains, and the teeming crowds who lived a large part of their lives on the sunny streets which intrigued her most.
    Ruth was disappointed, for it was the blending of the ancient and the modern which fascinated her—the ruins of the Colosseum and of the Forum at the very heart of the ci ty centre; the noisy scooters and the fussy runabout cars darting about on streets and