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diff --git a/39170.txt b/39170.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4bcdae3 --- /dev/null +++ b/39170.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9877 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dorothy and other Italian Stories, by +Constance Fenimore Woolson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license + + +Title: Dorothy and other Italian Stories + +Author: Constance Fenimore Woolson + +Release Date: March 16, 2012 [EBook #39170] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOROTHY AND OTHER ITALIAN STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: DOROTHY] + + + + +DOROTHY + +AND + +OTHER ITALIAN STORIES + +BY + +CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON + +ILLUSTRATED + +[Illustration] + +NEW YORK +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS +1896 + +By CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON. + +MENTONE, CAIRO, AND +CORFU. Ill'd. $1 75. + +ANNE. Illustrated. $1 25. + +EAST ANGELS. $1 25. + +JUPITER LIGHTS. $1 25. + +THE FRONT YARD, Etc. Illustrated. $1 25. + +HORACE CHASE. $1 25. + +CASTLE NOWHERE. $1 00. + +RODMAN THE KEEPER. $1 00. + +FOR THE MAJOR. Illustrated. $1 00. + +PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. + +Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All rights reserved. + + + + +NOTE + +Of the stories contained in this volume, "A Florentine Experiment" was +originally published in the _Atlantic Monthly_, and the others in +HARPER'S MAGAZINE. + + + + +CONTENTS PAGE + +DOROTHY 1 + +A TRANSPLANTED BOY 60 + +A FLORENTINE EXPERIMENT 122 + +A WAITRESS 187 + +AT THE CHATEAU OF CORINNE 237 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +DOROTHY _Frontispiece_ + +THE VILLA DORIO _Facing page_ 4 + +"AND AGAIN SHE LOOKED UP AT HIM" " " 22 + +"'I MEAN THAT I SHALL SEE HIM VERY SOON NOW'" " " 56 + +"'OH, HOW EARLY YOU'VE COME UP!' SAID MASO" " " 70 + +"'MR. TIBER, BEG!'" " " 72 + +"WE MUST SINK OR SWIM TOGETHER, MASO" " " 90 + +BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WATERHOUSE " " 96 + +TEA IN THE GARDEN " " 188 + +"THE DOG WAS FOLLOWING AT THE EXTREME LENGTH +OF HIS CORD" " " 218 + + + + +DOROTHY + + +I + +As it was Saturday, many visitors came to the villa, Giuseppe receiving +them at the open door, and waving them across the court or up the stone +stairway, according to their apparent inclination, murmuring as he did +so: "To the garden; the Signora North!" "To the salon; the Signora +Tracy!" with his most inviting smiles. Dorothy probably was with Mrs. +North in the garden. And everybody knew that the tea and the comfortable +chairs were up-stairs. The company therefore divided itself, the young +people as far as possible, the men who like to appear young, and the +mothers who have heavier cares than the effects of open-air light on a +middle-aged complexion, crossing the paved quadrangle to the north hall, +while the old ladies and the ladies (not so old) who detest gardens +ascended the stairs, accompanied by, first, the contented husbands; +second, the well-trained husbands; third, other men, bond or free, who +cherish no fondness for damp belvederes, for grassy mounds, or for +poising themselves on a parapet which has a yawning abyss below. + +Giuseppe was the gardener; he became a footman once a week, that is, on +Saturday afternoons, when the American ladies of the Villa Dorio +received those of their friends who cared to come to their hill-top +above the Roman Gate of Florence--a hill-top bearing the appropriate +name of Bellosguardo. For fair indeed is the outlook from that supremely +blessed plateau, whether towards the north, south, east, or west, with +perhaps an especial loveliness towards the west, where the Arno winds +down to the sea. Enchanting as is this Occidental landscape, Mrs. Tracy +had ended by escaping from it. + +"When each new person begins: 'Oh, what lovely shadows!' 'Oh, the +Carrara Mountains!' we cannot look at each other, Laura and I," she +explained; "it's like the two Roman what-do-you-call-ems--augurs. I'm +incapable of saying another word about the Carrara Mountains, Laura; and +so, after this, I shall leave them to you." + +This was the cause of Giuseppe's indicating the drawing-room, and not +the garden, as Mrs. Tracy's domain. + +It was not difficult for Giuseppe to turn himself into a footman; +Raffaello, the butler (or cameriere), could have turned himself into a +coachman, a cook, a laundress, a gardener, or even a parlor-maid, if +occasion had so required; for Italian servants can do anything. And if +Mrs. Sebright sighed, "Ah, but so badly!" (which was partly true from +the English point of view) the Americans at least could respond, "Yes, +but so easily!" In truth, it was not precisely in accordance with the +English standard to be welcomed by smiles of personal recognition from +the footman at the door, nor to have the tea offered by the butler with +an urgent hospitality which was almost tender. But Italy is not England; +radiant smiles from the servants accord perhaps with radiant sunshine +from the sky, both things being unknown at home. As for the American +standard, it does not exist, save as a vacillating pennon. + +The Villa Dorio is a large, ancient structure of pale yellow hue; as is +often the case in Tuscany, its facade rises directly from the roadway, +so that any one can drive to the door, and knock by simply leaning from +the carriage. But privacy is preserved all the same by the massive +thickness of the stone walls, by the stern iron cages over the lofty +lower windows, and by an entrance portal which resembles the gateway of +a fortress. The villa, which, in the shape of a parallelogram, extends +round an open court within, is large enough for five or six families; +for in the old days, according to the patriarchal Italian custom, the +married sons of the house, with their wives and children, were all +gathered under its roof. In these later years its tenants have been +foreigners, for the most part people of English and American +birth--members of that band of pilgrims from the land of fog and the +land of haste, who, having once fallen under the spell of Italy, the +sorcery of that loveliest of countries, return thither again and yet +again, sometimes unconscious of their thraldom, sometimes calling it +staying for the education of the children, but seldom pronouncing the +frank word "living." Americans who have stayed in this way for twenty +years or more are heard remarking, in solemn tones, "In case I die over +here, I am to be taken home to my own country for burial; nothing less +could content me." This post-mortem patriotism probably soothes the +conscience. + +Upon the Saturday already mentioned the Villa Dorio had but one tenant; +for Mrs. Tracy had taken the entire place for a year--the year 1881. +She could not occupy it all, even with the assistance of Mrs. North and +Dorothy, for there were fifty rooms, besides five kitchens, a chapel, +and an orange-house; she had selected, therefore, the range of +apartments up-stairs which looked towards the south and west, and the +long, frescoed, echoing spaces that remained were left to the ghosts. +For there was a ghost, who clanked chains. The spectre of Belmonte, +another villa near by, was more interesting; he was a monk in a brown +gown, who glided at midnight up the great stairway without a sound, on +his way to the tower. The American ladies had chosen for their use the +northwestern garden. For the Villa Dorio has more than one garden; and +it has also vineyards, olive groves, and the fields of the podere, or +farm, in the valley below, with their two fountains, and the little +chapel of the Holy Well. The northwestern garden is an enchanting spot. +It is not large, and that adds to the charm, for its secluded nearness, +so purely personal to the occupier, yet overhangs, or seems to, a full +half of Tuscany; from the parapet the vast landscape below rolls towards +the sunset as wide and far-stretching as the hidden shelf, one's +standing-point, is private and small. When one ceases to look at the +view--if one ever does cease--one perceives that the nook has no formal +flower-beds; grass, dotted with the pink daisies of Italy, stretches +from the house walls to the edge; here and there are rose-bushes, +pomegranates, oleanders, and laurel, but all are half wild. The +encircling parapet is breast-high; but, by leaning over, one sees that +on the outside the ancient stones go plunging down, in course after +course, to a second level far below, the parapet being in reality the +top of a massive retaining-wall. At the corner where this rampart turns +northward is perched a little belvedere, or arbor, with vines clambering +over it. It was upon this parapet, with its dizzy outer descent, that +the younger visitors were accustomed to perch themselves when they came +to Villa Dorio. And Dorothy herself generally led them in the dangerous +experiment. But one could never think of Dorothy as falling; her supple +figure conveyed the idea that she could fly--almost--so lightly was it +poised upon her little feet; in any case, one felt sure that even if she +should take the fancy to throw herself off, she would float to the lower +slope as lightly as thistle-down. The case was different regarding the +Misses Sebright; they, too, were handsome girls, but they would +certainly go down like rocks. And as for Rose Hatherbury, attenuated +though she was, there would be, one felt certain, no floating; Rose +would cut the air like a needle in her swift descent. Rose was thin (her +aunts, the Misses Wood, called it slender); she was a tall girl of +twenty-five, who ought to have been beautiful, for her features were +well cut and her blue eyes lustrous, while her complexion was delicately +fair. Yet somehow all this was without charm. People who liked her said +that the charm would come. The Misses Wood, however, spent no time in +anticipation; to them the charm was already there; they had always +believed that their niece was without a fault. These ladies had come to +Florence twenty years before from Providence, Rhode Island; and they had +remained, as they said, "for art" (they copied as amateurs in the Uffizi +Gallery). Of late they had begun to ask themselves whether art would be +enough for Rose. + +At five o'clock on this April afternoon the three Misses Sebright, Rose, +Owen Charrington--a pink-cheeked young Englishman, long and +strong--Wadsworth Brunetti, and Dorothy were all perched upon the +parapet, while Miss Maria Wood hovered near, pretending to look for +daisies, but in reality ready to catch Rose by the ankles in case she +should lose her balance. Miss Jane Wood was sitting with Mrs. North in +the aguish belvedere. With remarkable unanimity, the group of men near +by had declared that, in order to see the view, one must stand. + +"Your garden is like an opera-box, Mrs. North," said Stephen Lefevre; +"you sit here at your ease, and see the whole play of morning, noon, and +night sweeping over Tuscany." + +"A view like this is such a humanizer!" remarked Julian Grimston, +thoughtfully. "One might indeed call it a hauberk." + +To this mysterious comparison Miss Jane Wood responded, cheerfully, +"Quite so." She did not ask for explanations (Julian's explanations were +serious affairs); she spoke merely on general principles; for the Misses +Wood considered Julian "such an earnest creature!" Julian, a wizened +little American of uncertain age, was protected by a handsome mother, +who possessed a firm eye and a man-like mouth; this lady had almost +secured for her son an Italian countess of large circumference and +ancient name. Julian so far held back; but he would yet go forward. + +"Its most admirable quality, to my mind, is that it's here," Mr. +Illingsworth remarked, after Julian's "hauberk." "Generally, when there +is a noble view, one has to go noble miles to see it; one has to be out +all day, and eat hard-boiled eggs on the grass. You can't think how I +loathe hard-boiled eggs! Or else one has to sleep in some impossible +place, and be routed out at dawn. _Can_ any one admire anything at +dawn?" + +[Illustration: THE VILLA DORIO] + +"There isn't much dawn in this," answered Daniel Ashcraft. "Up to noon +the view's all mist, and at noon everything looks too near. It doesn't +amount to much before four o'clock, and only shows out all its points as +the sun goes down." + +"And have you discovered that, Mr. Ashcraft, on your third day in +Florence?" demanded Illingsworth, with admiration. "But it's only +another instance of the quick intelligence of your wonderful nation. Now +I have lived in the town for twenty-five years, and have never noticed +that this Carrara view was an afternoon affair. Yet so it is--so it is!" + +Daniel Ashcraft surveyed the Englishman for a moment. "Oh yes--our quick +intelligence. It makes us feel as though we were being exhibited. +Sixpence a head." + +More visitors appeared; by half-past five there were forty persons in +the garden. Mrs. North received them all very graciously without +stirring from her belvedere. Dorothy, however, was everywhere, like a +sprite; and wherever Dorothy was Owen Charrington soon appeared. As for +Wadsworth Brunetti, his method was more direct--he never left her side. + +"They are both her _shadows_," said Beatrice Sebright, in an undertone, +to Rose Hatherbury, as they sat perched side by side on the parapet. + +"She is welcome to them," answered Rose. "A burly creature like Owen; +and that Waddy!" + +"Waddy?" repeated Beatrice, inquiringly. + +"A simpleton," pronounced Rose, with decision. + +Honest Beatrice surveyed her companion with wonder, into which crept +something almost like envy; if she, Beatrice, could only think that Owen +was burly; and if it were but possible, by trying hard, to regard +Wadsworth Brunetti as a simpleton, how much easier life would be! As it +was, she was convinced that Owen was not burly at all, but only +athletic. And as to Waddy Brunetti, he was simply Raphael's young St. +John in the Tribune of the Uffizi--the St. John at twenty-two, and in +the attire of to-day. Wadsworth Brunetti's American mother had done her +best to make an American of her only child; Waddy could speak the +language of New York (when he chose); but in all other respects--his +ideas, his manner, his intonations, his hair arranged after the fashion +of King Humbert's, his shoes, his collar and gloves--he was as much a +Florentine as his father. The Misses Sebright were not mistaken in their +estimation of his appearance; he was exceedingly handsome. And the +adverb is used advisedly, for his beauty exceeded that degree of good +looks which is, on the whole, the best for every-day use; one hardly +knew what to do with young Brunetti in any company, for he was always so +much handsomer than the other guests, whether women or men. + +"Isn't it enough that he allows himself to be called Waddy?" Rose had +demanded in the same contemptuous undertone. "Waddy--wadding. What a +name!" + +"But Madame Brunetti tells us that Wadsworth is one of the very best of +American names?" objected Beatrice, timidly, still clinging to her idol. + +"She's mad; there are no best American names--unless one cares for those +attached to the Declaration of Independence. The thing is, the best +American men; and do you call Waddy that?" + +Beatrice did. But she dared not confess it. + +"Dorothy, I have forgotten my shawl," said Mrs. North, as Dorothy +happened to pass the arbor. + +"I'll go for it," said Charrington. + +"Is it in the drawing-room?" inquired Julian Grimston. "A blue and +white, with knotted fringe?" + +Dorothy, meanwhile, was crossing the grass towards the house; Lefevre +followed her; Waddy accompanied her. + +"Nobody can get it but Dorothy--thanks; it is in my own room," said Mrs. +North. + +Charrington and Julian paused; Lefevre came back. Mrs. North said to +Lefevre, "Praise my prudence in sending for a shawl." Then she added, +laughing, "You dare not; prudence is so elderly!" + +She could afford to make a joke of age; tall, thin, with abundant +drab-colored hair and a smooth complexion, she did not look more than +thirty-five, though she was in reality ten years older. She was a widow; +her husband, Richard North, had been an officer in the American navy, +and Dorothy was her step-daughter. + +Dorothy and Waddy had gone on, and were now entering the north hall. +This vacant stone-floored apartment, as large as a ball-room, with a +vaulted ceiling twenty-four feet high, was the home of an energetic +echo; spoken words were repeated with unexpected force, in accents +musical but mocking. It was one thing for Waddy to murmur, "Give me but +a grain of hope, only a grain," in pleading tones, and another to have +the murmur come back like an opera chorus. Dorothy paused demurely, as +if waiting for the conclusion of the sentence. But her picturesque +suitor, still hearing his own roaring "grrrrain," bit his lips and tried +to hasten their steps towards the other door. + +"Oh, I thought you had something to say!" remarked Dorothy, innocently, +when they reached the arcade within. "But you never have, have you." + +And with this she crossed the quadrangle to welcome four new guests who +were about to ascend the stairway in answer to Giuseppe's "The salon! +Signora Tracy!" Waddy went up the stairs also. But he could not hope to +follow to the remote region of Mrs. North's chamber, so he accompanied +the new guests through the anterooms to the drawing-room at the end of +the suite, where Mrs. Tracy, the second hostess, received them all with +cordial greetings. Mrs. Tracy's years were fifty. She hoped that she was +fine-looking, that epithet being sometimes applied to tall persons who +hold up their heads, even if they are stout; even, too, if their noses +are not long enough for classical requirements. She certainly held up +her head. And she was always very well dressed; so well that it was too +well. After saying a few words to Waddy, she passed him on to Miss +Philipps, who stood near her. Felicia Philipps despised the beautiful +youth. But she was willing to look at him for a few minutes as one looks +at--a statue? Oh no, that would never have been Felicia's word; at +wax-works, that was more like it; Felicia had a sharp tongue. She now +chaffed the wax-works a little, pretending to compliment its voice; for +Waddy could sing. + +"As I sing too, Mr. Brunetti, we're companions in soul," she said. "But, +unfortunately, when _I_ sing, my soul does not come to my eyes, as yours +does." + +"The comfort of Waddy is that you can make mince-meat of him to his +face, when you feel savage, and he never knows it," she had once +remarked. + +There was, however, another side to this: Waddy did not know, very +possibly, but the reason was that he never paid sufficient heed to Miss +Felicia Philipps to comprehend what she might be saying, good or bad; to +his mind, Felicia was only "that old maid." Mrs. Tracy, for the moment +not called upon to extend her tightly gloved hand to either arriving or +departing guests, expanded her fingers furtively, in order to rest them, +and glanced about her. Her rooms were full; there was a steady murmur of +conversation; the air was filled with the perfume of flowers and the +aroma of tea, and there were suggestions also of the _petits fours_, the +_bouchees aux confitures_, and the delicate Italian sandwiches which +Raffaello was carrying about with the air of an affectionate younger +brother. Waddy, who cherished a vision of Dorothy coming to get a cup of +tea for her mother (Waddy had noticed upon other Saturdays that "my +shawl" meant tea), detached himself as soon as he could from Felicia, +and made his way towards the tea-table in the opposite corner. Here Nora +Sebright was standing behind a resplendent samovar. Mrs. Tracy had +purchased this decorative steam-engine in Russia; but she had not dared +to use it until Nora, seeing it at the villa one day, had offered to +teach her its mysteries. Mrs. Tracy never learned them; but Nora came up +every Saturday, and made the tea in her neat, exact way. She was number +one of the Misses Sebright. Six sisters followed her. But this need not +have meant that Nora was very mature, because hardly more than a year +separated the majority of the Sebright girls (one could say the +majority of them or the minority, there were so many). As it happened, +however, Nora was twenty-nine, although Peggy, the next one, was barely +twenty-five; for the six younger sisters were between that age and +sixteen. These younger girls were tall, blooming, and handsome. Nora was +small, insignificant, and pale; but her eyes were charming, if one took +the trouble to look at them, and there was something pretty in her soft, +dark hair, put back plainly and primly behind her ears, with a smooth +parting in front; one felt sure that she did not arrange it in that way +from a pious contentment with her own appearance, but rather from some +shy little ideal of her own, which she would never tell. + +"Do you think they have all had tea?" she was saying anxiously as Waddy +came up. She addressed a gentleman by her side who had evidently been +acting as her assistant. + +"I think so," he answered, looking about the room with almost as much +solicitude as her own. + +Her face cleared; she laughed. "It's so kind of you! You have carried +cups all the afternoon." + +"I only hope I haven't broken any," responded her companion, still with +a trace of responsibility in his tone. + +"It is terribly dangerous, with so many people pushing against one. How +you can do it so cleverly, I can't think. But indeed, Mr. Mackenzie, I +do not believe you _could_ let anything drop," Nora went on, paying him +her highest compliment. "This is the fourth Saturday you have given to +these teacups; I am afraid it has been tiresome. Raffaello ought to do +it all; but Italian servants--" + +"They are not like yours in England; I can understand that. But +Raffaello, now-- Raffaello has seemed to me rather a good fellow," said +Mackenzie. + +At this moment Dorothy, carrying a shawl, appeared at the door; she made +her way to the table. "May I have some tea, Miss Sebright, please, for +mamma?" + +"I will carry it for you," said Waddy, eagerly. + +"Won't you take some tea yourself, Miss Dorothy, before you go back to +the garden?" suggested Mackenzie, in his deferential tones. + +"I? Do you think I take tea? And how can you like it, Mr. Mackenzie? +You're not an Englishman." + +Waddy thanked fate that his mother had entered human existence in New +York. Charrington, who was now near the table also, only laughed +good-naturedly. On the whole he was of the opinion that Dorothy liked +him. Her ideas about tea, or about other English customs, were not +important; he could alter them. + +"I am afraid I must acknowledge that I do like it," Mackenzie had +answered. + +"Do you take it in the morning--for breakfast?" inquired Dorothy, with +the air of a judge. + +Mackenzie confessed that he did. + +"Then you are lost. Oh, coffee, lovely coffee of home!" Dorothy went on. +"Coffee that fills the house at breakfast-time with its delicious +fragrance. Not black, as the Italians make it. Not drowned in boiled +milk, as the French drink it. As for the English beverage-- But ours, the +American--brown, strong, and with real cream! I wish I had a cup of it +now--three cups--and six buckwheat cakes with maple syrup!" + +The contrast between this evoked repast and the girl herself was so +comical that the Americans who heard her broke into a laugh. Dorothy +was very slight; there was something ethereal in her appearance, +although the color in her cheeks, the brilliancy of her hazel eyes, and +the bright hue of her chestnut hair indicated a vivid vitality. As a +whole, she was charmingly pretty. The Americans who had laughed were but +two-- Mackenzie himself and Stephen Lefevre, who had now joined the +group. Lefevre wished that his adorable little countrywoman would not +say "lovely coffee." But Lefevre was, no doubt, a purist. + +Felicia Philipps now came to the table with out-stretched hands. "_Poor_ +Nora, I have only just observed how tired you are! You must have one of +your fearful headaches?" + +"Oh dear, no," answered Nora, surprised. "I haven't a headache in the +least." + +"Fancy! But you are overtired without knowing it; you must be, or you +would not look so pale. I am sure Mr. Mackenzie sees it. Don't you +think, Mr. Mackenzie, that Miss Sebright has been here quite long +enough? I'm so anxious to relieve her." + +"It's very good of you, I'm sure," replied Mackenzie. + +And then Felicia, pulling off her gloves, came round behind the table +and took possession of the place with an amiability and a rearrangement +of the cups that defied opposition. + +"I am afraid this tea will be cold," Waddy meanwhile had suggested to +Dorothy. + +"Yes, do take it down to mamma, Mr. Brunetti. And take this shawl too, +won't you?" + +"Aren't you coming?" said Waddy, in a discomfited voice, as, shawl in +one hand and teacup in the other, he stood waiting. + +"In five minutes; I have taken a fancy for spending just five minutes in +that big yellow chair." + +"That is wise; I'm very pleased to hear you say it," remarked Nora, who, +though dispossessed, still lingered near. "We come up here, stay awhile, +and then go away; but you are kept on your feet for three or four hours +at a time." + +"_You_ don't go away, do you, Nora?" said Felicia. "You are so kind. I +dare say you have been here since noon?" + +"The samovar--" began Nora. + +"Dear samovar!" commented Felicia, smiling. + +And then Nora, at last understanding the sarcasm of the tone, left the +table and crossed the room, her cheeks no longer colorless. Alan +Mackenzie, who had heard this little dialogue, thought that the two +ladies had been very kind to each other. + +Mrs. Tracy, on her way back from the anteroom, whither she had gone to +escort Julian Grimston's mother, who was taking leave, now stopped at +the tea-table. She drew Felicia aside. "Stay and dine with us, won't +you? We are always tired on Saturday evenings, and it will be delightful +to hear you sing. The carriage shall take you home." + +"You're awfully good," Felicia answered. "But don't trouble to send out +the carriage. Ask Mr. Mackenzie too. He will be enchanted to stay, and +then we can go down together on foot, and nobody need be bothered." + +"You don't mind?" + +"At _my_ age!" answered Felicia, smiling. Felicia's smile always had a +slightly hungry look. + +"_We_ shouldn't think of it. But then we're Americans," responded Mrs. +Tracy. "Over here no woman seems to be safely old." + +"Is that why so many of you come over?" demanded Felicia, who at heart +detested all American women, especially those who, like the tenants of +Villa Dorio, had plenty of money at their disposal. Then curbing her +tongue, she added, "What you say is true of wives and widows. But I +assure you that old maids are shelved over here as soon and as +completely as they are with you in Oregon." + +"In Oregon!" repeated Mrs. Tracy. "You English are too extraordinary." +And she went away, laughing. + +During this conversation Dorothy was leaning back in the gold-colored +easy-chair; Charrington and Stephen Lefevre were standing beside her, +and presently Julian Grimston joined the group, rubbing his dry little +hands together gleefully, and murmuring to himself something that +sounded like "Aha! aha!" + +"Is it the pure joy of living, Mr. Grimston?" Dorothy inquired. For this +was said to have been Julian's answer when an acquaintance, upon passing +him in the street one day and overhearing him ahaing, had asked what it +meant. + +At this moment Waddy came from the anteroom. "And mamma's tea?" Dorothy +asked. + +"Raffaello was just going down; I gave it to him." + +"Oh, thanks. I'm thinking how little mamma will like that." And Dorothy +played thoughtfully a soundless tune with her right hand upon the arm of +the easy-chair. + +Waddy pursed up his lips in an inaudible whistle. Then with swift step +he left the room. + +Five minutes later he was back again. "It's all right. I caught up with +him," he said, briefly. + +"Now mark that," began Charrington. "This impostor gave those things to +Mrs. North, I'll warrant, with rolling eyes that seemed to say that even +to have touched them had been a huge joy." Waddy did not defend himself. +"I wouldn't be a cherub, as you are, even if I could," went on +Charrington. "You belong to Christmas-cards--your chin on your clasped +hands. What is a cherub out of business--a cherub going about clothed, +and with an umbrella? It's ghastly." + +Mrs. Tracy to Miss Jane Wood: "How do you do, Miss Wood?" + +To Miss Maria: "_How_ do you do?" + +Behind the Misses Wood came Rose Hatherbury and three of the Misses +Sebright, who were tired of sitting on the wall. Felicia, very busy, +sent tea to them all, Mackenzie carrying the cups. Raffaello presented +himself at the table to assist. Felicia did not know much Italian, but +she did know her own mind, and she wished for no second assistant; she +therefore said to Raffaello, in an undertone, but with decision, "Andate +via!" Raffaello, astounded by this unexpected "Clear out!" gazed at her +for a moment with wild eyes, and then escaped from the room. + +The tea was not good--so the Misses Wood thought as they tried to sip +it; Nora Sebright, who was now walking with quick steps through the Via +Romana on her way home, would have been distressed to see how bad it +was. + +"I wonder if there is any one in the garden now?" said Dorothy. + +"There are fifty-seven persons," answered Rose, who had seated herself +on a sofa near. "I know, because I counted them." + +"Then I must go down," said Dorothy, rising. + +She nodded to Rose and to the others and left the room, Waddy following +as usual. Two minutes later, Charrington, Julian Grimston, and Stephen +Lefevre had also disappeared. + +Miss Jane Wood (having given up the tea) now began, graciously, "Did you +get your ride this morning, Mr. Charrington?" + +"Aunt Jane, Mr. Charrington is not here now," said Rose, in her distinct +tones. + +"Oh," said Miss Jane, bewildered, and fumbling quickly for her +eye-glasses, which she had removed when she took her teacup. "He was +here a moment ago; I saw him." + +"What wonderful elocutionary powers Miss Hatherbury has!" said Felicia, +in an aside, to Mackenzie. "I really think she could be heard in the +largest hall." + +"Upon my word, now that you mention it, I believe she could," answered +Mackenzie, admiringly. + +Rose divined that she was the subject of Felicia's aside. She said to +her aunt, in an interested tone, "How well one sees the Belmonte tower +from here!" + +Miss Jane came to look, and then (in order that she should see to +advantage) her niece pulled the cord and rolled the window-shade up to +the top, letting in a broad shaft of sunset light, which fell directly +across the tea-table and the persons in attendance there. Rose took this +moment to carry her aunt's cup back to the table; and, having put it +down, she remained standing by Felicia's side while she began, +composedly, a conversation with Alan Mackenzie. Mackenzie responded: +his head immediately assumed the little bend which with him signified +devoted listening; he stood, meanwhile, exactly where Rose had intended +that he should stand--namely, in front of the two ladies, facing them. +Felicia, even in her youth, had had no beauty; now all the faults of her +sharp features were pitilessly magnified by the same clear light which +brought out the fine-grained purity of Rose's complexion and turned her +golden hair into glittering glory. Felicia was too intelligent to +cherish illusions about her appearance; she quivered under the radiance +in which the golden motes danced; she too had color now, but it was an +ugly vermilion in spots and streaks. She glanced at Mackenzie; he was +listening to Rose; now he was offering one of his civil little +questions--those attentive, never-failing small interrogatories for +which he was celebrated. + +"I should like to strangle him!" thought the older woman, bitterly. "I +believe he would keep up those everlasting little questions on his +death-bed. In reality, he doesn't care the turn of his finger for that +screaming popinjay. Yet he stands there and listens to her, and will do +it unflinchingly as long as she talks, if it's all night." + +The popinjay at this moment turned, and fired back at Felicia her own +gun. "You are tired, Miss Philipps. Doesn't she look tired, Mr. +Mackenzie?" + +Mackenzie turned obediently; he inspected Felicia's flushed face. +"Yes--ah, really, I am afraid you are tired," he said, kindly. + +Felicia, unable to bear his gaze, seized her gloves and fled. + +But the popinjay could not sing, and had no invitation to stay. Alan +Mackenzie loved music. As he never spoke of the love, but few persons +had discovered it; Felicia was one of the few. + +It was nearly eleven o'clock before the song began. They had gone out, +after dinner, to the small stone terrace that opened from the +drawing-room, in order to look at the valley by the light of the moon. +"For we really like our view when we don't have to talk about it," Mrs. +Tracy explained. After a while, "Come, Felicia," she said. + +Felicia went within and opened the piano; Mrs. Tracy, following, sank +into the easiest chair; Mrs. North placed herself in the doorway, with +her face towards the moonlight. Dorothy remained outside, using the +hammock as a swing, pushing herself to and fro slowly by a touch on the +parapet now and then. On the other side of the terrace, in a +garden-chair, sat the second guest. + +Felicia's voice was a contralto which had not a range of many notes, but +each one of the notes was perfect. Her singing was for a room only; it +was intimate, personal; perhaps too personal sometimes. The words were, +for her, a part of it as much as the melody. + + "Through the long days and years + What will my loved one be, + Parted from me. + Through the long days and years?" + +The music upon which these words were borne was indescribably sweet. +Dorothy had stopped swinging. But it was the melody that held her +vaguely given attention; she paid no heed to the spoken syllables. + + "Never on earth again + Shall I before her stand, + Touch lip or hand, + Never on earth again," + +sang the voice, the strains floating out to the moonlight in a passion +of sorrow. Dorothy was now looking at the tower of Belmonte, near by. "I +wish our villa had a tower," was the thought in her mind. As her gaze +turned, she saw that Mackenzie's eyes were resting upon her, and she +smiled back at him, making a mute little gesture of applause. + + "But while my darling lives, + Peaceful I journey on, + Not quite alone, + Not while my darling lives." + +And now the music rose to that last courage, that acceptance of grief as +the daily portion of one's life, which is the highest pathos. Then there +was a silence. + +Dorothy made her little motion of applause again, save that this time +the applause was audible; the words on her lips, ready to utter, were, +"How pretty that is!" Perhaps Mackenzie divined what these words would +be, for, with a quick movement, he rose and went to the end of the +terrace, where he stood with his back towards her, looking down the +valley. But Dorothy had accomplished her duty; she was perfectly willing +to be silent; she sank lazily back in the hammock again, and resumed her +swinging. + +"Mr. Mackenzie, wasn't that exquisite?" said Mrs. Tracy's voice within. + +Mackenzie, thus summoned, crossed the terrace and re-entered the +drawing-room. Felicia kept her seat at the piano; as Mrs. Tracy was +standing behind her, and as Mrs. North's head was turned away, she was +freed for the moment from feminine observation, and she therefore gave +herself the luxury of letting all the pathos and passion with which she +had sung remain unsubdued in her eyes, which, met his as he came up. + +"Lovely, wasn't it? But so sad," continued Mrs. Tracy. + +"Yes," Mackenzie answered; "it _is_ rather sad." Then, "What song is it, +Miss Philipps?" he inquired. "I do not remember having heard it before." + +"'Through the long days,'" answered Felicia, who was now looking at the +piano keys. + +"Ah! And the composer?" + +"Francis Boott." + +"Ah! Francis Boott, yes. And the words?" His head had now its attentive +little bend. + +"They are by John Hay." To herself she added: "You _shall_ stop your +little questions; you _shall_ say something different!" And again she +looked up at him, her eyes strangely lustrous. + +And then at last he did say, "May I take the music home with me? You +shall have it again to-morrow. It is a very beautiful song." + +Felicia rolled up the sheet and gave it to him, her hand slightly rigid +as she did so from repressed emotion. + +At midnight the two guests took leave, Mrs. Tracy accompanying them down +to the entrance portal. The irregular open space, or piazza, before the +house had a weird appearance; the roadway looked like beaten silver; the +short grass had the hue and gleam of new tin; the atmosphere all about +was as visibly white as it is visibly black on a dark night. + +[Illustration: "AND AGAIN SHE LOOKED UP AT HIM"] + +"It's the moment exactly for our ghost to come out and clank his +chains," said the lady of the house. "This intensely white moonlight is +positively creepy; it is made for hobgoblins and sheeted spectres; the +Belmonte monk must certainly be dancing on the top of his tower." + +"Oh no," said Felicia; "it's St. Mark's eve, so we're all under good +protection. Hear the nightingales." + +She was in high spirits; her words came out between little laughs like +giggles. Mrs. Tracy watched the two figures cross the grass and turn +down the narrow passage whence the road descends in zigzags to Florence. + +"Poor Felicia," she said, when she had returned up the stairs to the +drawing-room; "she is talking about St. Mark's eve, in order, I suppose, +to bring up the idea of St. Agnes's. It's late, isn't it? They must want +to walk!" + +"They?" said Mrs. North. "_She._" + +"Well, then, I wish she could," responded Mrs. Tracy. Going to the +terrace door, she looked out. "Where is Dorothy?" + +"I sent her to bed; she was almost asleep in the hammock. If there is +one thing she likes better than another, it is to curl herself up in +some impossible place and fall asleep. Would you mind closing the glass +doors? The nightingales hoot so." + +Mrs. Tracy closed and fastened the terrace entrance for the night. + +"What do you mean by saying that you wish she could?" Mrs. North went +on. "You wouldn't have Alan Mackenzie marry that plain-looking, +ill-tempered old maid, would you?" + +"Perhaps she is ill-tempered just because she is an old maid, Laura. And +as to looks--if she were happy--" + +"Mercy! Are the Mackenzie millions to be devoted to the public charity +of making a Felicia Philipps happy?" + +"Why, isn't it as good an object as a picture-gallery? Or even an orphan +asylum? Felicia would be a great deal happier than all the happiness +combined of the whole three hundred orphans out at St. Martin's at a +Christmas dinner," suggested Charlotte Tracy, laughing. + +"Absurd! Rose Hatherbury is the one--if it's any one in Florence." + +"Oh, Rose is too young for him." + +"In years, yes. But Rose's heart can be any age she pleases. Alan isn't +really old in the least; but he was born middle-aged; he is the essence +of middle-age and mediocrity; one always knows beforehand what he will +say, for it will simply be, on every occasion, the most polite and the +most commonplace thing that could possibly be devised under the +circumstances. How came you to ask him to stay to dinner?" + +"Felicia made me. Funny, wasn't it, to see Waddy hang on, hoping for an +invitation too." + +"You might have given him one. It would have entertained Dorothy." + +"Well, to tell the truth, Laura, I am a little afraid of Waddy; he _is_ +so handsome!" + +"She doesn't care for him." + +"She likes him." + +"Yes, as she likes a dozen more. If she has a fancy for one over +another, it is, I think, for Owen Charrington," continued the mother. +"She would have to live in England. But I dare say his people would take +to her; they are very nice, you know--his people." + +"How can you talk so! Dorothy is thoroughly American; she would be +wretched in England. When she marries--which I hope won't be for five or +six years more--she must marry one of our own countrymen, of course. The +idea!" + +"Very well; I've no objection. But in that case we must take her home +again before long," said Laura North, rising. As she spoke she indulged +in a stretch, with her long arms extended first horizontally, and then +slowly raised until they were perpendicular above her head, the very +finger-tips taking part in the satisfactory elongation. + +"How I wish _I_ could do that!" said Charlotte Tracy, enviously. "But +you don't say 'Ye-ough' at the end, as you ought to." + +They put out the wax-candles and left the room together, Mrs. Tracy +lighting the way with a Tuscan lamp, its long chains dangling. "By this +time Felicia, 'delicately treading the clear pellucid air,' is going +through the Porta Romana," she suggested. + +"Never in the world! She has taken him round by the Viale dei Colli; she +won't let him off for two good hours yet," responded Mrs. North. + + +II + +"On Thursday, January 8th, at the English church, Florence, by the +Reverend J. Chaloner-Bouverie, Alan Mackenzie, to Dorothy, daughter of +the late Captain Richard North, United States Navy."--_Galignani's +Messenger_ of January 10, 1882. + + +III + +It was St. Mark's eve again, April 24th, and again there were many +visitors at Bellosguardo. Upon this occasion they were assembled at +Belmonte, the villa with the old battlemented tower, where Mr. and Mrs. +Alan Mackenzie were receiving their Florentine friends for the first +time since their marriage; they had been travelling in Sicily and +southern Italy through the winter months. + +"We shall be going home in 1883, I suppose," Mackenzie had said to the +ladies of Villa Dorio; "I shall be obliged to go then; or at least it +would be better to go. In the meanwhile, as Dorothy appears to be rather +fond of Bellosguardo--don't you think so?-- I have had the idea of taking +Belmonte for a time. That is, if you yourselves intend to continue +here?" + +"Oh, we shall continue, we shall continue," Mrs. Tracy had answered, +laughing. "For detached American ladies, who haven't yet come to calling +themselves old--for the cultivated superfluous and the intelligent +remainders--there is nothing like Europe!" + +The flat highways down in the Arno Valley, west of Bellosguardo, are +deep in dust even as early as April; the villages, consisting for the +most part of a shallow line of houses on each side of the road, almost +join hands, so that it is not the dust alone that afflicts the +pedestrian, but children, dogs, the rinds of fruit and vegetables--all +the far-reaching untidiness of a Southern race that lives in the street. +The black-eyed women sit in chairs at the edge of the dry gutter, +plaiting straw; up to middle-age they are all handsome, with thick hair +and soft, dark eyes. On this April afternoon they laughed (waiting with +Italian politeness until she had passed) as an Englishwoman trudged by +them on her way back to Florence. Her plain dress was short, revealing +long shoes white with dust; her unbeautiful face was mottled by the +heat; she looked tired enough to lie down and die. But to the +straw-plaiting matrons she was simply ridiculous, or else mad; for how +otherwise should a foreigner be toiling along their plebeian highway on +foot, when she could so easily have a carriage? Felicia was finishing +her daily walk of miles--a walk without an object save to tire herself. +As she passed the olive-crowned heights of Bellosguardo rising on the +right, she lifted her eyes. + +"He is there, seeing everybody. All the same people who were there a +year ago to-day. And what are they thinking--perhaps saying? 'See this +dull, middle-aged man, with that flighty little creature for a wife! She +cares nothing for him; she turns him round her finger, and always will.' +O fool! fool too noble to see or to doubt; simple, generous nature, +never asserting itself, always repressed, that _I_ understood, while all +these other people, that girl at the head of them, only laughed at it!" + +She hastened on, passed through the city gate, and made her way down the +dirty, evil-smelling Borgo San Frediano to San Spirito beyond, where, +high up in an old palace, she had a small apartment crowded with +artistic trumpery. After climbing the long stairs, and letting herself +in with a latch-key, she entered her minute drawing-room, and sank into +a chair, her feet, in their dusty shoes, like two blocks of wood on the +matting before her. And the plates and the plaques and the pots, the +bits of silk and tapestry and embroidery, the old sketches and old busts +and old shrines that adorned the walls, looked down upon her with their +usual heterogeneous glimmer. This time the glimmer seemed personally +sarcastic, seemed inhuman. + +While she sat there, the people at Belmonte were beginning to take +leave. Rose was to remain (with Miss Jane Wood). As Waddy Brunetti was +to remain also, the Misses Sebright looked at Rose with envy. Six of the +sisters were now united in a single admiration. For Owen Charrington had +gone to Australia before Christmas--it was about the time that Dorothy's +engagement had been announced--and he had not returned; admiration could +not stretch to the antipodes. Waddy, too, had been absent through +January, February, and March; but he was now at home again, so there was +some use in going once more to teas and receptions. + +"How lovely Mrs. Mackenzie is looking!" said Miss Maria Wood on the way +down to Florence. + +She had accepted a seat in Mrs. Grimston's carriage, and it was that +lady who answered her. + +"Yes--fairly; it's her youth more than anything else. Strictly speaking, +there are but two kinds of beauty--dimpled youth like that, and the +noble outline and bearing that come from distinguished birth." + +This was a double shot. For Rose certainly had no dimples, and the birth +of distinction pointed of course to the widowed countess. But Julian, +who sat facing his mother, had no longer any courage to resist; his poor +little eyes, like those of a sick monkey, had shed their two slow tears +on Christmas eve, when, at last allowed to retreat to his own (cold) +room, he had accepted drearily the tidings of Dorothy's engagement, and +had given up his struggle against fate. + +Mr. Illingsworth walked down the hill with Mrs. Sebright, her girls +following at a little distance, two and two. "Don't I miss one of your +charming daughters?" he said, gallantly, as, happening to look back at +the turn of a zigzag, he caught sight of the procession coming round the +higher bend. + +"Dear me! I wish he might miss three or four!" thought the mother. But +this was nothing worse on her part than a natural desire to translate +three or four of them to richer atmospheres--a Yorkshire country-house, +for instance, or a good vicarage; even army life in India would do. +Meanwhile she was replying, "Yes--Nora; Nora has been at St. Martin's +Orphan House, out in the country, since Christmas. She is greatly +interested in the work there; so much so that I have consented to let +her remain." + +Nora's secret only one person had discovered, and this one was the +benevolent stranger, Charlotte Tracy, who had happened to see the +expression in the girl's eyes for one instant, when the news of Alan +Mackenzie's engagement had come upon her suddenly, and taken her (as it +took all Florence) by surprise. The American lady, instantly +comprehending, had (while her own face showed nothing) screened Nora +skilfully from observation for several minutes. And ever since she had +kept her knowledge hidden away very closely in a shaded corner of her +heart. + +"A true Sister of Charity," Mr. Illingsworth had responded to the +mother's reply about the orphan house. But as he said this he was +thinking, "And if _I_ had married, as I came so near doing, I, too, +might have had at my heels this moment--great heavens!--just such +another red-cheeked, affectionate train!" + +That evening the ladies who had dined at Belmonte were taking their +coffee in the garden; there was no moon, but the splendid stars gave a +light of their own as they spangled the dark-blue sky. From the open +door of the boudoir at this end of the house, the light, streaming +forth, fell upon Dorothy as she sat talking to Rose. After a while the +gentlemen joined the ladies; and then Waddy talked to Rose. But while he +talked, his eyes followed the hostess, who was now strolling up and down +the honeysuckle path with one of her guests. Some one asked Waddy to +sing. Nothing loath, he went within, brought out Dorothy's guitar, and +sang one of Tosti's serenades. The song and his voice, a melodious +tenor, accorded so perfectly with the old Italian garden that there was +much applause. And then Waddy, having moved his chair into the shadow of +the trees, sent forth after a while from the darkness, unasked, a second +song, and this time the words were English: + + "Through the long days, the long days and the years, + What will my loved one be, + Parted from me, parted from me, + Through the long days and years?" + +The lady who had been strolling with Dorothy had stopped to speak to +some one, and for the moment the young wife, who had reached the end of +the honeysuckle path, was alone. Mackenzie came up quietly and stood +beside her as the song went on. When it had ended, she looked up at +him. + +"Do you like it so much?" she asked, in surprise, as she saw, in the +starlight, the expression of his face. + +"It's because I have so much more than I ever dreamed of having, +Dorothy," he answered, in a low tone, just touching her hair in the +shadow. "A year ago--do you remember? That same song, on the terrace? It +expressed what I felt; for then I had no hope. But now--" + +Here a voice from the group of ladies said, "Mr. Mackenzie will know; +ask him." And Mackenzie, returning to the light, was the attentive host +again. Waddy, meanwhile, crossed the grass quickly to the honeysuckle +path. + +He was the last to take leave; when Mackenzie returned, after escorting +Mrs. North and Mrs. Tracy to the Villa Dorio, he was still in the garden +with Dorothy. + +Fifteen minutes later, through the open windows of Mrs. North's chamber +there came the sound of steps. + +"Waddy," said Charlotte Tracy, peeping through the closed blinds, and +recognizing his figure. "He has outstayed everybody." + +"You are no longer afraid of him, I trust?" inquired Mrs. North. + +"Certainly not," said the older lady with decision. After a moment she +added, "She must always amuse herself, I suppose." + +"She has the very best of safeguards." + +"Now there you go, with your cold-blooded judgments, Laura! Dorothy has +as deep feelings as anybody. I don't know where you get your knowledge +of her; you are her step-mother, it is true; but I have been with her as +constantly as you have for years." + +"Quite so. May I ask how well you knew her father?" + +"I don't care!" was Charlotte's reply. She left the room with majesty. +The majesty lasted through the hall, and into her own chamber, as she +reflected, "_I_ have feelings. And Dorothy has feelings. But Laura is a +stone!" At this moment she caught a glimpse of herself in the +full-length mirror, and majesty collapsed. "Do I look like that? Do I? +Stout, short-nosed?" And she sank down on a sofa overwhelmed. But +presently a laugh broke through her discomfiture. "The very next +crumpled little old man I see, I'll be nice to him! I'll ask who is his +favorite poet, and I'll get him to quote--yes, even if it's Byron!" Mrs. +Tracy's favorite author was Ibsen. + +"You will do it if I wish, won't you, Alan?" said Dorothy the next day. + +"Why, if you really wish it--if you think it best--" began Mackenzie. + +"She doesn't in the least," interposed Mrs. North. "Don't indulge her +so; you will spoil her." + +Mackenzie's eyes turned towards his wife. + +"Don't look at me to see whether mamma is right," said Dorothy, +laughing; "invent an opinion of your own about me--do! But let us have +something striking; consider me capable of murder, for instance, not of +mere commonplace selfishness. Every woman is capable of murder once; I +am perfectly sure of it." + +"My dear," said Mackenzie, expostulatingly. + +"I don't know whether I could quite do it with my own hands," Dorothy +went on, stretching out her palms and looking at them. "But Felicia +Philipps could; yes, with her long fingers. Brrrr!" And she rushed to +her husband and hid her face on his arm. + +She had her way, which was not a murder, but a ball. Soon afterwards +there was a summer-night party at Belmonte, with music and dancing; the +tower and the garden, illuminated, were visible for miles roundabout, +like a fairy-land on the dark hill. Then followed excursions, long +drives, and, more frequently, long rides; for Dorothy had taken to +riding. Mackenzie accompanied the riding-parties cheerfully. But Dorothy +was often far in advance with one of the younger cavaliers. + +"I believe I should come back from the dead, Alan, to see you pounding +along, always at the very end of the procession, with Miss Jane Wood," +said the young wife one day. "I know you don't care much about riding. +But why do you always escort Miss Jane? She must weigh one hundred and +eighty." + +"She is a little timid, I think," answered Mackenzie; "at least, I have +fancied so. She only goes to see to Miss Hatherbury." + +"As you see to me?" + +Mackenzie liked long walks. + +"But walking is so dull. And the people who take long walks have such an +insufferable air of superiority," commented Dorothy. "Not that you have +come to that, Alan; with you it's just simple vanity." + +And making the motion of turning up trousers at the bottom, she crossed +the garden, holding her riding-whip like a cane, with her shoulders put +back, her head run out a little, and a long step with a dip in the +middle of it--the whole an amusing caricature of her husband's gait when +starting on a long excursion. Mackenzie had taught himself that gait; he +had even been a little proud of it. But now he joined irrepressibly in +his wife's merriment, as she loped down the broad walk, and then came +running back to him with her own light swiftness. + +Occasionally, however, she went with him for a stroll. One day late in +the afternoon they passed Villa Dorio together. The sun, low in the +west, was shining on all the square Tuscan towers that dot the hill-tops +in every direction. May was now more than half spent, and the air was +like that of July in Northern countries. The ladies of Villa Dorio saw +them go by; Dorothy's straw hat was hanging by its ribbons from her arm. + +"He hates to have her out without her hat," remarked Mrs. Tracy, leaning +forward to watch them for a moment. + +"Well, in that dress, she doesn't look more than fourteen," answered +Mrs. North. + +Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie went on down the hill. When they came to the +first zigzag, they left the main road, and, turning, crossed a grassy +little piazza; beyond, clinging to the side of the hill, with a cluster +of cypresses before it like tall green candles, is the small church of +San Vito, commanding a magnificent sweep of the valley below. As they +passed, San Vito's chimes rang the Angelus, swinging far out from the +open belfry against the sky with all the abandon of Italian bells, which +seem forever joyous--almost intoxicated--even for the dead. San Vito's +has a path of its own which follows a narrow shelf overhanging the +valley; the two pedestrians turned down this path. As the bells ceased, +Dorothy began to sing: + + "Ring out across the sunset sky, Angelus--" + +"Go on; go on," said Mackenzie, delightedly. "Oh, _I_ can't sing." + +"Dear, I think you could; your voice is so sweet. If you would take +lessons--" + +"Well, by-and-by. We have lots of time for everything, Alan." When they +came to the turn where there is a rustic shrine she paused. "I won't go +any farther, I think. But don't stop because I do; you like your walk. +Go on, and come back through the olive groves just beyond Belmonte; I +will be waiting for you at our wall." + +"I don't like to leave you here alone." + +"Not under the shrine? What's more, here is the priest." + +The priest of San Vito's was coming down the path. He was an old man, +with a large, sensible face, and a somewhat portly person dressed in +well-brushed black. He aided his steps with a cane. His bearing was +serene and dignified. As he passed, Mackenzie saluted him, raising his +hat. + +"For a Unitarian," said Dorothy, after the worthy man had gone by, +"aren't you showing a good deal of courtesy? But you would be courteous +to any religion; you would respect the fetish of a South Sea Islander. +Do you know, Alan, that you have too many respects? Please go now, so +that you can be back the sooner." Mackenzie, who had been leaning +against the parapet, turned and began to go down the descent. His wife +followed him for a step or two, in order to brush some mortar from his +sleeve. "You see it is I that must keep you respectable--in spite of +your respects." + +How pretty she was! They were alone under the high wall. "My darling," +he murmured. And Dorothy, laughing, raised herself on tiptoe to kiss +him. + +Half an hour later, when he reached the wall near Belmonte, there was +no Dorothy. He went within. The signora had gone to Villa Dorio, the +servant said. He came out and followed her thither. Yes, Dorothy had +been there; but Waddy Brunetti had happened in, and they had strolled +down as far as San Vito's. + +Mackenzie did not say, "But she has just been to San Vito's." He sat +talking with the ladies for twenty minutes or more; then he remarked, +offering it as a suggestion for their approval, "I think I will walk on +to San Vito's and meet them." + +"Yes, do," said Mrs. North. "And make that foolish Dorothy put on her +hat." + +"It is as warm as midsummer. And the air is perfectly dry, I think; no +dew," Mackenzie answered. + +"He defends her even when she vexes him," commented Charlotte Tracy, +after he had gone. + +"He might as well be amiable, seeing that he cannot be interesting," +Mrs. North responded. + +Dorothy was not at San Vito's. And she had not gone down the zigzags of +the carriage-road; he went down to see. He returned to Belmonte. It was +now late twilight. But there was still a band of orange light in the +west, and, outlined against it, on the top of the tower, were two +figures. He recognized them instantly--Dorothy and young Brunetti. + +Dorothy waved her hand to him through one of the embrasures. "Send up +some one with candles," she called. + +"With what?" + +"Can-dles; it's too dark now to come down without lights. But don't send +immediately; wait fifteen minutes more, so that we can see the moon +rise. And, Alan!" + +"Yes?" + +"Please tell them that Mr. Brunetti will stay and dine with us." + + +IV + +On the 29th of December of this same year, 1882, Reginald Illingsworth +was paying a visit to Mrs. Sebright. + +"What a career that little girl will have!" he said, with deep gustatory +appreciation. + +Before this, for half an hour, he had been making remarks of a nature +best described by the following examples: "That excellent fellow, +Mackenzie! You can't think how I miss him!" "There is something so +tragic in such a death--a man who had everything to live for!" "How +could they go to Rome! That pernicious Roman fever is the curse of +Italy." "Those poor ladies! Directly I heard they had returned to +Belmonte, I went up at once to inquire and to leave cards; it is a +stricken house!" Having said everything that decorum required, he now +finally allowed himself to bring out the thought which was in reality +filling his mind: "What a career that little girl will have! Only +nineteen, and so very pretty, so charming. He has left her everything +without a condition (save in the event--most improbable at her age--of +her dying without children, in which case it goes back to his own +relatives), and I am told that he had nearly eight millions of dollars; +that is, one million six hundred thousand pounds! They are shrewd in +their American way--those ladies; Mrs. North is very shrewd. And mark my +words, madam, that little girl will make one of the great matches yet; +not pinchbeck; something really good!" (His "good" had a deeply solid +sound.) + +This same afternoon the following words were exchanged in another +quarter of Florence: + +"Rose, dear," said Miss Jane Wood, "you will go up again to-morrow, +won't you, to see poor Dorothy?" + +"I have been twice--all that is necessary for appearances, Aunt Jane. +Why should I bother Dorothy now?" + +"Sympathy--" began Miss Jane. + +"Sympathy! She is in a position to extend it to me. I think she is the +very luckiest girl I have ever heard of in my life. All another girl can +do in the face of such luck as that is to keep away from it, and not +think about it--if she can." + +Miss Jane Wood: "I am _astonished_!" + +Miss Maria: "!!!!" + +That evening, at Belmonte, Dorothy walked and walked about the +drawing-room; now she stopped at a table, took up something and put it +down again; now she moved a statuette to another position; now she gazed +at the etchings on the wall as though she had never seen them before; +now she added pine-cones to the already blazing fire, kneeling on the +rug with the hot flame scorching her face; finally she went to the +window, and, parting the curtains, stood looking out. It was a dark +night without stars; in addition to the freezing temperature, the wind +was fierce; it drove furiously against the windows of the villa, it came +round the corner of the tower with a shriek like that of a banshee. + +"It's dreadfully cold," said the girl at last, as if speaking to +herself. + +"Surely not here?" replied Mrs. Tracy. Dorothy came wandering back to +the fire, and then the aunt drew her down by her side. "Dear child, +don't keep thinking of Rome," she whispered. "He is not there; there is +nothing there but the lifeless clay." And she kissed her. + +"Try not to be so restless, Dorothy," said Mrs. North, from her warm +corner. "You have walked about this room all day." + +"It's because I'm so tired; I am so tired that I cannot keep still," +Dorothy answered. + +"I think a change would be a good thing for all of us," Mrs. North went +on. "We could go to Cannes for two months; we could be as quiet at +Cannes as here." + +Dorothy looked at her with vague eyes, as if waiting to hear more. + +"It is warmer there. And then there is the sea--to look at, you know," +pursued Mrs. North, seeing that she was called upon to exhibit +attractions. + +"Egypt would be my idea," said Mrs. Tracy. "A dahabeeyah on the Nile, +Dorothy. Camels; temples." + +Dorothy listened, as if rather struck by this idea also. + +"But Egypt would be a fearful trouble, Charlotte," objected Mrs. North. +"Who is going to get a good dahabeeyah for us at this time of year?" + +"Don't spoil it. I'll get twenty," responded the other lady. + +And then there was a silence. + +"Well, Dorothy, are you going to leave it to us to decide?" + +"Yes, mamma," Dorothy answered. Her eyes had grown dull again; she sat +listening to the wind as if she had forgotten what they were talking +about. + +"It's decided, then. We will go to Cannes," remarked Mrs. North, +serenely. + +Her Aunt Charlotte's discomfited face drew a sudden laugh from the +niece. And this laughter, once begun, did not cease; peal succeeded +peal, and Dorothy threw herself back on the cushions of the sofa, +overcome with merriment. Mrs. North glanced towards the doors to see if +they were well closed. But Charlotte Tracy was so glad to hear the sound +again that she did not care about comments from the servants; Dorothy's +face, dull and tired, above the dead black of the widow's attire, had +been like a nightmare to her. + +They went to Cannes. And Mrs. North's suggested "two months" had now +lengthened, in her plans, to three. But before two weeks, had passed +they were again at Belmonte. + +"Now that we have made one fiasco, Charlotte, and taken that horrible +journey, all tunnels, twice within twenty days, we must not make +another; we must decide to remain where we are for the present. If +Dorothy grows restless again, be firm. Be firm, as I shall be." + +"Surely we ought to be indulgent to her now, Laura?" + +"Not too much so. Otherwise we shall be laying up endless bother for +ourselves. For we have a year of hourly employment before us, day by +day. In the way of seeing to her, I mean." + +"She will not make us the least trouble," said Mrs. Tracy, indignantly. + +"I am not finding fault with her. But she cannot help her age, can she? +She is exceedingly young to be a widow, and she has a large fortune; but +for a year, at any rate, if I know myself, gossip shall not touch my +daughter." + +"A year? I'll guarantee ten," said Mrs. Tracy, still indignant. + +"I don't care about ten; three will do. Yes, I see you looking at me +with outraged eyes. But there's no need. I liked Alan as much as you +did; I appreciated every one of his good points. With all that, you +cannot pretend to say that you believe Dorothy really loved him. She was +too young to love anybody. The love was on his side, and you were as +much surprised as I was when she took a fancy to accept it." + +Mrs. Tracy could not deny this. But she belonged to that large class of +women who, from benevolent motives, never acknowledge unwelcome facts. +"I think you are perfectly horrid!" she said. + +Dorothy, back at Belmonte, was troublesome only in the sense of being +always in motion. Having exhausted the garden, she began to explore the +country. She went to Galileo's tower; to the lonely little church of +Santa Margherita; the valley of the Ema knew her slender black figure. +Once she crossed the Greve, and, following the old Etruscan road, +climbed to the top of the height beyond, where stands the long, blank +Shameless Villa outlined against the sky. + +"Do you know, I am afraid I am lame," said Mrs. Tracy, the morning after +this long tramp to the Shameless. + +"Well, why do you go? One of us is enough," answered Mrs. North. + +To the walks Dorothy now added lessons in German and Italian. Mrs. North +drove down to Florence and engaged Fraeulein Bernstein and Mademoiselle +Scarletti. Next, Dorothy said that she wished to take lessons in music. + +"A good idea. You ought to play much better than you do," said her +mother. + +"Piano; but singing too, please," Dorothy answered. + +Again Mrs. North descended to Florence; Fraeulein Lundborg was engaged +for instrumental music, and Madame Farinelli for vocal. Dorothy wished +to have a lesson each day from each of her teachers. "It's a perfect +procession up and down this hill!" thought Mrs. Tracy. There was a piano +in the billiard-room, and another in the drawing-room; but now Dorothy +wished to have a third piano in her own sitting-room up-stairs. + +"But, my dear, what an odd fancy! Are you going to sing there by +yourself?" her mother inquired. + +"Yes!" said Dorothy. + +"Do you think she is well?" asked Mrs. Tracy, confidentially, with some +anxiety. + +"Perfectly well. It is the repressed life she is leading," Mrs. North +answered. "But we must make the best of it. This is as good a place as +any for the next three months." + +But again this skilful directress was forced to abandon the "good +place." Early in March, when the almond-trees were in bloom, Dorothy, +coming in from the garden, announced, "I _hate_ Belmonte! Let us go +away, mamma--anywhere. Let us start to-morrow." + +"We took you to Cannes, and you did not wish to stay. We shall be +leaving Belmonte in any case in June; that isn't long to wait." + +"You like Paris; will you go to Paris?" the girl went on. + +"What can you do in Paris more than you do here?" + +"I love the streets, they are so bright--so many people. Oh, mamma, if +you could only know how dull I am!" And sinking down on the rug, Dorothy +laid her face on the sofa-cushion at her mother's side. + +Mrs. Tracy coming in and finding her thus, bent and felt her pulse. + +"Yes, one hundred and fifty!" said Dorothy, laughing. "Take me to Paris, +and to the opera or theatre every night, and it will go down." + +"Oh, you don't mean that," said the aunt, assuringly. + +"Yes, but I do," Dorothy answered. And then, with her cheek still +resting on the cushion, she looked up at her mother. "You will take me, +mamma, won't you? If I tell you that I _must_?" + +"Yes," replies Mrs. North, coldly. + +They went to Paris. And then, for four weeks, almost every night at the +back of a box at the opera or at one of the theatres were three ladies +in mourning attire, the youngest of the three in widow's weeds. Mrs. +Tracy was so perturbed during these weeks that her face was constantly +red. + +"Why are you so worried?" Mrs. North inquired. "I manage it perfectly; +people don't in the least know." + +"Do I care for 'people'? It's--it's--" But she would not say "It's +Dorothy." "It's ourselves," she finally ended. + +"Always sentimental," said Laura. + +Midway in the first week of April, Dorothy suddenly changed again. "I +can't stay here a moment longer!" she said. + +"Perhaps you would like to take a trip round the world?" suggested Mrs. +North, with a touch of sarcasm. + +"No. I don't know what you will say, mamma, but I should like to go back +to Belmonte." + +"I have a good deal of patience, my dear, but I must say that you wear +it out." + +"I know I do; but if you will take me back, I promise to stay there this +time as long as you like." + +"_I_ like--" began Mrs. North; but Dorothy, with a frown, had rushed out +of the room. + +"What shall we do now?" said the aunt. + +"Go back, I suppose; I have always thought Belmonte the best place up to +really hot weather. One good thing: if we do go back we can take the +opportunity to rid ourselves definitely of both of those villas. My idea +is the Black Forest country for August and September. Then we could come +here again for a few weeks. For the winter, what do you say to a long +cruise towards the South somewhere, in a yacht of our own? We could +select the right people to go with us." + +They returned to Italy, reaching Bellosguardo again on the 11th of +April. + +On the 6th of May Charlotte Tracy said, "Laura, to me this is dreadful! +Waddy is here morning, noon, and night." + +"So many people have left Florence that it hardly matters; nobody knows +what is going on up here. He amuses her, and that is something gained." + +"I wish he wouldn't be forever singing!" said the aunt, irritably. + +"He sings very well. And Dorothy has shown a new interest in singing +lately. Don't you remember that she took lessons herself before we went +to Paris?" + +"You don't mean to intimate that Waddy had anything to do with that?" + +"Why not? A girl of that age has all sorts of changing interests and +tastes; there will be something new every month or two, probably, for a +long time yet." + +In June, Mrs. Tracy demanded, "Is Owen Charrington one of your +something-news?" + +"I dare say he is," Mrs. North answered, smiling. + +For Owen Charrington had come back from Australia. He found the zigzags +which led to Belmonte very hot and very solitary; there was no Waddy +going up or coming down, either on foot or in a carriage, although his +ascents and descents had been as regular as those of the postman during +the six preceding weeks. Shortly before Charrington's return, Dorothy, +entering the boudoir one evening at ten o'clock, said: + +"Mamma--Aunt Charlotte--will you tell the servants, please, that +whenever Mr. Brunetti calls, after this, they are to say that we are +engaged, or not at home? I don't suppose _you_ care to see him?" + +"What can have happened?" said Mrs. Tracy, when the girl had gone out +again without explanation. + +"There hasn't been time for much to happen. I have been out there with +them all the evening; I only came in for my tea," answered Mrs. North, +sipping that beverage. + +"Since then he has been singing. At least, I thought I heard his +voice--not very loud." + +"Perhaps she is tired of his voice--not very loud." + +Mrs. Tracy threw a lace scarf over her head and went out to the garden. +The long aisles under the trees were flooded with moonlight, the air was +perfumed with the fragrance of the many flowers; but there was no +Dorothy. She entered the house by another door, and, going softly up the +great stairway, turned towards Dorothy's rooms at the south end of the +long villa. Here a light was visible, coming under the door of the +sitting-room; the aunt did not lift the latch, she stood outside +listening. Yes, Dorothy was there, and she was singing to herself in a +low tone, playing the accompaniment with the soft pedal down: + + "Through the long days, the long days and the years, + What will my loved one be, + Parted from me, parted from me, + Through the long days and years?" + +"She is up there singing; singing all alone," reported the aunt, when +she came back to the boudoir down-stairs. + +"I suppose you like that better than not alone?" suggested Mrs. North. + +Waddy came to Belmonte five times without success. Then he left +Florence. + +Dorothy did not stroll in the garden with Owen Charrington. If her +mother and aunt were outside when he came, she remained with them there; +but if they were in the drawing-room or the boudoir, she immediately led +her guest within; then she sat looking at him while he talked. +Charrington talked well; all he said was amusing. Dorothy listened and +laughed. If he paused, she urged him on again. This urgency of hers +became so apparent that at last it embarrassed him. To carry it off he +attacked her: + +"You force me to chatter, Mrs. Mackenzie--to chatter like a parrot!" + +"Yes," answered Dorothy, "you must talk; you must talk all the time." + +"'All the time'--awfully funny Americanism!" + +"And the French 'tout le temps'?" + +"Oh, French; I don't know about French." + +"Of course you don't. We are willing to be funny with the French. Are +you 'very pleased' to be here to-day? Answer." + +"Of course I am very pleased." + +"And you would say, wouldn't you, 'Directly I returned to Florence, I +bought a horse'?" + +"But I didn't," said Charrington, laughing; "I only hired one. And that +reminds me, Mrs. Mackenzie; you can't think how divine it is now at four +o'clock in the morning. Won't you go for a ride at that hour some day +soon? Mrs. North and Mrs. Tracy could follow in the carriage" (with a +look towards those ladies). + +"Ride?" repeated Dorothy. A flush rose in her cheeks. "No," she +answered, in an altered voice--"no!" + +She said nothing more, and she did not speak again; she sat looking at +the floor. Mrs. North filled the pause with her placid sentences. But +Dorothy's manner was so changed and constrained that the young +Englishman soon went away. The girl had taken something into her head. +But it would not last long; nothing ever did last long with Dorothy. + +This belief of his was soon jostled by the fact that Dorothy would not +see him. Mrs. North covered the refusal as well as she could by saying +that her daughter was not well; that she was not seeing any visitors at +present. But Florence was empty; there were no visitors to come; it +simply meant, therefore, that she was not seeing Owen Charrington. He +lingered on through the month, coming every day to Belmonte. Mrs. North +received him graciously. But he was obliged to content himself with a +close investigation of their plans for the summer. At last, on the 2d of +July, unable any longer to endure the burning, glaring Lung' Arno and +the furnace-like atmosphere of the Hotel d'Italie, he took his +departure. He went to Baden-Baden, writing home to his family that he +should probably spend the summer in the Black Forest country with +friends. + +The morning after Charrington's departure, illness (real illness this +time) seized Dorothy. For a week she remained motionless on a couch, her +face white, her eyes closed. + +"We must take her to Switzerland; we must go straight up to the snow," +said Charlotte Tracy. "When she sees the glacier water she will revive +at once. The gray glacier water, you know; one begins to meet it at +Chiomonte; it comes rushing over the rocks, gray and cool, with +sometimes a little foam; but gray, always gray--a sort of leady gray." + +She said gray so many times that Mrs. North cried out at last, "Oh, do +call it green!" + +Speedy preparations were made for departure; the trunks were packed and +sent down to the railway station. Dorothy remained passive, making no +objection to their plans, but showing no interest in them. Caroline, her +maid, dressed her for the journey. But when the little black bonnet with +its long black veil had been put on, and the black gloves, and the young +mistress of the house rose to walk to the carriage, after a few steps +her figure swayed, and she sank to the floor; she had fainted. She +remained unconscious for so long a time that it was evident there could +be no travelling that day; they must wait until she was stronger. They +waited, therefore, from one day to the next, each morning expecting to +start, and each morning postponing departure. The 15th of July found +them still at Belmonte. The thick stone walls of the majestic old house +kept out the burning sunshine, and Dorothy appeared to like the warm air +that came in through the shaded windows; she lay breathing it quietly, +with her eyes closed. The American physician of Florence had gone to New +York for six months. An English doctor came up daily. But there was +nothing to combat. There was no fever, no malady save this sudden +physical weakness. Everything possible was done for this, but with small +results. At last Dr. Hotham advised them to attempt the journey in any +case. A nurse was engaged; Dorothy was to be carried on a couch to the +station, where a railway carriage, provided with an invalid's bed, was +waiting. But before they had traversed a quarter of the length of the +Via dei Serragli, the clatter of the carriage wheels and the other +noises of the street threw the girl into a delirium, and they returned +hastily to Bellosguardo. The delirium passed away and they made another +attempt. This time they were to cross Florence in the middle of the +night, and a special train was to take them northward. But the paroxysm +came on again, and with greater violence. Before they reached the bottom +of the Bellosguardo hill Dorothy threw up her arms like a wild creature; +the nurse could scarcely hold her. This time high fever followed; the +girl, now in bed, lay with scarlet cheeks and glassy eyes, knowing +nobody. Dr. Hotham conquered the fever. Then she was as she had been +before, save that the weakness was increased. + +With the exception of Dr. Hotham, there was now no one in Florence whom +they knew. Nora Sebright remained at St. Martin's Orphan House out in +the country; but she knew nothing of events in town. One day Dr. Hotham, +having been called to the orphan house to see a child, spoke to Nora of +the puzzling illness of Mrs. Mackenzie; he knew that the Sebrights were +among the acquaintances of these American ladies. Nora hurried to town, +and, although it was evening, drove up to Belmonte without delay. There +were now two nurses at the villa. But Nora was the best nurse; and, +after seeing Dorothy for a moment, she begged the mother and aunt to +allow her to remain and assist. + +"You are extremely kind, Miss Sebright. But I do not think you ought to +give yourself so much trouble," said Mrs. North. "Dorothy will soon be +stronger; the fever, as you see, has entirely disappeared, and in a few +days we shall go to Switzerland." + +But Nora followed Mrs. Tracy into the next room. "Dear Mrs. Tracy, do +let me stay. I am such a good nurse--you can't think. And I am so fond +of Dorothy. And I really think she ought to be amused, if possible. Not +that I am very amusing; but at least it makes one more." + +There was no lamp in this room, but, all the same, Charlotte Tracy +seemed to read an expression in the face she could not see. "What has +Dr. Hotham said to you?" she asked. + +"Indeed, nothing; he never talks. It is only that Dorothy has always +been so well; she was well all winter, you know. Even now (for the fever +was only the effort of the journey) there seems to be nothing one can +take hold of. And so the question came up, as it always does in such a +case, could she have anything weighing upon her mind--weighing too +much, I mean? But I am sure," continued Nora, her voice calm as usual +(but her face, in the darkness, quivering for an instant), "that we need +apprehend no danger of that sort; Dorothy's mind is perfectly healthy. +And she has been from the very first so brave, you know--so wonderfully +brave." + +Charlotte Tracy, a prey to conflicting feelings, bent and kissed Nora +without a word. Grief for Alan Mackenzie had indeed been more deeply +felt at the dreary orphan house down in the dusty valley than in his own +home on this beautiful hill. Nora stayed. + +August burned itself out. At Belmonte the heavy outer portals were kept +closed; within, all the doors stood open in order to create, if +possible, a current of air through the darkened rooms. Once in two +hours, night and day, Nora came to Dorothy's bedside and offered some +delicate nourishment; Dorothy took it unobjectingly. She seldom spoke, +but she appeared to like Nora's presence and her gentle ministrations. + +Mrs. Tracy had forced herself to speak to Laura about the doctor's +question. Some force was necessary, for she was always exasperated by +Laura's replies. "I am beginning to be a little frightened about +Dorothy, Laura; she doesn't gain. It is no time to mince matters; such +things have happened before, and will happen again as long as the world +lasts, and it seems that even Dr. Hotham has asked whether there could +be anything weighing upon her mind. Now what I want to know is, do you +think she is brooding about something?" + +"Brooding?" + +"Yes. I mean, do you think she is interested in somebody?--Owen +Charrington, if I must name him. You used to think that she liked him? +And that she cannot bear the separation? Yet thinks it too soon? And +that that was the reason she refused to see him again? And now it is +weighing upon her?" + +"Mercy, what theories! You have always saddled Dorothy with deeper +feelings than she has ever possessed. Do leave the poor child alone; +don't make her out so unusual and unpleasant; she is like any other girl +of nineteen. She is interested in Owen--yes; but not in that exaggerated +way; she isn't pining herself ill about him. And let me tell you, too, +that if he were to her at this moment all you are imagining him to be, +she wouldn't in the least be deterred by considerations of its being +'too soon,' as you call it; she would not even remember that it _was_ +soon." + +Mrs. Tracy's eyes filled. + +"Well, what now? Do you wish her to be breaking her heart for Alan? I +thought you came in to suggest sending post-haste for Owen Charrington! +Do you know really what you want yourself? Dorothy will grow stronger in +time. A hot summer in Italy has pulled her down, but with the first cool +weather she will revive, and then we can carry out our plans." + +Towards the middle of September the rains came, the great heat ended. +With the return of the fresh breeze Dorothy left her bed, and lay on the +broad divan among its large, cool cushions; she even walked about the +room a little, once or twice a day. The first time she walked they saw +how thin she was; the black dressing-gown hung about her like a pall. + +"Take it off," said Mrs. Tracy, when she had beckoned Caroline into the +next room. "Never let her wear it again." + +"But I have fear that madame is not enough strong yet to wear a +costume," suggested the maid, respectfully. + +Mrs. Tracy unlocked a wardrobe and took out a pile of folded draperies. +They were white morning dresses, long and loose, covered with beautiful +laces and knots of ribbon; they had formed part of Dorothy's trousseau. +"Let her wear these," she said, briefly. + +Dorothy made no objection to the change. Occasionally she looked at her +new attire, and smoothed out the ribbons and lace. Throughout her +illness she had scarcely spoken. They had supposed that this silence +came from her weakness--the weakness which had made it an effort +sometimes for her to lift her hand. But now that she was up again, and +walking about the room, the muteness continued. She answered their +questions, but it seemed necessary for her to recall her thoughts from +some distant place in order to answer. She lived in a reverie, and her +eyes had a far-off expression. But these were slight things. When ten +days had slowly passed without any relapse, Charlotte Tracy, who had +counted the hours, exclaimed, with joy, "Now we can go!" Dr. Hotham was +to accompany them as far as Vevey. Nothing was to be said to Dorothy, in +order that she should not have even a feather's weight of excitement; +but the preparations were swiftly made. On the afternoon before the day +appointed for the start, Dorothy suddenly left her easy-chair, crossed +the room, opened a door, and looked down a corridor. At the end of the +corridor she saw Caroline kneeling before open trunks. + +"What are you doing, Caroline? Those are my trunks, aren't they? You may +stop; I shall not leave Belmonte." + +Nora, who had followed, led her back. "Your mother and aunt are so very +anxious to go north, dear," she explained. "Come and lie down; you must +not tire yourself before the journey." + +But Dorothy resisted. "Please call them, Nora; call them both; I must +tell them. I know mamma; she will have me carried. But that is because +she does not understand. When I tell her, it will be different. Please +call them both." + +When they came in--Mrs. Tracy alarmed, Mrs. North smiling as if prepared +to be, outwardly, very indulgent--Dorothy was still standing in the +centre of the room, the laces of her white dress fluttering in the soft +breeze. + +"Mamma," she said, "I must tell you. Aunt Charlotte, you have always +been kind to me. I cannot go away; do not ask me." + +"Sit down, Dorothy. Nora, make her sit down. You will not be asked to +take a step, my daughter; everything is arranged; don't trouble yourself +even to think." + +"You do not understand, mamma. But I myself have not understood until +lately. I cannot leave Belmonte." + +"But Dr. Hotham thinks you can," interposed Mrs. Tracy, soothingly; "he +knows how much strength you have. We are all going with you, and the +journey will be very easy. You used to like Vevey." + +"Let me stay here; I wish to stay here." + +"But we have never intended to spend our lives at Bellosguardo," +answered Mrs. North, drawing her towards the divan and making her sit +down. + +"Let me stay a little while longer, mamma." + +"You mean that you will be willing to go later? But, we think that now +is the time. You have nothing to do save to rest here quietly, and then +go to sleep; you will open your eyes in Vevey." + +Dorothy, seated, her hands extended on her knees, looked up at her +mother. "Mamma, you don't know. There's an ache that will not leave me. +I haven't told you about it. But I'm _so_ unhappy!" + +Mrs. Tracy, hurrying forward, put her arm round the girl protectingly. +Mrs. North, her face slightly flushed, whispered to Nora: + +"She is wandering. Please go and send some one immediately for the +doctor. Write a note for the man to take with him." + +In this way she got rid of Nora. + +Dorothy, alone with her mother and aunt, went on talking: "I didn't know +what it meant myself for ever so long. But now I do, and it's all +simple. I shall just stay quietly here. This is the best place. And you +mustn't mind, for it makes _me_ very happy." + +"My darling, have you written? What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Tracy. + +"What do I mean?" Dorothy repeated. She smiled; into her white face came +a flush of color. "I mean that I shall see him very soon now. It won't +be long to wait." + +"She has sent for him," thought the aunt. "I was right; it is Owen." + +"That is why I wish to stay here," Dorothy went on. "Everything here is +associated with Alan; he liked Belmonte so much." + +"Alan?" breathed the aunt, amazed, but instantly concealing her +amazement. Mrs. North quickly measured some drops from a phial +containing a sedative. + +Dorothy let her head sink back against the cushions. "In the beginning +I didn't in the least know that I was going to feel it so. But that ache +came, and it wouldn't stop. I tried all sorts of things--don't you +remember? I tried studying. I tried music lessons. He used to urge me to +sing. He liked long walks, and I never would go; so then I took long +walks. You haven't forgotten them, have you? But the ache went on, and I +could not stand it. So I asked you to go to Paris. Paris has always been +so funny and amusing. But it wasn't funny any more. When we came back +here I thought that perhaps some one coming up every day and staying a +long time would make me forget. But having Waddy was worse than being +alone, and at last I hated him. Owen Charrington, too! Owen used to make +me laugh; I thought he would make me laugh again. But he didn't at all. +And when he asked me that last day to ride it was like a knife; for Alan +always went with me, and would never say anything to spoil my pleasure. +Yet he did not care about it really, though I insisted upon going day +after day. That is the way it was about everything. But I'm paying for +it now; I miss him so--I miss him so! Alan! Alan!--" And putting her +thin hands over her face, Dorothy burst into miserable heart-broken +sobs. + +Nora came running in; Mrs. North handed her the medicine glass. + +"Hysterics," she said. "Give her those drops as soon as you can." + +"I look to you, doctor, to get us out of this new difficulty," said this +lady the next day to Dr. Hotham. "She has taken this fixed idea that she +does not wish to leave Belmonte. But the fixed idea of a girl of +nineteen ought not to be a trouble to you. Can't you suggest +something? Has science no resources for such a case?" + +[Illustration: "'I MEAN THAT I SHALL SEE HIM VERY SOON NOW'"] + +Dr. Hotham's resource was to send to Rome for a colleague. The most +distinguished English physician in Italy was called to Florence, and +there was a consultation at Bellosguardo. When it was over Mrs. North +came in to see the great man. + +His sentences were agreeable; they were also encouraging. After a time +he spoke of the varying forms of nervous prostration; then he asked +whether this very interesting young lady could have, by any possibility, +something weighing upon her mind? + +"No, nothing," replied the mother. + +"Ah! In that case time, I trust, is all that is necessary for a complete +recovery." + +"My own idea would be to take her north in spite of her disinclination +to go," Mrs. North went on. "A disinclination ought not to be important. +The journey would soon be over. She could be kept under the influence of +sedatives. But Dr. Hotham will not give his consent." + +"I agree with him, madam. Do not force her; the effect upon the nervous +system might be bad. Let her do whatever she fancies. Amuse her. What a +pity there is no Corney Grain in Italy!" + +"Everything in the way of amusement has been tried. That is why I wish +to take her away." + +"Ah! I understood you to say, I think, that there is no hidden cause, no +wish, no mental--ah--err--strain?" + +"Nothing of any consequence. She is hysterical sometimes; but that is +owing to her physical weakness," Mrs. North answered. And she said what +she believed. + +A month later Dorothy, lying on a couch in her room, put out her hand to +Nora. "I must give you some of my money, Nora, for your poor +people--your orphans and the school and the hospital. I will give it to +you to-morrow." + +"You can help Nora to distribute it," said Mrs. Tracy. + +"Dear Aunt Charlotte, how you hate to hear me speak of it! But I talk to +Nora, you know, just as I please in the night." + +"No; talk to me, too. Say whatever you like," answered Mrs. Tracy, +quickly. + +[Illustration: BELMONTE] + +"It is so warm this evening that I can have all the windows open," +Dorothy went on. "Take the lamp out, Nora, please, and let in the +moonlight; I like to see it shining across the floor." She lay in +silence for some minutes looking at the radiance. They had cut off her +hair, thinking that its length and thickness might be taking something +from her small store of strength. Her face, with the boyish locks, +looked very childlike. "Do you remember that song, Aunt +Charlotte,'Through the long days'? The moonlight makes me think of it. +First, Felicia Philipps sang it one moonlight evening over at Villa +Dorio. Then, after we were married, some one sang it here in the garden, +and Alan said, when it was over-- Oh, if I could only tell him once, just +once, that I _did_ love him! He never believed it--he never knew--" + +"Don't cry, dear. _Don't._" + +"No; I don't cry very often now," Dorothy answered, her breast rising in +one or two long sobs. "Last spring Waddy dared to sing that song +again--Alan's song! I could not see him after that. + + "Through the long days, the long days and the years--" + +"It will tire you to sing, dear." + +"No; I like it." And then, in a faint little thread of a voice, barely +audible, but very sweet, she sang, lying there in the moonlight, the +beautiful song: + + "Through the long days, the long days and the years, + What will my loved one be, + Parted from me, parted from me, + Through the long days and years? + + "Never, ah, never on earth again--" + +It was her last song. Three days later she died. She passed away so +quietly that they did not know it was death; they thought she was +asleep. + +When at last they learned what it was, Mrs. North, standing beside the +couch, white and stern, said, with rigid lips, "The doctors did not tell +us." + +But the doctors did not know. + + + + +A TRANSPLANTED BOY + + +I + +Lorenzo came into the hall, bell in hand. + +Putting down his white gloves at the feet of the goddess Flora, he began +his promenade: ding-dong past Jupiter and Juno; ding-dong past Mars and +Venus, Neptune and Diana, Minerva and Apollo, until the last pedestal on +the east was reached; here there was no goddess, only a leaping flame. +There was a corresponding tongue of fire on the last pedestal of the +west side opposite, and both of these architectural ornaments were made +of wood, painted scarlet. On the north side there towered six windows as +high as those of a church. These windows faced a flight of stone steps +that went down in a dignified sweep, eighteen feet wide, to a landing +adorned with a Muse; here, dividing into two wings, the staircase turned +to the right and the left in noble curves, and descended to the square +hall below. The massive iron-clamped portals of this lower hall were +open; they were swung back early in the morning, in order that the +horses might pass through on their way to the street; for there were +horses in the stables of the court-yard within. They did pass through, +making with the carts to which they were harnessed a thundering clatter +which would have deafened the inmates of an American dwelling. But the +old Pisan palace had been built in another fashion. This lower hall with +its heavy pavement and great doors, the gallery above with the rows of +life-sized statues, the broad sweep of the stone stairways--all these, a +space that could have swallowed many modern houses entire, were but its +entrance; and so massive were the floors that no one in the long ranges +of rooms above had any intimation of the moment when their hallway was +turned into a street. The outer portals remained swung back all day; but +the light inner doors were opened and closed on demand by old Bianca, +the portress, who lived in a dusky den under the staircase. This evening +the sunset was so brilliant that even these inner doors stood open, and +Bianca herself had come to the threshold, blinking a little as the +radiance fell upon her patient, cloistered face. + +She was looking at a boy who was leaning over the parapet opposite. This +boy, with one arm round a small dog whom he had lifted to the top of the +wall by his side, was gazing at the tawny water of the Arno as it glided +past the house; for the old palace was in the Lung' Arno of Pisa, the +sunny street that follows the river like a quay, its water-side lying +open to the stream, protected by a low wall. Bianca was evidently +thinking of this boy and the summons of the clanging bell above; whether +he cared for the bell or not, he seemed to feel at last the power of her +mild gaze directed upon his back, for, swinging himself down from the +parapet, he crossed the street, and with his dog at his heels, entered +the palace. He went up the right-hand stairway, glancing as he passed at +the two stone caryatides which upheld the balustrade at the landing; +these were girls who had probably been intended for mermaids; but their +fish endings were vague compared with the vividly human expression of +their anxious young countenances--an anxiety oddly insisted upon by the +unknown house-sculptor who had chiselled them according to his fantasy +hundreds of years before. Freshly arrived Americans, not yet broken in +to the light foreign breakfast, and frozen from January to March, were +accustomed to declare that the faces of these caryatides reflected in +advance all the miseries of the _pension_, that is, all the hardship of +winter life in Italy which assails the surprised and undefended pilgrim +from the United States. But the boy who was coming up the stairs, though +American, was not freshly arrived; in his mind the caryatides +illustrated, more or less, a charming story which his mother had told +him--the story of the Little Mermaid; he was fond of their anxious stone +cheeks on that account. + +The Casa Corti was not an ordinary pension. In the first place, it had +the distinction of occupying the whole of the Rondinelli palace, with +the great shield of the Rondinellis (showing their six heraldic swallows +sitting on their tails) over its door; in the second, it had been in the +hands of one family for four generations, and was to go down in the same +line. The establishment could accommodate seventy persons. Three-fourths +of the seventy were always English, drawn hither by the fact that Madame +Corti was of English descent. A few Americans were allowed to enter, and +an occasional foreigner was received as a favor. In the _pension_ +phraseology the English were "we," their transatlantic cousins "the +Americans," and all the rest "foreigners." As Lorenzo's bell ceased many +doors opened, and from the various quarters into which the old +Ghibelline residence had for its present purposes been divided--from +high rooms overlooking the river and adorned with frescos to low-browed +cells in the attic under the eaves; from apartments that looked upon +small inner courts like yellow wells, wells that resounded with the +jingle of dish-washing from morning till night; from short staircases +descending at unexpected points, and from others equally unlocked for +which mounted from secret chambers in the half-story (chambers whose +exact situation always remained a mystery to the rest of the +house)--from all of these, and from two far-off little dwellings perched +like tents on the roof, came the guests of the _pension_ on their way to +the dining-room and dinner. For they were all guests: the word patron or +boarder was unknown. In the same way the head of the establishment was +not by any means the boarding-house-keeper or the landlady: she was the +proprietress. She had inherited her _pension_ as other people inherit an +estate, and she managed it in much the same autocratic fashion. + +When all her guests were seated, this proprietress herself rustled in, a +little late. Her attire was elaborate: a velvet gown made with a train, +an amber star in the hair, and a chain of large amber beads wound three +times round the throat, and falling in a long loop to the belt. She +entered with a gliding step, pressing her dimpled hands together as she +advanced, and giving a series of little bends from the waist upward, +which were intended as general salutation to the company; her smile +meanwhile gradually extended itself, until, as her chair was drawn out +with a flourish by Lorenzo, it became broad enough to display her teeth +as she sank gracefully into her place at the head of her table, and, +with a final bow to the right and the left, unfolded her napkin. Her +duty as regarded civility being now done, she broke off a morsel of +bread, and took a rapid survey of her seventy, with the mixture of sharp +personal dislike and the business views which forced her to accept them +visible as usual in her eyes behind her smile. + +Her seventy appeared, as they always did, eminently respectable. There +were three English curates; there were English husbands and wives of the +travelling and the invalid varieties; there were four or five blooming +English girls with pink cheeks and very straight backs; and there were +dozens of English old maids, and of that species of relict that returns +naturally to spinsterhood after the funeral, without having acquired, +from passing through it, any of the richer tints and more ample outlines +that belong to the married state. In addition there were several +Americans, and a few "foreigners." + +Lorenzo and his assistants were carrying away the soup-plates when two +more guests entered late. This was high crime. Madame's eyes, looking +smaller than ever, gleamed like two sparks as they passed. For if one +were so unfortunate as to be late for dinner at Casa Corti the custom +was to make an apologetic little bow to madame as one entered--entered +with hasty, repentant step (having passed, outside the door, the whole +miscellaneous force of the establishment gathered together with cans of +hot water to wash the forks). But these two had made no bow, and madame +had known that they would not; so she talked to her right-hand neighbor, +Captain Sholto Fraser, R.N., and carefully pretended not to see them. +The delinquents were Americans (madame would have said "Of course!"), a +pretty little woman who looked much younger than her age (which was +thirty-three), and the boy who had adorned the parapet with his +sprawling person--a mother and son. They found their empty chairs +waiting for them at the far end of the room. The boy's place was at his +mother's left hand; on her right she had one of the curates. + +"Late again!" began this gentleman. "We shall have to impose a fine upon +you, Mrs. Roscoe; we shall indeed." And he made, playfully, a menacing +gesture with his large, very well kept hand. + +"Ought I to come for the soup?" inquired the lady, surveying the +plateful before her with a slight curl of her lip. + +"Nay; when it is cold!" remonstrated her neighbor. "Be more reasonable, +pray." He regarded her smilingly. + +"Oh, reasonable women are horrid!" responded Mrs. Roscoe. "I should +never think of coming down until later," she went on, "only Maso--he +likes the soup." The boy was eating rapidly. She watched him for a +moment. "I don't see how he can!" she added. + +"Perhaps Tommaso is hungry," suggested an English lady who sat opposite. + +"Maso, please," corrected Mrs. Roscoe; "Tommaso is as ugly as Thomas." + +"I dare say he has not nourishment enough," continued the first speaker; +"at his age that is so important. Why not order for him an extra chop at +luncheon?" + +"Thank Mrs. Goldsworthy for her interest in you, Maso," said his +mother. + +Maso grew red, and hastily crammed so much bread into his mouth that +both of his cheeks were widely distended at the same time. + +"I have read in the journal, Madame Roscoe, of a gerate fire in your +countree--a town entire! I hope you lose not by it?" This inquirer was a +grave little woman from Lausanne, the widow of a Swiss pastor. + +Mrs. Roscoe gave a shrug. "My interests are not of that kind. Where was +the fire, may I ask?" + +"But in your countree, Amereekar. Voyons: the citee of Tam-Tampico." + +Mrs. Roscoe laughed as she helped herself to fish--a fish tied with +yellow ribbons, and carrying a yellow lily in his mouth. "When we were +at Mentone an old lady informed me one day of the arrival of some of my +'countrypeople.' 'Now,' she said, 'you will not be the only Americans in +the house.' At dinner they appeared. They were Chilians. I said to my +friend, 'They are not my countrypeople; they are South Americans.' She +answered, severely: 'I suppose you say that because they are +Southerners! But now that so many years have passed since that dreadful +war of yours was brought to a close, I should think it would be far +wiser to drop such animosities.'" No one laughed over this story save an +American who was within hearing. + +This American, a Vermont man, had arrived at the _pension_ several days +before, and already he had formed a close and even desperate friendship +with Mrs. Roscoe, pursuing her, accompanied by his depressed wife, to +her bedroom (she had no sitting-room), where, while trying to find a +level place on her slippery yellow sofa, he had delivered himself as +follows: "Wife--she kept saying, 'You ought to go abroad; you aren't +well, and it'll do you good; they say it's very sociable over there if +you stay at the _pensions_.'" (He gave this word a political +pronunciation.) "All I can say is--if _this_ is their _pension_!" And he +slapped his thigh with a resounding whack, and laughed sarcastically. + +The beef now came round, a long slab of mahogany color, invisibly +divided into thin slices, the whole decked with a thick dark sauce which +contained currants, citron, and raisins. + +"We miss Mr. Willoughby sadly," observed Mrs. Goldsworthy, with a sigh, +as she detached a slice. "Only last night he was here." + +"I cannot say _I_ miss him," remarked Mrs. Roscoe. + +"You do not? Pray tell us why?" suggested the curate, eagerly. + +"Well, he's so black-letter; so early-English; so 'Merrily sungen the +monks of Ely.' In Baedeker, you know." + +"He is very deep, if you mean that," said Mrs. Goldsworthy, reprovingly. + +"Deep? I should call him wide; he is all over the place. If you speak of +a cat, he replies with a cataract; of a plate, with Plato; of the cream, +with cremation. I don't see how he manages to live in England at all; +there isn't standing-room there for his feet. But perhaps he soars; he +is a sort of a Cupid, you know. What will become of him if they make him +a bishop? For how can a bishop flirt? The utmost he can do is to say, 'I +will see you after service in the vestry.'" + +The curate was laughing in gentlemanlike gulps. He was extremely happy. +The Rev. Algernon Willoughby, of Ely, had been admired, not to say +adored, in that _pension_ for seven long weeks. + +The dinner went on through its courses, and by degrees the red wine flew +from the glasses to the faces. For as wine of the country in abundance, +without extra charge, was one of the attractions of Casa Corti, people +took rather more of it than they cared for, on the thoroughly human +principle of getting something for nothing. At length came a pudding, +violently pink in hue, and reposing on a bed of rose-leaves. + +"Why, the pudding's redder than we are!" remarked Mrs. Roscoe, with +innocent surprise. + +Her own cheeks, however, looked very cool in the universal flush; her +smooth complexion had no rose tints. This lack of pink was, in truth, +one of the faults of a face which had many beauties. She was small and +fair; her delicately cut features were extremely pretty--"pretty enough +to be copied as models for drawing-classes," some one had once said. Her +golden hair, which fell over her forehead in a soft, rippled wave, was +drawn up behind after the latest fashion of Paris; her eyes were blue, +and often they had a merry expression; her little mouth was almost like +that of a child, with its pretty lips and infantile, pearly teeth. In +addition, her figure was slender and graceful; her hands and feet and +ears were noticeably small. To men Violet Roscoe's attire always +appeared simple; the curate, for instance, if obliged to bear witness, +would have said that the costume of each and every other lady in the +room appeared to him more ornamented than that of his immediate +neighbor. A woman, however, could have told this misled male that the +apparently simple dress had cost more, probably, than the combined +attire of all the other ladies, save perhaps the rich velvet of Madame +Corti. + +After nuts and figs, and a final draining of glasses, Madame Corti gave +the signal (no one would have dared to leave the table before that +sign), and her seventy rose. Smiling, talking, and fanning themselves, +they passed across the hall to the salon, where presently tea was served +in large gold-banded coffee-cups, most of which were chipped at the +edges. The ladies took tea, and chatted with each other; they stood by +the piano, and walked up and down, before beginning the regular +occupations of the evening--namely, whist, chess, the reading of the +best authorities on art, or doing something in the way of embroidery and +wool-work, or a complicated construction with bobbins that looked like a +horse-net. There were jokes; occasionally there was a ripple of mild +laughter. Madame Corti, intrenched behind her own particular table, read +the London _Times_ with the aid of a long-handled eye-glass. How she did +despise all these old maids, with their silver ornaments, and their +small economies, with their unmounted photographs pinned on the walls of +their bedrooms, and their talk of Benozzo, and Nicolo the Pisan! She +hated the very way they held their teacups after dinner, poised +delicately, almost gayly, with the little finger extended, as if to give +an air of festal lightness to the scene. Promptly at nine o'clock she +disappeared; an hour later her brougham was taking her to an Italian +gathering, where there would also be conversation, but conversation of a +very different nature. Teresa Corti, when she had escaped from her +_pension_, was one of the wittiest women in Pisa; her wit was audacious, +ample, and thoroughly Italian. There was, indeed, nothing English about +her save her knowledge of the language, and the trace of descent from +an English great-grandfather in her green eyes and crinkled yellow +hair. + +Mrs. Roscoe did not remain in the drawing-room five minutes; she never +took tea, she did not play whist or chess, and she detested fancy-work. +She was followed to the stairway by her curate, who was urging her to +remain and play backgammon. "It's not such a bad game; really it's not," +he pleaded, in his agreeable voice. + +"Nothing is a bad game if one is amused," answered Mrs. Roscoe, +severely. She was seldom severe. But this evening she was tired. + +"Oh, how early you've come up! I'm awful glad," said Maso, as she +entered her bedroom on the third floor. It was a large room, shabbily +furnished in yellow, the frescoed walls representing the Bay of Naples. +Maso was lying on the rug, with his dog by his side. + +"Why are you in the dark?" said his mother. There was a smouldering fire +on the hearth; for though the day had been fine (it was the 15th of +March), the old palace had a way of developing unexpected shivers in the +evening. In spite of these shivers, however, this was the only room +where there was a fire. Mrs. Roscoe lighted the lamp and put on the pink +shade; then she drew the small Italian sticks together on the hearth, +threw on a dozen pine cones, and with the bellows blew the whole into a +brilliant blaze. Next she put a key into the Bay of Naples, unlocked a +wave, and drew out a small Vienna coffee-pot. + +"Are we going to have coffee? Jolly!" said the boy. + +[Illustration: "'OH, HOW EARLY YOU'VE COME UP!' SAID MASO"] + +His mother made the coffee; then she took from the same concealed +cupboard, which had been drilled in the solid stone of the wall, a +little glass jug shaped like a lachrymal from the catacombs, which +contained cream; sugar in a bowl; cakes, and a box of marrons glaces. +Maso gave a Hi! of delight as each dainty appeared, and made his dog sit +on his hind legs. "I say, mother, what were they all laughing about at +dinner? Something you said?" + +"They always laugh; they appear never to have heard a joke before. That +about the bishops, now, that is as old as the hills." Leaning back in +her easy-chair before the fire, with Maso established at her feet, +enjoying his cake and coffee, she gave a long yawn. "Oh, what a stupid +life!" + +Maso was well accustomed to this exclamation. But when he had his mother +to himself, and when the room was so bright and so full of fragrant +aromas, he saw no reason to echo it. "Well, _I_ think it's just gay!" he +answered. "Mr. Tiber, beg!" Mr. Tiber begged, and received a morsel of +cake. + +Mrs. Roscoe, after drinking her coffee, had taken up a new novel. +"Perhaps you had better study a little," she suggested. + +Maso made a grimace. But as the coffee was gone and the cakes were +eaten, he complied--that is, he complied after he had made Mr. Tiber go +through his tricks. This took time; for Mr. Tiber, having swallowed a +good deal of cake himself, was lazy. At last, after he had been +persuaded to show to the world the excellent education he had received, +his master decided to go on with his own, and went to get his books, +which were on the shelf at the other end of the long room. It pleased +him to make this little journey on his heels, with his toes sharply +upturned in the air--a feat which required much balancing. + +"That is the way you run down the heels of your shoes so," his mother +remarked, glancing at his contortions. + +"It doesn't hurt them much on the _carpet_," replied the boy. + +"Mercy! You don't go staggering through the streets in that way, do +you?" + +"Only back streets." + +[Illustration: "'MR. TIBER, BEG!'"] + +He was now returning in the same obstructed manner, carrying his books. +He placed them upon the table where the lamp was standing; then he +lifted Mr. Tiber to the top of the same table and made him lie down; +next, seating himself, he opened a battered school-book, a United States +History, and, after looking at the pictures for a while, he began at +last to repeat two dates to himself in a singsong whisper. Maso was +passing through the period when a boy can be very plain, even hideous, +in appearance, without any perception of the fact in the minds of his +relatives, who see in him the little toddler still, or else the future +man; other persons, however, are apt to see a creature all hands and +feet, with a big uncertain mouth and an omnipresent awkwardness. Maso, +in addition to this, was short and ill developed, with inexpressive eyes +and many large freckles. His features were not well cut; his complexion +was pale; his straight hair was of a reddish hue. None of the mother's +beauties were repeated in the child. Such as he was, however, she loved +him, and he repaid her love by a deep adoration; to him, besides being +"mother," she was the most beautiful being in the whole world, and also +the cleverest. He was intensely proud of the admiration she excited, and +was always on the watch for it; at the table, awkward, constrained, +with downcast eyes, he yet saw every glance that was directed towards +her, and enjoyed each laugh which her words created. Mrs. Roscoe's purse +was a light one; worse than that, an uncertain one; but Maso, +personally, had known nothing but indulgence and ease all his life. + +While he was vaguely murmuring his dates, and rocking himself backward +and forward in time with the murmur, there came a tap at the door. It +was Miss Spring. "I have looked in to bid you good-bye," she said, +entering. "I am going to Munich to-morrow." + +"Isn't that sudden?" said Mrs. Roscoe. "The torn chair is the most +comfortable. Have a marron?" + +"Thank you; I seldom eat sweets. No, it is not sudden." + +"Shall I make you a cup of coffee?" + +"Thank you; I don't take coffee." + +Mrs. Roscoe pushed a footstool across the rug. + +"Thank you; I never need footstools." + +"Superior to all the delights of womankind!" + +Miss Spring came out of her abstraction and laughed. "Not superior; only +bilious and long-legged." Then her face grew grave again. "Do you +consider Pisa an attractive place for a permanent residence?" she +inquired, fixing her eyes upon her hostess, who, having offered all the +hospitable attentions in her power, was now leaning back again, her feet +on a hassock. + +"Attractive? Heavens! no." + +"Yet you stay here? I think I have seen you here, at intervals, for +something like seven years?" + +"Don't count them; I hate the sound," said Mrs. Roscoe. "My wish is--my +hope is--to live in Paris. I get there once in a while, and then I +always have to give it up and come away. Italy is cheap, and Pisa is +the cheapest place in Italy." + +"So that is your reason for remaining," said Miss Spring, reflectively. + +"What other reason on earth _could_ there be?" + +"The equable climate." + +"I hate equable climates. No, we're not here for climates. Nor for +Benozzo; nor for Nicolo the Pisan, and that everlasting old sarcophagus +that they are always talking about; nor for the Leaning Tower, either. I +perfectly hate the Leaning Tower!" + +Miss Spring now undertook a joke herself. "It is for the moderns, then. +You are evidently a Shelley worshipper." + +"Do I look like one?" demanded Violet Roscoe, extending her arms a +little, with the palms of the hands displayed, as if to call attention +to her entire person. + +"I cannot say that you do," replied Miss Spring, after surveying her. "I +should think New York would please you as a place of residence," she +went on, after a moment. "If you do not like Italy, why do you not go +home?" + +"Why don't you?" retorted Violet, taking a marron and crunching it. + +"Well answered. But Newburyport is not to me what I should think New +York might be to you; Newburyport has much to learn. However, we all +have our reasons, I suppose." + +"Mine are not mysterious," said Violet, continuing to crunch. "I have a +better time abroad than I do at home; that's all." + +Miss Spring gazed at the fire. "I may as well acknowledge that it was +those very things that brought me here in the beginning, the things you +don't care for; Nicolo and the revival of sculpture; the early masters. +But I have not found them satisfying. I have tried to care for that +sarcophagus; but the truth is that I remain perfectly cold before it. +And the Campo Santo frescos seem to me out of drawing. As to the Shelley +memories, do you know what I thought of the other day? Suppose that +Shelley and Byron were residing here at this moment-- Shelley with that +queerness about his first wife hanging over him, and Byron living as we +know he lived in the Toscanelli palace--do you think that these ladies +in the pension who now sketch the Toscanelli and sketch Shelley's +windows, who go to Lerici and rave over Casa Magni, who make pilgrimages +to the very spot on the beach where Byron and Trelawny built the funeral +pyre--do you think that a single one of them would call, if it were +to-day, upon Mary Shelley? Or like to have Shelley and Byron dropping in +here for afternoon tea, with the chance of meeting the curates?" + +"If they met them, they couldn't out-talk them," answered Violet, +laughing. "Curates always want to explain something they said the day +before. As to the calling and the tea, what would _you_ do?" + +"I should be consistent," responded Miss Spring, with dignity. "I should +call. And I should be happy to see them here in return." + +"Well, you'd be safe," said Violet. "Shelley, Byron, Trelawny, all +together, would never dare to flirt with Roberta Spring!" She could say +this without malice, for her visitor was undeniably a handsome woman. + +Miss Spring, meanwhile, had risen; going to the table, she put on her +glasses and bent over Maso's book. "History?" + +"Yes, 'm. I haven't got very far yet," Maso answered. + +"Reader. Copy-book. Geography. Spelling-book. Arithmetic," said Miss +Spring, turning the books over one by one. "The Arithmetic appears to be +the cleanest." + +"Disuse," said Mrs. Roscoe, from her easy-chair. "As I am Maso's +teacher, and as I hate arithmetic, we have never gone very far. I don't +know what we shall do when we get to fractions!" + +"And what is your dog doing on the table, may I ask?" inquired the +visitor, surveying Mr. Tiber coldly. + +"Oh, he helps lots. I couldn't study at all without him," explained +Maso, with eagerness. + +"Indeed?" said Miss Spring, turning the gaze of her glasses from the dog +to his master. "How's that?" + +Maso was always rather afraid of the tall Roberta; he curled the pages +of his History with stubby fingers and made no reply. + +"If you won't tell, Maso, I shall," said his mother; "I shall do it to +make you ashamed of your baby ways. He divides each lesson, Miss Spring, +into four parts, if you please; then, as each part is learned (or +supposed to be learned), Mr. Tiber has to sit on his hind legs and wave +a paw. Then, when all four parts are done, Mr. Tiber has to lie on the +book. Book after book is added to the pile, and finally Mr. Tiber is on +top of a monument. But he is so used to it that he does not mind it +much. After the last lesson is learned, then Mr. Tiber, as a +celebration, has to go through all the tricks. And there are +twenty-two." + +"Well!" said Miss Spring. She never could comprehend what she called +"all this dog business" of the Roscoes. And their dog language (they had +one) routed her completely. "Twenty-two!" + +"An' _gherry_ kinnin, idn't they?" Maso was whispering to his pet. + +"Why did you name him Mr. Tiber?" pursued the visitor, in her grave +voice. + +"We didn't; he was already named," explained Mrs. Roscoe. "We bought him +of an old lady in Rome, who had three; she had named them after Italian +rivers: Mr. Arno, Mr. Tiber, and Miss Dora Riparia." + +"Miss Dora Riparia--well!" said Miss Spring. Then she turned to subjects +more within her comprehension. "It is a pity I am going away, Maso, for +I could have taught you arithmetic; I like to teach arithmetic." + +Maso made no answer save an imbecile grin. His mother gesticulated at +him behind Miss Spring's back. Then he muttered, "Thank you, 'm," hoping +fervently that the Munich plan was secure. + +"I shall get a tutor for Maso before long," remarked Mrs. Roscoe, as +Miss Spring came back to the fire. "Later, my idea is to have him go to +Oxford." + +Miss Spring looked as though she were uttering, mentally, another +"well!" The lack of agreement in the various statements of her pretty +little countrywoman always puzzled her; she could understand crime +better than inconsistency. + +"Shall you stay long in Munich?" Violet inquired. + +"That depends." Miss Spring had not seated herself. "Would you mind +coming to my room for a few minutes?" she added. + +"There's no fire; I shall freeze to death!" thought Violet. "If you +like," she answered aloud. And together they ascended to the upper +story, where, at the top of two unexpected steps, was Miss Spring's +door. This door was adorned with a large solidly fastened brass +door-plate, bearing, in old-fashioned script, the name "Archibald +Starr." No one in the house, not even Madame Corti herself, had any idea +who Archibald Starr had been in the flesh. At present he was nothing but +a door-plate. His apartment within had been divided by partitions, so +that his sitting-room was now a rain-water tank. Roberta Spring occupied +his vestibule. The vestibule was small and bare; in the daytime it was +lighted by two little windows, so high in the wall that they were opened +and closed by means of long cords. A trunk, locked and strapped, stood +in the centre of the floor; an open travelling-bag, placed on a chair, +gaped for the toilet articles, which were ranged on the table together, +so that nothing should be forgotten at the early morning start--a cheap +hair-brush and stout comb, an unadorned wooden box containing hair-pins +and a scissors, a particularly hideous travelling pin-cushion. Violet +Roscoe gazed at these articles, fascinated by their ugliness; she +herself possessed a long row of vials and brushes, boxes and mirrors, of +silver, crystal, and ivory, and believed that she could not live without +them. + +"I thought I would not go into the subject before Maso," began Miss +Spring, as she closed her door. "Such explanations sometimes unsettle a +boy; his may not be a mind to which inquiry is necessary. My visit to +Munich has an object. I am going to study music." + +"Music?" repeated Mrs. Roscoe, surprised. "I didn't know you cared for +it." + +"But it remains to be seen whether I care, doesn't it? One cannot tell +until one has tried. This is the case: I am now thirty-seven years of +age. I have given a good deal of attention to astronomy and to +mathematics; I am an evolutionist, a realist, a member of the Society +for Psychical Research; Herbert Spencer's works always travel with me. +These studies have been extremely interesting. And yet I find that I am +not fully satisfied, Mrs. Roscoe. And it has been a disappointment. I am +determined, therefore, to try some of those intellectual influences +which do not appeal solely to reason. They appear to give pleasure to +large numbers of mankind, so there must be something in them. What that +is I resolved to find out. I began with sculpture. Then painting. But +they have given me no pleasure whatever. Music is third on the list. So +now I am going to try that." + +Mrs. Roscoe gave a spring, and seated herself on the bed with her feet +under her, Turkish fashion; the floor was really too cold. "No use +trying music unless you like it," she said. + +"I have never _dis_liked it. My attitude will be that of an impartial +investigator," explained Miss Spring. "I have, of course, no expectation +of becoming a performer; but I shall study the theory of harmony, the +science of musical composition, its structure--" + +"Structure! Stuff! You've got to _feel_ it," said Violet. + +"Very well. I am perfectly willing to feel; that is, in fact, what I +wish--let them _make_ me feel. If it is an affair of the emotions, let +them rouse _my_ emotions," answered Roberta. + +"If you would swallow a marron occasionally, and drink a cup of good +coffee with cream; if you would have some ivory brushes and crystal +scent-bottles, instead of those hideous objects," said Violet, glancing +towards the table; "if you would get some pretty dresses once in a +while--I think satisfaction would be nearer." + +Miss Spring looked up quickly. "You think I have been too ascetic? Is +that what you mean?" + +"Oh, I never mean anything," answered Violet, hugging herself to keep +down a shiver. + +"In spite of your disclaimer, I catch your idea," replied her hostess. +"But if I should carry it out, Mrs. Roscoe, carry it out to its full +extent, it would take me, you know, very far--into complex +dissipations." + +Her voice took on no animation as she said this; it remained calm, as it +always was. She was a tall woman with regular features, a clear white +complexion, and striking gray eyes with long dark lashes; her abundant +dark hair was drawn straight back from her face, and she carried her +head remarkably well. She was what is called "fine-looking," but from +head to foot, though probably she did not know it, her appearance was +austere. + +Violet had given way to irresistible laughter over the "complex +dissipations." Miss Spring came out of what appeared to be a mental +census of the various debaucheries that would be required, and laughed a +little herself. She was not without a sense of humor. "To you it seems +funny, no doubt," she said, "for I have never been at all gay. Yet I +think I could manage it." + +Violet, still laughing, climbed down from the bed; she was too cold to +stay longer. + +"I knew I should get a new idea out of you, Mrs. Roscoe. I always do," +said Roberta, frankly. "And this time it is an important one; it is a +side-light which I had not thought of myself at all. I shall go to +Munich to-morrow. But I will add this: if music is not a success, +perhaps I may some time try your plan." + +"Plan? Horrible! I haven't any," said Violet, escaping towards the door. + +"It is an unconscious one; it is, possibly, instinctive truth," said +Miss Spring, as she shook hands with her departing guest. "And +instinctive truth is the most valuable." + +Violet ran back to her own warm quarters. "You don't mean to say, Maso, +that you've stopped studying already?" she said, as she entered and +seated herself before her fire again, with a sigh of content. "Nice +lessons you'll have for me to-morrow." + +"They're all O.K.," responded the boy. He had his paint-box before him, +and was painting the Indians in his History. + +"Well, go to bed, then." + +"Yes, 'm." + +At half-past ten, happening to turn her head while she cut open the +pages of her novel, she saw that he was still there. "Maso, do you hear +me? Go to bed." + +"Yes, 'm." He painted faster, making hideous grimaces with his protruded +lips, which unconsciously followed the strokes of his brush up and down. +The picture finished at last, he rose. "Mr. Tiber, pim." + +Mr. Tiber left the sofa, where he had been sleeping since the +termination of the lessons, and hopped to the floor. Here he indulged in +a stretch; first, hind legs; then fore legs; then a hunch of his back +and a deep yawn. He was a very small black-and-tan terrier, with a +pretty little head and face. Maso's voice now gave a second summons from +his bedroom, which was next to his mother's, with a door between. "Are +you coming, Mr. Tiber? _Very_ well!" Mr. Tiber, hearing this, ran as +fast as he could scamper into his master's chamber. Here he had his own +bed, composed of a flat basket containing what Maso called "a really +mattress," and a pillow with a pillow-case, a blanket, and red coverlid, +each article bearing an embroidered T in the corner, surmounted by a +coronet; for Mr. Tiber was supposed to be a nobleman. The nobleman went +to bed, and was tucked in with his head on the pillow. This was Maso's +rule; but very soon the head assumed its normal position, curled round +on the little black tail. + +At eleven, Mrs. Roscoe finished her novel and threw it down. "Women who +write don't know much about love-affairs," was her reflection. "And +those of us who have love-affairs don't write!" She rose. "Maso, you +here still? I thought you went to bed an hour ago!" + +"Well, I did begin. I put my shoes outside." He extended his shoeless +feet in proof. "Then I just came back for a minute." + +His mother looked over his shoulder. "That same old fairy-book! Who +would suppose you were twelve years old?" + +"Thirteen," said Maso, coloring. + +"So you are. But only two weeks ago. Never mind; you'll be a tall man +yet--a great big thing striding about, whom I shall not care half so +much for as I do for my little boy." She kissed him. "All your father's +family are tall, and you look just like them." + +Maso nestled closer as she stood beside him. "How did father look? I +don't remember him much." + +"Much? You don't remember him at all; he died when you were six months +old--a little teenty baby." + +"I say, mother, how long have we been over here?" + +"I came abroad when you were not quite two." + +"Aren't we ever going back?" + +"If you could once see Coesville!" was Mrs. Roscoe's emphatic reply. + + +II + +"Hist, Maso! Take this in to your lady mother," said Giulio. "I made it +myself, so it's good." Giulio, one of the dining-room waiters at Casa +Corti, was devoted to the Roscoes. Though he was master of a mysterious +French polyglot, he used at present his own tongue, for Maso spoke +Italian as readily as he did, and in much the same fashion. + +Maso took the cup, and Giulio disappeared. As the boy was carrying the +broth carefully towards his mother's door, Madame Corti passed him. She +paused. + +"Ah, Master Roscoe, I am relieved to learn that your mother is better. +Will you tell her, with my compliments, that I advise her to go at once +to the Bagni to make her recovery. She ought to go to-morrow. That is +the air required for convalescence." + +Maso repeated this to his mother. "'That is the air required for +convalescence,' she said." + +"And 'this is the room required for spring tourists,' she meant. Did she +name a day--the angel?" + +"Well, she did say to-morrow," Maso admitted. + +"Old cat! She is dying to turn me out; she is so dreadfully afraid that +the word fever will hurt her house. All the servants are sworn to call +it rheumatism." + +"See here, mother, Giulio sent you this." + +"I don't want any of their messes." + +"But he made it himself, so it's good." He knelt down beside her sofa, +holding up the cup coaxingly. + +"Beef-tea," said Mrs. Roscoe, drawing down her upper lip. But she took a +little to please him. + +"Just a little more." + +She took more. + +"A little _teenty_ more." + +"You scamp! You think it's great fun to give directions, don't you?" + +Maso, who had put the emptied cup back on the table, gave a leap of glee +because she had taken so much. + +"Don't walk on your hands," said his mother, in alarm, "It makes me too +nervous." + +It was the 12th of April, and she had been ill two weeks. An attack of +bronchitis had prostrated her suddenly, and the bronchitis had been +followed by an intermittent fever, which left her weak. + +"I say, mother, let's go," said Maso. "It's so nice at the Bagni--all +trees and everything. Miss Anderson'll come and pack." + +Miss Anderson was one of Dr. Prior's nurses. She had taken charge of +Mrs. Roscoe during the worst days of her illness. + +"If we do go to the Bagni we cannot stay at the hotel," said Mrs. +Roscoe, gloomily. "This year we shall have to find some cheaper place. I +have been counting upon money from home that hasn't come." + +"But it _will_ come," said Maso, with confidence. + +"Have you much acquaintance with Reuben John?" + +The tone of voice, bitterly sarcastic, in which his mother had from his +earliest remembrance pronounced this name, had made the syllables +eminently disagreeable to Maso. He had no very clear idea as to the +identity of Reuben John, save that he was some sort of a dreadful +relative in America. + +"Well, the Bagni's nice," he answered, "no matter where we stay. And I +know Miss Anderson'll come and pack." + +"You mustn't say a word to her about it. I have got to write a note, as +it is, and ask her to wait for her money until winter. Dr. Prior, too." + +"Well, they'll do it; they'll do it in a minute, and be glad to," said +Maso, still confident. + +"I am sure I don't know why," commented his mother, turning her head +upon the pillow fretfully. + +"Why, mother, they'll do it because it's you. They think everything of +you; everybody does," said the boy, adoringly. + +Violet Roscoe laughed. It took but little to cheer her. "If you don't +brush your hair more carefully they won't think much of _you_," she +answered, setting his collar straight. + +There was a knock at the door. "Letters," said Maso, returning. He +brought her a large envelope, adorned with Italian superlatives of honor +and closed with a red seal. "Always so civil," murmured Mrs. Roscoe, +examining the decorated address with a pleased smile. Her letters came +to a Pisan bank; the bankers re-enclosed them in this elaborate way, and +sent them to her by their own gilt-buttoned messenger. There was only +one letter to-day. She opened it, read the first page, turned the leaf, +and then in her weakness she began to sob. Maso in great distress knelt +beside her; he put his arm round her neck, and laid his cheek to hers; +he did everything he could think of to comfort her. Mr. Tiber, who had +been lying at her feet, walked up her back and gave an affectionate lick +to her hair. "Mercy! the dog, too," she said, drying her eyes. "_Of +course_ it was Reuben John," she explained, shaking up her pillow. + +Maso picked up the fallen letter. + +"Don't read it; burn it--horrid thing!" his mother commanded. + +He obeyed, striking a match and lighting the edge of the page. + +"Not only no money, but in its place a long, hateful, busybodying +sermon," continued Mrs. Roscoe, indignantly. + +Maso came back from the hearth, and took up the envelope. "Mrs. Thomas +R. Coe," he read aloud. "Is our name really Coe, mother?" + +"You know it is perfectly well." + +"Everybody says Roscoe." + +"_I_ didn't get it up; all I did was to call myself Mrs. Ross Coe, which +is my name, isn't it? I hate Thomas. Then these English got hold of it +and made it Ross-Coe and Roscoe. I grew tired of correcting them long +ago." + +"Then in America I should be Thom-as Ross Coe--Thom-as R. Coe," pursued +the boy, still scanning the envelope, and pronouncing the syllables +slowly. He was more familiar with Italian names than with American. + +"No such luck. Tommy Coe you'd be now. And as you grew older, Tom +Coe--like your father before you." + +They went to the Bagni--that is, to the baths of Lucca. The journey, +short as it was, tired Mrs. Roscoe greatly. They took up their abode in +two small rooms in an Italian house which had an unswept stairway and a +constantly open door. These quarters did not depress Violet; she had no +strongly marked domestic tastes; she was indifferent as to her lodging, +provided her clothes were delicately fresh and pretty. But her inability +to go out to dinner took away her courage. She had intended to dine at +the hotel where they had stayed in former years; for two or three hours +each day she could then be herself. But after one or two attempts she +was obliged to give up the plan; she had not the strength to take the +daily walk. It ended in food being sent in from a neighboring cook-shop, +or _trattoria_, and served upon her bedroom table. Maso, disturbed by +her illness, but by nothing else--for they had often followed a nomadic +life for a while when funds were low--scoured the town. He bought cakes +and fruit to tempt her appetite; he made coffee. He had no conception +that these things were not proper food for a convalescent; his mother +had always lived upon coffee and sweets. + +On the first day of May, when they had been following this course for +two weeks, they had a visitor. Dr. Prior, who had been called to the +Bagni for a day, came to have a look at his former patient. He stayed +fifteen minutes. When he took leave he asked Maso to show him the way to +a certain house. This, however, was but a pretext, for when they reached +the street he stopped. + +"I dare say ye have friends here?" + +"Well," answered Maso, "mother generally knows a good many of the people +in the hotel when we are staying there. But this year we ain't." + +"Hum! And where are your relatives?" + +"I don't know as we've got any. Yes, there's one," pursued Maso, +remembering Reuben John. "But he's in America." + +The Scotch physician, who was by no means an amiable man, was bluntly +honest. "How old are you?" he inquired. + +"I'm going on fourteen." + +"Never should have supposed ye to be more than eleven. As there appears +to be no one else, I must speak to you. Your mother must not stay in +this house a day longer; she must have a better place--better air and +better food." + +Maso's heart gave a great throb. "Is she--is she very ill?" + +"Not yet. But she is in a bad way; she coughs. She ought to leave Italy, +for a while; stay out of it for at least four months. If she doesn't +care to go far, Aix-les-Bains would do. Speak to her about it. I fancy +ye can arrange it--hey? American boys have their own way, I hear." This +was meant as a joke; but as the grim face did not smile, the jocular +intention failed to make itself apparent. The speaker nodded, and went +down the street. The idea that Mrs. Roscoe might not have money enough +to indulge herself with a journey to Aix-les-Bains, or to anywhere else, +would never have occurred to him. He had seen her in Pisa off and on for +years, one of the prettiest women there, and perhaps the most perfectly +equipped as regarded what he called "furbelows"; that, with all her +costly finery, she chose to stay in a high-up room at Casa Corti instead +of having an apartment of her own, with the proper servants, was only +another of those American eccentricities to which, after a long +professional life in Italy, he was now well accustomed. + +Maso went back to his mother's room with his heart in his mouth. When he +came in she was asleep; her face looked wan. The boy, cold all over with +the new fear, sat down quietly by the window with Mr. Tiber on his lap, +and fell into anxious thought. After a while his mother woke. The greasy +dinner, packed in greasy tins, came and went. When the room was quiet +again he began, tremulously, "How much money have we got, mother?" + +"Precious little." + +"Mayn't I see how much it is?" + +"No; don't bother." + +She had eaten nothing. + +"Mother, won't you please take that money, even if it's little, and go +straight off north somewhere? To Aix-les-Bains." + +"What are you talking about? Aix-les-Bains? What do you know of +Aix-les-Bains?" + +"Well, I've heard about it. Say, mother, do go. And Mr. Tiber and me'll +stay here. We'll have lots of fun," added the boy, bravely. + +"Is that all you care about me?" demanded his mother. Then seeing his +face change, "Come here, you silly child," she said. She made him sit +down on the rug beside her sofa. "We must sink or swim together, Maso +(dear me! we're not much in the swim now); we can't go anywhere, either +of us; we can only just manage to live as we're living now. And there +won't be any more money until November." She stroked his hair +caressingly. His new fear made him notice how thin her wrist had grown. + + +III + +"You will mail these three letters immediately," said Mr. Waterhouse, in +Italian, to the hotel porter. + +"Si, signore," answered the man, with the national sunny smile, although +Waterhouse's final gratuity had been but a franc. + +"Now, Tommaso, I must be off; long drive. Sorry it has happened so. +Crazy idea her coming at all, as she has enjoyed bad health for years, +poor old thing! She may be dead at this moment, and probably, in fact, +she is dead; but I shall have to go, all the same, in spite of the great +expense; she ought to have thought of that. I have explained everything +to your mother in that letter; the money is at her own bank in Pisa, and +I have sent her the receipt. You have fifty francs with you?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Fifty francs--that is ten dollars. More than enough, much more; be +careful of it, Tommaso. You will hear from your mother in two days, or +sooner, if she telegraphs; in the meanwhile you will stay quietly where +you are." + +"Yes, sir." + +Mr. Waterhouse shook hands with his pupil, and, stepping into the +waiting carriage, was driven away. + +[Illustration: "'WE MUST SINK OR SWIM TOGETHER, MASO'"] + +Benjamin F. Waterhouse, as he signed himself (of course the full name +was Benjamin Franklin), was an American who had lived in Europe for +nearly half a century, always expecting to go home "next summer." He was +very tall, with a face that resembled a damaged portrait of Emerson, and +he had been engaged for many years in writing a great work, a Life of +Christopher Columbus, which was to supersede all other Lives. As his +purse was a light one, he occasionally took pupils, and it was in this +way that he had taken Maso, or, as he called him (giving him all the +syllables of the Italian Thomas), Tommaso. Only three weeks, however, of +his tutorship had passed when he had received a letter announcing that +his sister, his only remaining relative, despairing of his return, was +coming abroad to see him, in spite of her age and infirmities; she was +the "poor old thing" of her dry brother's description, and the voyage +apparently had been too great an exertion, for she was lying dangerously +ill at Liverpool, and the physician in attendance had telegraphed to +Waterhouse to come immediately. + +The history of the tutorship was as follows: Money had come from +America, after all. Mrs. Roscoe (as everybody called her) had been +trying for some time, so she told Maso, "to circumvent Reuben John," and +sell a piece of land which she owned in Indiana. Now, unexpectedly, a +purchaser had turned up. While she was relating this it seemed to her +that her little boy changed into a young man before her eyes. "You've +just got to take that money, mother, and go straight up to +Aix-les-Bains," said Maso, planting himself before her. "I sha'n't go a +single step; I ain't sick, and you are; it's cheaper for me to stay +here. There isn't money enough to take us both, for I want you to stay +up there ever so long--four whole months." + +This was the first of many discussions, or rather of astonished +exclamations from the mother, met by a stubborn and at last a silent +obstinacy on the part of the boy. For of late he had scarcely slept, he +had been so anxious; he had discovered that the people in the house, +with the usual Italian dread of a cough, believed that "the beautiful +little American," as they called his mother, was doomed. Mother and son +had never been separated; the mother shed tears over the idea of a +separation now; and then a few more because Maso did not "care." "It +doesn't seem to be anything to _you_," she declared, reproachfully. + +But Maso, grim-faced and wretched, held firm. + +In this dead-lock, Mrs. Roscoe at last had the inspiration of asking +Benjamin Waterhouse, who was spending the summer at the Bagni, and whom +she knew to be a frugal man, to take charge of Maso during her absence. +Maso, who under other circumstances would have fought the idea of a +tutor with all his strength, now yielded without a word. And then the +mother, unwillingly and in a flood of tears, departed. She went by slow +stages to Aix-les-Bains; even her first letter, however, much more the +later ones, exhaled from each line her pleasure in the cooler air and in +her returning health. She sent to Maso, after a while, a colored +photograph of herself, taken on the shore of Lake Bourget, and the +picture was to the lonely boy the most precious thing he had ever +possessed; for it showed that the alarming languor had gone; she was no +longer thin and wan. He carried the photograph with him, and when he was +alone he took it out. For he was suffering from the deepest pangs of +homesickness. He was homesick for his mother, for his mother's room (the +only home he had ever known), with all its attractions and indulgences; +he could always play his games there; she was never tired of them nor of +the noise and disorder which they might occasion; she was never tired +of Mr. Tiber; she was never tired of Indians and war-whoops, nor of +tents made of her shawls. She always petted him and made much of him; +she was so little serious herself that she had unconsciously kept him +childlike; in many things they had been like two children together. In +the life they led he had but small opportunity to make friendships with +other lads. He had played with the American boys of his age whom he had +met here and there, but they were always travellers; they never stayed +long. His only comrade had been a lad in Pisa named Luigi. But even +Luigi could not play games half as well as his mother could, nor live in +the tent half as satisfactorily. He said nothing of his homesickness to +his tutor; Waterhouse thought him a dull, hangdog sort of boy, and also +a boy incredibly, monstrously ignorant. "What can that feather-brained +little woman have been about not to have sent him to school long ago!" +was his thought. + +But now Maso was left alone, not only schoolless but tutorless. When the +carriage bearing the biographer of Columbus had disappeared down the +road leading to Lucca, the boy went back to the porter, who, wearing his +stiff official cap adorned with the name of the hotel, stood airing his +corpulent person in the doorway. "Say, Gregorio, I'll take those letters +to the post-office if you like; I'm going right by there." + +Gregorio liked Maso; all Italian servants liked the boy and his clever +dog. In addition, the sunshine was hot, and Gregorio was not fond of +pedestrian exercise; so he gave the letters to Maso willingly enough. +Maso went briskly to the post-office. Here he put two of the letters +into the box, but the third, which bore his mother's address, remained +hidden under his jacket. Returning to the hotel, he went up to his room, +placed this letter in his trunk, and locked the trunk carefully; then, +accompanied by Mr. Tiber, he went off for a walk. The change had been so +sudden that he had hardly had time to think; the telegram to Mr. +Waterhouse had come only the day before, and until its arrival he had +supposed that his life was definitely arranged for several months. Now, +suddenly, everything was upheaved. After walking a mile, he sat down in +a shady place and took off his hat. His thoughts ran something as +follows: "'T any rate, mother sha'n't know; _that's_ settled; I ain't +going to let her come back here and get sick again; no, sir! She's +getting all well up there, and she's _got_ to stay four whole months. +There's no way she can hear that old Longlegs" (this was his name for +the historical Benjamin) "has gone, now that I've hooked his letter. The +people she knows here at the Bagni never write; besides, they don't know +where she's staying, and I won't let 'em know. If they see me here alone +they'll suppose Longlegs has arranged it. I've got to tell lies some; +I've got to pretend, when I write to her, that Longlegs has sprained his +wrist or his leg or something, and that's why he can't write himself. +I've got to be awful careful about what I put in my letters, so that +they'll sound all right; but I guess I can do it bully. And I'll spend +mighty little (only I'm going to have ices); I'll quit the hotel, and go +back to that house where we stayed before the money came. I've got fifty +francs--that's lots; when that's gone, I'll go down to Pisa and get some +more; they know me at the bank; I've been there with mother; they'll +give me some. But I won't take much. Then, as old Longlegs hasn't got +to be paid, there'll be stacks left when mother comes back, and she'll +be so surprised! That'll be jolly fun--just elegant fun! Mr. Tiber, pim +here." + +Mr. Tiber was pursuing investigations by the side of a small +watercourse; nothing was visible of him but the tip of a tail. + +"_Very_ well!" + +Mr. Tiber came with a rush. Maso took him up, and confided to him, in +the dog language, all his profound plan. Mr. Tiber approved of it +highly. + +The fifty francs carried the two through a good many days. Mr. Tiber, +indeed, knew no change, for he had his coroneted bed, and the same fare +was provided for him daily--a small piece of meat, plenty of hot +macaroni, followed by a bit of cake and several lumps of sugar. When +there were but eight francs left Maso went to Pisa. Mr. Waterhouse, who +was very careful about money affairs, had paid all his pupil's bills up +to the date of his own departure, and had then sent the remainder of the +money which Mrs. Roscoe had left with him for the summer to her bankers +at Pisa. Maso, as a precaution, carried with him the unmailed letter +which contained the receipt for this sum. But he hoped that he should +not be obliged to open the letter; he thought that they would give him a +little money without that, as they knew him well. When he reached Pisa +he found that the bank had closed its doors. It had failed. + +Apparently it was a bad failure. Nobody (he inquired here and there) +gave him a hopeful word. At the English bookseller's an assistant whom +he knew said: "Even if something is recovered after a while, I am sure +that nothing will be paid out for a long time yet. They have always +been shaky; in my opinion, they are rascals." The bank, in truth, had +never been a solid establishment; during its brief existence its +standing had been dubious. But Violet Roscoe had her own ideas about +banks, and one of the first was that she should be treated "with +civility"; she was immensely indignant if her personality was not +immediately recognized. Generally it was; she was such a charmingly +pretty woman that bankers' clerks all over Europe remembered that +personality without trouble, and handed out her letters eagerly through +the windows of their caged retreats, stretching their heads through as +far as possible to anticipate her slightest wish. But once, at one of +the old banks in Pisa, she had presented a check on Paris, and had been +asked to bring some one to identify her. + +"Such a thing has never happened to me before!" she said, throwing back +her head proudly. + +This was true. But, again, it was her appearance, her beauty, and +personal elegance which had helped her; risks had been assumed now and +then simply from these. "She goes it on her face, doesn't she?" had been +the private comment of one clerk to another in a bank at Rome. Upon this +occasion at Pisa Violet had swept out of the place before the older +official had time to find out what the new man was doing at the outer +counter. Soon after this Mrs. Roscoe had selected this smaller +establishment as "much nicer." "The office is so handsome, and they have +such nice chairs, and all the illustrated papers. And then they are +polite; they know their business, which is to be civil; there they see +what I am!" They did see, indeed. + +[Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WATERHOUSE] + +Maso went back to the Bagni. In the bewilderment of his thoughts +there was but one clear idea: "'T any rate, mother _sha'n't_ know; she's +got to stay away four whole months; the doctor said so." + + +IV + +After a day of thought, Maso decided that he would leave the Bagni and +go down to Pisa, and stay at Casa Corti. Madame Corti would not be there +(she spent her summers at Sorrento), and officially the _pension_ was +closed; but Giulio would let him remain, knowing that his mother would +pay for it when she returned; he had even a vision of the very room at +the top of the house where Giulio would probably put him--a +brick-floored cell next to the linen-room, adorned with an ancient +shrine, and pervaded by the odor of freshly ironed towels. It would be +no end of a lark to spend the summer in Pisa. Luigi would be there; and +the puppet-shows. And perhaps Giulio would take him up on Sundays to the +house on the hill-side where his wife and children lived; he had taken +him once, and Maso had always longed to go again. But when he reached +Pisa with his dog and his trunk he found the Palazzo Rondinelli wearing +the aspect of a deserted fortress; the immense outer doors were swung to +and locked; there was no sign of life anywhere. It had not been closed +for twenty years. It was the unexpected which had happened. Maso went +round to the stone lane behind the palace to see Luigi. It was then that +he learned that his friend had gone to live in Leghorn; he learned, +also, that the Casa Corti servants, having an opportunity to earn full +wages at Abetone for two months, had been permitted by Madame Corti to +accept this rare good-fortune; the house, therefore, had been closed. +Maso, thus adrift, was still confident that the summer was going to be +"huge," a free, banditlike existence, with many enjoyments; pictures of +going swimming, and staying in as long as he liked, were in his mind; +also the privilege of having his hair shaved close to his head, of +eating melons at his pleasure, and of drinking lemonade in oceans from +the gayly adorned, jingling carts. Of course he should have to get +something to do, as his money was almost gone. Still, it would not take +much to support him, and there was going to be an exciting joy in +independence, in living in "bachelor quarters." He found his bachelor +quarters in the Street of the Lily, a narrow passage that went burrowing +along between two continuous rows of high old houses. The Lily's +pavement was slimy with immemorial filth, and, in spite of the heat, the +damp atmosphere was like that of an ill-kept refrigerator. At the top of +one of the houses he established himself, with Mr. Tiber, in a bare room +which contained not much more than a chair and a bed. Nevertheless, the +first time he came out, locked his door, and descended the stairs with +the key in his pocket he felt like a man; and he carried himself like +one, with a swagger. The room had one advantage, it contained a +trap-door to the roof, and there was a ladder tied up to the high +ceiling, its rope secured by a padlock; the boy soon contrived means +(this must have been his Yankee blood) to get the ladder down when he +chose; then at night he went up and cooled himself off on the roof, +under the stars. There were two broken statues there, for the old house +had had its day of grandeur; he made a seat, or rather a bed, at their +feet. Mr. Tiber was so unhappy down below that he invented a way to get +him up also. He spread his jacket on the floor, made Mr. Tiber lie down +upon it, and then, fastening the sleeves together with a cord, he swung +the jacket round his neck and ascended with his burden. Mr. Tiber +enjoyed the roof very much. + +Having established himself, selected his trattoria, and imbibed a good +deal of lemonade as a beginning, the occupant of the bachelor quarters +visited the business streets of Pisa in search of employment. But it was +the dullest season in a place always dull, and no one wished for a new +boy. At the Anglo-American Agency the clerk, languid from the heat, +motioned him away without a word; at the Forwarding and Commission +Office no one looked at him or spoke to him; so it was everywhere. His +friend, the bookseller's assistant, had gone for the summer to the +branch establishment at Como. + +Mrs. Roscoe, who detested Pisa, had established no relations there save +at the confectioner's, and at the agreeable bank where they saw what she +was. But the bank continued closed, and the confectioner objected to +boys of thirteen as helpers. In this emergency Maso wrote to Luigi, +asking if there was any hope of a place in Leghorn. + +"There is sure to be a demand at the large establishments for a talented +North American," Luigi had answered, with confidence. + +But Maso went up and down the streets of Leghorn in vain; the large +establishments demanded nothing. + +The boys now came down in their expectations. Upon Maso's second visit +to the seaport of Tuscany it was agreed that he should take any +employment that was offered; "for of course it is but a temporary +thing," said Luigi, grandly. He remembered Maso's mother, and to him +Casa Corti, at whose heels, as it were, he had lived, was a highly +aristocratic place of abode. Luigi was assistant in a shop where +glass-ware was sold; for an hour this morning he was free to accompany +his friend in his quest, and together they edged their way along in the +narrow line of shade on one side of the hot, white streets. But it made +no difference whether Luigi went in first and offered his North American +candidate, Maso following a few minutes afterwards, or whether Maso made +his demand in person, Luigi entering later, with his best smile, to +serve as backer; no one showed any eagerness to secure the services of +the small, narrow-chested boy. "Say, Maso, couldn't you _look_ a little +different?" suggested Luigi, anxiously, as they came out of an office, +where, as he was last, he had overheard the epithet "sullen-faced" +applied to his American friend. + +The two boys spoke Italian; Luigi knew no English. + +"Why, I look as I'm made. Everybody looks as they're made, don't they?" +said Maso, surprised. + +"Ah, but expression is a beautiful thing--a sympathetic countenance," +said Luigi, waving his hand. "Now you--you might smile more. Promise me +to try a smile at the next place where we go in to ask." + +"Like this?" said Maso. And stopping, he slapped his leg violently, and +gave a deep, long, sardonic laugh. "I saw a man once who did it like +that," he explained. + +"Well! If you should go in and ask for a place and do that--well, I +don't know _what_ they would do to you!" said Luigi, standing still, +amazed. + +"I didn't want to do it; you made me," answered Maso, nettled. + +"I told you to smile with an amiability--a sweetness; I didn't tell you +to slap your leg and yell out like that," Luigi remonstrated, taking off +his hat and wiping his hot forehead. "Come; here's a window with nice +looking-glasses; practice a little, and I'll stand behind and tell you +when it's right." + +And Maso, standing close to the window, smiled with an amiability--a +sweetness. The reflection of his freckled face in the tilted mirror, +giving back these grins, was something unearthly. But both of the boys +were far too much in earnest to notice that. + +"This one will do, I think," said Luigi, doubtfully--"at least, it's the +best. I've got to go now, but look in at the shop before you take the +train back. Are you hungry? I know a place where things are good and not +dear; I'll take you there myself." + +This was Luigi's Italian hospitality; he would show Maso his own +particular _trattoria_. But Maso was not hungry. + +At three o'clock he appeared at Luigi's shop. Luigi was dusting goblets. +"Well?" he said, inquiringly. + +Maso shook his head. + +"Didn't you smile?" + +"Yes, I did it as I took off my hat. And every time they seemed so +surprised." + +"I've a new idea, Maso; behold it: the consul of your country!" + +"Is there one in Leghorn?" asked Maso, vaguely. + +"Of course there is; I have seen the sign many a time." And Luigi +mentioned the street and the number. + +The proprietor of the shop, who was packing a case of the slender +Epiphany trumpets, now broke one by accident, and immediately scolded +Luigi in a loud voice; Maso was obliged to make a hasty departure. + +The office of the representative of the United States government was +indicated by a painted shield bearing the insignia of the republic, and +a brass plate below, with the following notification: "Consolato degli +Stati-Uniti d'America." The first word of this inscription rouses +sometimes a vague thrill in the minds of homesick Americans in Italy +coming to pay a visit to their flag and the eagle. The thrill, however, +is immediately followed by a conviction that whatever the syllables may +mean (in an unintelligible land), they do not foreshadow, probably, +anything so solacing as they appear at first to indicate. Consolato--a +consoling-place; if it were indeed that, the bare room would soon be as +celebrated as is in Jerusalem the Wailing-place of the Jews. To Maso, +however, there was no double meaning. He glanced at the flag; then he +went up the stairs and knocked at the door. + +As it happened, the consul himself was there alone. Maso, upon entering, +took off his hat and tried his smile, then he began: "If you please, I +am trying to get a place--something to do. I thought perhaps, sir, that +you might--" + +He stopped, and in his embarrassment put the toe of his shoe into a hole +in the matting, and moved it about industriously. + +"Don't spoil my matting," said the consul. "You're a very young boy to +be looking for a place." + +"I'm going on fourteen." + +"And of what nation are you?" demanded the consul, after another +survey. + +"Why, I'm American," said Maso, surprised. + +"I shouldn't have taken you for one. What is your name?" + +"Maso--I mean Thom-as Ross Coe," replied the boy, bringing out the +syllables with something of an Italian pronunciation. + +"Tummarse Errosco? Do you call that an American name?" + +"I'll write it," said Maso, blushing. He wrote it in large letters on +the edge of a newspaper that was near him. + +"Thomas R. Coe," read the consul. "Coe is your name, then?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"You want something to do, eh? What do you want, and why do you come +here for it?" + +Maso told his story, or rather a tale which he had prepared on his way +to the consulate. It was a confused narrative, because he did not wish +to betray anything that could give a clew to his mother's address. + +The consul asked questions. "A failure, eh? What failure?" + +"It--it wasn't in Leghorn." + +"And your mother will be back in September? Where is she at present?" + +"She--she is north; she isn't very well, and--" But he could not think +of anything that he could safely add, so he stopped. + +"We haven't any places for boys. Did you expect me to take you in here?" + +"No, sir. I thought perhaps you'd recommend me." + +"On general principles, I suppose, as an American, seeing that I don't +know anything else about you. And you selected the Fourth as a nice, +good, patriotic day for it?" + +"The Fourth?" + +"I suppose you know what day it is?" + +"Yes, sir--Tuesday." + +The consul looked at him, and saw that he spoke in good faith. "_You_ an +American boy? I guess not! You may go." And dipping his pen in the ink, +he resumed his writing. + +Maso, though disturbed and bewildered, held his ground. He certainly was +an American boy. What could the man mean? + +The consul, whose name was Maclean, was a lawyer from Michigan; a short, +stout man of sixty, with a yellow skin, bright black eyes, and an +old-fashioned black wig with a curled edge all round. "No use waiting, +my friend," he said, without looking up; "frauds don't go down here." + +"I'm American. True as you live, I am," said Maso, earnestly. + +Something in his face made the consul relent a little. "Perhaps you've +got some American blood hidden in you somewhere. But it must be pretty +well thinned out not to know the Fourth of July! I suppose you've never +heard of the Declaration of Independence either?" + +A gleam of light now illumined the darkness of Maso's mind. "Oh yes; I +know now; in the History." He rallied. "The Indians took a _very_ bloody +part in it," he added, with confidence. + +"Oh, they did, did they? Where were you brought up?" + +"In Italy, most; a little in other places. I came abroad before I was +two." + +"I see--one of the expatriated class," said Maclean, contemptuously. He +had a great contempt for Americans who leave their own country and +reside abroad. The dialogue ended, after a little more talk, in his +saying: "Well, you get me a note from your mother (I suppose you write +to her?) telling me something more about you. Then I'll see what I can +do." For the boy's story had been a very vague one. + +As Maso, heavy-hearted, turned towards the door, Maclean suddenly felt +sorry for him. He was such a little fellow, and somehow his back looked +so tired. "See here, my son," he said, "here's something for the +present. No use telling you to buy fire-crackers with it, for they +haven't got 'em here. But you might buy rockets; can't look out of the +window summer nights in this place without seeing a lonely rocket +shooting up somewhere." He held out two francs. + +Maso's face grew scarlet. "I'd rather not, unless I can work for it," he +muttered. It was a new feeling to be taken for a beggar. + +"You can work enough for that if you want to. There is a printed list on +that desk, and a pile of circulars; you can direct them. Show me the +first dozen, so that I can see if they'll pass." + +Maso sat down at the desk. He put his hat in six different places before +he could collect his wits and get to work. When he brought the dozen +envelopes for inspection, Maclean said: + +"You seem to know Eyetalian well, with all these Eyetalian names. _I_ +can't make head or tail of 'em. But as to handwriting, it's about the +worst I ever saw." + +"Yes, I know," said Maso, ashamed. "I've never had regular lessons, +'cepting this summer, when--" He stopped; Mr. Waterhouse's name would +be, perhaps, a clew. He finished the circulars; it took an hour and a +half. + +The consul shook hands with him, the mechanical hand-shake of the public +functionary. "You get me that note, and I'll see." + +Maso went back to Pisa. When he arrived at his door in the Street of the +Lily, the wife of the cobbler who lived on the ground-floor handed him a +letter which the postman had left. The sight of it made the boy's heart +light; he forgot his weariness, and, climbing the stairs quickly, he +unlocked his door and entered his room, Mr. Tiber barking a joyous +welcome. Mr. Tiber had been locked in all day; but he had had a walk in +the early morning, and his solitude had been tempered by plenty of food +on a plate, a bowl of fresh water, and a rubber ball to play with. Maso +sat down, and, with the dog on his knees, tore open his letter. It was +directed to him at Pisa, in a rough handwriting, but within there was a +second envelope, a letter from his mother, which bore the address of the +hotel at the Bagni di Lucca, where she supposed that her son was staying +with his tutor. She wrote regularly, and she sent polite messages to +Waterhouse, regretting so much that his severe sprain prevented him from +writing to her in reply. Maso, in his answers, represented himself as +the most hopelessly stupid pupil old Longlegs had ever been cursed with; +in the network of deception in which he was now involved he felt this +somehow to be a relief. He had once heard an American boy call out to +another who was slow in understanding something, "You're an old gumpy;" +so he wrote, "Longlegs yells out every day your an old gumpy," which +greatly astonished Mrs. Roscoe. The boy exerted every power he had to +make his letters appear natural. But the task was so difficult that each +missive read a good deal like a ball discharged from a cannon; there was +always a singularly abrupt statement regarding the weather, and another +about the food at the hotel; then followed two or three sentences about +Longlegs; and he was her "affecshionate son Maso. P.S.--Mr. Tiber is +very well." He sent these replies to the Bagni; here his friend, the +porter, taking off the outer envelope, which was directed to himself, +put the letter within with the others to go to the post-office; in this +way Maso's epistles bore the postmark "Bagni di Lucca." For these +services Maso had given his second-best suit of clothes, with shoes and +hat, to the porter's young son, who had aspirations. + +The present letter from Mrs. Roscoe was full of joyousness and jokes. +But the great news was that she intended to make a tour in Switzerland +in August, and as she missed her little boy too much to enjoy it without +him, she had written urgently to America about money, and she hoped that +before long (she had told them to cable) she could send for him to join +her. Maso was wildly happy; to be with his mother again, and yet not to +have her return to Italy before the important four months were over, +that was perfect; he got up, opened his trunk, and refolded his best +jacket and trousers with greater care, even before he finished the +letter. For he wore now continuously his third-best suit, as the +second-best had been left at the Bagni. At last, when he knew the letter +by heart, he washed his face and hands, and, accompanied by Mr. Tiber, +tail-wagging and expectant, he went down to get supper at the +_trattoria_ near by. + +The next day he tried Pisa again, searching for employment through +street after street. His mother had written that she hoped to send for +him early in August. It was now the 5th of July, so that there were only +four or five weeks to provide for; and then there would be his fare back +to the Bagni. But his second quest was hardly more fortunate than the +first. The only person who did not wave a forefinger in perspiring +negative even before he had opened his lips was a desiccated youth, who, +sitting in his shirt-sleeves, with his feet up and a tumbler beside him, +gave something of an American air (although Maso did not know that) to a +frescoed apartment in which Singer sewing-machines were offered for +sale. This exile told him to add up a column of figures, to show what he +could do. But when he saw that the boy was doing his counting with his +fingers, he nodded him towards the door. "Better learn to play the +flute," he suggested, sarcastically. + +Maso was aware that accountants are not in the habit of running a scale +with the fingers of their left hand on the edge of their desks, or of +saying aloud, "six and three are nine," "seven and five are eleven," and +"nought's nought." He had caught these methods from his mother, who +always counted in that way. He clinched his fingers into his palm as he +went down the stairs; he would never count with them again. But no one +asked him to count, or to do anything else. In the afternoon he sought +the poorer streets; here he tried shop after shop. The atmosphere was +like that of a vapor bath; he felt tired and dull. At last, late in the +day, a cheese-seller gave him a hope of employment at the end of the +week. The wages were very small; still, it was something; and refreshed +by the thought, he went home (as he called it), released Mr. Tiber, +and, as the sun was low, took him off for a walk. By hazard he turned +towards the part of the town which is best known to travellers, that +outlying quarter where the small cathedral, the circular baptistery, and +the Leaning Tower keep each other company, folded in a protecting corner +of the crenellated city wall. The Arno was flowing slowly, as if tired +and hot, under its bridges; Pisa looked deserted; the pavements were +scorching under the feet. + +As the boy came up the broad paved walk that leads to the cathedral, he +saw two ladies leaving the doorway at the base of the Leaning Tower; +evidently they had been making the ascent. They went across to the +baptistery to see the pulpit of Nicolo the Pisan. "Now they're going to +make the old shed howl," he said to himself. This was the disrespectful +way in which he thought of the famous echo. + +At Pisa the atmosphere clothes the cathedral with a softness which no +Northern marbles can ever hope to attain. The facade, perfect in +proportion and beauty, rises with its columns and galleries from the +greensward, facing the sculptured baptistery; on the other side the +celebrated and fantastic tower for the bells stands, like a tree which +has been made to slant by the furious wind, looking across the plain +towards the sea. + +Maso stretched himself on the grass under the facade of the cathedral. +After a while the ladies came from the baptistery, and crossed to the +Campo Santo. In the relaxation of the dull season the portal had been +left open behind them, and the boy went over and wandered about within, +carrying Mr. Tiber under his jacket, half concealed, as dogs are not +allowed in the sacred enclosure. He looked at the frescos of Benozzo, +at the "Last Judgment" and the "Triumph of Death." He passed the +celebrated sarcophagus without knowing what it was, his attention being +more attracted by the modern monuments, the large marble figures, seated +and standing, that stared down upon him with their unmoving white eyes. +At last he sat down at the base of one of these figures to rest, for the +air here was cool compared with the atmosphere outside. The two +strangers, in their slow progress, looking at everything, guide-book in +hand, had passed him once; now on their second round they stopped near +him at the doorway, preparing for departure. "Well, there is nothing +more to see in Pisa," said one. "Thank Heaven! Pisa's done. Now we can +go on to Lerici." + +"We haven't found those plates yet," objected the other. + +"What plates?" + +"Why, don't you remember? They say there are old majolica plates set in +one of the campaniles here--trophies taken from the Moors ages ago. I've +stared up at every campanile, and haven't seen a sign. I wonder if that +boy would know? What a forlorn-looking creature!" + +Maso, in truth, in his third-best suit, and obliged to be economical +regarding the bills of the cobbler's wife, who acted as his laundress, +did not present an attractive appearance. + +The lady, turning towards him, had begun, "Sapete uno posata in +campanile--" But resenting her comment, Maso had risen and walked away. + +"Evidently he isn't Italian, for he doesn't understand," said the +questioner, who was accustomed to declare that it was very easy for her +to travel abroad, as she spoke "five languages equally well." "Perhaps +he is German--with that light hair." She ran after him. "Tisch," she +called, "in thurm. Haben-sie gesehn ein?" + +"I speak English," said Maso, stopping. + +"You're never English, surely!" + +"I'm American." + +"American? We are Americans; but I should never have taken _you_ for +one!" Then she asked her question about the plates. Maso had never heard +of them; he told her so, and made his escape, going back to the grass +under the facade. "Ugly old things," he thought, "both of them! I just +wish they could see _mother_." And forgetting his own mortification, his +heart swelled with pride as he recalled her pretty face and pretty step, +and the general perfection of her appearance. Only four weeks or so and +he should be with her! "Mr. Tiber, pim here. We're going to Switzerland. +Do you hear that? I shall take you in a basket and pretend you's lunch. +The nobil empress" (this character, in the dog language, was Mrs. +Roscoe) "says you mut promit not to bark. But you can bark now. Hi! Mr. +Tiber. Hi!" + +And Mr. Tiber hied. And then, at the word of command, performed every +trick he knew. + + +V + +The cheese-shop was blazing with the light of four flaring gas-burners; +the floor had been watered a short time before, and this made the +atmosphere reek more strongly than ever with the odors of the smoked +fish and sausages, caviare and oil, which, with the cheese, formed the +principal part of the merchandise offered for sale. There was no current +of air passing through from the open door, for the atmosphere outside +was perfectly still. Tranquilly hovering mosquitoes were everywhere, but +Maso did not mind these much; he objected more to the large black +beetles that came noiselessly out at night; he hated the way they stood +on the shelves as if staring at him, motionless save for the waving to +and fro of their long antennae. A boy came in to buy cheese. It was soft +cheese; Maso weighed it, and put it upon a grape leaf. "It just gets +hotter and hotter!" he remarked, indignantly. The Italian lad did not +seem to mind the heat much; he was buttery with perspiration from +morning until night, but as he had known no other atmosphere than that +of Pisa, he supposed that this was the normal summer condition of the +entire world. It was the 27th of August. + +On the last day of July, when Maso's every breath was accompanied by an +anticipation of Switzerland, there had arrived a long disappointed +letter from his mother; the hoped-for money had not come, and would not +come: "Reuben John again!" The Swiss trip must be given up, and now the +question was, could Mr. Waterhouse keep him awhile longer? "Because if +he cannot, I shall return to the Bagni next week." Maso, though choked +with the disappointment, composed a letter in which he said that old +Longlegs was delighted to keep him, and was sorry he could not write +himself, but his arm continued stiff; "probly heel never be able to +write agane," he added, darkly, so as to make an end, once for all, of +that complicated subject. There was no need of her return, not the +least; he and Mr. Tiber were well, "and having loads of fun"; and, +besides, there was not a single empty room in the hotel or anywhere +else, and would not be until the 6th of September; there had never been +such a crowd at the Bagni before. He read over what he had written, and +perceiving that he had given an impression of great gayety at the +Italian watering-place, he added, "P.S. peple all cooks turists." (For +Mrs. Roscoe was accustomed to declare that she hated these inoffensive +travellers.) Then he signed his name in the usual way: "your +affecshionate son, Maso." He never could help blotting when he wrote his +name--probably because he was trying to write particularly well. Mrs. +Roscoe once said that it was always either blot "so," or "Ma" blot; this +time it was "Ma" blot. + +This letter despatched, the boy's steadiness broke down. He did not go +back to the cheese-seller's shop; he lived upon the money he had earned, +and when that was gone he sold his clothes, keeping only those he wore +and his best suit, with a change of under-clothing. Next he sold his +trunk; then his school-books, though they brought but a few centimes. +The old fairy-book he kept; he read it during the hot noon-times, lying +on the floor, with Mr. Tiber by his side. The rest of the day he devoted +to those pleasures of which he had dreamed. He went swimming, and stayed +in for hours; and he made Mr. Tiber swim. He indulged himself as +regarded melons; he went to the puppet-show accompanied by Mr. Tiber; he +had had his hair cut so closely that it was hardly more than yellow +down; and he swaggered about the town in the evening smoking cigarettes. +After three weeks of this vagabond existence he went back to the +cheese-seller, offering to work for half-wages. His idea was to earn +money enough for his fare to the Bagni, and also to pay for the washing +of his few clothes, so that he might be in respectable condition to meet +his mother on the 6th of September; for on the 6th the four months would +be up, and she could safely return. This was his constant thought. Of +late he had spoken of the 6th in his letters, and she had agreed to it, +so there was no doubt of her coming. To-day, August 27th, he had been at +work for a week at the cheese-seller's, and the beetles were blacker and +more crafty than ever. + +It was Saturday night, and the shop was kept open late; but at last he +was released, and went home. The cobbler's wife handed him his letter, +and he stopped to read it by the light of the strongly smelling +petroleum lamp. For he had only a short end of a candle up-stairs; and, +besides, he could not wait, he was so sure that he should find, within, +the magic words, "I shall come by the train that reaches Lucca at--" and +then a fixed date and hour written down in actual figures on the page. + +The letter announced that his mother had put off her return for three +weeks: she was going to Paris. "As you are having such a wonderfully +good time at the Bagni this summer, you won't mind this short delay. If +by any chance Mr. Waterhouse cannot keep you so long, let him telegraph +me. No telegram will mean that he can." She spoke of the things she +should bring to him from Paris, and the letter closed with the sentence, +"I am so glad I have thought of this delightful idea before settling +down again in that deadly Casa Corti for the winter." (But the idea had +a human shape. Violet Roscoe's ideas were often personified; they took +the form of agreeable men.) + +"Evil news? Tell me not so!" said the cobbler's wife, who had noticed +the boy's face as he read. + +"Pooh! no," answered Maso, stoutly. He put the letter into his pocket +and went up to his room. As he unlocked his door, there was not the +usual joyful rush of Mr. Tiber against his legs; the silence was +undisturbed. He struck a match on the wall and lighted his candle-end. +There, in the corner, on his little red coverlid, lay Mr. Tiber asleep. +Then, as the candle burned more brightly, it could be seen that it was +not sleep. There was food on the tin plate and water in the bowl; he had +not needed anything. There was no sign of suffering in the attitude, or +on the little black face with its closed eyes (to Maso that face had +always been as clearly intelligible as a human countenance); the +appearance was as if the dog had sought his own corner and his coverlid, +and had laid himself down to die very peacefully without a pain or a +struggle. + +The candle-end had long burned itself out, and the boy still lay on the +floor with his arm round his pet. It seemed to him that his heart would +break. "Mr. Tiber, dear little Tiber, my own little doggie--dying here +all alone!--kinnin little chellow!" Thus he sobbed and sobbed until he +was worn out. Towards dawn came the thought of what must follow. But no; +Mr. Tiber should not be taken away and thrown into some horrible place! +If he wished to prevent it, however, he must be very quick. He had one +of the large colored handkerchiefs which Italians use instead of +baskets; as the dawn grew brighter he spread it out, laid his pet +carefully in the centre, and knotted the corners together tightly; +then, after bathing his face to conceal as much as possible the traces +of his tears, he stole down the stairs, and, passing through the town, +carrying his burden in the native fashion, he took a road which led +towards the hills. + +It was a long walk. The little body which had been so light in life +weighed now like lead; but it might have been twice as heavy, he would +not have been conscious of it. He reached the place at last, the house +where Giulio's wife lived, with her five children, near one of the +hill-side villages which, as seen from Pisa, shine like white spots on +the verdure. Paola came out from her dark dwelling, and listened to his +brief explanation with wonder. To take so much trouble for a dog! But +she was a mild creature, her ample form cowlike, her eyes cowlike also, +and therefore beautiful; she accompanied him, and she kept the curious +crowding children in some kind of order while the boy, with her spade, +dug a grave in the corner of a field which she pointed out. Maso dug and +dug in the heat. He was so afraid of the peasant cupidity that he did +not dare to leave the dog wrapped in the cotton handkerchief, lest the +poor little tomb should be rifled to obtain it; he gave it, therefore, +to one of the children, and, gathering fresh leaves, he made a bed of +them at the bottom of the hole; then leaning down, he laid his pet +tenderly on the green, and covered him thickly with more foliage, the +softest he could find. When the last trace of the little black head had +disappeared he took up the spade, and with eyes freshly wet again in +spite of his efforts to prevent it, he filled up the grave as quickly as +he could, levelling the ground smoothly above it. He had made his +excavation very deep, in order that no one should meddle with the place +later: it would be too much trouble. + +It was now nearly noon. He gave Paola three francs, which was half of +all he possessed. Then, with one quick glance towards the corner of the +field, he started on his long walk back to Pisa. + + +VI + +"Do you know where you'll end, Roberta! You'll end with us," said Mrs. +Harrowby. + +"With you?" + +"Yes; in the Church. You've tried everything, beginning with geology and +ending with music (I can't help laughing at the last; you never had any +ear), and you have found no satisfaction. You are the very kind to come +to us; they always do." + +The speaker, an American who lived in Naples, had entered the Roman +Catholic Church ten years before; in Boston she had been a Unitarian. It +was the 10th of September, and she was staying for a day in Pisa on her +way southward; she had encountered Miss Spring by chance in the piazza +of Santa Caterina at sunset, and the two had had a long talk with the +familiarity which an acquaintance in childhood carries with it, though +years of total separation may have intervened. + +"There is one other alternative," answered Miss Spring; "it was +suggested by a pretty little woman who used to be here. She advised me +to try crystal scent-bottles and dissipation." This being a joke, Miss +Spring had intended to smile; but at this instant her attention was +attracted by something on the other side of the street, and her face +remained serious. + +"Crystal scent-bottles? Dissipation? Mercy!" exclaimed Mrs. Harrowby. +"What _do_ you mean?" + +But her companion had gone; she was hurrying across the street. "It +isn't possible, Maso, that this is _you!_" She spoke to a ragged, +sick-looking boy. + +Two hours after her question Maso was in bed in the Palazzo Rondinelli. +Madame Corti never came back till October, and the _pension_ was not +open, but servants were there. The house-keeper went through the form of +making protest: "The signora has always such great alarm about fever." + +"You will refer Madame Corti to me; I will pay for her alarm," answered +Roberta, marching past her to direct the driver of the carriage, who was +assisting Maso up the stairs. "It's not infectious fever. Only +malarial." Roberta was something of a doctor herself. She superintended +in person the opening of a large, cool room on the second floor, the +making of the bed, and then the installation of Maso between linen +sheets. The servants were all fond of the boy; in addition, Madame Corti +was in Sorrento, and Miss Spring's francs were here. Her francs were +few, but she spent them for Maso as generously as though they had been +many. + +The boy, as soon as he was in bed, whispered to Giulio, "Pencil--paper." +Then when Miss Spring had left the room, he scrawled on the page, Giulio +holding a book under it, "My dog is ded," and signed his name. He told +Giulio to give this to her when she came in; then, as he heard her step, +he quickly closed his eyes. + +Miss Spring read, and understood. "He was afraid I would ask. And he +could not speak of it. He remembers, poor little fellow, that I did not +care for the dog." + +Maso had refused to tell her where his mother was. "She's coming, on the +22d, to the Bagni di Lucca"; this was all he would say. The next morning +at daylight she left him with the nurse (for she had sent immediately +for Dr. Prior and for one of the best nurses in Pisa), and, driving to +the Street of the Lily, she ascended the unclean stairs, with her skirts +held high and her glasses on, to the room at the top of the house. Maso +had himself gathered his few possessions together after his meeting with +her in the piazza of Santa Caterina, but he had not had the strength to +carry them down to the lower door. Miss Spring took the two parcels, +which were tied up in newspapers, and after looking about to see that +there was nothing left, she descended in the same gingerly way, and +re-entered the carriage which was waiting at the door, its wheels +grazing the opposite house. "Yes, he is ill; malarial fever. But we hope +he will recover," she said to the cobbler's wife, who inquired with +grief and affection, and a very dirty face. + +To find Mrs. Roscoe's address, so that she could telegraph to her, Miss +Spring was obliged to look through Maso's parcels. She could not ask his +permission, for he recognized no one now; his mind wandered. One of the +bundles contained the best suit, still carefully saved for his mother's +arrival. The other held his few treasures: his mother's letters, with +paper and envelopes for his own replies; the old fairy-book; and Mr. +Tiber's blanket, coverlid, and little collar, wrapped in a clean +handkerchief. The latest letter gave the Paris address. + + * * * * * + +"My dear little boy! If I could only have known!" moaned Violet Roscoe, +sitting on the edge of the bed with her child in her arms. She had just +arrived; her gloves were still on. "Oh, Maso, why didn't you tell me?" + +Maso's face, gaunt and brown, lay on her shoulder; his eyes were +strange, but he knew her. "You mustn't get sick again, mother," he +murmured, anxiously, the fixed idea of the summer asserting itself. Then +a wider recollection dawned. "Oh, mother," he whispered with his dry +lips, "Mr. Tiber's dead. Little Tiber!" + +His fever-hot eyes could not shed tears, but his mother cried for him, +overwhelmed by the thought of his lonely sorrow. Then she tried to +comfort him: "Tiber was an old dog, Maso; he was not young when we +bought him, and we have had him many years. Dogs do not live very long, +even the oldest; he had to die some time. And he had a very happy little +life with you, always; you loved him, and gave him everything, and he +loved you. No dog could have had more." + +Roberta overheard this attempt; she came to the bedside to add her item +also to the consolation. "Perhaps you will see your pet again, Maso. For +he had his vital spark as well as we have, though in a less degree. If +ours is to reappear in a future existence, I am inclined to think that +his will also. Why not?" + +Maso did not understand her; his mother's voice alone reached his dulled +intelligence. But at least Roberta had done her best. + +A month later Mr. Reuben J. Coe, of Coesville, New Hampshire, said to +his brother David: "That foolish wife of Tom's is coming home at last. +In spite of every effort on my part, she has made ducks and drakes of +almost all her money." + +"Is that why she is coming back?" + +"No; thinks it will be better for the boy. But I'm afraid it's too late +for that." + + + + +A FLORENTINE EXPERIMENT + + +One afternoon, three years ago, two ladies were talking together on the +heights of Fiesole overlooking Florence. They occupied the stone bench +which bears the inscription of its donor, an appreciative Englishman, +who in a philanthropical spirit has had it placed there for the benefit +of the pilgrims from all nations who come to these heights to see the +enchanting view. The two ladies were not speaking of the view, however, +but of something more personal. It seemed to be interesting. + +"He is certainly much in love with you," said one, who was taller and +darker than her companion. As she spoke, she gave back a letter which +she had been reading. + +"Yes, I think he is," said the other, reflectively, replacing it in its +envelope. + +"I suppose you are so accustomed to it, Beatrice, that it does not make +much impression upon you," continued the first speaker, her glance as +she spoke resting not upon her companion, but upon the lovely levels +beneath, with the violet-hued mountains rising softly up round about +them, so softly that one forgot they were mountains until the eye caught +the gleam of snow on the summits towards the east. There was a pause +after this question, and it lasted so long that the questioner at +length removed her eyes from the landscape and turned them upon her +friend; to her surprise she saw that the friend was blushing. + +"Why, Beatrice!" she exclaimed, "is it possible--" + +"No," said Beatrice, "it is not possible. I know that I am blushing; but +you must not think too much of that. I am not as strong as I was, and +blush at everything; I am taking iron for it. In the present case, it +only means that--" She paused. + +"That you like him," suggested the other, smiling. + +"I like a number of persons," said Mrs. Lovell, tranquilly, gazing in +her turn down the broad, slightly winding valley, dotted with its little +white villages, and ending in a soft blue haze, through which the tawny +Arno, its course marked by a line of tall, slender, lightly foliaged, +seemingly branchless trees, like tall rods in leaf, went onward towards +the west. + +"I know you do," said the first speaker. "And I really wish," she added, +with a slight touch of vehemence, "that your time would come--that I +should see you at last liking some one person really and deeply and +jealously, and to the exclusion of all the rest." + +"I don't know why you should wish me unhappiness, Margaret. You have +beautiful theories, I know; but in my _experience_" (Mrs. Lovell +slightly underlined this word as if in opposition to the "theories" of +her friend) "the people who have those deeper sort of feelings you +describe are almost always very unhappy." + +Margaret turned her head, and looked towards the waving line of the +Carrara mountains; in her eyes there was the reflection of a sudden +inward pain. But she knew that she could indulge in this momentary +expression of feeling; the mountains would not betray her, and the +friend by her side did not realize that anything especial could have +happened to "Margaret." In excuse for Mrs. Lovell it may be said that so +much that was very especial had always happened, and still continued to +happen, to her, that she had not much time for the more faintly colored +episodes of other people. + +Beatrice Lovell was an unusually lovely woman. The adjective is here +used to signify that she inspired love. Not by an effort, word, action, +or hardly interest of her own; but simply because she was what she was. +Her beauty was not what is called striking; it touched the eye gently at +first, but always grew. People who liked to analyze said that the secret +lay in the fact that she had the sweetness, the tints, the surface +texture as it were, and even sometimes the expression, of childhood +still; and then, when you came to look deeper, you found underneath all +the richer bloom of the woman. Her golden hair, not thick or long, but +growing in little soft wavelets upon her small head; her delicate +rose-leaf skin, showing the blue veins; her little teeth and the shape +of her sweet mouth--all these were like childhood. In addition, she was +dimpled and round, with delicately cut features, and long-lashed violet +eyes, in whose soft depths lay always an expression of gentle trust. +This beautiful creature was robed to-day in widow's mourning-garb made +in the severest fashion, without one attempt to decorate or lighten it. +But the straight-skirted, untrimmed garments, the little close bonnet, +and the heavy veil pinned over it with straight crape-pins, only brought +out more vividly the tints of her beauty. + +"No," she continued, as her companion did not speak, "I by no means wish +for the feelings you invoke for me. I am better off as I am; I keep my +self-possession. For instance, I told this Sicily person that it was in +very bad taste to speak to me in that way at such a time--so soon after +Mr. Lovell's death; and that I was much annoyed by it." + +"It has not prevented his writing," said Margaret, coming back slowly +from the Carrara mountains, and letting her eyes rest upon the tower of +the Palazzo Vecchio below, springing above the city roofs like the stem +of a flower. + +"They always write, I think," said Mrs. Lovell, simply. + +"I know they do--to _you_," said Margaret. She turned as she spoke, and +looked at her friend with the same old affection and admiration which +she had felt for her from childhood, but now with a sort of speculative +curiosity added. How must it feel to live such a life--to be constantly +surrounded and accompanied by an atmosphere of devotion and enthralment +such as that letter had expressed? Beatrice seemed to divine something +of her friend's thought, and answered it after her fashion. + +"It is such a comfort to be with you, Margaret," she said, +affectionately; "it has always been a comfort, ever since we were +children. I can talk freely to you, and as I can talk to no one else. +You understand; you do not misunderstand. But all the other women I meet +invariably do; or, at least, pretend to enough to excuse their being +horribly disagreeable." + +Margaret took her hand. They had taken off their gloves, as the +afternoon was warm, and they had the heights to themselves; it was early +in March, and the crowd of tourists who come in the spring to Italy, and +those more loitering travellers who had spent the winter in Naples or +Rome, had not yet reached Florence, although it may be said that they +were at the door. Mrs. Lovell's hands, now destitute of ornament save +the plain band of the wedding-ring, were small, dimpled, very white; her +friend Miss Stowe had hands equally small, but darker and more slender. + +"You have been happy all your life, have you not, Beatrice?" said +Margaret, not questioningly so much as assertively. + +"Yes," answered Mrs. Lovell, "I think I have. Of course I was much +shocked by Mr. Lovell's death; he was very kind to me." + +"Mr. Lovell," as his wife always called him, had died four months +previously. He was fifty-six years of age, and Beatrice had been his +wife for a little more than a year. He had been very happy with her, and +had left her his fortune and his blessing; with these, and his memory, +she had come abroad, and had been for six weeks in Sicily, with some +elderly friends. She had stopped in Florence to see Miss Stowe, who was +spending the winter there with an aunt; but she was not to remain. In +her present state of seclusion she was to visit Venice and the Lakes in +advance of the season, and spend the summer in "the most quiet village" +which could be discovered for her especial benefit on the Brittany +coast. The friends had not met for two years, and there had been much to +tell--that is, for Beatrice to tell. Her always personal narratives were +saved from tediousness, however, because they were not the usual +decorated feminine fancies, but plain masculine facts (oh, very plain!); +and because, also, the narrator was herself quite without the vanity +which might naturally have accompanied them. This last merit seemed to +her admirers a very remarkable one; in reality it was only that, having +no imagination, she took a simple, practical view of everything, +themselves included. This last, however, they never discovered, because +her unfailing tact and gentleness lay broadly and softly over all. + +"And what shall you do about your Sicily person?" said Margaret, not in +the least, however, associating the remark, and knowing also that +Beatrice would not associate it, with "Mr. Lovell" and his "memory" (it +was quite well understood between them about "Mr. Lovell"). + +"Of course I shall not answer." + +"And if he follows you?" + +"He will hardly do that--now. Besides, he is going to America; he sails +to-morrow. Our having been together in Sicily was quite by chance, of +course; he knows that, and he knows also that I intend to pay, in every +way, the strictest respect to Mr. Lovell's memory. That will be fully +two years." + +"And then?" + +"Oh, I never plan. If things do not assert themselves, they are not +worth a plan." + +"You certainly are the most delightful little piece of common-sense I +ever met," said Margaret, laughing, and kissing her. "I wish you would +give me a share of it! But come--it is late; we must go." + +As they went down the slope together towards the village where their +carriage was waiting, they looked not unlike the two seventeen-year-old +school-girls of eight years before; Beatrice was smiling, and Margaret's +darker face was lighted by the old animation which had always charmed +her lovely but unanimated friend. It may here be remarked that the +greatest intellectual excitements which Beatrice Lee had known had been +when Margaret Stowe had let loose her imagination, and carried her +friend up with her, as on strong wings, to those regions of fancy which +she never attained alone; Beatrice had enjoyed it, wondered over it, and +then had remained passive until the next time. + +"Ah well--poor Sicily person!" said Margaret, as they took their places +in the carriage. "I know just what you will do with him. You will write +down his name in a memorandum-book, so as not to forget it; you will +safely burn his poor letter, as you have safely burned so many others; +and you will go gently on to Brittany without even taking the ashes!" + +"Keep it for me!" said Mrs. Lovell, suddenly, drawing the letter from +her pocket and placing it in Margaret's hand. "Yes," she repeated, +enjoying her idea and dwelling upon it, delighted to find that she +possessed a little fancy of her own, after all, "keep it for me, and +read it over once in a while. It is quite well written, and will do you +good, because it is not one of your theories, but a fact. There is +nothing disloyal in my giving it to you, because I always tell you +everything, and this Sicily person has no claim for exemption in that +regard. He has gone back to America, and you will not meet him. +No--positively, I will not take it. You must keep it for me." + +"Very well," said Margaret, amused by this little unexpected flight. +"But as I may go back to America also, I want to be quite sure where I +stand. Did you happen to mention to this Sicily person my name, or +anything about me?" + +"No," replied Mrs. Lovell, promptly. "We did not talk on such subjects, +you know." + +"And he had no idea that you were to stop in Florence?" + +"No; he supposed I was to take the steamer at Naples for Marseilles. You +need not be so scrupulous; everything is quite safe." + +"And when shall I return the epistle?" + +"When I ask for it," said Mrs. Lovell, laughing. + +The next morning she went northward to Venice. + + * * * * * + +Two weeks later Miss Stowe formed one of the company at a reception, or, +rather, a musical party. She looked quite unlike the "Margaret" of +Fiesole as she sat on a small, faded purple satin sofa, listening, +rather frowningly, to the rippling movement that follows the march in +Beethoven's sonata, opus twenty-six; she had never liked that rippling +movement, she did not pretend to like it now. Her frown, however, was +slight--merely a little line between her dark eyebrows; it gave her the +appearance of attention rather than of disapprobation. The "Margaret" of +Fiesole had looked like an animated, almost merry, young girl; the "Miss +Stowe" of the reception appeared older than she really was, and her face +wore an expression of proud reserve, which, although veiled by all the +conventional graciousness required by society, was not on that account +any the less apparent. She was richly dressed; but the general effect of +her attire was that of simplicity. She fanned herself slowly with a +large fan, whose sticks were of carved amber, and the upper part of soft +gray ostrich plumes, curled; closed or open, as she used it or as it lay +beside her, this fan was an object of beauty. As the music ceased a lady +came fluttering across the room, and, with a whispered "Permit me," +introduced a gentleman, whose name, in the hum of released +conversation, Miss Stowe did not hear. + +"He understands _everything_ about old pictures, and you know how +ignorant _I_ am!" said this lady, half closing her eyes, and shaking her +ringleted head with an air of abnegation. "_I_ have but _one_ +inspiration; there is room in me but for _one_. I bring him, therefore, +to _you_, who have so many! We _all_ know your love for the early +masters--may I not say, the _earliest_?" + +Madame Ferri was an American who had married a Florentine; she was now a +little widow of fifty, with gray ringlets and emotions regarding music +almost too ineffable to be expressed. I say "almost," because she did, +after all, express them, as her friends knew. She was a useful person in +Florence because she indefatigably knew everybody--the English and +Americans as well as the Florentines; and she spent her time +industriously at work mingling these elements, whether they would or no. +No one thanked her for this especially, or remembered it after it was +done; if republics are ungrateful, even more so is a society whose +component parts are transient, coming and departing day by day. But +Madame Ferri herself appreciated the importance of her social +combinations if no one else did; and, like many another chemist, lived +on content in the consciousness of it. + +"I know very little about old pictures," said the stranger, with a +slight smile, finding himself left alone beside Miss Stowe. + +"And I--do not like them," she replied. + +"If, more than that, you dislike them, we shall have something to talk +about. Dislike can generally express itself very well." + +"On the contrary, I think it is one of those feelings we do not +express--but conceal." + +"You are thinking of persons, perhaps. I was speaking of things. +Pictures are things." + +Miss Stowe felt herself slightly displeased; and the feeling was not +lessened when, with a "Will you allow me?" the stranger took a seat at +the end of her sofa, in the space left free by the gray silken sweep of +her dress. There was in reality an abundance of room for him; other men +were seated, and there was no chair near. Still, the sofa was a small +one; the three Italians and two Frenchmen who had succeeded each other +in the honor of standing beside her for eight or ten minutes' +conversation had not thought of asking for the place so calmly taken by +this new-comer. She looked at him as he began talking; he was quite +unlike the three Italians and two Frenchmen. He was not ruddy enough for +an Englishman of that complexion; he had a lethargic manner which was +un-American. She decided, however, that he was, like herself, an +American; but an American who had lived much abroad. + +He was talking easily upon the various unimportant subjects in vogue at +a "small party;" she replied in the same strain. + +Margaret Stowe was not beautiful; "pretty" was the last word that could +have been applied to her. Her features were irregular; she had a +well-shaped, well-poised head, and a quantity of dark hair which she +wore closely braided in a low knot behind. She was tall, slender, and +rather graceful; she had dark eyes. As has been said before, she was not +beautiful; but within the past two years she had acquired, her friends +thought, an air of what is called distinction. In reality this was but +a deep indifference, combined with the wish at the same time to maintain +her place unchanged in the society in which she moved. Indifference and +good manners taken together, in a tall and graceful person, will +generally give that air. Beatrice Lovell had not perceived this change +in her friend, but on that day at Fiesole Miss Stowe had been simply the +"Margaret" of old. + +In accordance with what we have called her good manners, Miss Stowe now +gave to the stranger beside her easy replies, several smiles, and a fair +amount of intelligent attention. It was all he could have expected; but, +being a man of observation, he perceived her indifference lying broadly +underneath, like the white sand under a shallow river. + +During the same week she met him at a dinner-party, and they had some +conversation. Later he was one of the guests at a reception which she +attended, and again they talked together awhile. She now mentioned him +to her aunt, Miss Harrison, to whom she generally gave, every few days, +a brief account of the little events in the circle to which they +belonged. She had learned his name by this time; it was Morgan. + +"I wonder if he is a grandson of old Adam Morgan," said Miss Harrison, +who was genealogical and reminiscent. "If he is, I should like to see +him. Has he a Roman nose?" + +"I think not," said her niece, smiling. + +"Well, describe him, then." + +"He is of medium height, neither slender nor stout; he is light, with +rather peculiar eyes because they are so blue--a deep, dull blue, like +old china; but they are not large, and he does not fully open them. He +has a long, light mustache, no beard, and very closely cut hair." + +"He must be good-looking." + +"No; he is not, especially. He may be anywhere between thirty and forty; +his hair in a cross-light shows a slight tinge of gray. He looks +fatigued; he looks cynical. I should not be surprised if he were +selfish. I do not like him." + +"But if he should be the grandson of old Adam, I should have to invite +him to dinner," said Miss Harrison, reflectively. "I could not do less, +I think." + +"I won't poison the soup. But Morgan is a common name, Aunt Ruth; this +is the fourth Morgan I have met here this spring. There isn't one chance +in a thousand that he belongs to the family you know." She was smiling +as she spoke, but did not explain her smile; she was thinking that +"Morgan" was also the name signed to that letter locked in her +writing-desk--a letter whose expressions she now knew quite well, having +obeyed Mrs. Lovell's injunction to "read it over" more than once. They +were ardent expressions; it might be said, indeed, that they were very +ardent. + +But now and then that one chance in a thousand, so often summarily +dismissed, asserts its existence and appears upon the scene. It turned +out in the present case that the stranger was the grandson of the old +Adam Morgan whom Miss Harrison remembered. Miss Stowe, in the meantime, +had continued to meet him; but now she was to meet him in a new +way--when he would be more upon her hands, as it were; for Miss Harrison +invited him to dinner. + +Miss Ruth Harrison was an invalid of nearly sixty years of age; she had +been for ten years in Europe, but had only had her orphaned niece with +her during the past eighteen months. She had a large fortune, and she +gave Margaret every luxury; especially she liked to see her richly +dressed. But it was quite well understood between them that the bulk of +her wealth was to go to another relative in America who bore her family +name. It was understood between them, but it was not understood outside. +On the contrary, it was generally believed in Florence that Miss Stowe +would inherit the whole. It is just possible that this belief may have +had a remote influence in shaping the opinion which prevailed +there--namely, that this young lady was "handsome" and "gracious," when, +in truth, she was neither. But Mr. Morgan, the new-comer, exhibited so +far, at least, no disposition to fall in with this fiction. In his +estimation Miss Stowe was a conventionally agreeable, inwardly +indifferent young lady of twenty-six, who carried herself well, but was +too ironical as well as too dark. He came to dinner. And did not change +his opinion. + +A few days after the dinner Miss Harrison invited her new acquaintance +to drive; she was able to go out for an hour or two in the afternoon, +and she had a luxurious carriage and fine horses. Miss Stowe did not +accompany them; she went off by herself to walk in the Boboli Garden. + +Miss Harrison returned in good-humor. "I like him," she announced, as +the maid removed her bonnet. "Yes, I think I may hope that the grandson +of old Adam is not going to be a disappointment." + +"The grandson of Adam--I suppose his name is Adam also--is a fortunate +person, Aunt Ruth, to have gained your liking so soon; you do not often +take likings to strangers." + +"His name is not Adam," pursued Miss Harrison, "and that is a pity; +there is character as well as association in Adam. He has a family +name--Trafford. His mother was a Miss Trafford, of Virginia, it seems." + +Miss Stowe was selecting flowers from a fragrant heap before her to fill +the wide-mouthed vases which stood on the floor by her side; but now she +stopped. "Trafford Morgan" was the name signed at the end of that +letter! It must be he; it was not probable that there were two names of +that special combination; it seemed a really remarkable chance. And +evidently he had not gone to America, in spite of Mrs. Lovell's belief. +She began to smile and almost to laugh, bending her head over a great +soft purple heap of Florence lilies in order that her aunt might not +observe it. But the large room was dusky, and Miss Harrison +near-sighted; she observed nothing. The two ladies occupied an apartment +in a house which, if it had not been so new, would have been called a +"palace." Although modern, the measurements had been after the old +Florentine pattern, and the result was that the occupants moved about in +rooms which could have contained entire, each one, a small American +house. But they liked the vastness. After a moment Miss Stowe went on +arranging her blossoms, but inwardly she was enjoying much +entertainment; she was going over in her own mind the expressions of +that letter, which now took on quite a new character, coming no longer +from some formless stranger, but from a gentleman with whom she had +spoken, a person she had met and would meet again. "I never should have +dreamed that he was capable of it," she said to herself. "He has seemed +indifferent, _blase_. But it places me in a nice position! Especially +now that Aunt Ruth has taken a fancy to him. I must write to Beatrice +immediately, and ask her to take back the stupid letter." She wrote +during the same evening. + +The next day she was attacked by a severe illness--severe, although +short. No one could tell what was the matter with her; even the +physician was at fault. She did not eat or sleep, she seemed hardly to +know what they said when they spoke to her. Her aunt was alarmed. But at +the end of the week, as suddenly as she had fallen ill, she came back to +life again, rose, ordered the maid to braid her hair, and appeared at +Miss Harrison's lonely little dinner-table quite herself, save that she +was tremulous and pale. But by the next day even these signs were no +longer very apparent. It was decided that she had had an attack of +"nervous prostration;" "although why in the world you should have been +seized by it just now, and here, I am at a loss, Margaret, to imagine," +said her aunt. + +On the day of her reappearance at the dinner-table there came a letter +from Beatrice which bore the postmark of a village on one of the Channel +islands. Mrs. Lovell had changed her plans, and gone yachting for a +month or two with a party of friends, a yacht probably being considered +to possess attributes of seclusion more total than even the most +soundless village on the Brittany shore. Of course she had not received +Margaret's letter, nor could she receive one--their route being +uncertain, but nevertheless to the southward--until her return. +Communication between them for the present was therefore at an end. + +On the afternoon after Margaret's reappearance Madame Ferri was making a +visit of congratulation upon the recovery of "our dear girl." It was a +cool day, a heavy rain had fallen, and fresh snow gleamed on the summits +of the Apennines; our dear girl, very unresponsive and silent, was +dressed in black velvet, whose rich, plain folds brought out her +slenderness, and made more apparent than usual the graceful shape of her +head and hair. But the unrelieved black made her look extremely pale, +and it was her recent illness, probably, which made her look also tired +and languid. Madame Ferri, who kept constantly in practice her talent +for being charming (she was always spoken of as "charming"), looked at +her for a time while conversing; then she rose, took all the crimson +roses from a vase, and, going to her, placed one in her hair, +meditatively; another in a button-hole of the closely fitting high +corsage; and, after a moment's reflection, all the others in a bunch in +a velvet loop which was on the side of the skirt not quite half-way +down, rapidly denuding herself of pins for the purpose as she proceeded. +"There!" she said, stepping back a few paces to survey her handiwork, +with her head critically on one side, "_now_ you are a picture. Look, +dear Miss Harrison, pray look." + +Miss Harrison put up her glass and approved. And then, while this climax +still lasted, Madame Ferri took her departure; she liked to depart in a +climax. + +She had hardly gone when another card was brought in: "Mr. Trafford +Morgan." He, too, had come to pay his respects to Miss Harrison upon the +change for the better in her niece; he had not expected to see the +latter person, he had merely heard that there was "an improvement." +After he had been there twenty minutes he said to himself that there +was, and in more ways than one. She not only looked much better than +usual (this may have been owing to the roses), but there was a new +gentleness about her; and she listened with a perceptible increase of +attention to what he said. Not that he cared much for this; he had not +admired Miss Stowe; but any man (this he remarked to himself) likes to +be listened to when he is talking better than the contrary; and as the +minutes passed he became conscious that Miss Stowe was not only +listening, but bestowing upon him also what seemed an almost serious +attention. She did not say much--Miss Harrison said more; but she +listened to and looked at him. She had not looked at him previously; +people can turn their eyes upon one without really looking, and Miss +Stowe had excelled in this accomplishment. + +During the next week he met her at a dinner-party; she went to these +entertainments with a friend of her aunt's, a lady who was delighted to +act as chaperon for the heiress. The spring season was now at its height +in Florence, and the members of the same circle perforce constantly met +each other; on each separate occasion during the two weeks that followed +Trafford Morgan was conscious that Miss Stowe was honoring him, although +in a studiously guarded and quiet way, with much of a very observant +attention. This, in the end, excited in him some curiosity. He had as +good an opinion of himself as most men have; but he did not think it +probable that the heiress had suddenly fallen in love with him without +rhyme or reason, as it were, the "rhyme" being that he was neither an +Apollo, an Endymion, nor a military man; the "reason," that he had +never in the least attempted to make himself agreeable to her. Of +course, if he had attempted--But he had not. She was not in need of +entertainment; she had enough of that, of all sorts, including +apparently the sort given by suitors. She showed no sign of having +troublesomely impulsive feelings; on the contrary, she seemed cold. "She +is playing some game," he thought; "she has some end in view. But if she +wishes to make use of me she must show her hand more. I may assist her, +and I may not; but, at any rate, I must understand what it is--I will +not be led." He made up his mind that her aim was to excite remark in +their circle; there was probably some one in that circle who was to be +stimulated by a little wholesome jealousy. It was an ancient and +commonplace method, and he had not thought her commonplace. But human +nature at heart is but a commonplace affair, after all, and the methods +and motives of the world have not altered much, in spite of the gray +lapse of ages. + +Morgan was an idle man; at present he was remaining in Italy for a +purpose, and had nothing to do there. The next time he met Miss Stowe he +followed out his theory and took the lead; he began to pay her attention +which might, if pursued, have aroused observation. To his surprise she +drew back, and so completely that he was left stranded. He tried this +three times on three different occasions, and each time met the same +rebuff. It became evident, therefore, that Miss Stowe did not wish for +the kind of attention which he had supposed was her point; but as, +whenever she could do it unobserved, she continued to turn upon him the +same quiet scrutiny, he began to ask himself whether she wished for any +other. An opportunity occurred which made him think that she did. + +It was in the Boboli Garden, where he had gone to walk off a fit of +weariness; here he came upon Miss Stowe. There seemed to be no one in +the garden save themselves--at least, no one whom they knew; only a few +stray tourists wandering about, with Baedeker, Horner, and Hare. The +world of fashion was at the Cascine that day, where races were going on. +Morgan did not feel like talking; he exchanged the usual phrases with +Miss Stowe, and then prepared to pass on. But she said, gently, "Are you +going now? If not, why not stroll awhile with me?" + +After this, as he mentally observed, of course he was forced to stroll +awhile. But, on the whole, he found himself entertained, because his +companion gave him an attention which was almost devout. Its +seriousness, indeed, compelled him to be serious likewise, and made him +feel as though he were in an atmosphere combining the characteristics of +a church and a school; he was partly priest, partly pedagogue, and the +sensation was amusing. She asked him what he liked best in Florence; and +she called it, gravely, "enchanting Florence." + +"Giotto and Botticelli," he answered. + +"I wish you would be in earnest; I am in earnest." + +"With all the earnestness in the world, Miss Stowe, I could only repeat +the same reply." + +"What is it you find to like in them? Will you tell me?" + +"It would take an age--a full half-hour; you would be quite tired out. +Women are so much quicker in their mental processes than we are that you +would apprehend what I was going to say before I could get it out; you +would ascend all the heights, scour all the plains, and arrive at the +goal before I came even in sight, where you would sit waiting, patiently +or impatiently, as I, slowly and with mortified perception, approached." + +"Yes, we are quick; but we are superficial. I wish you would tell me." + +He glanced at her; she was looking at him with an expression in her eyes +which was extremely earnest. "I cannot deliver a discourse while +walking," he said. "I require a seat." + +"Let us go to the amphitheatre; I often sit there for a while on the +stone benches under the old statues. I like to see them standing around +the circle; they are so serenely indifferent to the modern +pencil-scrawlings on their robes, so calmly certain that their time will +come again." + +"What you say is entirely charming. Still, I hardly think I can talk to +the statues. I must have something more--more secluded." He was aware +that he was verging upon a slight impertinence; but he wished to see +whether she would accede--what she would do. He made no effort to find +the seclusion of which he spoke; he left that to her. + +She hesitated a moment; then, "We might go to a seat there is under a +tree at the top of the slope," she said. "It is a pleasant place." + +He assented; and they went up the path by the side of the tall, stately +hedges, and past the fountain and the great statue of Abbondanza. The +stone bench was not one of those sought for; it was not in front, but on +the western side. It commanded a view of the city below, with the Duomo +and Giotto's lovely bell-tower; of the fruit-trees, all in flower on the +outskirts; of the treetops of the Cascine, now like a cloud of golden +smoke with their tender brown leaflets, tasselled blossoms, and winged +seeds; of the young grain, springing greenly down the valley; and the +soft, velvety mountains rising all around. "How beautiful it is!" she +said, leaning back, closing her parasol and folding her hands. + +"Beautiful--yes; but barren of human interest save to those who are +going to sell the fruit, or who depend upon the growth of the grain. The +beauty of art is deeper; it is all human." + +"I must be quite ignorant about art," she answered, "because it does not +impress me in that way; I wish it did. I wish you would instruct me a +little, Mr. Morgan." + +"Good!" he thought. "What next?" But although he thought, he of course +was obliged to talk also, and so he began about the two art masters he +had mentioned. He delivered quite an epic upon Giotto's two little +frescos in the second cloister of Santa Maria Novella, and he openly +preferred the third there--the little Virgin going up the impossible +steps--to Titian's splendid picture of the same subject, in Venice. He +grew didactic and mystic over the round Botticelli of the Uffizi and the +one in the Prometheus room at the Pitti; he invented as he went along, +and amused himself not a little with his own unusual flow of language. +His companion listened, and now and then asked a question. But her +questions were directed more towards what he thought of the pictures +(after a while he noticed this), and what impressions they made upon +him, than to the pictures themselves or their claims to celebrity. As +he went on he made some slight attempts to diverge a little from the +subject in hand, and skirt, if ever so slightly, the borders of +flirtation; he was curious to see if she would follow him there. But she +remained unresponsive; and, while giving no sign of even perceiving his +digressions, she brought him back to his art atmosphere, each time he +left it, with a question or remark very well adapted for the purpose; so +well, indeed, that it could not have been by chance. + +She declined his escort homeward, pretexting a visit she wished to pay; +but she said, of her own accord, that she would sing for him the next +time he came. He knew this was a favor she did not often grant; Madame +Ferri had so informed him. + +He went, without much delay; and she sang several songs in the dusky +corner where her piano stood while he sat near. The light from the wax +candles at the other end of the large room, where Miss Harrison was +knitting, did not penetrate here; but she said she liked to sing in a +semi-darkness, as she had only a twilight voice. It was in truth not at +all powerful; but it was sweet and low, and she sang with much +expression. Trafford Morgan liked music; it was not necessary to make up +a conviction or theory about that; he simply had a natural love for it, +and he came more than once to hear Miss Stowe sing. + +In the meantime Miss Harrison continued to like "the grandson of old +Adam," and again invited him to drive. A month went by, and, by the end +of it, he had seen in one way and another a good deal of these two +ladies. The "later manner" (as he mentally called it) of Miss Stowe +continued; when they were in company, she was as she had been +originally, but when they were unobserved, or by themselves, she gave +him the peculiar sober attention which he did not quite comprehend. He +had several theories about it, and varied between them. He was a man who +did not talk of persons, who never told much. If questioned, while +answering readily and apparently without reserve, it was noticed +afterwards that he had told nothing. He had never spoken of Sicily, for +instance, but had talked a good deal of Sweden. This reticence, so +exasperating to many women, seemed agreeable to Miss Stowe, who herself +did not tell much, or talk of persons--that is, generally. One person +she talked about, and with persistence. Morgan was hardly ever with her +that she did not, sooner or later, begin to talk to him about himself. +Sometimes he was responsive, sometimes not; but responsive or +unresponsive, in society or out of it, he had talked, all told, a goodly +number of hours with Miss Stowe when May attained its zenith and the +season waned. + +The tourists had gone to Venice; the red gleam of guide-books along the +streets and the conscientiousness of woollen travelling-dresses in the +galleries were no longer visible. Miss Stowe now stepped over the +boundary-line of her caution a little; many of the people she knew had +gone; she went with Trafford to the Academy and the Pitti; she took him +into cool, dim churches, and questioned him concerning his creed; she +strolled with him through the monastery of San Marco, and asked what his +idea was of the next world. She said she liked cloisters; she would like +to walk in one for an hour or two every day. + +He replied that there were a number of cloisters in Florence; they might +visit them in succession and pace around quietly. The effect would be +heightened if she would read aloud, as they paced, short sentences from +some ancient, stiff-covered little book like _De Contemptu Mundi_. + +"Ah," she said, "you are not in earnest. But I am!" + +And she seemed to be; he said to himself that he had hardly had a look +or word from her which was not only earnest, but almost portentously so. +She now began to do whatever he asked her to do, whether it was to sing +Italian music or to read Dante's _Vita Nuova_, both of which she had +said she did not like. It is probable that he asked her to do a number +of things about this time which he did not especially care for, simply +to see if she would comply; she always did. + +"If she goes on in this sort of way," he thought, "never showing the +least opposition, or personal moods different from mine, I really don't +know where we shall end!" + +But at last she did show both. It was in the evening, and she was at the +piano; after one or two ballads he asked her to sing a little English +song he had found among her music, not printed, but in manuscript. + +"Oh, that is nothing," she said, putting out her hand to take it from +him. "I will sing this of Schumann's instead; it is much prettier." + +But he maintained his point. "I like this better," he said. "I like the +name--of course it is impossible, but it is pleasant--'Semper Fidelis.'" + +She took it, looked at it in silence for a moment, and then, without +further reply, began to sing. There was nothing remarkable in the words +or the music; she did not sing as well as usual, either; she hurried the +time. + + "SEMPER FIDELIS + + "Dumb and unchanged my thoughts still round thee hover, + Nor will be moved; + E'en though I strive, my heart remains thy lover, + Though unbeloved; + Yet there is sad content in loyalty, + And, though the silent gift is naught to thee, + It changes never-- + Faithful forever." + +This was the verse; but at the fifth line she faltered, stopped, and +then, rising abruptly, left the room. + +"Margaret is very uneven at times," said Miss Harrison, apologetically, +from her easy-chair. + +"All interesting persons are uneven," he replied. He went over and took +a seat beside his hostess, remaining half an hour longer; but as he went +back to his hotel he said to himself that Miss Stowe had been for many +weeks the most even woman he had ever known, showing neither variation +nor shadow of turning. She had been as even as a straight line. + +On this account her sudden emotion made an impression upon him. The next +day he mentioned that he was going to Trieste. + +"Not Venice?" said Miss Harrison. "I thought everybody went to Venice." + +"Venice," he replied, "is pre-eminently the place where one needs either +an actual, tangible companionship of the dearest sort, or a memory like +it. I, who have neither, keep well away from Venice!" + +"I rather think, Mr. Morgan, that you have had pretty much what you +wanted, in Venice or elsewhere," said Miss Harrison, with a dry humor +she sometimes showed. Here she was called from the room to see a poor +woman whom she befriended; Miss Stowe and Morgan were left alone. + +He was looking at her; he was noting what effect, if any, the tidings of +his departure (he had named to-morrow) would have upon her. She had not +been conventional; would she resort to conventionality now? + +Her gaze was bent upon the floor; after a while she looked up. "Where +shall you be this summer?" she said, slowly. "Perhaps we shall be there +too." Her eyes were fixed upon his face, her tone was hardly above a +whisper. + +Perhaps it was curiosity that made him do what he did; whether it was or +not, mingled with it there was certainly a good deal of audacity. He +rose, went to her, and took her hand. "Forgive me," he said; "I am in +love with some one else." + +It implied much. But had not her manner implied the same, or more? + +She rose; they were both standing now. + +"What do you mean!" she demanded, a light coming into her eyes--eyes +usually abstracted, almost dull. + +"Only what I have said." + +"Why should you say it to me?" + +"I thought you might be--interested." + +"You are mistaken. I am not in the least interested. Why should I be?" + +"Are you not a little unkind?" + +"Not more unkind than you are insolent." + +She was very angry. He began to be a little angry himself. + +"I ask your pardon with the deepest humility, Miss Stowe. The insolence +of which you accuse me was as far as possible from my mind. If I thought +you might be somewhat interested in what I have told you, it was because +you have honored me with some small share of your attention during the +past week or two; probably it has spoiled me." + +"I have; and for a month or two, not a week or two. But there was a +motive--It was an experiment." + +"You have used me for experimental purposes, then?" + +"Yes." + +"I am immensely grateful to have been considered worthy of a part in an +experiment of yours, even although a passive one. May I ask if the +experiment is ended?" + +"It is." + +"Since when? Since I made that confession about some one else?" + +Miss Stowe's face was pale, her dark eyes were brilliant. "I knew all +the while that you were in love--hopelessly in love--with Mrs. Lovell," +she said, with a proud smile. "That was the reason that, for my +experiment, I selected _you_." + +A flush rose over his face as she spoke. "You thought you would have the +greater triumph?" he asked. + +"I thought nothing of the kind. I thought that I should be safe, because +you would not respond." + +"And you did not wish me to respond?" + +"I did not." + +"Excuse me--we are speaking frankly, are we not?--but do you not +contradict yourself somewhat? You say you did not wish me to respond; +yet, have you not tried to make me?" + +"That was not my object. It was but a necessary accompaniment of the +experiment." + +"And if I _had_ responded?" he said, looking at her. + +"I knew you could not. I knew quite well--I mean I could imagine quite +well--how much you loved Beatrice. But it has all been a piece of folly +upon my part--I see it now." She turned away, and went across to the +piano. "I wish you would go now," she said, in a low voice, vaguely +turning over the music. "_I_ cannot, because my aunt will think it +strange to find me gone." + +Instead of obeying her, he crossed the room and stood beside her; and +then he saw in the twilight that her eyes were full of tears and her +lips quivering, in spite of her effort to prevent it. + +"Margaret," he said, suddenly, and with a good deal of feeling in his +voice, "I am not worth it! Indeed I am not!" And again he touched her +hand. + +But she drew it from him. "Are you by any chance imagining that my tears +are for _you_?" she said, in a low tone, but facing him like a creature +at bay. "Have you interpreted me in that way? I have a right to know; +speak!" + +"I am at a loss to interpret you," he said, after a moment's silence. + +"I will tell you the whole, then--I must tell you; your mistake forces +it from me." She paused, drew a quick breath, and then went on, rapidly: +"I love some one else. I have been very unhappy. Just after you came I +received a letter which told me that he was soon to be married; he _is_ +married now. I had an illness in consequence. You may remember my +illness? I made up my mind then that I would root out the feeling if +possible, no matter at what cost of pain and effort and long patience. +You came in my way. I knew you were deeply attached elsewhere--" + +"How did you know it?" he said. He was leaning against the piano +watching her; she stood with her hands folded, and pressed so tightly +together that he could see the force of the pressure. + +"Never mind how; but quite simply and naturally. I said to myself that I +would try to become interested in you, even if only to a small degree; I +would do everything in my power to forward it. It would be an acquired +interest; still, acquired interests can be deep. People can become +interested in music, in pictures, in sports, in that way; why not, then, +in persons also, since they are more human?" + +"That is the very reason--because they are too human," he answered. + +But she did not heed. "I have studied you; I have tried to find the good +in you; I have tried to believe in you, to idealize you. I have given +every thought that I could control to you, and to you alone, for two +long months," she said, passionately, unlocking her hands, reddened with +their pressure against each other, and turning away. + +"It has been a failure?" + +"Complete." + +"And if you had succeeded?" he asked, folding his arms as he leaned +against the piano. + +"I should have been glad and happy. I should never have seen _you_ +again, of course; but at least the miserable old feeling would have been +laid at rest." + +"And its place filled by another as miserable!" + +"Oh no; it could never have been _that_," she said, with an emphasis of +scorn. + +"You tried a dangerous remedy, Margaret." + +"Not so dangerous as the disease." + +"A remedy may be worse than a disease. In spite of your scornful tone, +permit me to tell you that if you had succeeded at all, it would have +been in the end by loving me as you loved--I mean love--this other man. +While I, in the meantime, am in love (as you are kind enough to inform +me--hopelessly) with another woman! Is Beatrice a friend of yours?" + +"My dearest friend." + +"Has it never occurred to you that you were playing towards her rather a +traitorous part?" + +"Never." + +"Supposing, during this experiment of yours, that I had fallen in love +with you?" + +"It would have been nothing to Beatrice if you had," responded Mrs. +Lovell's friend instantly and loyally, although remembering, at the same +moment, that Fiesole blush. Then, in a changed voice, and with a proud +humility which was touching, she added, "It would have been quite +impossible. Beatrice is the loveliest woman in the world; any one who +had loved _her_ would never think of me." + +At this moment Miss Harrison's voice was heard in the hall; she was +returning. + +"Good-bye," said Morgan. "I shall go to-morrow. You would rather have me +go." He took her hand, held it an instant, and then raised it to his +lips. "Good-bye," he said, again. "Forgive me, Margaret. And do not +entirely--forget me." + +When Miss Harrison returned they were looking at the music on the piano. +A few moments later he took leave. + +"I am sorry he has gone," said Miss Harrison. "What in the world is he +going to do at Trieste? Well, so goes life! nothing but partings! One +thing is a consolation, however--at least, to me; the grandson of old +Adam did not turn out a disappointment, after all." + +"I do not think I am a judge," replied Miss Stowe. + + * * * * * + +In June Miss Harrison went northward to Paris, her niece accompanying +her. They spent the summer in Switzerland; in the autumn returned to +Paris; and in December went southward to Naples and Rome. + +Mrs. Lovell had answered Margaret's letter in June. The six weeks of +yachting had been charming; the yacht belonged to an English gentleman, +who had a country-seat in Devonshire. She herself, by-the-way, might be +in Devonshire during the summer; it was so quiet there. Could not Miss +Harrison be induced to come to Devonshire? That would be _so_ +delightful. It had been extremely difficult to wear deep mourning at +sea; but of course she had persisted in it. Much of it had been +completely ruined; she had been obliged to buy more. Yes--it _was_ +amusing--her meeting Trafford Morgan. And so unexpected, of course. Did +she like him? No, the letter need not be returned. If it troubled her to +have it, she might destroy it; perhaps it was as well it should be +destroyed. There were some such pleasant qualities in English life; +there was not so much opportunity, perhaps, as in America--"That blush +meant nothing, then, after all," thought the reader, lifting her eyes +from the page, and looking musingly at a picture on the wall. "She said +it meant only a lack of iron; and, as Beatrice always tells the truth, +she did mean that, probably, and not irony, as I supposed." She sat +thinking for a few moments, and then went back to the letter: There was +not so much opportunity, perhaps, as in America; but there was more +stability, more certainty that things would continue to go on. There +were various occurrences which she would like to tell; but she never +wrote that sort of thing, as Margaret knew. If she would only come to +Devonshire for the summer--and so forth, and so forth. + +But Beatrice did sometimes write "that sort of thing," after all. During +the next February, in Rome, after a long silence, Margaret received a +letter from her which brought the tidings of her engagement. He was an +Englishman. He had a country-seat in Devonshire. He owned a yacht. +Beatrice seemed very happy. "We shall not be married until next winter," +she wrote. "I would not consent, of course, to anything earlier. I have +consistently endeavored to do what was right from the beginning, and +shall not waver now. But by next January there can be no criticism, and +I suppose that will be the time. How I wish you were here to advise me +about a hundred things! Besides, I want you to know him; you will be +sure to like him. He is"--and so forth, and so forth. + +"She is following out her destiny," thought the reader in Rome. + +In March Miss Harrison found the Eternal City too warm, and moved +northward as far as Florence. Madame Ferri was delighted to see them +again; she came five times during the first three days to say so. + +"You will find _so_ many whom you knew last year here again as well as +yourselves," she said, enthusiastically. "We shall have some of our +_charming_ old reunions. Let me see--I think I can tell you." And she +ran over a list of names, among them that of "Mr. Morgan." + +"What, not the grandson of Adam?" said Miss Harrison. + +"He is not _quite_ so old as that, is he?" said Madame Ferri, laughing. +"It is the one who dined with you several times last year, I +believe--Mr. Trafford Morgan. I shall have great pleasure in telling him +this very day that you are here." + +"Do you know whether he is to remain long?" said Miss Stowe, who had not +before spoken. + +"I am sorry to say he is not; Mr. Morgan is always an addition, I +think--don't you? But he told me only yesterday that he was going this +week to--to Tarascon, I think he said." + +"Trieste and Tarascon--he selects the most extraordinary places!" said +Miss Harrison. "The next time it will be Tartarus." + +Madame Ferri was overcome with mirth. "_Dear_ Miss Harrison, you are +_too_ droll! _Isn't_ she, dear Miss Stowe?" + +"He probably chooses his names at random," said Miss Stowe, with +indifference. + +The next day, at the Pitti, she met him. She was alone, and returned his +salutation coldly. He was with some ladies who were standing near, +looking at the "Madonna of the Chair." He merely asked how Miss Harrison +was, and said he should give himself the pleasure of coming to see her +very soon; then he bowed and returned to his friends. Not long +afterwards she saw them all leave the gallery together. + +Half an hour later she was standing in front of one of Titian's +portraits, when a voice close beside her said, "Ah! the young man in +black. You are not admiring it?" + +There had been almost a crowd in the gorgeous rooms that morning. She +had stood elbow to elbow with so many persons that she no longer noticed +them; Trafford Morgan had been able, therefore, to approach and stand +beside her for several minutes without attracting her recognition. As he +spoke she turned, and, in answer to his smile, gave an even slighter bow +than before; it was hardly more than a movement of the eyelids. Two +English girls, with large hats, sweet, shy eyes, and pink cheeks, who +were standing close beside them, turned away towards the left for a +minute to look at another picture. + +"Do not treat me badly," he said. "I need kindness. I am not very +happy." + +"I can understand that," she answered. Here the English girls came back +again. + +"I think you are wrong in admiring it," he said, looking at the +portrait; "it is a quite impossible picture. A youth with that small, +delicate head and face could never have had those shoulders; they are +the shoulders of quite another type of man. This is some boy whom Titian +wished to flatter; but he was artist enough to try and hide the flattery +by that overcoat. The face has no calm; you would not have admired it +in life." + +"On the contrary, I should have admired it greatly," replied Miss Stowe. +"I should have adored it. I should have adored the eyes." + +"Surely there is nothing in them but a sort of pugnacity." + +"Whatever it is, it is delightful." + +The English girls now turned away towards the right. + +"You are quite changed," he said, looking at her. + +"Yes, I think I am. I am much more agreeable. Every one will tell you +so; even Madame Ferri, who is obliged to reconcile it with my having +been always more agreeable than any one in the world, you know. I have +become lighter. I am no longer heavy." + +"You mean you are no longer serious." + +"That is it. I used to be absurdly serious. But it is an age since we +last met. You were going to Trieste, were you not? I hope you found it +agreeable?" + +"It is not an age; it is a year." + +"Oh, a great deal can happen in a year," said Miss Stowe, turning away. + +She was as richly dressed as ever, and not quite so plainly. Her hair +was arranged in little rippling waves low down upon her forehead, which +made her look, if not what might be called more worldly, at least more +fashionable, since previously she had worn it arranged with a simplicity +which was neither. Owing to this new arrangement of her hair, her eyes +looked larger and darker. + +He continued to walk beside her for some moments, and then, as she came +upon a party of friends, he took leave. + +In the evening he called upon Miss Harrison, and remained an hour. Miss +Stowe was not at home. The next day he sent to Miss Harrison a beautiful +basket of flowers. + +"He knows we always keep the rooms full of them," remarked Miss Stowe, +rather disdainfully. + +"All the same, I like the attention," said Miss Harrison. And she sent +him an invitation to dinner. She liked to have one guest. + +He came. During the evening he asked Miss Stowe to sing. "I have lost my +voice," she answered. + +"Yes," said Miss Harrison, "it is really remarkable; Margaret, although +she seems so well, has not been able to sing for months--indeed, for a +full year. It is quite sad." + +"I am not sad about it, Aunt Ruth; I am relieved. I never sang well--I +had not voice enough. There was really nothing in it but expression; and +that was all pretence." + +"You are trying to make us think you very artificial," said Morgan. + +"I can make you think what I please, probably. I can follow several +lines of conduct, one after the other, and make you believe them all." +She spoke lightly; her general tone was much lighter than formerly, as +she herself had said. + +"Do you ever walk in the Boboli Garden now?" he asked, later. + +"Occasionally; but it is a dull place. And I do not walk as much as I +did; I drive with my aunt." + +"Yes, Margaret has grown indolent," said Miss Harrison; "and it seems to +agree with her. She has more color than formerly; she looks well." + +"Wonderfully," said Morgan. "But you are thinner than you were," he +added, turning towards her. + +"And darker!" she answered, laughing. "Mr. Morgan does not admire +arrangements in black and white, Aunt Ruth; do not embarrass him." She +wore that evening a white dress, unrelieved by any color. + +"I see you are bent upon being unkind," he said. It was supposed to be a +society remark. + +"Not the least in the world," she answered, in the same tone. + +He met her several times in company, and had short conversations with +her. Then, one afternoon, he came upon her unexpectedly in the Cascine; +she was strolling down the broad path alone. + +"So you do walk sometimes, after all," he said. + +"Never. I am only strolling. I drove here with Aunt Ruth, but, as she +came upon a party of American friends who are going to-morrow, I gave up +my place, and they are driving around together for a while, and no doubt +settling the entire affairs of Westchester County." + +"I am glad she met them; I am glad to find you alone. I have something I +wish much to say to you." + +"Such a beginning always frightens me. Pray postpone it." + +"On the contrary, I shall hasten it. I must make the most of this rare +opportunity. Do you remember when you did me the honor, Miss Stowe, to +make me the subject of an experiment?" + +"You insist upon recalling that piece of folly?" she said, opening her +parasol. Her tone was composed and indifferent. + +"I recall it because I wish to base something upon it. I wish to ask +you--to allow yourself to be passively the subject of an experiment on +_my_ part, an experiment of the same nature." + +She glanced at him; he half smiled. "Did you imagine, then, that mine +was in earnest?" she said, with a fine, light scorn, light as air. + +"I never imagine anything. Imaginations are useless." + +"Not so useless as experiments. Let yours go, and tell me rather what +you found to like in--Trieste." + +"I suppose you know that I went to England?" + +"I know nothing. But yes--I do know that you are going to--Tarascon." + +"I shall not go if you will permit what I have asked." + +"Isn't it rather suddenly planned?" she said, ironically. "You did not +know we were coming." + +"Very suddenly. I have thought of it only since yesterday." + +They had strolled into a narrow path which led by one of those patches +of underwood of which there are several in the Cascine--little bosky +places carefully preserved in a tangled wildness which is so pretty and +amusing to American eyes, accustomed to the stretch of real forests. + +"You don't know how I love these little patches," said Miss Stowe. +"There is such a good faith about them; they are charming." + +"You were always fond of nature, I remember. I used to tell you that art +was better." + +"Ah! did you?" she said, her eyes following the flight of a bird. + +"You have forgotten very completely in one year." + +"Yes, I think I have. I always forget, you know, what it is not +agreeable to remember. But I must go back; Aunt Ruth will be waiting." +They turned. + +"I will speak more plainly," said Morgan. "I went to England during July +last--that is, I followed Mrs. Lovell. She was in Devonshire. Quite +recently I have learned that she has become engaged in--Devonshire, and +is soon to be married there. I am naturally rather down about it. I am +seeking some other interest. I should like to try your plan for a while, +and build up an interest in--you." + +Miss Stowe's lip curled. "The plans are not alike," she said. "Yours is +badly contrived. _I_ did not tell _you_ beforehand what I was +endeavoring to do!" + +"I am obliged to tell you. You would have discovered it." + +"Discovered what a pretence it was? That is true. A woman can act a part +better than a man. _You_ did not discover! And what am I to do in this +little comedy of yours?" + +"Nothing. It is, in truth, nothing to you; you have told me that, even +when you made a great effort towards that especial object, it was +impossible to get up the slightest interest in me. Do not take a violent +dislike to me; that is all." + +"And if it is already taken?" + +"I shall have to conquer that. What I meant was--do not take a fresh +one." + +"There is nothing like precedent, and therefore I repeat your question: +what if you should succeed--I mean as regards yourself?" she said, +looking at him with a satirical expression. + +"It is my earnest wish to succeed." + +"You do not add, as I did, that in case you do succeed you will of +course never see me again, but that at least the miserable old feeling +will be at rest?" + +"I do not add it." + +"And at the conclusion, when it has failed, shall you tell me that the +cause of failure was--the inevitable comparisons?" + +"Beatrice is extremely lovely," he replied, turning his head and gazing +at the Arno, shining through an opening in the hedge. "I do not attempt +to pretend, even to myself, that she is not the loveliest woman I ever +knew." + +"Since you do not pretend it to yourself you will not pretend it to me." + +She spoke without interrogation; but he treated the words as a question. +"Why should I?" he said. And then he was silent. + +"There is Aunt Ruth," said Miss Stowe; "I see the horses. She is +probably wondering what has become of me." + +"You have not altogether denied me," he said, just before they reached +the carriage. "I assure you I will not be in the least importunate. Take +a day or two to consider. After all, if there is no one upon whom it can +really infringe (of course I know you have admirers; I have even heard +their names), why should you not find it even a little amusing?" + +Miss Stowe turned towards him, and a peculiar expression came into her +eyes as they met his. "I am not sure but that I shall find it so," she +answered. And then they joined Miss Harrison. + +The day or two had passed. There had been no formal question asked, and +no formal reply given; but as Miss Stowe had not absolutely forbidden +it, the experiment may be said to have been begun. It was soon reported +in Florence that Trafford Morgan was one of the suitors for the hand of +the heiress; and, being a candidate, he was of course subjected to the +searching light of Public Inquiry. Public Inquiry discovered that he was +thirty-eight years of age; that he had but a small income; that he was +indolent, indifferent, and cynical. Not being able to find any open +vices, Public Inquiry considered that he was too _blase_ to have them; +he had probably exhausted them all long before. All this Madame Ferri +repeated to Miss Harrison, not because she was in the least opposed to +Mr. Morgan, but simply as part of her general task as gatherer and +disseminator. + +"Trafford Morgan is not a saint, but he is well enough in his way," +replied Miss Harrison. "I am not at all sure that a saint would be +agreeable in the family." + +Madame Ferri was much amused by this; but she carried away the +impression also that Miss Harrison favored the suitor. + +In the meantime nothing could be more quiet than the manner of the +supposed suitor when he was with Miss Stowe. He now asked questions of +her; when they went to the churches, he asked her impressions of the +architecture; when they visited the galleries, he asked her opinions of +the pictures. He inquired what books she liked, and why she liked them; +and sometimes he slowly repeated her replies. + +This last habit annoyed her. "I wish you would not do that," she said, +with some irritation. "It is like being forced to look at one's self in +a mirror." + +"I do it to analyze them," he answered. "I am so dense, you know, it +takes me a long time to understand. When you say, for instance, that +Romola is not a natural character because her love for Tito ceases, I, +who think that the unnatural part is that she should ever have loved +him, naturally dwell upon the remark." + +"She would have continued to love him in life. Beauty is all powerful." + +"I did not know that women cared much for it," he answered. Then, after +a moment, "Do not be too severe upon me," he added; "I am doing my +best." + +She made no reply. + +"I thought certainly you would have answered, 'By contrast?'" he said, +smiling. "But you are not so satirical as you were. I cannot make you +angry with me." + +"Have you tried?" + +"Of course I have tried. It would be a step gained to move you--even in +that way." + +"I thought your experiment was to be all on one side?" she said. They +were sitting in a shady corner of the cloisters of San Marco; she was +leaning back in her chair, following with the point of her parasol the +lines of the Latin inscription on the slab at her feet over an old +monk's last resting-place. + +"I am not so consistent as I should be," he answered, rising and +sauntering off, with his hands in the pockets of his short morning-coat, +to look at St. Peter the Martyr. + +At another time they were in the Michael Angelo chapel of San Lorenzo. +It was past the hour for closing, but Morgan had bribed the custode to +allow them to remain, and the old man had closed the door and gone away, +leaving them alone with the wondrous marbles. + +"What do they mean?" he said. "Tell me." + +"They mean fate, our sad human fate: the beautiful Dawn in all the pain +of waking; the stern determination of the Day; the recognition of +failure in Evening; and the lassitude of dreary, hopeless sleep in +Night. It is one way of looking at life." + +"But not your way?" + +"Oh, I have no way; I am too limited. But genius takes a broader view, +and genius, I suppose, must always be sad. People with that endowment, I +have noticed, are almost always very unhappy." + +He was sitting beside her, and, as she spoke, he saw a little flush rise +in her cheeks; she was remembering when Mrs. Lovell had used the same +words, although in another connection. + +"We have never spoken directly, or at any length, of Beatrice," she +said, suddenly. "I wish you would tell me about her." + +"Here?" + +"Yes, here and now; Lorenzo shall be your judge." + +"I am not afraid of Lorenzo. He is not a god; on the contrary, he has +all our deepest humanity on his musing face; it is for this reason that +he impresses us so powerfully. As it is the first time you have +expressed any wish, Miss Stowe, I suppose I must obey it." + +"Will it be difficult?" + +"It is always difficult, is it not, for a man to speak of an unhappy +love?" he said, leaning his elbow on the back of the seat, and shading +his eyes with his hand as he looked at her. + +"I will excuse you." + +"I have not asked to be excused. I first met Mrs. Lovell in Sicily. I +was with her almost constantly during five weeks. She is as lovable as a +rose--as a peach--as a child." He paused. + +"Your comparisons are rather remarkable," said Miss Stowe, her eyes +resting upon the grand massiveness of Day. + +"They are truthful. I fell in love with her; and I told her so because +there was that fatal thing, an opportunity--that is, a garden-seat, +starlight, and the perfume of flowers. Of course these were +irresistible." + +"Indeed?" + +"Do not be contemptuous. It is possible that you may not have been +exposed to the force of the combination as yet. She rebuked me with that +lovely, gentle softness of hers, and then she went away; the Sicilian +days were over. I wrote to her--" + +He was sitting in the same position, with his hand shading his eyes, +looking at her; as he spoke the last phrase he perceived that she +colored, and colored deeply. + +"You knew the story generally," he said, dropping his arm and leaning +forward. "But it is not possible you saw that letter!" + +She rose and walked across, as if to get a nearer view of Day. "I admire +it so much!" she said, after a moment. "If it should stretch out that +great right arm, it could crush us to atoms." And she turned towards him +again. + +As she did she saw that he had colored also; a deep, dark flush had +risen in his face, and covered even his forehead. + +"I am safe--very safe!" he said. "After reading such a letter as that, +written to another woman, you are not likely to bestow much regard upon +the writer, try as he may!" + +Miss Stowe looked at him. "You are overacting," she said, coldly. "It is +not in your part to pretend to care so soon. It was to be built up +gradually." + +"Lorenzo understands me," he said, recovering himself. "Shall I go on?" + +"I think I must go now," she answered, declining a seat; "it is late." + +"In a moment. Let me finish, now that I have begun. I had thought of +returning to America; indeed, Beatrice had advised it; she thought I was +becoming expatriated. But I gave it up and remained in Italy because I +did not wish to appear too much her slave (women do not like men who +obey them too well, you know). After this effort I was consistent enough +to follow her to England. I found her in--Devonshire, lovelier than +ever; and I was again fascinated; I was even ready to accept beforehand +all the rules and embargo of the strictest respect to the memory of Mr. +Lovell." + +Miss Stowe's eyes were upon Day; but here, involuntarily, she glanced +towards her companion. His face remained unchanged. + +"I was much in love with her. She allowed me no encouragement. But I did +not give up a sort of vague hope I had until this recent change. Then, +of course, I knew that it was all over for me." + +"I am sorry for you," replied Miss Stowe after a pause, still looking at +Day. + +"Of course I have counted upon that--upon your sympathy. I knew that you +would understand." + +"Spare me the quotation, 'A fellow-feeling,' and so forth," she said, +moving towards the door. "I am going; I feel as though we had already +desecrated too long this sacred place." + +"It is no desecration. The highest heights of art, as well as of life, +belong to love," he said, as they went out into the cool, low hall, +paved with the gravestones of the Medici. + +"Don't you always think of them lying down below?" she said. "Giovanni +in his armor, and Leonore of Toledo in her golden hair?" + +"Since when have you become so historical? They were a wicked race." + +"And since when have you become so virtuous?" she answered. "They were +at least successful." + +Time passed. It has a way of passing rapidly in Florence; although each +day is long and slow and full and delightful, a month flies. Again the +season was waning. It was now believed that Mr. Morgan had been +successful, although nothing definite was known. It was remarked how +unusually well Miss Stowe looked: her eyes were so bright and she had so +much color that she really looked brilliant. Madame Ferri repeated this +to Miss Harrison. + +"Margaret was always brilliant," said her aunt. + +"Oh, extremely!" said Madame Ferri. + +"Only people never found it out," added Miss Harrison. + +She herself maintained a calm and uninquiring demeanor. Sometimes she +was with her niece and her niece's supposed suitor, and sometimes not. +She continued to receive him with the same affability which she had +bestowed upon him from the first, and occasionally she invited him to +dinner and to drive. She made no comment upon the frequency of his +visits, or the length of his conversations upon the little balcony in +the evening, where the plash of the fountain came faintly up from below. +In truth she had no cause for solicitude; nothing could be more tranquil +than the tone of the two talkers. Nothing more was said about Mrs. +Lovell; conversation had sunk back into the old impersonal channel. + +"You are very even," Morgan said one evening. "You do not seem to have +any moods. I noticed it last year." + +"One is even," she replied, "when one is--" + +"Indifferent," he suggested. + +She did not contradict him. + +Two things she refused to do: she would not sing, and she would not go +to the Boboli Garden. + +"As I am especially fond of those tall, ceremonious old hedges and +serene statues, you cut me off from a real pleasure," said Morgan. + +It was on the evening of the 16th of May; they were sitting by the open +window; Miss Harrison was not present. + +"You can go there after we have gone," she said, smiling. "We leave +to-morrow." + +"You leave to-morrow!" he repeated. Then, after an instant, "It is +immensely kind to tell me beforehand," he said, ironically. "I should +have thought you would have left it until after your departure!" + +She made no reply, but fanned herself slowly with the beautiful gray +fan. + +"I suppose you consider that the month is more than ended, and that you +are free?" + +"You have had all you asked for, Mr. Morgan." + +"And therefore I have now only to thank you for your generosity, and let +you go." + +"I think so." + +"You do not care to know the result of my experiment--whether it has +been a failure or a success?" he said. "You told me the result of +yours." + +"I did not mean to tell you. It was forced from me by your +misunderstanding." + +"Misunderstandings, because so slight that one cannot attack them, are +horrible things. Let there be none between us now." + +"There is none." + +"I do not know." He leaned back in his chair and looked up at the soft +darkness of the Italian night. "I have one more favor to ask," he said, +presently. "You have granted me many; grant me this. At what hour do you +go to-morrow?" + +"In the afternoon." + +"Give me a little time with you in the Boboli Garden in the morning." + +"You are an accomplished workman, Mr. Morgan; you want to finish with a +polish; you do not like to leave rough ends. Be content; I will accept +the intention as carried out, and suppose that all the last words have +been beautifully and shiningly spoken. That will do quite as well." + +"Put any construction upon it you please," he answered. "But consent." + +But it was with great difficulty that he obtained that consent. + +"There is really nothing you can say that I care to hear," she declared, +at last. + +"The king is dead! My time is ended, evidently! But, as there _is_ +something you can say which _I_ care to hear, I again urge you to +consent." + +Miss Stowe rose, and passed through the long window into the lighted +empty room, decked as usual with many flowers; here she stood, looking +at him, as he entered also. + +"I have tried my best to prevent it," she said. + +"You have." + +"And you still insist?" + +"I do." + +"Very well; I consent. But you will not forget that I tried," she said. +"Good-night." + +The next morning at ten, as he entered the old amphitheatre, he saw her; +she was sitting on one of the upper stone seats, under a statue of +Diana. + +"I would rather go to our old place," he said, as he came up; "the seat +under the tree, you know." + +"I like this better." + +"As you prefer, of course. It will be more royal, more in state; but, to +be in accordance with it, you should have been clothed in something +majestic, instead of that soft, yielding hue." + +"That is hardly necessary," she answered. + +"By which you mean, I suppose, that your face is not yielding. And +indeed it is not." + +She was dressed in cream color from head to foot; she held open, poised +on one shoulder, a large, heavily fringed, cream-colored parasol. Above +this soft drapery and under this soft shade the darkness of her hair and +eyes was doubly apparent. + +He took a seat beside her, removed his hat, and let the breeze play over +his head and face; it was a warm summer morning, and they were in the +shadow. + +"I believe I was to tell you the result of my experiment," he said, +after a while, breaking the silence which she did not break. + +"You wished it; I did not ask it." + +If she was cool, he was calm; he was not at all as he had been the night +before; then he had seemed hurried and irritated, now he was quiet. "The +experiment has succeeded," he said, deliberately. "I find myself often +thinking of you; I like to be with you; I feel when with you a sort of +satisfied content. What I want to ask is--I may as well say it at +once--Will not this do as the basis of a better understanding between +us?" + +She was gazing at the purple slopes of Monte Morello opposite. "It +might," she answered. + +He turned; her profile was towards him, he could not see her eyes. + +"I shall be quite frank," he continued; "under the circumstances it is +my only way. You have loved some one else. I have loved some one else. +We have both been unhappy. We should therefore, I think, have a peculiar +sympathy for and comprehension of each other. It has seemed to me that +these, combined with my real liking for you, might be a sufficient +foundation for--let us call it another experiment. I ask you to make +this experiment, Margaret; I ask you to marry me. If it fails--if you +are not happy--I promise not to hold you in the slightest degree. You +shall have your liberty untrammelled, and, at the same time, all shall +be arranged so as to escape comment. I will be with you enough to save +appearances; that is all. In reality you shall be entirely free. I think +you can trust my word." + +"I shall have but little from my aunt," was her answer, her eyes still +fixed upon the mountain. "I am not her heiress, as you suppose." + +"You mean that to be severe; but it falls harmless. It is true that I +did suppose you were her heiress; but the fact that you are not makes no +difference in my request. We shall not be rich, but we can live; it +shall be my pleasure to make you comfortable." + +"I do not quite see why you ask this," she said, with the same slow +utterance and her eyes turned away. "You do not love me; I am not +beautiful; I have no fortune. What, then, do you gain?" + +"I gain," he said--"I gain--" Then he paused. "You would not like me to +tell you," he added; and his voice was changed. + +"I beg you to tell me." Her lips were slightly compressed, a tremor had +seized her; she seemed to be exerting all her powers of self-control. + +He watched her a moment, and then, leaning towards her while a new and +beautiful expression of tenderness stole into his eyes, "I gain, +Margaret," he said, "the greatest gift that can be given to a man on +this earth, a gift I long for--a wife who really and deeply loves me." + +The hot color flooded her face and throat; she rose, turning upon him +her blazing eyes. "I was but waiting for this," she said, her words +rushing forth, one upon the other, with the unheeding rapidity of +passion. "I felt sure that it would come. With the deeply-rooted egotism +of a man you believe that I love you; you have believed it from the +beginning. It was because I knew this that I allowed this experiment of +yours to go on. I resisted the temptation at first, but it was too +strong for me; you yourself made it so. It was a chance to make you +conscious of your supreme error; a chance to have my revenge. And I +yielded. You said, not long ago, that I was even. I answered that one +was even when one was-- You said 'indifferent,' and I did not contradict +you. But the real sentence was that one was even when one was pursuing a +purpose. I have pursued a purpose. This was mine: to make you put into +words your egregious vanity, to make you stand convicted of your dense +and vast mistake. But towards the end a better impulse rose, and the +game did not seem worth the candle. I said to myself that I would go +away without giving you, after all, the chance to stultify yourself, the +chance to exhibit clearly your insufferable and amazing conceit. But you +insisted, and the impulse vanished; I allowed you to go on to the end. I +love you! _You!_" + +He had risen also; they stood side by side under the statue of Diana; +some people had come into the amphitheatre below. He had turned slightly +pale as she uttered these bitter words, but he remained quite silent. He +still held his hat in his hand; his eyes were turned away. + +"Have you nothing to say?" she asked, after some moments had passed. + +"I think there is nothing," he answered, without turning. + +Then again there was a silence. + +"You probably wish to go," he said, breaking it; "do not let me detain +you." And he began to go down the steps, pausing, however, as the +descent was somewhat awkward, to give her his hand. + +To the little Italian party below, looking at the Egyptian obelisk, he +seemed the picture of chivalry, as, with bared head, he assisted her +down; and as they passed the obelisk, these children of the country +looked upon them as two of the rich Americans, the lady dressed like a +picture, the gentleman distinguished, but both without a gesture or an +interest, and coldly silent and pale. + +He did not accompany her home. "Shall I go with you?" he said, breaking +the silence as they reached the exit. + +"No, thanks. Please call a carriage." + +He signalled to a driver who was near, and assisted her into one of the +little rattling Florence phaetons. + +"Good-bye," she said, when she was seated. + +He lifted his hat. "Lung' Arno Nuovo," he said to the driver. + +And the carriage rolled away. + + * * * * * + +Countries attract us in different ways. We are comfortable in England, +musical in Germany, amused in Paris (Paris is a country), and idyllic in +Switzerland; but when it comes to the affection, Italy holds the +heart--we keep going back to her. Miss Harrison, sitting in her carriage +on the heights of Bellosguardo, was thinking this as she gazed down upon +Florence and the valley below. It was early in the next autumn--the last +of September; and she was alone. + +A phaeton passed her and turned down the hill; but she had recognized +its occupant as he passed, and called his name--"Mr. Morgan!" + +He turned, saw her, bowed, and, after a moment's hesitation, ordered his +driver to stop, sprang out, and came back to speak to her. + +"How in the world do you happen to be in Florence at this time of +year?" she said, cordially, giving him her hand. "There isn't a soul in +the place." + +"That is the reason I came." + +"And the reason we did, too," she said, laughing. "I am delighted to +have met you; one soul is very acceptable. You must come and see me +immediately. I hope you are going to stay." + +"Thanks; you are very kind. But I leave to-morrow morning." + +"Then you must come to-night; come to dinner at seven. It is impossible +you should have another engagement when there is no one to be engaged +to--unless it be the pictures; I believe they do not go away for the +summer." + +"I really have an engagement, Miss Harrison; you are very kind, but I am +forced to decline." + +"Dismiss your carriage, then, and drive back with me; I will set you +down at your hotel. It will be a visit of some sort." + +He obeyed. Miss Harrison's fine horses started, and moved with slow +stateliness down the winding road, where the beggars had not yet begun +to congregate; it was not "the season" for beggars; they were still at +the sea-shore. + +Miss Harrison talked on various subjects. They had been in Switzerland, +and it had rained continuously; they had seen nothing but fog. They had +come over the St. Gothard, and their carriage had broken down. They had +been in Venice, and had found malaria there. They had been in Padua, +Verona, and Bologna, and all three had become frightfully modern and +iconoclastic. Nothing was in the least satisfactory, and Margaret had +not been well; she was quite anxious about her. + +Mr. Morgan "hoped" that it was nothing serious. + +"I don't know whether it is or not," replied Miss Harrison. "Margaret is +rather a serious sort of a person, I think." + +She looked at him as if for confirmation, but he did not pursue the +subject. Instead, he asked after her own health. + +"Oh, I am as usual. It is only your real invalids who are always well; +they enjoy their poor health, you know. And what have you been doing +since I last saw you? I hope nothing out of the way. Let me see--Trieste +and Tarascon; you have probably been in--Transylvania?" + +"That would be somewhat out of the way, wouldn't it? But I have not been +there; I have been in various nearer places, engaged rather +systematically in amusing myself." + +"Did you succeed? If you did you are a man of genius. One must have a +rare genius, I think, to amuse one's self in that way at forty. Of +course I mean thirty-five, you know; but forty is a better +conversational word--it classifies. And you were amused?" + +"Immensely." + +"So much so that you have to come to Florence in September to rest after +it!" + +"Yes." + +Miss Harrison talked on. He listened, and made the necessary replies. +The carriage entered the city, crossed the Carraja bridge, and turned +towards his hotel. + +"Can you not come for half an hour this evening, after your engagement +is over?" she said. "I shall be all alone, for Margaret cannot be there +before midnight; she went into the country this morning with Madame +Ferri--some sort of a fete at a villa, a native Florentine affair. You +have not asked much about her, I think, considering how constantly you +were with her last spring," she added, looking at him calmly. + +"I have been remiss; pardon it." + +"It is only forgetfulness, of course. That is not a fault nowadays; it +is a virtue, and, what is more, highly fashionable. But there is one +little piece of news I must tell you about my niece: she is going to be +married." + +"That is not little; it is great. Please present to her my sincere good +wishes and congratulations." + +"I am sorry you cannot present them yourself. But at least you can come +and see _me_ for a little while this evening--say about ten. The +grandson of your grandfather should be very civil to old Ruth Harrison +for old times' sake." Here the carriage stopped at his door. "Remember, +I shall expect you," she said, as he took leave. + +At about the hour she had named he went to see her; he found her alone, +knitting. It was one of her idiosyncrasies to knit stockings "for the +poor." No doubt there were "poor" enough to wear them; but as she made a +great many, and as they were always of children's size and black, her +friends sometimes thought, with a kind of amused dismay, of the regiment +of little funereal legs running about for which she was responsible. + +He had nothing especial to say; his intention was to remain the shortest +time possible; he could see the hands of the clock, and he noted their +progress every now and then through the twenty minutes he had set for +himself. + +Miss Harrison talked on various subjects, but said nothing more +concerning her niece; nor did he, on his side, ask a question. After a +while she came to fashions in art. "It is the most curious thing," she +said, "how people obediently follow each other along a particular road, +like a flock of sheep, no matter what roads, equally good and possibly +better, open to the right and the left. Now there are the wonderfully +spirited frescos of Masaccio at the Carmine, frescos which were studied +and copied by Raphael himself and Michael Angelo. Yet that church has no +vogue; it is not fashionable to go there; Ruskin has not written a +maroon-colored pamphlet about it, and Baedeker gives it but a scant +quarter-page, while the other churches have three and four. Now it seems +to me that--" + +But what it seemed Morgan never knew, because here she paused as the +door opened. "Ah, there is Margaret, after all," she said. "I did not +expect her for three hours." + +Miss Stowe came across the large room, throwing back her white shawl and +taking off her little plumed hat as she came. She did not perceive that +any one was present save her aunt; the light was not bright, and the +visitor sat in the shadow. + +"It was very stupid," she said. "Do not urge me to go again." And then +she saw him. + +He rose, and bowed. After an instant's delay she spoke his name, and put +out her hand, which he took as formally as she gave it. Miss Harrison +was voluble. She was "so pleased" that Margaret had returned earlier +than was expected; she was "so pleased" that the visitor happened to be +still there. She seemed indeed to be pleased with everything, and talked +for them both; in truth, save for replies to her questions, they were +quite silent. The visitor remained but a short quarter of an hour, and +then took leave, saying good-bye at the same time, since he was to go +early in the morning. + +"To Trent?" said Miss Harrison. + +"To Tadmor, I think, this time," he answered, smiling. + +The next morning opened with a dull gray rain. Morgan was late in +rising, missed his train, and was obliged to wait until the afternoon. +About eleven he went out, under an umbrella, and, after a while, tired +of the constant signals and clattering followings of the hackmen, who +could not comprehend why a rich foreigner should walk, he went into the +Duomo. The vast church, never light even on a bright day, was now +sombre, almost dark, the few little twinkling tapers, like stars, on an +altar at the upper end, only serving to make the darkness more visible. +He walked down to the closed western entrance, across whose wall outside +rises slowly, day by day, the new facade under its straw-work screen. +Here he stood still, looking up the dim expanse, with the dusky shadows, +like great winged, formless ghosts, hovering over him. + +One of the south doors, the one near the choir, was open, and through it +a slender ray of gray daylight came in, and tried to cross the floor. +But its courage soon failed in that breadth and gloom, and it died away +before it had gone ten feet. A blind beggar sat in a chair at this +entrance, his patient face faintly outlined against the ray; there +seemed to be no one else in the church save the sacristan, whose form +could be dimly seen moving about, renewing the lights burning before the +far-off chapels. + +The solitary visitor strolled back and forth in the shadow. After a +while he noted a figure entering through the ray. It was that of a +woman; it had not the outlines of the usual church beggar; it did not +stoop or cringe; it was erect and slender, and stepped lightly; it was +coming down towards the western end, where he was pacing to and fro. He +stopped and stood still, watching it. It continued to approach--and at +last brushed against him. Coming in from the daylight, it could see +nothing in the heavy shadow. + +"Excuse me, Miss Stowe," he said; "I should have spoken. My eyes are +accustomed to this light, and I recognized you; but of course you could +not see me." + +She had started back as she touched him; now she moved away still +farther. + +"It is grandly solitary here on a rainy day, isn't it?" he continued. "I +used often to come here during a storm. It makes one feel as if already +disembodied--as if he were a shade, wandering on the gray, unknown +outskirts of another world." + +She had now recovered herself, and, turning, began to walk back towards +the ray at the upper door. He accompanied her. But the Duomo is vast, +and cannot be crossed in a minute. He went on talking about the shadows; +then stopped. + +"I am glad of this opportunity to give you my good wishes, Miss Stowe," +he said, as they went onward. "I hope you will be quite happy." + +"I hope the same, certainly," she answered. "Yet I fail to see any +especially new reason for good wishes from you just at present." + +"Ah, you do not know that I know. But Miss Harrison told me +yesterday--told me that you were soon to be married. If you have never +forgiven me, in the light of your present happiness I think you should +do so now." + +She had stopped. "My aunt told you?" she said, while he was still +speaking. But now, as he paused, she walked on. He could not see her +face; although approaching the ray, they were still in the shadow, and +her head was turned from him. + +"As to forgiveness, it is I who should ask forgiveness from you," she +said, after some delay, during which there was no sound but their +footsteps on the mosaic pavement. + +"Yes, you were very harsh. But I forgave you long ago. I was a dolt, and +deserved your sharp words. But I want very much to hear _you_ say that +you forgive _me_." + +"There is nothing to forgive." + +"That is gently spoken. It is your marriage present to me, and I feel +the better for it." + +A minute later they had reached the ray and the door. He could see her +face now. "How ill you look!" he said, involuntarily. "I noticed it last +evening. It is not conventional to say so, but it is at least a real +regret. He should take better care of you." + +The blind beggar, hearing their footsteps, had put out his hand. "Do not +go yet," said Morgan, giving him a franc. "See how it is raining +outside. Walk with me once around the whole interior for the sake of the +pleasant part of our Florentine days--for there _was_ a pleasant part; +it will be our last walk together." + +She assented silently, and they turned into the shadow again. + +"I am going to make a confession," he said, as they passed the choir; +"it can make no difference now, and I prefer that you should know it. I +did not realize it myself at the time, but I see now--that is, I have +discovered since yesterday--that I was in love with you, more or less, +from the beginning." + +She made no answer, and they passed under Michael Angelo's grand, +unfinished statue, and came around on the other side. + +"Of course I was fascinated with Beatrice; in one way I was her slave. +Still, when I said to you, 'Forgive me; I am in love with some one +else,' I really think it was more to see what you would say or do than +any feeling of loyalty to her." + +Again she said nothing. They went down the north aisle. + +"I wish you would tell me," he said, leaving the subject of himself and +turning to her, "that you are fully and really happy in this marriage of +yours. I hope you are, with all my heart; but I should like to hear it +from your own lips." + +She made a gesture as if of refusal; but he went on. "Of course I know I +have no right; I ask it as a favor." + +They were now in deep obscurity, almost darkness; but something seemed +to tell him that she was suffering. + +"You are not going to do that wretched thing--marry without love?" he +said, stopping abruptly. "Do not, Margaret, do not! I know you better +than you know yourself, and you will not be able to bear it. Some women +can; but you could not. You have too deep feelings--too--" + +He did not finish the sentence, for she had turned from him suddenly, +and was walking across the dusky space in the centre of the great +temple whose foundations were so grandly laid six centuries ago. + +But he followed her and stopped her, almost by force, taking both her +hands in his. "You must not do this," he said; "you must not marry in +that way. It is dangerous; it is horrible; for you, it is a crime." +Then, as he stood close to her and saw two tears well over and drop from +her averted eyes, "Margaret! Margaret!" he said, "rather than that, it +would have been better to have married even me." + +She drew her hands from his, and covered her face; she was weeping. + +"Is it too late?" he whispered. "Is there a possibility--I love you very +deeply," he added. And, cold and indifferent as Florence considered him, +his voice was broken. + + * * * * * + +When they came round to the ray again, he gave the blind beggar all the +small change he had about him; the old man thought it was a paper +golconda. + +"You owe me another circuit," he said; "you did not speak through fully +half of the last one." + +So they went around a second time. + +"Tell me when you first began to think about me," he said, as they +passed the choir. "Was it when you read that letter?" + +"It was an absurd letter." + +"On the contrary, it was a very good one, and you know it. You have kept +it?" + +"No; I burned it long ago." + +"Not so very long! However, never fear; I will write you plenty more, +and even better ones. I will go away on purpose." + +They crossed the east end, under the great dome, and came around on the +other side. + +"You said some bitter things to me in that old amphitheatre, Margaret; I +shall always hate the place. But after all--for a person who was quite +indifferent--were you not just a little _too_ angry?" + +"It is easy to say that now," she answered. + +They went down the north aisle. + +"Why did you stop and leave the room so abruptly when you were singing +that song I asked for--you know, the 'Semper Fidelis?'" + +"My voice failed." + +"No; it was your courage. You knew then that you were no longer +'fidelis' to that former love of yours, and you were frightened by the +discovery." + +They reached the dark south end. + +"And now, as to that former love," he said, pausing. "I will never ask +you again; but here and now, Margaret, tell me what it was." + +"It was not 'a fascination'--like yours," she answered. + +"Do not be impertinent, especially in a church. Mrs. Lovell was not my +only fascination, I beg to assure you; remember, I am thirty-six years +old. But now--what was it?" + +"A mistake." + +"Good; but I want more." + +"It was a will-o'-the-wisp that I thought was real." + +"Better; but not enough." + +"You ask too much, I think." + +"I shall always ask it; I am horribly selfish; I warn you beforehand +that I expect everything, in the most relentless way." + +"Well, then, it was a fancy, Trafford, that I mistook for--" And the +Duomo alone knows how the sentence was ended. + +As they passed, for the third time, on their way towards the door, the +mural tablet to Giotto, Morgan paused. "I have a sort of feeling that I +owe it to the old fellow," he said. "I have always been his faithful +disciple, and now he has rewarded me with a benediction. On the next +high-festival his tablet shall be wreathed with the reddest of roses and +a thick bank of heliotrope, as an acknowledgment of my gratitude." + +It was; and no one ever knew why. If it had been in "the season," the +inquiring tourists would have been rendered distracted by the +impossibility of finding out; but to the native Florentines attending +mass at the cathedral, to whom the Latin inscription, "I am he through +whom the lost Art of Painting was revived," remains a blank, it was only +a tribute to some "departed friend." + +"And he is as much my friend as though he had not departed something +over five centuries ago," said Trafford; "of that I feel convinced." + +"I wonder if he knows any better, now, how to paint an angel leaning +from the sky," replied Margaret. + + * * * * * + +"Have you any idea why Miss Harrison invented that enormous fiction +about you?" he said, as they drove homeward. + +"Not the least. We must ask her." + +They found her in her easy-chair, beginning a new stocking. "I thought +you were in Tadmor," she said, as Trafford came in. + +"I started; but came back to ask a question. Why did you tell me that +this young lady was going to be married?" + +"Well, isn't she?" said Miss Harrison, laughing. "Sit down, you two, and +confess your folly. Margaret has been ill all summer with absolute +pining--yes, you have, child, and it is a woman's place to be humble. +And you, Trafford, did not look especially jubilant, either, for a man +who has been immensely amused during the same space of time. I did what +I could for you by inventing a sort of neutral ground upon which you +could meet and speak. It is very neutral for the other man, you know, +when the girl is going to be married; he can speak to her then as well +as not! I was afraid last night that you were not going to take +advantage of my invention; but I see that it has succeeded (in some +mysterious way out in all this rain) better than I knew. It was, I +think," she concluded, as she commenced on a new needle, "a sort of +experiment of mine--a Florentine experiment." + +Trafford burst into a tremendous laugh, in which, after a moment, +Margaret joined. + +"I don't know what you two are laughing at," said Miss Harrison, +surveying them. "I should think you ought to be more sentimental, you +know." + +"To confess all the truth, Aunt Ruth," said Trafford, going across and +sitting down beside her, "Margaret and I have tried one or two of those +experiments already!" + + + + +A WAITRESS + + +As the evening was delightful, their coffee was served in the garden. +Modesta brought out a low table and a tray; then, returning to the +kitchen, she came forth again with the coffee-pot, fresh from the fire, +and filled the two cups, one for Dennison, the other for his guest, +Edward Gray. The coffee was fragrant, very hot, very black. John +Dennison never took at night more than this one small cupful; but it was +necessary that the quality of the drops within should be of the purest, +and Peppino, the cook, knew that he must not fail. The dinner which had +preceded the coffee had been excellent. + +"Well, Jack, you _live_ well!" Gray had remarked, after he had spent two +days with his former school-fellow. + +"Yes, good cooking has become a _sine qua non_ with me," Dennison +answered. "I don't take much, but it must be just so; I can't put up +with even a trifling deficiency. I give Peppino very high wages for this +economical land; but, on my side, I require of him unfailingly his very +best skill. I am afraid," he added, with a quizzical smile, "that I +couldn't get through my day and cultivate lofty thoughts if I did not +feel certain that at the end of it there would be a capital little +dinner waiting on the table. Physical comfort has become enormously +important to me. Result: I'm corpulent!" + +"Oh no," said Gray. + +"Well on the way to it, then. Do you remember how lean I used to be?" + +"You look in much better trim than you did when--" + +"When I was young. You needn't hesitate about saying it; we're in the +same box in that respect. How old do we call ourselves now?" + +"We're fifty-two," answered Gray. "But I to-day look fifty-eight or +nine, and you about forty. To me, Jack, it's marvellous--your youth." + +"Yes, I'm plump. I no longer worry; I take life easily. But it's such an +immense change in every way that I've stopped watching it myself. Why, I +remember when I liked pictures that tell a story, good heavens! and +books with a moral, and iron-fronted blocks, and plenty of gaslight." + +"Well, it's awfully tempting," said Gray, slowly, as he looked about +him. + +"Plenty of gaslight?" + +"No; this place--the whole thing." + +[Illustration: TEA IN THE GARDEN] + +They were sitting at one end of a flower-bordered walk which leads to a +terrace with a parapet; from here opens out a panorama of the velvety +hills of Tuscany, with a crowd of serried mountain-peaks rising behind +them; below, in the narrow valley of a winding stream, is the small +mediaeval town of Tre Ponti, or Three Bridges. The garden retains a +distinctly monastic air, though its last monk took leave of it several +hundred years ago; here are no statues of goddesses and muses, so common +in Italy; instead there are two worn stone crosses, with illegible +Latin inscriptions at their bases. An arcade along one side is paved +with flag-stones, and has the air of a cloister; at its end is a fresco +representing a monk with his finger on his lips, as if inculcating +silence; the face is dim, all save the eyes, but these have a strange +vitality, and appear to follow the gazer with intelligence as he turns +away. There are two ancient sundials, and there is a relic which excites +curiosity--a flight of stone steps attached to a high boundary wall; the +steps go up for a distance of eight or nine feet, and then stop, leading +to nothing. On the north and west, where it stretches to the verge of +the hill, the garden is open, defended only by its parapet. Across its +south edge it is shut in by the irregular stone house called Casa +Colombina. On the east there is the boundary wall already mentioned, and +above this wall there rises outside, not fifteen yards away, a massive +square battlemented tower, one hundred and thirty feet high, named Torre +Colombina, or Tower of the Dove. This tower is now occupied only by +owls, and travellers suppose vaguely that it belongs in some way to the +little church of Santa Lucia, which nestles at its feet; they even fancy +that it is the campanile for Santa Lucia's bells. But the great stone +Tower of the Dove dates from the thirteenth century, and although Santa +Lucia cannot be called young, her two hundred and fifty years are +nothing to the greater antiquity of her ponderous, overshadowing +neighbor. Santa Lucia's bells, indeed, would be lost in the Tower of the +Dove. The saint has but three, each twelve inches in length, and the +miniature peal is suspended in a belfry about as large as a pigeon-house +which perches on the roof of her own small temple--a yellow sanctuary +adorned with a flat pointed facade which looks (it is a characteristic +of many church facades in Italy) as if it would come up and off if +pulled strongly at the top, like the front of a box or the slide of a +lantern. + +Edward Gray's compliment had drawn from Dennison a disparaging "Oh, it's +all dilapidated, forlorn--" + +"Spare your adjectives," responded the other man. "They're pure +hypocrisy. You needn't pretend you don't like it!" + +"Of course I don't pretend. Haven't I lived here for nearly twenty years +because I do like it? That tells the story." + +"Though my occupation at home is the making of boiler-plate," Gray +continued, pursuing the current of his own thoughts, "and though I +couldn't and wouldn't live here as you do, giving up your own country +(the greatest country in the world), yet don't imagine, Jack, that I +can't take it in!" + +He had risen while speaking. Now he went down to the parapet and stood +looking at the view. Each mountain-peak was bathed in the light of +sunset; all was softly fair--the ineffable loveliness of Italy. He came +back. "It's probable that I take it in more than you do," he went on. + +"Oh yes, of course; new-comers always think so. They think that we don't +comprehend either the country or the people because we take them calmly. +They believe that they themselves show far more discrimination in only +coming now and then. For in that way they preserve their power of +appreciating; they don't grow dull-eyed and stupid as we do." + +"Exactly. That's just what I think," answered Gray. "What do you +suppose those stairs were for?" he added, as he sat down again beside +the table and lighted a cigarette. + +"Probably they led to a small out-door pulpit which has fallen down. The +whole top of this hill was covered by a monastery--a fortified place, I +believe, with four towers. Only one of the towers remains, and nothing +above ground of all the other buildings but that piece of high wall; I +dare say there are plenty of substructures and vaults below. But though +the monastery has gone, this old garden of the monks remains very much +as it was, I fancy." + +Modesta now came to take the tray. She was accompanied by a cat and a +dog. The dog was a small dachshund, black, with long silky ears and very +crooked paws. The cat, a sinuous yellow matron, appeared to believe that +she was the favorite, for she rubbed herself against her mistress's +ankles caressingly. As Modesta, with murmured "excuses," lifted the +tray, four kittens rushed from the house, gambolling and tumbling over +each other; they all made their way to her feet, round which they curled +themselves so that she walked in a tangle of cats. She returned towards +the house with her tray, laughing, and careful not to step on them. The +dog waited a moment with dignity. "Here, Hannibal! Here!" said Dennison. +But the dachshund paid no attention to him; he trotted back to the house +as fast as his short legs could carry him. + +"He is supposed to be my property. But he spends his life in the +kitchen," commented Dennison. + +"That girl of yours has a passion for animals; one might rather call it +compassion, perhaps, for I have even seen her petting that +preternaturally ill-tempered and hideous donkey who turns your +water-wheel," remarked Gray. "It seems to extend in all directions, for +she runs out to help the old milkman up the hill with his cans, and she +gives tidbits to that idiot boy who haunts the main road." + +"That isn't half. She feeds regularly two children who live a little +below here, on the way down to the valley. Partly she robs me to do it, +after the easy Italian fashion; but she also robs herself--I have had +proof of that. She almost always has some forlorn object, varying +anywhere from a lame chicken to a blind man, stowed away in a corner of +the court or the kitchen, where she can see to and comfort it. And every +Friday, when the regular beggars of Tre Ponti--the authorized +humbugs--make the round of the villas and poderes on this side of the +valley, invariably she has saved something for each one of them." + +"She is extraordinarily handsome. With her full throat, her large, soft +eyes, and that classic head and hair, she looks like a Madonna of one of +the old painters. I have never seen a more kindly and beautiful smile." + +"It's well enough. But the great thing is that she is perfect as a +servant. What she has to do is done without a fault." + +"And she is so placid and sweet-tempered, too, as well as skilful," Gray +went on. "She's a regular marvel!" + +"She's a regular Tuscan!" + +"Didn't I tell you that you don't half appreciate the beautiful natures +of these people? As to this particular girl--come back to America, and +see what we have to put up with! A waitress like that, over there, would +be worth her weight in silver--if not gold." + +"A what?" asked Dennison. + +"A waitress; that's what we call 'em now; we've given up 'help.' Is she +married to your cook?" + +"Oh no; Peppino is nearly sixty. She is only twenty-five, though she +looks thirty. She is a widow, and she is thinking of taking another +husband before long. Have you noticed a young fellow working in the +vineyard just under your windows?" + +"I have noticed some one loafing there." + +"That's the man." + +"Poor good-natured woman--he has imposed upon her; she will have to earn +his living as well as her own. As it happens, I have watched him, and a +lazier creature I never saw; he looks at the vines occasionally, and he +calls down jokes to the other men below; that is the extent of his +exertions. Come out for a walk." + +"I don't walk after dinner." + +"Come at least as far as the tower." + +Thus adjured, Dennison rose. In spite of his own assertion, he was not +corpulent; he was a tall man whose outlines had grown large; but he was +muscular still. Gray also was tall. If Edward Gray had a hobby, it was +to show to the world that an American business-man can be as athletic as +an English fox-hunter or an ancient Greek; his face, which was thin and +deeply lined, did not come up to his ambition; but his erect figure, +wiry and elastic, was well-developed and strong. + +As they passed through the house, now growing dim in the twilight, they +caught a glimpse of the waitress in the distance, seated in the kitchen, +knitting. On the table by her side two of the tall, slender Tuscan lamps +were burning, each with its three little wicks and its three brass +chains; in her lap two kittens were curled asleep. The light illumined +also a gaudy print on the wall, apparently a Madonna. Beneath the print +was a jug filled with flowers. + +"Is that little piece of piety your cook's?" Gray asked, as they passed +out. + +"No. The cook is a free-thinker. It's Modesta; she is overwhelmingly +devout. She has the whole house blessed at regular intervals--priest and +holy-water." + +The outer door of Casa Colombina opens directly upon the small square or +piazza of Santa Lucia, a grassy space dotted with minute pink daisies. +One side of this square is bordered by a low wall. In the daytime this +wall's broad, flat top was adorned not infrequently by the recumbent +figure of one of Modesta's proteges, who, after enjoying her bounty, was +taking a siesta here, in the sunshine or the shade, according to the +season; sometimes it was Hannibal, with his nose on his paws; sometimes +it was the cat; very often it was a beggar or the idiot boy. To-night +the slab was empty, and, after a stroll of half an hour up the road and +back, Dennison and his visitor sat down here for a moment; it made an +excellent seat. It was now dark; the lights of Tre Ponti were twinkling +in the valley, the evening-star shone above the Tower of the Dove; the +soft air of the Italian May was filled with the fragrance of blossoms. +Suddenly on one of the mountains in the northern sky there appeared, +flashing out, a gleam. Then a blaze. + +"Woods on fire up there," said Gray, who was accustomed to forest fires +at home. + +But while he was speaking a similar glare appeared on a mountain in the +south. And then a third in the east. Many summits and flanks of the +Apennines were in sight, and before long there were fifty of the blazing +signals visible, some near, some distant, but all at high points. + +"It's the vigil of the Ascension, the night when the mountain peasants +light bonfires on their peaks as a species of religious rite," explained +Dennison. "In reality it is a relic of pagan times. Their belief is that +the ceremony will bring tranquillity to their families during the year." + +A figure which had come from the house now passed them. "Lordships will +pardon," said Modesta's voice; "they know that I would not wish to +disturb. But from the kitchen it is not possible to count the mountain +fires. And to count them all is important, since tranquillity is most +surely a blessed thing. Excuses." She passed on to a distant angle of +the wall, where she stood for five or ten minutes. + +"What did she say?" asked Gray, who was sure that he could learn to +speak Italian in a week or two. Simplest thing in the world--so much +like Latin. + +Dennison translated the phrases--the lordships, the excuses, and the +proffered opinion as to tranquillity. + +"It's awfully pretty," said Gray, admiringly. + +Modesta, after finishing her counting, crossed the piazza to the little +church. In the starlit darkness they could see her kneel down there in +the porch. + +"She is clinching it--the tranquillity--by a few private orisons," said +Dennison. + +Presently, her devotions concluded, the waitress returned to the house. +The two men remained where they were. They had all sorts of subjects to +thresh out together. They took them up, or rather Gray did, by fits and +starts. + +"Well, Jack, it's settled, then, that you're never coming home?" he +remarked, as he accepted another cigarette. + +"Not at all," Dennison answered. "I shall come back by-and-by, when I +feel like it. In the meanwhile I pay my taxes regularly over there, and +I subscribe to all the charities I believe in--three or four. If there +were to be another war (but there won't be) I should return at once." + +"Well, I don't call it a useful life." + +"Is it more useful to make money--at somebody else's expense?" + +"It's more useful to be a good citizen; to bring up one's family well; +to--" + +"Let's stop there," Dennison interposed. "People with families never +approve of the people who haven't those blessings. It doesn't occur to +them that nobody forced them to marry; they selected the lot, and +therefore they accepted responsibilities. But a man who has not +undertaken family life ought not to be saddled with its cares. You chose +your boys and girls; I chose Italy. Each to his taste. You may ask, +'Isn't the world to be peopled, then?' No trouble about that; it always +will be. Personally my own answer to the same question might be, +however, the old one, 'Je n'en vois pas la necessite.'" + +"That's where you all end; dreary nihilism!" + +A figure was now passing the piazza, following the road which ascends +from the valley. "Let us see if Hannibal gives tongue from the house," +said Dennison. "It's a man they call the Professor; he lives behind the +church, and he and the dog detest each other. Generally, Hannibal knows +his step even from the depths of the olive-grove! You don't want to +watch those fires all night, do you?" + +They returned to the house. The outer door of Casa Colombina bore no +relation to the drawing-room, dining-room, or library. It led to the +court, to the cellar, to the gardens, to the podere, to the kitchen, to +whatever you please; but it was only by a circuitous route through +corridors and purposeless anterooms that Dennison could reach his own +apartments. As he and his guest were following this route they caught +another glimpse across the court of Modesta in her kitchen. The door was +more widely open this time, and they could see the whole interior of the +large, vaulted, hall-like room, with the rows of copper pans on the +wall. The kittens were now in their basket on the floor, and Modesta's +lap was occupied by the dachshund, who had curled himself into a ball. +The waitress was still knitting, her head bent forward over her work. +With her smoothly braided hair and her white apron, in her neat, quiet +room, with her cats and her dog and her flower-decked shrine, she was +the image of peace. + +"Tranquillity is most surely a blessed thing," quoted Gray. "If it were +not for the moving needles, I should say she was asleep." + +"She probably is asleep; she is knitting unconsciously. She appears to +require about fifteen hours of slumber out of the twenty-four," said +Dennison, as he lighted wax matches, one after the other, to show the +way. When he reached the sitting-room he rang for lights, and presently +Modesta appeared, carrying the lamp, her eyes drowsy. + +"As soon as Peppino comes in you may close the house," said Dennison. +"We shall require nothing more to-night." + +The waitress put down the lamp, adjusting its wick so that it burned +brightly. Then she lighted the shaded candles which stood on a side +table. Hannibal had followed her; when she had finished her task she +stooped and picked him up. "If the master allows, he must be washed +to-morrow," she said. "Or, rather, not to-morrow, for it is a festa, but +the day after. As it is now warm weather, Peppino shall take him to the +pond, instead of bathing him in the green crockery basin. Annibale +himself will not wish to go--silly cherub!" (Here she stroked the dog's +head.) "But--what do they wish? It is necessary. Good-night to the +lordships." And she disappeared, carrying the dog, and murmuring +endearments to him as she went. + +The next morning Gray, always an early riser, found himself awake at the +abnormal hour of dawn; for in May and in Italy one can see the +beginnings of light in the east soon after midnight. Long before four +o'clock he was dressed and out. He had a fancy to see the dew on the +blossoms, to watch the sun rise above the Apennines and touch, one by +one, the gray towers with which in that part of Tuscany all the hills +are crowned. Peppino was up, for the kitchen door was open. Hannibal, +hearing steps, looked into the court, and seeing that some one was going +for a walk, he decided to go too, announcing his intention by a bark of +one syllable--"wow!" This drew forth a "Be quiet!" in Tuscan from +Peppino within. For no unnecessary sound must disturb the master of the +house, who never appeared before eight o'clock; in winter an hour +later. Gray went quietly through the corridors to the irrelevant outer +door, opened it, and let himself out, followed by the dog. He walked up +the road for a short distance; then he turned into a winding lane. Here +he saw the thick dew on the hedges and fields, but only one bird; with +great care Dennison had kept three birds'-nests in the garden of Casa +Colombina, but they were probably the only nests for miles. Presently +the sun rose above the eastern mountains, its first rays illumining +distant high-up villages which are invisible later in the day. Then came +the gleam of the towers. Some of these stand alone, like the Tower of +the Dove; two belong to ruined castles; but the majority are now +attached to villas which were built later, or rather the villas have +attached themselves to the towers. These villas, now old in their turn, +are for the most part large, solid, blank-looking structures, yellow in +hue, with a dignified group of cypresses near by. When the tints of the +sunrise were all gone, merged in the broad, clear light of the Tuscan +summer day, Gray turned back. He was following the main road. As the +cluster of houses which stand next to Santa Lucia, behind the piazza, +came into view, he saw a large white dog appear suddenly on the broad +top of a wall which bounds one of the gardens. This dog began to bark in +a deep tone at Hannibal, who was below; for Hannibal had hurried on far +in advance of his companion, with the air of expecting something. This +was what he had expected; and he now answered the challenge by leaping +up as high as he could towards his mocking aggressor, and barking in his +turn with all his strength. As the top of the wall was ten feet above +the roadway, the big dog could loftily send down his derisive scorn at +intervals without lowering the dignity of his pose; and his derision +was plainly increased when two other dogs appeared on the wall by his +side and added their voices to the tumult. Hannibal meanwhile nearly +turned himself inside out in his efforts to reply with appropriate +contempt; he defied them all three at the top of his voice. Suddenly +from a house opposite appeared a singular figure--a tall, thin man in +his night-shirt, scantily covered by a short dressing-gown--who rushed +into the melee, brandishing a cane and trying to strike the vociferous +dachshund. Hannibal, relinquishing for the moment his warfare with the +canine foes, turned his attention towards this new enemy, but not +quickly enough to escape a blow which changed his proud bark into a yelp +of dismay. + +"Don't strike the dog!" called Gray, futilely, in English, as he hurried +towards the scene of action. But before he could reach the spot a flying +figure had intervened, coming from the opposite direction. Modesta +rushed to the dodging Hannibal and picked him up, while she sent a flood +of Tuscan sarcasms after his now retreating antagonist. "Two-legged +brutes are much worse than four-legged ones," she announced, loudly; +"and as to the quality of the _legs_, there can be no comparison." The +thin human limbs were, indeed, only too plainly visible below the +insufficient garments, and she wittily enumerated their weak points for +the benefit of the gazing heads which had now appeared at all the +windows of the neighborhood, as the distracted man, losing first one of +his slippers and then the other, finally seized them in his hand, and, +getting his door open at last, disappeared within. "Figure it to +yourself--a Professor! Legs like that for the _literary_ profession!" +was the waitress's final thrust. + +After breakfast, as Dennison and Gray were sitting in the garden, she +appeared. "Lordships will excuse, but it seemed best that they should +know. The paw of Annibale is wounded; likewise his shoulder and one ear. +I have put on a lotion and bandaged him, and he has shown the patience +of an angel. But that he suffers is visible, and I therefore ask the +master, could I leave him here while I go to mass, so that he may not be +lonely, Peppino having gone to town?" + +"Oh, bring him, if you like," said Dennison. "Little scamp!" he added in +English. + +Modesta went off, returning after a minute or two, carrying Hannibal in +his basket. The dog reposed on his cushions with the air of a wounded +hero; he was arrayed in a complicated bandage of coarse white linen, +which swathed one paw and encircled his shoulder and head. "To think of +any one's being such a brute as to injure a creature so small!" said +Modesta, after she had put the basket gently down in the shade. "But, +without doubt, there are in this world absolute demons!" + +"You hypocrite!" said Dennison to Hannibal, after the waitress had +departed. "You go every morning of your life at dawn to wake up that +poor man by a row with the Ciardelli dogs--you know you do! He is a +teacher of languages from Florence, who is here for six months of rest," +he added to Gray. "He has not had much rest so far! He has already +thrown all his boots and shoes at Hannibal through the window more than +once. This morning I suppose he was desperate." + +"Is your paw _very_ bad, Hannibal?" inquired Gray. + +The bandage had slipped down, so that Hannibal had only one eye visible. +With this eye he appeared to wink. + +After lunch the two men went out for a stroll. The roads were gay with +the country-folk, celebrating the festa in the Italian fashion by the +simple amusement of being together in the open air. The wrinkled faces +of the old women were framed in their new red-and-yellow kerchiefs, +which were folded over their heads and tied under their chins. Each girl +wore a flower in her hair, and this hair was always thick, rising up +round the face in a dense mass, no matter how closely the long ends were +braided and coiled behind. The men were dressed in their best, but they +all carried their jackets folded and tossed over one shoulder. + +The younger men were entertaining themselves. + +"They will end by slicing us in two at the ankles," said Gray, +indignantly, after he had jumped aside three or four times to escape a +sharp disk which met them suddenly as they turned a corner, whizzing +past them as it flew down the road, almost invisible from its speed. + +"It's a game," said Dennison. + +"Oh, is it? I thought it was assassination." + +Presently they came to a little stone building adorned with a rusty tin +cross. On the side towards the road it has a small, iron-barred window, +whose glass within is so thickly covered with dust that it looks as if +it had been painted yellow. There is a Latin inscription cut in stone +over its long-closed door: "Pul--pulsate, et--Knock and it shall be +opened to you," translated Gray, making out the words with difficulty. + +"Nobody would dare to knock. And the last thing they wish is to have it +opened," remarked Dennison. "It is the private chapel of that old villa +across the fields, but for the last two hundred years there has been a +tomb inside, whose occupant is supposed to rise and come to the window +now and then to glare at the passers-by. She was a Countess Alberoni, +who had a tragical end, if the legend is true. Her own children are said +to have locked her up in that villa with one attendant and the plainest +food, until at last, from sheer melancholy, she died. On the other hand, +it is added that the world was well rid of her, for a more wicked old +woman never lived. Her crimes, however, whatever they were, have not +prevented Modesta, I see, from decorating her with the others," he +continued. For as they walked on they perceived that a faded shrine, set +in the outer wall of the chapel at its eastern end, had been adorned +with a long garland made of fresh green leaves and blossoms. + +"The others? What others?" + +"Your Madonna beauty decorates every way-side shrine within a mile of +Casa Colombina on all the principal festas," said Dennison. "She starts +out after lunch, carrying a pile of garlands in her arms, and another +poised on her head, so that she is like a walking hay-stack." + +They now took a narrow track which leads to the valley. This path winds +round a small low house, brilliantly pink on the outside, with a dark +and gloomy interior. + +"There she is now," said Gray, who, looking at everything with the keen +attention of a stranger, had discovered the figure of the Casa Colombina +servant within. Her back was towards them; she was talking to some one +who was not visible from the road. Hearing their footsteps, she turned. +And then, as the light from the doorway fell upon her, they saw that she +had Hannibal in her arms. + +"Put down that ridiculous animal!" called Dennison. + +The waitress came out, and, joining in their laughter, placed the dog on +the ground. "With his bandages, yes, he does look comical," she said, +assentingly. "But it seemed best to give him a breath of fresh air." + +"Have you lugged him all the way from the house?" asked Dennison, who +had paused to roll two cigarettes. "The dog and the flowers too?" + +"It is nothing; lordship knows his gentleness. He lay among them like a +lamb." + +"But why did you give a wreath to the wicked countess, Modesta?" +Dennison went on. "The Signor Gray is astonished at such an action." + +"Povera! to be so treated by her own children," answered the Italian; +"that seems to me abominable. She was their mother, even if a bad one. +And then one feels for her; only on a festa does any one pass that +chapel, and so she has very little to see even when she does look out. +The master may not know? This is the home of Pietro." + +"The idiot boy?" + +"The afflicted of God," said Modesta, gently. + +The boy, hearing his name, had come shuffling out. He was a +repulsive-looking child, but Modesta smoothed his hair. "To me he +appears constantly more intelligent," she said, hopefully. + +Dennison and his visitor, having lighted their cigarettes, now passed +on. The moment their figures had disappeared round a curve the waitress +stooped and took up the waiting Hannibal. "To call thee comical, with +thy little paw in pain!" she murmured in his ear. "But thou knowest that +I did not mean it. 'Twas but politeness for the masters." + +The masters went down to Tre Ponti, where they took horses and a +rattling phaeton, and went off on one of those quests with whose mild +excitements Dennison enlivened his quiet Italian days. This time it was +a search for some tapestry, which had been discovered, so it was said, +in a villa six miles distant. The villa was one of those which had +degenerated, having been used for the last hundred years as a +farm-house. During the preceding week an addition had been pulled down, +and the demolition had uncovered a window which corresponded to nothing +within; further search had revealed a walled-up chamber, and it was this +chamber which contained the tapestry. The chamber was there--a small +room with a high ceiling. It contained no tapestry; nothing, in fact, +but one singular object: a lady's toilet-table with a lace cover, an old +mirror, two candlesticks, and various saucers, vials, and boxes. The +lace, which was falling to pieces from age, was ordinary in quality; the +mirror-frame and the candlesticks were made of metal that imitates +bronze; and the saucers, vials, and boxes were of glass that imitates +crystal; nothing, therefore, had intrinsic value. Dennison made a small +offer for the whole just as it stood, in case the government should not +lay claim to the objects. + +"It's only for the riddle," he said to his companion, as they drove back +to Tre Ponti. "There is a history, of course, and nobody can ever know +it; that is the charm; one can fancy anything one pleases. If I get the +table, I'll put it in one of the unused bedrooms. And then when there +comes a wild windy night, such as we sometimes have in Tuscany, I'll go +there after midnight, and see if she don't glide slowly in and look at +herself in her old glass." + +It was late in the afternoon when they drove through the eastern gate of +Three Bridges. Leaving the phaeton at the stable, they strolled about +the village for a while before returning to Casa Colombina. + +But village is hardly the word. Although Tre Ponti has never contained +more than two thousand inhabitants (at present there are but fifteen +hundred), it is surrounded by an important stone wall with bastions, and +two of the old gateways, massive arched portals, are still in use. The +narrow winding streets are paved with broad flag-stones, which reach to +the house walls on each side, so that one seems to be following hallways +open at the top rather than roads. Nowhere is there an inch of garden; +the high blocks stand side by side in solid rows. The only +breathing-place is the central square; one side of this piazza is +embellished by a palazzo-pubblico, or town-hall, decorated with griffins +and armorial bearings. Along another side there is an arcade ornamented +with a row of heads by Andrea della Robbia, old women, monks, knights, +children, and others, each looking out with life-like expression from a +heavy frame of clustered porcelain fruit. + +"Those frames of fruit would do for a State fair," said Gray, +irreverently. "Queer, solid, stony little place! Somehow it looks +fierce, too." + +"Naturally. They did almost nothing here but fight for hundreds of +years; they fought with every town in Tuscany. And almost every town in +Tuscany responded by fighting with them." + +When Gray had seen everything, they passed through the western gate, +taking the road which leads down the hill and across one of the three +bridges; on the other side of this bridge begins the path which is a +short-cut to Casa Colombina. + +In the open space outside of this gate there stands a small cafe of the +most modern type. Its exterior is adorned in fresco on one side of the +door with a portrait of Garibaldi as large as life. On the other side +there is a second work of art, a painted open window from whose lattice +leans a damsel, dressed in the remarkable apparel which is produced by a +translation of the latest Paris fashions into Italian. This damsel +hospitably offers to the passers-by a glass of wine. "Let's breathe," +said Dennison, seating himself on one of the benches which, with a green +table, was placed before the door. + +"You want to attach yourself to every bench you see, Jack." + +"On the contrary, I much prefer my own, at home. It's only for your sake +that I go tramping about the country in this way, on my feet." + +"What do they have in such a place as this?" asked Gray, fanning himself +with his hat. "We can't sit here without ordering something." + +"Yes, we can. Don't be throwing your money about." + +"Only a quarter. What can I get for that?" + +"Red vinegar." + +At this moment the proprietor of the cafe came forth, carrying a +three-legged stool and a brazier filled with hot coals. He saluted the +gentlemen with a beaming smile, but made no effort to solicit their +patronage; placing the stool and the brazier at a little distance, he +returned to the house, and came forth again with a large shallow pan, +whose bottom was covered with a layer half an inch deep of coffee in +the berry. Seating himself on the stool, he began to roast the coffee, +holding the pan over the coals by its long handle, and swaying it +slightly from side to side with a rhythmical motion. He was a +picturesque young man, with a brilliant pink silk handkerchief round his +neck. Whenever his roving glance happened to meet that of either of the +Americans he smiled genially, as though he wished to assure them that, +whatever their mood might be, he should be sure to sympathize with it if +admitted to their confidence. + +"Ask him for the wine," said Gray. + +"You can't possibly drink it," expostulated Dennison. + +"I'll take it to Modesta--for her Friday beggars. You won't? Very well, +then, I'll do it myself. Here, vyno! Vyno, do you hear? Vyno bono. Oon +liry. _Oon!_" And he held up one finger. + +The young landlord, with cordial smiles, put down his pan, hurried into +the house, and returned with two little tumblers, and one of the +graceful Tuscan flasks swathed in its covering of plaited straw. Taking +out the stopper, he removed with exaggerated care the protecting layer +of oil by means of a long wisp, and then placed the flask on the table +with a flourish. "Ecco!" + +"They always understand me," said Gray, complacently, when the coffee +roasting had begun again. + +"They would understand a Patagonian; one who was a lunatic, and dumb!" + +"That is what I mean; they are so extraordinarily intelligent," replied +Gray, declining to be snubbed. + +Tre Ponti was keeping the festa with much gayety; the streets were full +of strolling figures; the benches in front of all the cafes were full. +This little way-side hostlery beyond the gate now began to receive its +share; four men coming to town from a distant podere stopped here to +refresh themselves with wine and chunks of the dark Italian bread. Then +came a procession of youths returning from an expedition up the valley. +They wore branches of blossoms in their hats, and kept step as they +marched. More wine was brought out, and they all drank. + +"I have not seen a drunken man in Italy," said Gray; "it's perfectly +wonderful. Think of the whiskey and whiskey-brawls at home! Think of the +gin and horrible wife-beating in England!" + +"I don't know why I should think of them. They're not pleasant +subjects." + +A party of women now appeared, coming through the gateway from the town; +one of them had a baby in her arms, and another was carrying a heavy boy +of three, whose head, adorned with a red cap, lay sleepily on her +shoulder. Set in the wall outside of this gateway there is a large +shrine shielded by a grating. It bears an inscription in +Italian--"Erected in token of mercies felt on this spot." There is a low +marble step outside of the grating, and the woman who had the older +child knelt down here for a moment, and made the child kneel by her +side; taking some flowers from the knot at her belt, she showed him how +to throw them through the grating as far as he could, as an offering to +the Madonna within. The boy obeyed her; and then she gently bent his +head forward with her hand as salutation. The other women knelt also, +after this one had risen; but they did it perfunctorily; they bobbed +down and bobbed up again, crossing themselves, the whole process taking +about two seconds. + +"The one carrying the red-capped boy is your waitress again," said Gray, +as the women, their devotions over, drew nearer on their way to the +bridge. "What is she doing down here?" + +"It's her home; she is a Tre Ponti girl--was born here; and her family +live here still. She herself much prefers the town to the country; she +shares to the full the ideas which Browning expressed in 'Up in a Villa, +Down in the City.'" + +Modesta had now discovered them, and paused, while the women who were +with her gave such a general greeting to "lordships" that it seemed to +Gray that he beheld several yards of white teeth, surmounted by rows of +dark eyes whose depths held a sweetness which no Northern orbs could +ever contain. + +"I accompany for a short distance my friend Paola," explained the +waitress, "Paola being tired, and having already the baby to carry. +This, the one I have, is her Angelo--as the master can perceive for +himself, an angel indeed--though his little ankles are not strong. +But--what would they have? That requires patience; it will improve. The +masters would like without doubt to see also the baby? A miracle of +beauty!" And giving the older child to one of her companions, she took +the swaddled infant from its mother, and brought it to Dennison and his +friend, a smile of pure enthusiasm irradiating her face. "His cheeks--do +the masters behold them? And his eyes like stars? Lordships can note the +quality of his arms." + +Gray lightly pinched the dimpled roll of fat extended towards him. "Oui, +oui. Grandeena!" he said, emphatically. + +Modesta appeared to be charmed with this attention; she thanked him +warmly. Then she carried the baby back to its mother, kissing it before +she gave it up, and, taking the other child, led the way down the hill, +the whole party making fresh obeisances before they turned away. + +"What frank, pleasant faces they all have!" said Gray. + +"Very frank. They never changed a muscle when, as a token of your +admiration of the baby, you told them that it was hailing." + +"Hailing? What are you talking about? I said the baby's arm was big." + +"Grandina happens to mean 'it is hailing'; that's all." + +"It couldn't; it wouldn't be such a fool! Are we going to stay here all +night? It's awfully dusty." + +For the open space outside of the gate was now filled with loungers, and +the cafe of Garibaldi was crowded both inside and out; the two Americans +left their bench and strolled down the hill. When they reached the +bridge they stopped to watch the water. As they did so they heard music; +down the gorge beside the stream came a party of girls, two and two, +with linked arms; they were singing all together something slow and +sweet, and as they passed under the bridge each gave a glance upward +towards the two gentlemen who were leaning over the parapet to look at +them. + +"What are they singing?" asked Gray. + +"A hymn to the Virgin, with an endless number of verses; stay here a +month, and you'll hear it so often that you'll sing it in your sleep." + +"That girl who was last did not look like an Italian," Gray went on, as +the musical band disappeared round a bend. + +"She isn't; she is a Swede. She was brought here last summer by a queer +old English woman, who has lived for ten years, off and on, in that +villa just above the second bridge; she had a fancy for servants who +could not speak a word of English, and she picked up this girl in +Stockholm during one of her journeys--for when she wasn't in Tuscany, +she was trotting all over the globe. She died, at the last, suddenly; it +was two months ago, and, so far, her heirs in England, distant cousins, +I believe, have refused to do anything for this stranded maid. The +Swedish consul, however, has taken it up, and I hear that there is +prospect of a remittance some time or other--enough to pay her expenses +back to Stockholm. Fortunately for herself, she had learned to speak +Italian. And she had made friends in Tre Ponti; she is staying with +these friends now, and turning her hand meanwhile to anything that +offers in order to support herself until the money comes. Let's go home +and have some tea. Dinner will be very late this evening on account of +the festa; no hope of its being on the table before nine o'clock." + +"Just a minute more," said Gray. + +It was no wonder that the man who was unfamiliar with the scene should +wish to linger. The sun was sinking out of sight, sending up broad +shafts of gold as he disappeared; above the gold a deep rose tint filled +the sky. The water of the stream was gilded, and gilded were the +bristling turrets of a fourteenth-century monastery, which here crowns a +crag where the gorge makes a bend towards the south. Opposite, beyond +Casa Colombina, the soaring Tower of the Dove was flushed with pink. And +on the eastern side, over their heads, the little stone town with its +bastioned walls was colored in bars of salmon and pearl. The close +circle of hills, the wider amphitheatre of mountains behind, all of them +clothed in the violet mantle which mountains wear in Italy, were tipped +with orange. And somehow all these lovely hues seemed to deepen as the +chimes of Tre Ponti began to ring the Angelus. The peal of the monastery +on the crag soon joined in the anthem, these latter bells flinging +themselves far out from their open belfry against the sky, to and fro, +to and fro, with an abandon which was in itself a picture. And when the +chime stopped, music of another kind took its place, for coming up the +road appeared the same band of girls singing their slow hymn; they had +left the gorge, and were returning by way of the bridge to Tre Ponti. + +They were no longer a small company; a dozen women had joined them, and +six or eight youths followed behind. Modesta accompanied the girls, +having finished her duties as escort to Paola and her children. + +"Here is your waitress coming back," said Gray. "How handsome she +looks!" + +The arch of the bridge is high, and the ascent which leads to it steep; +the two gentlemen were standing in a small projecting half-bastion, +which once served, no doubt, as a sentry-box; their figures were +therefore inconspicuous from below, and no one saw them. Modesta walked +beside one of the girls. Her arms were folded, her hands resting upon +them tranquilly; she was clad in a dress of dark blue tint, with a +kerchief of cream-colored silk folded over her breast, and in her hair +there was a crimson rose; she was singing as she walked, joining in the +hymn to the Virgin, and her eyes were slightly raised, fixed dreamily +upon the tinted sky. As the group approached the ascent leading to the +bridge, a girl at the end of the procession began playfully to push +against one of her companions, and the pushing ended in a hoidenish +race, the two turning and rushing back down the road, the one who had +been attacked in pursuit of the aggressor. The others paused, and stood +watching the chase, but without stopping their hymn, which went steadily +on, though, as the pursued girl doubled unexpectedly and baffled her +pursuer, the mouths of the singers became so widely stretched in their +glee that it was impossible for them to pronounce their syllables, and +they carried the melody on mechanically, without words and almost in a +shriek. + +"Modesta is the only one who appears to remember that it is a hymn," +remarked Gray. + +"Hymn? It's a him of another kind. She probably doesn't know that she is +singing at all; much less what. And she doesn't even see those racing +tomboys. She only knows one thing, sees one thing, and that is her +Goro." + +"Goro?" + +"Yes; the young fellow she is going to marry. He is just behind +her--there at her elbow. You've seen him in our vineyard half a dozen +times." + +"He appeared dull enough there! To-day he looks very smart. However, he +is much too young for her--hardly more than a boy." + +The pursued girl had now escaped, and was returning. The pursuer +followed, and as they both reached the waiting group she made a last +desperate effort, and succeeded in grasping the other again, and so +firmly that they both fell to the ground. The hymn now ceased abruptly, +drowned in the general laughter as the two girls struggled in the dust. +After a moment they rose, shaking their skirts, and joining in the +merriment, until suddenly there came from one of them a high yell. +Drawing herself away from the others, she stood with her body stiffened +as though it had been turned into wood, and her eyes closed, while she +poured forth in a shrill voice a flood of rapid Italian. Her companions +meanwhile were so overcome with their laughter as they listened that +they rocked to and fro, and clapped their hands on their sides. + +"What was she saying?" asked Gray, when at last the piercing voice +stopped. + +"You wish a sample? She said, 'Brute, thou! Beast, thou! Thou it is who +hast done it, pig of a Vanna! For thou puttest me in a fury so that I +said evil words. And now what is the use of my Lent? Didn't I drop with +fasting? Wasn't I faint? Didn't I do every one of my devotions? And now +all lost through _thee_. Serpent! and frog!'" + +Modesta had paid no more attention to this raving outburst than she had +paid to the race which had preceded it; she had stopped singing when the +others stopped, but her eyes still gazed dreamily at the sky. After a +moment or two she turned so that her glance could take in Goro, and then +she stood tranquilly waiting, her face serene, content. + +Presently the little company, its laugh out, began to move on again, +coming up the ascent in a straggling band, the girl who had yelled forth +her accusations with her body stiffened so strangely accompanying them, +her fit of excitement ended. She even tried to frolic in a shamefaced +sort of way; she took the flower from her hair, threw it up and caught +it, as though it were a ball, humming a tune to herself carelessly. As +they reached the bridge the band perceived the two gentlemen in the +semi-bastion; all, that is, save Modesta. In her absorption the waitress +saw nothing, until the girl who was beside her pulled her sleeve. + +"The master, thine," she whispered. "Thy two lordships." + +The waitress now came back to actual life. She waited a moment, until +the others had passed on. "It is Goro," she said, presenting him. "The +masters already know him well." + +"Not in his festival clothes," answered Dennison. "He is nothing," he +added, banteringly; "not half good enough! I wouldn't have him, Modesta, +if I were you." + +When Dennison said "He is nothing," Goro answered, "E vero" (It is +true), and laughed lightly. He was a tall, strong youth, with curling +hair and a joyous smile. + +"Eh--he wishes me so much good!" replied Modesta, fondly. + +The next morning Gray took another sunrise walk; he had but five days +more to spend in Tuscany, and he wished to make every hour tell. When he +came back the waitress was in the court, occupied in tying a long cord +to Hannibal's collar; beside her were two towels and a cake of soap. + +"It is Annibale, who goes now for his bath," she explained; "Peppino +takes him. A bath is excellent for Annibale." + +The dog's spirits were deeply depressed; his elongated little body +seemed almost to sweep the ground, owing to the dejected state of his +short legs. "It is nothing, thou silly one!" said Modesta, +affectionately. "Thou must be washed--that thou knowest. And as the +morning is so warm, thou art to go to the pond." + +Peppino now came from the kitchen, ready for the expedition. With a +salute to their visitor, he took the end of the cord in his hand, and +turned down the path which leads to the fields below. + +"I'll go too," said Gray. "Ego," he added, tapping his breast violently, +to show that he meant himself. + +The two servants were charmed with this idea; Modesta said that it would +give Hannibal courage to be accompanied by the gentleman, and Peppino +added that it was "too much honor." The cook was very tall, with the +countenance of a seer; in his spotless white linen jacket, his long +white apron, and white linen cap, his appearance, with his dark eyes and +thick gray hair, was striking. He was suspected of belonging to a secret +society of nihilistic principles; but his nihilism must have applied +only to mankind, for he went down the hill as slowly as he could, in +order that Hannibal's neck should not be hurt by undue pressure from his +collar. For the dog was following at the extreme length of his cord, +dragging back obstinately with all his might, and digging his crooked +little paws as deeply into the sand as he possibly could with each +reluctant step; as Peppino was six feet in height, and Hannibal ten +inches, the spectacle was amusing. At the foot of the hill the glitter +of the pond became visible, and Hannibal's resistance grew so desperate +that Peppino went back and picked him up, carrying him onward in his +arms as though he had been a baby. "Most surely he must not be +permitted to strangle himself," he explained to Gray in his serious +voice. + +The valley fields belonging to Casa Colombina are six in number; five +are for grain and one for vegetables, and all are bordered by rows of +fruit-trees, with grape-vines trained to swing from trunk to trunk. +These fields are watered by artificial rivulets, which are fed from the +pond. And the pond is in reality a reservoir for the water of a spring +above. They passed the spring first. It is covered by a roof which +extends some distance beyond it, supported by pillars of brick; the +ground beneath is paved with flag-stones, and here were assembled a +collection of the large tubs, of red earthen-ware, in shape and hue like +mammoth flower-pots, which the Tuscan peasants use for washing clothes. +Above the spring, fastened to one of the pillars, was a china image of +St. Agnes, and beneath the image there was a hanging lamp with one wick, +its tiny flame like a pale yellow point in the brilliant morning light. + +"Modesta?" said Gray, indicating the lamp as they passed. + +The cook nodded affirmatively. + +"She is foolishly superstitious," he said. "But women--" A shrug +completed the sentence. + +[Illustration: "THE DOG WAS FOLLOWING AT THE EXTREME LENGTH OF HIS +CORD"] + +The pool was square, paved within, and bordered by a low stone parapet; +the water was not quite a foot deep. Peppino soaped Hannibal carefully +until he was a mass of white lather; then he placed him gently in the +pool, and kept him from returning to the shore by the aid of a long +branch. "Walk about, then; walk! Agitate thyself," he said, pressing him +softly with the twigs. Hannibal walked as little as he possibly +could; his indignation was plainly visible even in the tip of his +nose, which was the only part of him above the water. When he was judged +to be sufficiently laved the branch was withdrawn, and as he leaped out +the cook caught him and dried him with a towel. Another towel was then +folded closely round him and fastened with long tapes, leaving only his +head and paws and tail free. "Now must thou run back, so as not to take +cold," said Peppino, putting on the collar and readjusting the cord. And +then the procession returned, the swathed Hannibal this time as far in +advance as the cord would permit, and pulling up the hill like a +miniature steam-engine. "He is anxious to get back to Modesta," said +Gray. + +The cook comprehended. "It is true. She spoils him with her indulgence; +it is a melancholy weakness in her character," he replied, as with his +disengaged hand he took his red handkerchief from his pocket and wiped +his face, which was heavily bedewed with drops of perspiration, owing to +his exertions at the pond. + +As they reached the level ground behind the house the cat could be seen +audaciously reposing in Hannibal's basket, which had been set outside to +air. The dachshund barked angrily; the cook did not set him free, but +hurried forward himself to eject the intruder; and as he did so, in some +way his foot slipped, and he came down full length on the grass with a +thud. And then Modesta, who had appeared at the kitchen door, began to +call out in excitement: "He laughs--behold him! Annibale _laughs_!" And, +in truth, the dog had that look as, with his mouth set in a broad grin, +his tongue hanging out a little, his tail wagging, and his eyes +brilliant with glee, he surveyed his prostrate companion. Modesta ran +and took him up. "Didst thou laugh, little one? Like a human creature? +And, indeed, thou art one; 'tis a man thou art!" Peppino, as soon as he +was on his feet again, was almost as much interested as she was; between +them they took off the towel, and dried him anew with a fresh one, +watching him tenderly meanwhile with bated breath, as though they were +expecting every instant to hear him speak. + +In spite of her mirth, Gray had noticed that the eyes of the waitress +were reddened, as though she had been shedding tears. + +At breakfast Dennison also noticed this. "Anything the matter?" he said. + +"Ah, nothing, nothing," replied Modesta, waving her hand contemptuously. +"It is only that I am of so great a carelessness--I have shame about it. +Will they figure it to themselves that I actually took off the cover of +the large pepper-jar and emptied the contents into a bowl, my face held +over it meanwhile and a breeze blowing through the pantry! That was +acting like a fool; the pepper naturally flew into my eyes. But enough; +it will pass." + +After breakfast Dennison went down to Tre Ponti on business connected +with his olive-grove. But he returned very soon, and, entering the +library, rang the bell sharply. + +"What's up?" said Gray, who was writing letters by the window. + +"A poor old man was terribly injured while passing the house this +morning; his donkey slipped on a rolling stone and fell, and the man was +thrown from his two-wheeled cart with great violence. Peppino was out +apparently--I can't imagine where, at that hour, as it's not his day for +going to town." + +"He was down at the pond washing the dog; I was with him." + +"That explains it. Modesta, therefore, having the field to herself, +absolutely refused to allow them to bring the poor creature in here; she +let him go in a jolting wagon down to Tre Ponti, telling me nothing +whatever about it. What makes it worse is that the man is a contadino +who used to work for me; he worked for me, in fact, until he grew too +old to work anywhere." + +"Probably she has some reason for disliking him." + +"On the contrary, she likes him; I happen to know it. And she has a very +soft heart for old people, for all kinds of infirmity and suffering. She +will fly down to see him upon the very first opportunity; she will rob +herself to take him the best food and wine, and everything else she can +think of; she will take the very pillows from her bed! She had cried her +eyes out over him, that was evident. With her yarn about the pepper!" + +"But why in the world, then--" + +"Simply because her idea is never to speak of unpleasant subjects to her +superiors if she can possibly avoid it; if forced to tell something of +the truth, she envelops it in roundabout, optimistic phrases that would +deceive even Solomon! But you'll hear for yourself. I'll translate what +she says afterwards." + +Modesta now appeared in answer to the ring. + +"Two men are coming to-day to work in the olive-grove," said Dennison; +"tell Peppino to have the tools ready; they will come every afternoon +for a week. Your eyes are better, I trust?" + +"Almost well, as lordship can behold. It was too much +carelessness--mine--with that pepper!" + +"Pepper, indeed; I feel peppery myself," replied Dennison. "Why didn't +you tell me about the man who was injured here this morning?" + +"Eh--lordship has heard? It was a slight accident." + +"His leg and his arm were broken, and you know it. Also his head was +cut." + +"Most surely that is an error. It was a sprain, a wrench; nothing more." + +"But I have seen him myself. And it was old Niccolo." + +"Lordship has seen him? It is possible that it was Niccolo; I did not +observe closely." + +"You should have come to my door and wakened me, instead of taking it +upon yourself to give orders," said Dennison. + +"Oh!" exclaimed the waitress, with a vivid expression of repugnance in +her eyes. "Waken lordship to tell him of a trouble--a misfortune like +that? What, then, would become of his repose--his tranquillity?" + +"You need not concern yourself about my tranquillity," answered +Dennison. But he gave it up. "You may go," he said. "Stay a minute," he +added; "I have provided a nurse for Niccolo, and a doctor, and he is to +be paid so much a day for the best food and wine; he will therefore +require nothing from you." + +"Save my compassion," answered the waitress, the tears now rolling +freely down her cheeks, and reddening her eyes anew. "And that I give +with all my heart!" She lifted a corner of her apron to wipe away the +drops. "It was sad to see--the masters can imagine! So old a man, and +feeble. His white hair in the dust. But he knew me when I ran out. I +wept much." + +"How about the pepper?" inquired Dennison, as she left the room. + +But the waitress was not disturbed by the detection of her falsehood. + +"The whole thing seems to her only the most ordinary duty to me," said +Dennison, after she had gone. "And if I had not happened to see Niccolo +with my own eyes, she would have stuck to her lie to the judgment-day. +Personally it was dreadful to her to send him away; she would have liked +nothing better than to have him here, in one of those cool rooms off the +court, where she could coddle him to her heart's content." + +"Do you know, then, _I_ think what she did was in one way charming," +said Gray. "All these Italian peasants seem to me to have the most +wonderful civility; their manners are always agreeable; they are almost +polished. Think of the manners of--" + +"I refuse to think of anything; the discoveries made by you new-comers +are only exceeded by your conceit. For a thorough knowledge of the +Italian character give me the man who has spent, in all, six weeks in +Italy?" + +The last day of Gray's visit came. As they sat at the breakfast-table, +his host said: "There's a powwow to-night, to celebrate something or +other, at one of the poderes about a mile from here. Modesta is going if +I give her permission. If I do, she won't be back until after midnight, +and the table service at dinner will therefore be at sixes and sevens. +As the day is so fine, we might take it for a drive to that tower on the +mountain--the one which is adorned, according to you, with a winding +outside stairway!" + +"There certainly is a stairway," persisted Gray. + +"And then we could get something in the way of a dinner at a little +summer hotel, which is already open for the season. There is a moon for +the drive back, and we could stop and have a look at the powwow before +coming home--as you're so athirst for everything Tuscan." + +"Excellent. Jar!" said Gray. + +"Jar? What jar?" + +"Jar. Jarr, then, since you say I always cut my r's. _You_ ought to know +Italian when you hear it. Jar is what they all say to me when they mean +yes." + +"You ridiculous object, 'gia' is the word." + +"That's exactly what I said: jar." + +It was three o'clock when they started, and a beautiful May afternoon. A +pair of horses and the rattling phaeton had been sent to Casa Colombina +from Tre Ponti. Modesta had already departed. + +"The celebration begins early," said Gray, as he saw her start. + +"She isn't going there now," answered Dennison. "She will go first to +the house of Goro's mother, about half a mile from here; there she will +sit braiding straw and gossiping with the old woman in a dark, +cellar-like room, until the beloved object comes home and is ready to +accompany her. I dare say she is taking him something with which to make +himself smart for the occasion--a new necktie or a silk handkerchief." + +As they passed out on their way to the carriage they caught a glimpse of +the distant white figure of the cook seated with his back towards them +outside of his kitchen door in the shade, occupying his leisure in +playing the flute; his notes, which just reached them, were soft and +long-drawn as sighs. + +"What is it?" said Gray, listening. "I'm sure I know it." + +"'Com' e gentil'; that is, 'O summer night.' Peppino is very sentimental +in his musical tastes." + +"He doesn't go to the party, then?" + +"He despises parties. _He_ goes in for bombs." + +It was between eight and nine o'clock in the evening when, on their +return from the drive, Dennison checked his horses in a hedge-bordered +lane, and stopped. (It may be mentioned that they did not reach the +tower; no one--that is, no stranger--has ever reached it. Italians are +indifferent to its mystery.) "This is the place," he said. "The house is +a quarter of a mile from here, and I could have taken you nearer by +keeping to the main road; but in that case they might have heard the +sound of our wheels. I haven't let any one know we were coming, so that +you can have a glimpse of the scene as it really is, and not tamed by +the presence of strangers." He tied the horses to the hedge, and, +climbing over a stone wall, led the way across a broad field, freshly +ploughed. On the other side of this field the ground ascended, and the +slope was covered by an olive-grove. The sparse gray foliage of the +pruned trees cast hardly more than a lace-work of shade upon the moonlit +ground, and the two men made their way upward easily; in ten minutes +they had reached the top. Here, on a broad plateau, stood the farm-house +with its out-buildings. Beyond the plateau the ground ascended again, +decked by another grove. The door and windows of the house were open, +and sounds of laughter came forth. The two Americans drew near +cautiously, walking as quietly as they could in the shadow of the trees. +But their care was unnecessary; all were assembled within, and no one +was looking either from the door or the windows; the noise, too, was so +great that no sound outside could have been heard even by a listening +ear. Dennison, making a detour, led the way round to one of the back +casements. This window, a small one, was breast-high; its little +lattices of lead-bordered panes had been thrown back; they opened into +the room, as the exterior of the window was guarded by iron rods set +close together. The two spectators outside, by looking between these +rods, obtained a view of the scene within. The room was large, low, and +smoke-browned; it was lighted by all the lamps the house could +muster--lamps of the old Tuscan pattern for olive-oil; there were also +earthen-ware saucers filled with the same oil, and carrying a floating +wick. Two candles illumined a supper-table which was placed across one +end of the apartment. This table bore upon its white linen cloth the +dishes of the feast--dishes and little else, as everything had been +eaten save bread, of which there was still a supply (in case any one +should feel a return of hunger). There were also fresh flasks of wine +for future thirst, and over a handful of coals on the hearth there was a +long-handled coffee-pot. A game was now going on, or, rather, a +pantomime; two men in masks were jumping about like harlequins, and +every now and then they seized a person from the ranks of spectators, +and whirled him or her round and round dizzily; there was guessing +connected with it in some way, as everybody called out names loudly; the +uproar was incessant, with occasional applause and a great deal of +laughter. The feet of the harlequins had raised much dust, and at last +the room became dim. "More light, more light, Filippo. We can't see," +called several voices. + +Filippo, a sinewy little man who had been acting as harlequin himself +(for the men took turns), consulted with his wife. They had no more +candles, and no more saucers and wicks; but they could make a blaze of +brushwood on the hearth, if the company would not mind the additional +heat? The wife, a laughing ample matron who still showed a handsome face +above her rotund person, opened a door into an out-building, and, after +some rummaging, produced three fagots of small, dry twigs; one of these +she placed over the coals, and in a minute or two a blaze leaped up the +wide chimney, lighting the room brilliantly. The game now went on with +redoubled vigor and glee, and the gazers without could see all the faces +of the circle distinctly. + +"There is Modesta by the table," whispered Gray. "How she does laugh! It +doesn't seem natural." + +"Oh yes, it is. That is the way they laugh sometimes; they can go on for +hours like children." + +"Isn't that the Swedish girl with one of the harlequins? How +light-colored she looks in that tanned, black-haired crowd! She is +rather pretty; instead of letting her go back to Stockholm, one of these +Italian youths had better marry her." + +"She probably holds herself above them," answered Dennison, in the same +low tone. "But, in any case, Tuscan peasants are extremely slow to marry +a person who is not a Tuscan. They call even Romans foreigners; +generally, too, they call them brutes! Well, we've been here twenty +minutes: had enough?" + +They turned, and, making a second circuit of the house, they crossed the +plateau noiselessly, and re-entered the grove. They had gone but a few +paces down the slope when the distant voices and laughter suddenly grew +louder; looking back, they saw that the whole company had come outside, +following the harlequins, each one of whom held a girl by the elbows, +and was whirling her over the grass in the brilliant moonlight. +Presently four more couples began to whirl in the same manner, and all +the others, inspired by the sight, joined hands, and made a long chain +which moved to and fro with rhythmical steps, forming now a star, now a +square, now a figure 8. The game was at an end; everybody was dancing. +One of the harlequins changed his partner every few minutes, but the +other did not loosen his grasp of the girl whom he had brought with him +from the house. After a while this second harlequin moved away from the +other dancers, and came waltzing across the plateau towards the grove +where Dennison and Gray were standing, each hidden in the shadow of a +tree trunk; at the top of the slope the man did not stop, but began to +descend, still dancing, or pretending to dance, and pulling his +unwilling partner with him. + +At this instant a woman detached herself from the distant groups of +revellers and rushed towards the grove. And as she came on her figure +was such a vision of swiftness of motion and of intensity of purpose +that Gray unconsciously held his breath as he watched her. The plateau +was broad; she was a full minute in crossing it. As she drew near the +grove she lifted her head a little, and the moonlight, which had been +behind her, fell across her forehead; then he saw that it was Modesta. + +The harlequin also had recognized her, for, suddenly ceasing his +gyrations, he released his companion, and ran off in the opposite +direction, bounding as he went, in accordance with his assumed +character, and joining the chain of dancers near the house with a high +leap which gained for him their loud applause. Meanwhile his partner, +freed at last, stood still for an instant with her eyes closed, dizzy +from the whirling. + +It was during this instant that Modesta reached her; coming down the +slope with all the gathered impetus of her tremendous speed, she swooped +upon the girl, bore her to the ground, struck her across the cheek, and +then, holding her down with one hand, she fumbled in her own pocket with +the other. + +Dennison meanwhile, as soon as he had recognized his waitress at the top +of the descent (he had not distinguished who it was before, his eyesight +not being so keen as Gray's), had left his tree, and, darting across the +intervening space, he now caught her arm tightly at the elbow, while her +hand was still in her pocket. Gray hurried to his aid, and seized her +other wrist, dragging her fingers away from the girl on the ground; thus +holding her between them, they pulled her to her feet. As they did so +her right hand came out of her pocket. It held a murderous-looking +knife. + +"You devil," said Dennison, in Italian, "drop that knife!" + +They held her so closely that she could not move, but her face glared at +them in the moonlight. It was like nothing human; her head was thrust +out, the eyes were narrowed and glittering, the nostrils flattened, and +the lips drawn up and back from the set, fierce teeth. Their four +figures--three standing, one on the ground--were below the slope, and no +one saw them. There had been no sound from the prostrate girl, who had +lost consciousness from fright, paralyzed by the terrible countenance of +the woman who had attacked her; and the waitress herself had made no +sound as she came. She made no sound now, save that she panted as she +breathed; she was like a wild beast who had made one spring and is about +to make another. + +"Drop the knife, or you shall go to prison," said Dennison, sternly, his +hands on her shoulder like a vise. + +Her fingers did not move. + +"Listen. If you don't drop it, I swear to you I'll send Goro to America +by the next Leghorn steamer, with five hundred lire in his pocket." + +The knife dropped. + +"Pick it up," said Dennison to Gray, in English. "Now see if you can +lift that girl and carry her down the hill. Get her across the field +somehow to that stone wall where we climbed over; wait there for +me--unless she should come to on the way, in which case perhaps she will +be able to climb over the wall herself. If she does, wait there with her +by the phaeton. I sha'n't be long. But I must take this she-wolf back to +the house first." + +Gray had bent down; he lifted the inert body at their feet, raising it a +little, and as he did so the head fell back, and the moonlight, shining +on the hair and temples, showed that it was the Swede. Modesta, as she +too saw the face, made a spring at it. But Dennison jerked her back. +Then, with a snarling sound in her throat, she twisted her head round, +and bit savagely at his hand where it held her shoulder. + +"Do hurry. She is perfectly insane," he said to Gray. + +Gray, having got the Swede off the ground, put his left arm under her +back at the shoulders, and his right under her knees, and, lifting her +in this position, he carried her down the hill with as much speed as was +possible. This was not great, because the ground was uneven, and as he +could not see where to place his steps, he was obliged to feel his way +with his feet as he advanced--to shuffle along cautiously. In time, +however, he reached the bottom of the hill. Then slowly he began to +cross the field. This, too, was difficult, owing to the soft, crumbling +earth of the freshly ploughed furrows. But here at last the girl opened +her eyes. + +"Can you stand?" asked Gray, breathlessly. Then he thought, with +irritation, "None of them can speak _anything_!" + +But the Swede now made of her own accord the motion of trying to get to +her feet, and gladly enough he let her slip down and stand on the +ground, as his arms were aching. He still supported her, however, lest +she should fall. + +But the girl seemed to be more terrified than weak; the instant her feet +touched the earth she began to run towards the stone boundary wall, +looking back every half-minute to see that no one was following. He went +with her, trying to help her over the furrows; and as they hurried +onward side by side, her face was such a picture of deathly fear that +the feeling took possession of him also; he found himself regretting +that their figures were so plainly visible on the moonlit expanse, and +he too looked nervously over his shoulder, as though he expected to see +the Italian woman coming after them madly, with her glittering eyes and +the shining knife. + +They reached the wall, and climbed over into the road outside, the Swede +needing no help, but quicker in her movements than he was. In the road +he tried to stop her, but she pulled herself from him. Still holding +her, he showed her the horses tied in the shadow of the hedge. This she +comprehended. She waited, therefore; but she kept herself several yards +away from him, so that he should not stop her in case she should again +wish to flee. She was a slender young creature, and she stood there much +as a bird poises itself on a twig; not resting, not bearing its full +weight, but perched provisionally, as it were--ready to fly away again +in an instant. + +Gray, who had now recovered his composure, tried to soothe her. With his +most encouraging inflections he repeated: "All safe now. _All-ll_ safe! +Stay right here with me." + +She paid not the least attention to him. Her eyes continued their +strained watch of the lower trees of the grove. At length a man's figure +emerged from these trees, and the girl gave a muffled scream. But Gray +had caught hold of her arm; pointing to the horses and then to Dennison, +he said, gesticulating energetically: "Horses are _his_. Dennison's. +_My_ friend. _Your_ friend. (Oh, what _is_ 'friend?') Amicus! Don't you +see he's alone? Nobody with him? Solo? Sola?" + +And the girl could indeed see for herself that the person approaching +was alone. She had understood the fact that the horses belonged to this +person, and her hope was in the horses; they could take her away--away +from here! + +As soon as Dennison was near enough he began speaking in Italian, and he +continued to talk to her as he climbed over the wall, calming her, +explaining and arranging. Then he turned the phaeton, and they all took +their places within, the Swede sitting between the two men on the broad +seat. Dennison drove down the lane, still talking encouragingly. When +they reached the main road he took a direction which led them away from +Casa Colombina and Tre Ponti. "We're in for it!" he said in English to +Gray. "I shall take her to the nearest railway station--not the one you +know, but another--and pack her off to Florence; there her consul can +see to her. I have explained it to her clearly. She is glad enough to +go." + +"What was it all about, anyhow?" + +"Didn't you comprehend? That harlequin (I'll mention no names, and then +she won't be startled) was no less a person than the lover of your +Madonna beauty--the youth she expects to marry. During the game he was +flirting, or trying to flirt after his fashion, with our present +companion. This was too much for the older woman. Hence the knife." + +"Which I have in my pocket, by-the-bye." + +"Don't take it out now; you can throw it away after we have disposed of +our Scandinavian. I suppose she has never before seen such a thing as a +brandished weapon of that sort. It's a knife used by the peasants about +here to cut hides with; your Madonna probably took it from among +Filippo's tools somehow while the festivities were going on. She must +have been jealous even then." + +"I told you that her laugh wasn't natural. 'Twas an awful sight, though! +She would certainly have murdered the girl if we hadn't happened to be +standing just where we were." + +"Very likely," answered Dennison. "Tchk, tchk," he added to the horses. + +"I hope she is safely locked up by this time." + +"Locked up! She is probably dancing with her harlequin." + +"You don't mean to say that you let her go?" + +"Quite so. She is all right now; she has come back to her senses. I had +six words with the youth, however; he'll treat her better--for the +present, at least; I have frightened him." + +"What did you mean when you said you'd send him away?" + +"That was what brought her round. He has had a hankering for a long time +to emigrate to--to the land of the free; he would go in a minute if his +passage were paid and he had a hundred dollars in his pocket--go and +never think of her again; she knows this. But the land of the free +doesn't want him--he is incorrigibly lazy; and his departure would end +her as far as I am concerned--make her perfectly useless." + +"Good heavens! you're not going to take that murderess back?" + +"I can't take her back without sending her away first. And that I +haven't done," answered Dennison. + +"But won't she be arrested, in any case? Every one will know that she +attacked this girl, and that the girl has fled." + +"No one knows that she attacked her. And even if it is guessed, Tuscan +peasants are not so easily alarmed as you suppose; they understand each +other. As to the disappearance of this one, I shall explain it by saying +that I decided to advance the money to send her as far as Florence, +instead of making her wait for the remittance which is expected from +the consul; it is known that she was to go before long, in any case. It +will cost me something, but I like peace and quietness. The other woman +is perfect as a servant, and the cause of her jealousy removed she will +continue perfect." + +"Brrrr!" said Gray, uttering the sound that accompanies a shudder. + +The Swede recognized the meaning of this; she looked at him quickly with +parted lips and her hand extended. She was ready to spring from the +phaeton. + +"Do be quiet!" said Dennison. Then he spoke to the girl in Italian, +quieting her dread. + +They reached the station in safety, and soon after sunrise the +Northerner, her breath still hurried, her hands cold, was placed in the +care of the official who had charge of the Florence train. Dennison gave +her his white silk handkerchief to tie over her uncovered head. The +daylight had revealed the discolored lines of the bruise on her cheek +produced by Modesta's blow. "Poor thing!" said Gray, as the train +started on its way, and they had a last glimpse of her frightened eyes +at the window. + +"Yes. But she will get over it in time--she is strong and healthy. I +have telegraphed to the consul at Florence to meet her, and take every +care of her; he is to give her money from me, and then he is to send her +to Stockholm, comfortably, in the charge of a suitable person. When she +arrives there she will find a tidy little sum to her credit at a +banker's." + +"You're paying well for her scare." + +"I'm paying well for my comfort." + +They took fresh horses and returned to Casa Colombina. + +As the Tower of the Dove came into sight on its hill, Gray said: "She +won't be there, will she--I mean at the house?" + +"Oh yes." + +"What will she do when she sees us?" + +"She will bring in the breakfast just as she brings it every morning, +and Hannibal and the cats will follow behind. Perhaps she will talk +rather more than usual; if she does, it will be on the most agreeable +topics, and her smile (which you admire so much) will be sweeter than +ever; her hair will be braided to perfection, and, what is more +important, her work will be done to perfection. We shall pretend, both +of us, she and I, that we don't see the mark of the bite on my hand. +Shall I go on? In a week or two, probably, she will marry her Goro, and +then he will be so constantly under my feet that I shall end by +installing him as my gardener for life. He will do no work of +importance; but, owing to his presence, _I_ shall continue to enjoy the +services of a waitress whom you yourself have described as a regular +marvel." + +It may be added that this prophecy has been exactly fulfilled. + + + + +AT THE CHATEAU OF CORINNE + + +On the shores of Lake Leman there are many villas. For several centuries +the vine-clad banks have been a favorite resting-place for visitors from +many nations. English, French, Germans, Austrians, Poles, and Russians +are found in the circle of strangers whose gardens fringe the lake +northward from Geneva, eastward from Lausanne, and southward from Vevey, +Clarens, and Montreux. Not long ago an American joined this circle. The +American was a lady named Winthrop. + +Mrs. Winthrop's villa was not one of the larger residences. It was an +old-fashioned square mansion, half Swiss, half French, ending in a +high-peaked roof, which came slanting sharply down over several narrowed +half-stories, indicated by little windows like dove-perches--four in the +broadest part, two above, then one winking all alone under the peak. On +the left side a round tower, inappropriate but picturesque, joined +itself to the square outline of the main building; the round tower had +also a peaked roof, which was surmounted by a contorted ornament of iron +somewhat resembling a letter S. Altogether the villa was the sort of a +house which Americans are accustomed to call "quaint." Its name was +quaint also--Miolans la Tour, or, more briefly, Miolans. Cousin Walpole +pronounced this "Miawlins." + +Mrs. Winthrop had taken possession of the villa in May, and it was now +late in August; Lake Leman therefore had enjoyed her society for three +long months. Through all this time, in the old lake's estimation, and +notwithstanding the English, French, Germans, Austrians, Poles, and +Russians, many of them titled, who were also upon its banks, the +American lady remained an interesting presence. And not in the opinion +of the old lake only, but in that also of other observers, less fluid +and impersonal. Mrs. Winthrop was much admired. Miolans had entertained +numerous guests during the summer; to-day, however, it held only the +_bona fide_ members of the family--namely, Mrs. Winthrop, her cousin +Sylvia, and Mr. H. Walpole, Miss Sylvia's cousin. Mr. H. Walpole was +always called "Cousin Walpole" by Sylvia, who took comfort in the name, +her own (a grief to her) being neither more nor less than Pitcher. +"Sylvia Pitcher" was not impressive, but "H. Walpole" could shine for +two. If people supposed that H. stood for Horace, why, that was their +own affair. + +Mrs. Winthrop, followed by her great white dog, had strolled down +towards the lake. After a while she came within sight of the gate; some +one was entering. The porter's lodge was unoccupied save by two old +busts that looked out from niches above the windows, much surprised that +no one knew them. The new-comer surveyed the lodge and the busts; then +opened the gate and came in. He was a stranger; a gentleman; an +American. These three items Mrs. Winthrop's eyes told her, one by one, +as she drew nearer. He now caught sight of her--a lady coming down the +water-path, followed by a shaggy dog. He went forward to meet her, +raising his hat. "I think this is Mrs. Winthrop. May I introduce +myself? I am John Ford." + +"Sylvia will be delighted," said Mrs. Winthrop, giving her hand in +courteous welcome. "We have been hoping that we should see you, Mr. +Ford, before the summer was over." + +They stood a few moments, and then went up the plane-tree avenue towards +the house. Mrs. Winthrop spoke the usual phrases of the opening of an +acquaintance with grace and ease; her companion made the usual replies. +He was quite as much at his ease as she was, but he did not especially +cultivate grace. Sylvia, enjoying her conversation with Cousin Walpole, +sat just within the hall door; she was taken quite by surprise. "Oh, +John, how you startled me! I thought you were in Norway. But how very +glad I am to see you, my dear, dear boy!" She stood on tiptoe to kiss +him, with a moisture in her soft, faded, but still pretty eyes. + +Mrs. Winthrop remained outside; there were garden chairs in the small +porch, and she seated herself in one of them. She smiled a little when +she heard Sylvia greet this mature specimen of manhood as a "dear, dear +boy." + +Cousin Walpole now came forward. "You are welcome, sir," he said, in his +slender little voice. Then bethinking him of his French, he added, with +dignity, "Welcome to Miaw-lins--Miaw-lins-lay-Tower." + +Ford took a seat in the hall beside his aunt. She talked volubly: the +surprise had excited her. But every now and then she looked at him with +a far-off remembrance in her eyes: she was thinking of his mother, her +sister, long dead. "How much you look like her!" she said at last. "The +same profile--exact. And how beautiful Mary's profile was! Every one +admired it." + +Ford, who had been gazing at the rug, looked up; he caught Mrs. +Winthrop's glance, and the gleam of merriment in it. "Yes, my profile is +like my mother's, and therefore good," he answered, gravely. "It is a +pity that my full face contradicts it. However, I live in profile as +much as possible; I present myself edgewise." + +"What _do_ you mean, dear?" said Sylvia. + +"I am like the new moon," he answered; "I show but a rim. All the rest I +keep dark." + +Mrs. Winthrop laughed; and again Ford caught her glance. What he had +said of himself was true. He had a regular, clearly cut, delicately +finished profile, but his full face contradicted it somewhat, showing +more strength than beauty. His eyes were gray, without much expression, +unless calmness can be called an expression; his hair and beard, both +closely cut, were dark brown. As to his height, no one would have called +him tall, yet neither would any one have described him as short. And the +same phrasing might have been applied to his general appearance: no one +would have called him handsome, yet neither would any one have classed +him as ordinary. As to what is more important than looks, namely, +manner, although his was quiet, and quite without pretension, a close +observer could have discovered in it, and without much effort, that the +opinions of John Ford (although never obtruded upon others) were in +general sufficiently satisfactory to John Ford; and, furthermore, that +the opinions of other people, whether accordant or discordant with his +own, troubled him little. + +After a while all went down to the outlook to see the after-glow on Mont +Blanc. Mrs. Winthrop led the way with Cousin Walpole, whose high, +bell-crowned straw hat had a dignity which no modern head-covering could +hope to rival. + +Sylvia followed, with her nephew. "You must come and stay with us, +John," she said. "Katharine has so much company that you will find it +entertaining, and even at times instructive. I am sure I have found it +so; and I am, you know, your senior. We are alone to-day; but it is for +the first time. Generally the house is full." + +"But I do not like a full house," said Ford, smiling down upon the +upturned face of the little "senior" by his side. + +"You will like this one. It is not a commonplace society--by no means +commonplace. The hours, too, are easy; breakfast, for instance, from +nine to eleven--as you please. As to the quality of the--of the bodily +support, it is sufficient to say that Marches is house-keeper. You +remember Marches?" + +"Perfectly. Her tarts no one could forget." + +"Katharine is indebted to me for Marches," continued Sylvia. "I +relinquished her to Katharine upon the occasion of her marriage, ten +years ago; for she was totally inexperienced, you know--only seventeen." + +"Then she is now twenty-seven." + +"I should not have mentioned that," said Miss Pitcher, instinctively. +"It was an inadvertence. Could you oblige me by forgetting it?" + +"With the greatest ease. She is, then, sensitive about her age?" + +"Not in the least. Why should she be? Certainly no one would ever dream +of calling twenty-seven _old_!" (Miss Pitcher paused with dignity.) "You +think her beautiful, of course?" she added. + +"She is a fine-looking woman." + +"Oh, John, that is what they always say of women who weigh two hundred! +And Katharine is very slender." + +Ford laughed. "I supposed the fact that Mrs. Winthrop was handsome went +without the saying." + +"It goes," said Sylvia, impressively, "but not without the saying; I +assure you, by no means without the saying. It has been said this summer +many times." + +"And she does not find it fatiguing?" + +The little aunt looked at her nephew. "You do not like her," she said, +with a fine air of penetration, touching his coat-sleeve lightly with +one finger. "I see that you do not like her." + +"My dear aunt! I do not know her in the least." + +"Well, how does she impress you, then, _not_ knowing her?" said Miss +Pitcher, folding her arms under her little pink shawl with an impartial +air. + +He glanced at the figure in front. "How she impresses me?" he said. "She +impresses me as a very attractive, but very complete, woman of the +world." + +A flood of remonstrance rose to Sylvia's lips; but she was obliged to +repress it, because Mrs. Winthrop had paused, and was waiting for them. + +"Here is one of our fairest little vistas, Mr. Ford," she said as they +came up, showing him an oval opening in the shrubbery, through which a +gleam of blue lake, a village on the opposite shore, and the arrowy, +snow-clad Silver Needle, rising behind high in the upper blue, were +visible, like a picture in a leaf frame. The opening was so narrow that +only two persons could look through it. Sylvia and Cousin Walpole walked +on. + +"But you have seen it all before," said Mrs. Winthrop. "To you it is not +something from fairy-land, hardly to be believed, as it is to me. Do you +know, sometimes, when waking in the early dawn, before the prosaic +little details of the day have risen in my mind, I ask myself, with a +sort of doubt in the reality of it all, if this is Katharine Winthrop +living on the shores of Lake Leman--herself really, and not her +imagination only, her longing dream." It is very well uttered, with a +touch of enthusiasm which carried it along, and which was in itself a +confidence. + +"Yes--ah--quite so. Yet you hardly look like a person who would think +that sort of thing under those circumstances," said Ford, watching a +bark, with the picturesque lateen-sails of Lake Leman, cross his +green-framed picture from east to west. + +Mrs. Winthrop let the hand with which she had made her little gesture +drop. She stood looking at him. But he did not add anything to his +remark, or turn his glance from the lateen-sails. + +"What sort of a person, then, do I look like?" she said. + +He turned. She was smiling; he smiled also. "I was alluding merely to +the time you named. As it happened, my aunt had mentioned to me by +chance your breakfast hours." + +"That was not all, I think." + +"You are very good to be interested." + +"I am not good; only curious. Pray tell me." + +"I have so little imagination, Mrs. Winthrop, that I cannot invent the +proper charming interpretation as I ought. As to bald truth, of course +you cannot expect me to present you with that during a first visit of +ceremony." + +"The first visit will, I hope, be a long one; you must come and stay +with us. As to ceremony, if this is your idea of it--" + +"--What must I be when unceremonious! I suppose you are thinking," said +Ford, laughing. "On the whole, I had better make no attempts. The owl, +in his own character, is esteemed an honest bird; but let him not try to +be a nightingale." + +"Come as owl, nightingale, or what you please, so long as you come. When +you do, I shall ask you again what you meant." + +"If you are going to hold it over me, perhaps I had better tell you +now." + +"Much better." + +"I only meant, then, that Mrs. Winthrop did not strike me as at all the +sort of person who would allow anything prosaic to interfere with her +poetical, heartfelt enthusiasms." + +She laughed gayly. "You are delightful. You have such a heavy apparatus +for fibbing that it becomes fairly stately. You do not believe I have +any enthusiasms at all," she added. Her eyes were dark blue, with long +lashes; they were very fine eyes. + +"I will believe whatever you please," said John Ford. + +"Very well. Believe what I tell you." + +"You include only what you tell in words?" + +"Plainly, you are not troubled by timidity," said the lady, laughing a +second time. + +"On the contrary, it is excess of timidity. It makes me desperate and +crude." + +They had walked on, and now came up with the others. "Does he amuse +you?" said Sylvia, in a low tone, as Cousin Walpole in his turn walked +onward with the new-comer. "I heard you laughing." + +"Yes; but he is not at all what you said. He is so shy and ill at ease +that it is almost painful." + +"Dear me!" said the aunt, with concern. "The best thing, then, will be +for him to come and stay with us. You have so much company that it will +be good for him; his shyness will wear off." + +"I have invited him, but I doubt his coming," said the lady of the +manor. + +The outlook was a little terrace built out over the water. Mrs. Winthrop +seated herself and took off her garden-hat (Mrs. Winthrop had a very +graceful head, and thick, soft, brown hair). "Not so close, Gibbon," she +said, as the shaggy dog laid himself down beside her. + +"You call your dog Gibbon?" said Ford. + +"Yes; he came from Lausanne, where Gibbon lived; and I think he looks +just like him. But pray put on your hat, Mr. Ford. A man in the open +air, deprived of his hat, is always a wretched object, and always takes +cold." + +"I may be wretched, but I do not take cold," replied Ford, letting his +hat lie. + +"John _does_ look very strong," said Sylvia, with pride. + +"O fortunate youth--if he but knew his good-fortune!" said Cousin +Walpole. "From the Latin, sir; I do not quote the original tongue in the +presence of ladies, which would seem pedantic. You do look strong +indeed, and I congratulate you. I myself have never been an athlete; but +I admire, and with impartiality, the muscles of the gladiator." + +"Surely, Cousin Walpole, there is nothing in common between John and a +gladiator!" + +"Your pardon, Cousin Sylvia. I was speaking generally. My conversation, +sir," said the bachelor, turning to Ford, "is apt to be general." + +"No one likes personalities, I suppose," replied Ford, watching the last +hues of the sunset. + +"On the contrary, I am devoted to them," said Mrs. Winthrop. + +"Oh no, Katharine; you malign yourself," said Sylvia. "You must not +believe all she says, John." + +"Mr. Ford has just promised to do that very thing," remarked Mrs. +Winthrop. + +"Dear me!" said Sylvia. Her tone of dismay was so sincere that they all +laughed. "You know, dear, you have so much imagination," she said, +apologetically, to her cousin. + +"Mr. Ford has not," replied the younger lady; "so the exercise will do +him no harm." + +The sky behind the splendid white mass of Mont Blanc was of a deep warm +gold; the line of snowy peaks attending the monarch rose irregularly +against this radiance from east to west, framed by the dark nearer +masses of the Saleve and Voirons. The sun had disappeared, cresting with +glory as he sank the soft purple summits of the Jura, and sending up a +blaze of color in the narrow valley of the Rhone. Then, as all this +waned slowly into grayness, softly, shyly, the lovely after-glow floated +up the side of the monarch, tingeing all his fields of pure white ice +and snow with rosy light as it moved onward, and resting on the far +peak in the sky long after the lake and its shores had faded into night. + +"This lake, sir," said Cousin Walpole, "is remarkable for the number of +persons distinguished in literature who have at various times resided +upon its banks. I may mention, cursorily, Voltaire, Sismondi, Gibbon, +Rousseau, Sir Humphry Davy, D'Aubigne, Calvin, Grimm, Benjamin Constant, +Schlegel, Chateaubriand, Byron, Shelley, the elder Dumas, and in +addition that most eloquent authoress and noble woman Madame de Stael." + +"The banks must certainly be acquainted with a large amount of fine +language," said Ford. + +"And oh, how we have enjoyed Coppet, John! You remember Coppet?" said +Miss Pitcher. "We have had, I assure you, days and conversations there +which I, for one, can never forget. Do you remember, Katharine, that +moment by the fish-pond, when, carried away by the influences of the +spot, Mr. Percival exclaimed, and with such deep feeling, '_Etonnante +femme!_'" + +"Meaning Mrs. Winthrop?" said Ford. + +"No, John, no; meaning Madame de Stael," replied the little aunt. + +Mr. Ford did not take up his abode at Miolans, in spite of his aunt's +wish and Mrs. Winthrop's invitation. He preferred a little inn among the +vineyards, half a mile distant. But he came often to the villa, +generally rowing himself down the lake in a skiff. The skiff, indeed, +spent most of its time moored at the water-steps of Miolans, for its +owner accompanied the ladies in various excursions to Vevey, Clarens, +Chillon, and southward to Geneva. + +"I thought you had so much company," he said one afternoon to Sylvia, +when they happened to be alone. "I have been coming and going now for +ten days, and have seen no one." + +"These ten days were reserved for the Storms," replied Miss Pitcher. +"But old Mrs. Storm fell ill at Baden-Baden, and what could they do?" + +"Take care of her, I should say." + +"Gilbert Storm was poignantly disappointed. He is, I think, on the +whole, the best among Katharine's _outside_ admirers." + +"Then there are inside ones?" + +"Several. You know Mr. Winthrop was thirty-five years older than +Katharine. It was hardly to be expected, therefore, that she should love +him--I mean in the _true_ way." + +"Whatever she might have done in the false." + +"You are too cynical, my dear boy. There was nothing false about it; +Katharine was simply a child. He was very fond of her, I assure you. And +died most happily." + +"For all concerned." + +Sylvia shook her head. But Mrs. Winthrop's step was now heard in the +hall; she came in with several letters in her hand. "Any news?" said +Miss Pitcher. + +"No," replied the younger lady. "Nothing ever happens any more." + +"As Ronsard sang, + + "'Le temps s'en va, le temps s'en va, ma dame! + Las! le temps non; mais nous nous en allons,'" + +said Ford, bringing forward her especial chair. + +"That is true," she answered, soberly, almost sombrely. + +That evening the moonlight on the lake was surpassingly lovely; there +was not a ripple to break the sheen of the water, and the clear outline +of Mont Blanc rose like silver against the dark black-blue of the sky. +They all strolled down to the shore; Mrs. Winthrop went out with Ford in +his skiff, "for ten minutes." Sylvia watched the little boat float up +and down for twenty; then she returned to the house and read for forty +more. When Sylvia was down-stairs she read the third canto of "Childe +Harold"; in her own room she kept a private supply of the works of Miss +Yonge. At ten Katharine entered. "Has John gone?" said the aunt, putting +in her mark and closing the Byronic volume. + +"Yes; he came to the door, but would not come in." + +"I wish he would come and stay. He might as well; he is here every day." + +"That is the very point; he also goes every day," replied Katharine. + +She was leaning back in her chair, her eyes fixed upon the carpet. +Sylvia was going to say something more, when suddenly a new idea came to +her. It was a stirring idea; she did not often have such inspirations; +she remained silent, investigating it. After a while, "When do you +expect the Carrols?" she said. + +"Not until October." + +Miss Pitcher knew this perfectly, but she thought the question might +lead to further information. It did. "Miss Jay has written," pursued +Mrs. Winthrop, her eyes still fixed absently on the carpet. "But I +answered, asking her to wait until October, when the Carrols would be +here. It will be much pleasanter for them both." + +"She has put them off!" thought the little aunt. "She does not want any +one here just at present." And she was so fluttered by the new +possibilities rising round her like a cloud that she said good-night, +and went up-stairs to think them over; she did not even read Miss Yonge. + +The next day Ford did not come to Miolans until just before the dinner +hour. Sylvia was disappointed by this tardiness, but cheered when +Katharine came in; for Mrs. Winthrop wore one of her most becoming +dresses. "She wishes to look her best," thought the aunt. But at this +moment, in the twilight, a carriage came rapidly up the driveway and +stopped at the door. "Why, it is Mr. Percival!" said Sylvia, catching a +glimpse of the occupant. + +"Yes; he has come to spend a few days," said Mrs. Winthrop, going into +the hall to greet her new guest. + +Down fell the aunt's cloud-castle; but at the same moment a more +personal feeling took its place in the modest little middle-aged breast; +Miss Pitcher deeply admired Mr. Percival. + +"You know who it is, of course?" she whispered to her nephew when she +had recovered her composure. + +"You said Percival, didn't you?" + +"Yes; but this is Lorimer Percival--Lorimer Percival, the poet." + +Katharine now came back. Sylvia sat waiting, and turning her bracelets +round on her wrists. Sylvia's bracelets turned easily; when she took a +book from the top shelf of the bookcase they went to her shoulders. + +Before long Mr. Percival entered. Dinner was announced. The +conversation at the table was animated. From it Ford gathered that the +new guest had spent several weeks at Miolans early in the season, and +that he had also made since then one or two shorter visits. His manner +was that of an intimate friend. The intimate friend talked well. Cousin +Walpole's little candle illuminated the outlying corners. Sylvia +supplied an atmosphere of general admiration. Mrs. Winthrop supplied one +of beauty. She looked remarkably well--brilliant; her guest--the one who +was not a poet--noticed this. He had time to notice it, as well as +several other things, for he said but little himself; the conversation +was led by Mr. Percival. + +It was decided that they would all go to Coppet the next day--"dear +Coppet," as Sylvia called it. The expedition seemed to be partly sacred +and partly sylvan; a pilgrimage-picnic. When Ford took leave, Mrs. +Winthrop and Mr. Percival accompanied him as far as the water-steps. As +his skiff glided out on the calm lake, he heard the gentleman's voice +suggesting that they should stroll up and down awhile in the moonlight, +and the lady's answer, "Yes; for ten minutes." He remembered that Mrs. +Winthrop's ten minutes was sometimes an hour. + +The next day they went to Coppet; Mrs. Winthrop and Mr. Percival in the +carriage, Sylvia and Cousin Walpole in the phaeton, and Ford on +horseback. + +"Oh! isn't this almost too delightful!" said Miss Pitcher, when they +reached the gates of the old Necker chateau. Cousin Walpole was engaged +in tying his horse, and Mr. Percival had politely stepped forward to +assist her from the phaeton. It is but fair, however, to suppose that +her exclamation referred as much to the intellectual influences of the +home of Madame de Stael as to the attentions of the poet. "I could live +here, and I could die here," she continued, with ardor. But as Mr. +Percival had now gone back to Mrs. Winthrop, she was obliged to finish +her sentence to her nephew, which was not quite the same thing. +"Couldn't _you_, John?" she said. + +"It would be easy enough to die, I should say," replied Ford, +dismounting. + +"We must all die," remarked Cousin Walpole from the post where he was at +work upon the horse. He tied that peaceful animal in such intricate and +unexpected convolutions that it took Mrs. Winthrop's coachman, later, +fully twenty minutes to comprehend and unravel them. + +The Necker homestead is a plain, old-fashioned chateau, built round +three sides of a square, a court-yard within. From the end of the south +side a long, irregular wing of lower outbuildings stretches towards the +road, ending in a thickened, huddled knot along its margin, as though +the country highway had refused to allow aristocratic encroachments, and +had pushed them all back with determined hands. Across the three high, +pale-yellow facades of the main building the faded shutters were tightly +closed. There was not a sign of life, save in a little square house at +the end of the knot, where, as far as possible from the historic mansion +he guarded, lived the old custodian, who strongly resembled the +portraits of Benjamin Franklin. + +Benjamin Franklin knew Mrs. Winthrop (and Mrs. Winthrop's purse). He +hastened through the knot in his shuffling woollen shoes, and unlocked +the court-yard entrance. + +"We must _go_ all through the dear old house again, for John's sake," +said Sylvia. + +"Do not sacrifice yourselves; I have seen it," said her nephew. + +"But not lately, dear John." + +"I am quite willing to serve as a pretext," he answered, leading the way +in. + +They passed through the dark old hall below, where the white statue of +Necker gleams in solitude, and went up the broad stairway, the old +custodian preceding them, and throwing open the barred shutters of room +after room. The warm sunshine flowed in and streamed across the floors, +the dim tapestries, the spindle-legged, gilded furniture, and the +Cupid-decked clocks. The old paintings on the walls seemed to waken +slowly and survey them as they passed. Lorimer Percival seated himself +in a yellow arm-chair, and looked about with the air of a man who was +breathing a delicate aroma. + +"This is the room where the 'incomparable Juliette' danced her +celebrated gavotte," he remarked, "probably to the music of that old +harpsichord--or is it a spinet?--in the corner." + +"Pray tell us about it," entreated Sylvia, who had seated herself +gingerly on the edge of a small ottoman embroidered with pink +shepherdesses on a blue meadow, and rose-colored lambs. Mrs. Winthrop +meanwhile had appropriated a spindle-legged sofa, and was leaning back +against a tapestried Endymion. + +Percival smiled, but did not refuse Sylvia's request. He had not the +objection which some men have to a monologue. It must be added, however, +that for that sort of thing he selected his audience. Upon this occasion +the outside element of John Ford, strolling about near the windows, was +discordant, but not enough so to affect the admiring appreciation of the +little group nearer his chair. + +"Madame de Stael," he began, with his eyes on the cornice, "was a woman +of many and generous enthusiasms. She had long wished to behold the +grace of her lovely friend Madame Recamier, in her celebrated gavotte, +well known in the salons of Paris, but as yet unseen by the exile of +Coppet. By great good-fortune there happened to be in the village, upon +the occasion of a visit from Madame Recamier, a French dancing-master. +Madame de Stael sent for him, and the enchanted little man had the +signal honor of going through the dance with the beautiful Juliette, in +this room, in the presence of all the distinguished society of Coppet: +no doubt it was the glory of his life. When the dance was ended, +Corinne, carried away by admiration, embraced with transport--" + +"The dancing-master?" said Cousin Walpole, much interested. + +"No; her _ravissante amie_." + +Cousin Walpole, conscious that he had made a mistake, betook himself to +the portrait near by. "Superb woman!" he murmured, contemplating it. +"Superb!" + +The portrait represented the authoress of _Corinne_ standing, her +talented head crowned by a majestic aureole of yellow satin turban, +whose voluminous folds accounted probably for the scanty amount of +material left for the shoulders and arms. + +"If I could have had the choice," said Miss Pitcher, pensively gazing at +this portrait, "I would rather have been that noble creature than any +one else on history's page." + +Later they went down to the old garden. It stretched back behind the +house for some distance, shut in by a high stone wall. A long, straight +alley, shaded by even rows of trees, went down one side like a +mathematical line; on the other there was some of the stiff +landscape-gardening of the last century. In the open space in the centre +was a moss-grown fish-pond, and near the house a dignified little +company of clipped trees. They strolled down the straight walk: this +time Ford was with Mrs. Winthrop, while Sylvia, Mr. Percival, and Cousin +Walpole were in front. + +"I suppose she used to walk here," observed Mrs. Winthrop. + +"In her turban," suggested Ford. + +"Perhaps she has sat upon that very bench--who knows?--and mused," said +Sylvia, imaginatively. + +"Aloud, of course," commented her nephew. But these irreverent remarks +were in undertone; only Mrs. Winthrop could hear them. + +"No doubt they all walked here," observed the poet; "it was one of the +customs of the time to take slow exercise daily in one of these +dignified alleys. The whole society of Coppet was no doubt often here, +Madame de Stael and her various guests, Schlegel, Constant, the +Montmorency, Sismondi, Madame Recamier, and many others." + +"Would that I too could have been of that company!" said Cousin Walpole, +with warmth. + +"Which one of the two ladies would you have accompanied down this walk, +if choice had been forced upon you?" said Mrs. Winthrop. + +"Which one?--Madame de Stael, of course," replied the little bachelor, +chivalrously. + +"And you, Mr. Percival?" + +"With the one who had the intellect," replied the poet. + +"We must be even more lacking in beauty than we suppose, Sylvia, since +they all chose the plain one," said Katharine, laughing. "But you have +not spoken yet, Mr. Ford: what would your choice have been?" + +"Between the two, there would hardly have been one." + +"Isn't that a little enigmatical?" + +"John means that he admires them equally," explained the aunt. + +"That is it," said her nephew. + +Lunch was spread upon the grass. Mrs. Winthrop's coachman had made an +impromptu carpet of carriage rugs and shawls. Percival threw himself +down beside the ladies; Cousin Walpole, after trying various attitudes, +took the one denominated "cross-legged." Ford surveyed their group for a +moment, then went off and came back with a garden bench; upon this he +seated himself comfortably, with his back against a tree. + +"You are not sufficiently humble, Mr. Ford," said Katharine. + +"It is not a question of humility, but of grace. I have not the gifts of +Mr. Percival." + +Percival said nothing. He was graceful; why disclaim it? + +"But you are very strong, John," said Sylvia, with an intention of +consolation. "And if not exactly graceful, I am sure you are very well +shaped." + +Her hearers, including Ford himself, tried not to laugh, but failed. +There was a burst of merriment. + +"You think John does not need my encouragement?" said the little lady, +looking at the laughers. "You think I forget how old he is? It is quite +true, no doubt. But I remember him so well, you know, in his little +white frock, with his dear little dimpled shoulders! He always would +have bread and sugar, whether it was good for him or not, and he was so +pretty and plump!" + +These reminiscences provoked another peal. + +"You may laugh," said Miss Pitcher, nodding her head sagely, "but he did +eat a great deal of sugar. Nothing else would content him but that bowl +on the high shelf." + +"Do you still retain the same tastes, Mr. Ford?" said Katharine. "Do you +still prefer what is out of reach--_on a high shelf?_" + +"When one is grown," said Ford, "there is very little that is absolutely +out of reach. It is, generally speaking, a question merely of +determination, and--a long arm." + +The sun sank; his rays came slanting under their tree, gilding the grass +in bars. The conversation had taken a turn towards the society of the +eighteenth century. Percival said the most. But a poet may well talk in +a memorial garden, hushed and sunny, on a cushioned carpet under the +trees, with a long-stemmed wineglass near his hand, and fair ladies +listening in rapt attention. Ford, leaning back against his tree, was +smoking a cigarette; it is to be supposed that he was listening also. + +"Here is something I read the other day, at least as nearly as I can +recall it," said the speaker. He was gazing at the tops of the trees on +the other side of the pond. He had a habit of fixing his eyes upon +something high above his hearers' heads when speaking. Men considered +this an impertinence; but women had been known to allude to it as +"dreamy." + +"'Fair vanished ladies of the past,'" quoted the poet in his delightful +voice, "'so charming even in your errors, do you merit the judgment +which the more rigid customs of our modern age would pronounce upon you? +Was that enthusiasm for virtue and for lofty sentiments with which your +delicious old letters and memoirs, written in faded ink and flowing +language, with so much wit and so much bad spelling, are adorned--was it +all declamation merely, because, weighed in our severer balances, your +lives were not always in accordance with it? Are there not other +balances? And were you not, even in your errors, seeking at least an +ideal that was fair? Striving to replace by a sensibility most devoted +and tender a morality which, in the artificial society that surrounded +you, had become well-nigh impossible? Let us not forget how many of you, +when the dread hour came, faced with unfaltering courage the horrors of +the Revolution, sustained by your example the hearts of strong men which +had failed them, and atoned on the red guillotine for the errors and +follies of your whole generation with your delicate lives.'" + +He paused. Then, in a lighter tone, added: "Charming vanished dames, in +your powder and brocade, I salute you! I, for one, enroll myself among +your faithful and tender admirers." + +Mr. Percival remained two weeks at Miolans. He was much with Mrs. +Winthrop. They seemed to have subjects of their own for conversation, +for on several occasions when Ford came over in the morning they were +said to be "in the library," and Miss Pitcher was obliged to confess +that she did not feel at liberty to disturb them. She remarked, with a +sigh, that it must be "very intellectual," and once she asked her nephew +if he had not noticed the poet's "brow." + +"Oh yes; he is one of those tall, slim, long-faced, talking fellows whom +you women are very apt to admire," said Ford. + +Miss Pitcher felt as much wrath as her gentle nature allowed. But again +her sentiments were divided, and she sacrificed her personal feelings. +That evening she confided to Katharine, under a pledge of deepest +secrecy, her belief that "John" was "jealous." + +Mrs. Winthrop greeted this confidence with laughter. Not discouraged, +the aunt the next day confided to her nephew her conviction that, as +regarded the poet, Katharine had not yet "at all made up her mind." + +"That is rather cruel to Percival, isn't it?" said Ford. + +"Oh, he too has many, many _friends_," said Sylvia, veering again. + +"Fortunate fellow!" + +At last Percival went. Ford was again the only visitor. And if he did +not have long mornings in the library, he had portions not a few of +afternoons in the garden. For if he came up the water-steps and found +the mistress of the house sitting under the trees, with no other +companion than a book, it was but natural that he should join her, and +possibly make some effort to rival the printed page. + +"You do not like driving?" she said, one day. They were in the parlor, +and the carriage was coming round; she had invited him to accompany +them, and he had declined. + +"Not with a coachman, I confess." + +"There is always the phaeton," she said, carelessly. + +He glanced at her, but she was examining the border of her lace scarf. +"On the whole, I prefer riding," he answered, as though it were a +question of general preferences. + +"And Katharine rides _so_ well!" said Sylvia, looking up from her wax +flowers. Sylvia made charming wax flowers, generally water-lilies, +because they were "so regular." + +"There are no good horses about here," observed Ford. "I have tried them +all. I presume at home in America you keep a fine one?" + +"Oh, in America! That is too far off. I do not remember what I did in +America," answered Mrs. Winthrop. + +A day or two later. "You were mistaken about there being no good +saddle-horses here," she remarked. "My coachman has found two; they are +in the stable now." + +"If you are going to be kind enough to offer one of them to me," he +said, rather formally, after a moment's silence, "I shall then have the +pleasure of some rides with you, after all." + +"Yes," answered Mrs. Winthrop. "As you say--after all!" She was smiling. +He smiled too, but shook his head. Sylvia did not see this little +by-play. Whatever it meant, however, it did not prevent Ford's riding +with Mrs. Winthrop several times, her groom following. Miss Pitcher +watched these little excursions with much interest. + +Meanwhile letters from Lorimer Percival came to Miolans almost daily. +"That is the Percival crest," said Sylvia to her nephew, one of these +epistles, which had just arrived, being on the hall table, seal upward, +as they passed. "_So_ appropriate for a poet, I think--a flame." + +"Ah! I took it for steam," said Ford. + +Now the elder Percival had been a successful builder of locomotives. +"John," said Miss Pitcher, solemnly, "do you mean that for derision?" + +"Derision, my dear aunt! There is nothing in the world so powerful as +steam. If I only had more, I too might be a poet. Or if my father had +had more, I too might have enjoyed a fortune." + +"Mr. Percival enjoys no fortune," said Sylvia, still solemnly. + +"What has he done with it, then? Enjoyed it all out?" + +"He tells me that it dissolved, like a mist, in his grasp." + +"Yes; they call it by various names," said Ford. + +Mrs. Winthrop, dressed in her habit, now came down the stairway; she +took the letter and put it in her pocket. That day the groom could not +accompany them: the horse he rode was lame. "We are sufficiently brave +to do without him for one afternoon, are we not?" said the lady. + +"I confess I am timid; but I will do my best," answered Ford, assisting +her to mount. Sylvia, standing in the doorway, thought this a most +unfortunate reply. + +They rode southward. "Shall we stop for a few moments?" said Katharine, +as they came towards Coppet. + +"Yes; for ten," he answered. + +The old custodian let them in, and threw open the windows as before. The +visitors went out on the little shelf-like balcony which opened from +the drawing-room. + +"You notice there is no view, or next to none," said Ford, "although we +are on the shore of Lake Leman, and under the shadow of Mont Blanc. They +did not care for views in the eighteenth century--that is, views of the +earth; they were all for views of the 'soul.' Madame de Stael detested +the country; to the last, Coppet remained to her a dreary exile. She was +the woman who frankly said that she would not cross the room to look at +the Bay of Naples, but would walk twenty miles to talk with an agreeable +man." + +"They were as rare then, it seems, as they are now," said Mrs. Winthrop. +"But to-day we go more than twenty miles; we go to Europe." + +"She did the same--that is, what was the same in her day; she went to +Germany. There she found two rather agreeable men--Goethe and Schiller. +Having found them, she proceeded to talk to them. They confessed to each +other, long afterwards, the deep relief they felt when that gifted woman +departed." + +"Ah, well, all she wanted, all she was seeking, was sympathy." + +"She should have waited until it came to her." + +"But if it never came?" + +"It would--if she had not been so eager and voracious. The truth is, +Corinne was an inordinate egotist. She expected all minds to defer to +her superiority, while at the very moment she was engaged in extracting +from them any poor little knowledge or ideas they might possess which +could serve her own purposes. All her books were talked into existence; +she talked them before she wrote them. It was her custom, at the +dinner-table here at Coppet, to introduce the subject upon which she was +engaged, and all her guests were expected, indeed forced, to discuss it +with her in all its bearings, to listen to all she herself had to say, +and never to depart from the given line by the slightest digression +until she gave the signal. The next morning, closeted in her own room, +she wrote out the results of all this, and it became a chapter." + +"She was a woman of genius, all the same," said Mrs. Winthrop, in a +disagreeing tone. + +"A woman of genius! And what is the very term but a stigma? No woman is +so proclaimed by the great brazen tongue of the Public unless she has +thrown away her birthright of womanly seclusion for the miserable mess +of pottage called 'fame.'" + +"The seclusion of a convent? or a prison?" + +"Neither. Of a home." + +"You perhaps commend obedience, also?" + +"In one way--yes." + +"I'm glad to know there are other ways." + +"I shall be very obedient to the woman I love in several of those other +ways," replied Ford, gathering some of the ripening grapes near the +balcony rail. + +Mrs. Winthrop went back into the faded drawing-room. "It is a pity there +is no portrait here of Madame Recamier," she remarked. "That you might +have admired." + +"The 'incomparable Juliette' was at least not literary. But in another +way she was as much before the public as though she had been what you +call a woman of genius. It may be said, indeed, that she had genius--a +genius for attracting admiration." + +"You are hard to please." + +"Not at all; I ask only the simple and retiring womanly graces. But +anything retiring was hard to find in the eighteenth century." + +"You dislike literary women very much," said Mrs. Winthrop. She had +crossed the room to examine an old mirror made of squares of glass, +welded together by little leaden frames, which had once been gilded. + +"Hardly. I pity them." + +"You did not know, then, that I was one?" + +He had crossed the room also, and was now standing behind her; as she +asked the question she looked at his image in the glass. + +"I did not know it," he answered, looking at hers. + +"I am, anonymously." + +"Better anonymously than avowedly." + +"Will you read something I have written?" + +"Thanks. I am not in the least a critic." + +"I know that; you are too prejudiced, too narrow, to be one. All the +same, will you read?" + +"If you insist." + +"I do insist. What is more, I have it with me. I have had it for several +days, waiting for a good opportunity." She drew from her pocket a small +flat package, and gave it to him. + +"Must it be now?" + +"Here and now. Where could we find a more appropriate atmosphere?" + +He seated himself and opened the parcel; within was a small square book +in flexible covers, in decoration paper and type, a daintily rich little +volume. + +"Ah! I know this," he said. "I read it when it first came out." + +"So much the better. You can give me your opinion without the trouble of +reading." + +"It received a good deal of praise, I remember," he said, turning over +the leaves. + +She was silent. + +"There was a charming little description somewhere--about going out on +the Campagna to gather the wild narcissus," he went on, after a pause. + +And then there was another silence. + +"But--" said Mrs. Winthrop. + +"But, as you kindly suggest, I am no judge of poetry. I can say nothing +of value." + +"Say it, valuable or not. Do you know, Mr. Ford, that you have scarcely +spoken one really truthful word to me since we first met. Yet I feel +sure that it does not come natural to you, and that it has cost you some +trouble to--to--" + +"To decorate, as I have, my plain speech. But if that is true, is it not +a compliment?" + +"And do I care for your compliments? I have compliments in abundance, +and much finer ones than yours. What I want from you is the truth, your +real opinion of that little volume in your hand. You are the only man I +have met in years who seems to feel no desire to flatter me, to make me +think well of myself. I see no reason why I should not think well of +myself; but, all the same, I am curious. I can see that you judge me +impartially, even severely." + +She paused. He did not look up or disclaim; he went on turning the pages +of the little volume. + +She had not seated herself; she was standing beside a table opposite +him. "I can see that you do not in the least like me," she added, in a +lower tone. + +"My dear lady, you have so many to like you!" said Ford. + +And then he did look up; their eyes met. + +A flush came to her cheeks. He shut the little book and rose. + +"Really, I am too insignificant a victim," he said, bowing as he +returned it. + +"You mean that I--that I have tried--" + +"Oh no; you do it naturally." + +For the moment her self-possession had failed her. But now she had it in +hand again. "If I _have_ tried, naturally or artificially, I have made a +failure--have I not?" + +"It must be a novel experience for Mrs. Winthrop." + +She turned away and looked at a portrait of Voltaire. After some +moments, "Let us come back to the real point between us," she said, as +he did not speak--"that is, your opinion of my little book." + +"Is that the real point between us?" + +"Of course it is. We will walk up and down Corinne's old rooms, and you +shall tell me as we walk." + +"Why do you force me to say unpleasant things?" + +"They are unpleasant, then? I knew it! Unpleasant for me." + +"For us both." + +"For you, I doubt it. For me, they cannot be more unpleasant than the +things you have already said. Yet you see I forgive them." + +"Yes; but I have not forgiven you, Mrs. Winthrop." + +"For what, pray?" + +"For proposing to make me a victim." + +"Apparently you had small difficulty in escaping." + +"As you say--apparently. But perhaps I conceal my wounds." + +"You are trying to turn the subject, so that I will not insist about the +little book." + +"I wish, indeed, that you would not insist." + +"But if I am the sort of woman you have indicated, I should think you +would enjoy punishing me a little." + +"A little, perhaps. But the punishment would be too severe." + +They were walking slowly through the rooms; she turned her head and +looked at him. "I have listened to you, Mr. Ford; I have let you say +pretty much what you pleased to me, because it was amusing. But you +cannot seriously believe that I really care for what you say, severe or +otherwise?" + +"Only as any right-minded woman must care." + +"Say on. Now I insist." + +"Good-bye to Miolans, then. You will never admit me within its gates +again; that is, unless you have the unusual justice--unusual in a +woman--to see that what I say is but the severity of a true friend." + +"A friend is not severe." + +"Yes, he is; in such a case as this, must be." + +"Go on. I will decide afterwards." + +They entered the third room. Ford reflected a moment; then began. "The +poem, which you now tell me is yours, had, as its distinguishing +feature, a certain daring. Regarding its other points: its rhythm was +crude and unmelodious; its coloring was exaggerated--reading it, one was +cloyed with color; its logic--for there was an attempt at logic--was +utterly weak." He paused. Mrs. Winthrop was looking straight before her +at the wall across the end of the last room in the vista. Her critic did +not lift his eyes, but transferred his gaze from one section of the +dark old floor to the next as they walked onward. + +"All this, however," he resumed, "could be forgiven. We do not expect +great poems from women any more than we expect great pictures; we do not +expect strong logic any more than we expect brawny muscle. A woman's +poetry is subjective. But what cannot be forgiven--at least in my +opinion--is that which I have called the distinguishing feature of the +volume, a certain sort of daring. This is its essential, unpardonable +sin. Not because it is in itself dangerous; it has not force enough for +that; but because it comes, and can be recognized at once as coming, +from the lips of a woman. For a woman should not dare in that way. +Thinking to soar, she invariably descends. Her mental realm is not the +same as that of man; lower, on the same level, or far above, it is at +least different. And to see her leave it, and come in all her white +purity, which must inevitably be soiled, to the garish arena where men +are contending, where the dust is rising, and the air is tainted and +heavy--this is indeed a painful sight. Every honest man feels like going +to her, poor mistaken sibyl that she is, closing her lips with gentle +hand, and leading her away to some far spot among the quiet fields, +where she can learn her error, and begin her life anew. To the pity of +it is added the certain truth that if the words she sang could be +carried out to their logical end, if they were to be clothed in the hard +realities of life and set up before her, they would strike first the +poor creature who was chanting them, and crush her to the dust. +Fortunately there is no danger of this; it is among the impossibilities. +And sometimes the poor sibyls learn, and through the teachings of their +own hearts, their great mistake." As he ended, for the first time he +lifted his eyes from the floor and looked at her. + +Katharine Winthrop's face was flushed; the dark color extended over her +forehead and dyed even her throat, and there was an expression as though +only by a strong effort was a tremor of the lips controlled. This gave +to her mouth a fixed look. She was so unlike herself, veiled in that +deep, steady, painful blush, that, involuntarily and earnestly, Ford +said, "I beg you not to mind it so much." + +"I mind only that you should dare to say such things to me," she +answered, slowly, as though utterance was an effort. + +"Remember that you forced me to speak." + +"I did not expect--this." + +"How could I know what you expected? But in one way I am glad you made +me go on; it is well that you should have for once a man's true +opinion." + +"All men do not think as you think." + +"Yes, they do; the honest ones." + +"Mr. Percival does not." + +"Oh, Percival! He's effeminate." + +"So you judge him," said Mrs. Winthrop, to whose utterance anger had now +restored the distinctness. + +"We will not quarrel about Lorimer Percival," said Ford; "he is not +worth it--at least, he is not worth it to me." Then, as they entered the +last room, "Take it as I meant it, Katharine," he said, the tone of his +voice changing--"take it as a true woman should. Show me the sweet side +of your nature, the gentle, womanly side, and I will then be your suitor +indeed, and a far more real and earnest one than though I had become +the victim you intended me to be. You may not care for me; you may never +care. But only let me see you accept for your own sake what I have said, +in the right spirit, and I will at least ask you to care, as humbly and +devotedly as man ever asked woman. For when she is her true self she is +so far above us that we can only be humble." + +The flush still covered her forehead; her eyes looked at him, strangely +and darkly blue in all this red. + +"Curious, isn't it, how things come about?" she said. "You have made me +a declaration, after all." + +"A conditional one." + +"No, not conditional in reality, although you might have pleased +yourself with the fancy. For I need not have been in earnest. I had only +to pretend a little, to pretend to be the acquiescent creature you +admire, and I could have turned you round my little finger. It is rather +a pity I did not do it. It might have been entertaining." + +He had watched her as she spoke. "I do not in the least believe you," he +said, gravely. + +"It is not of much consequence whether you believe me or not. I think, +on the whole, however, that I may as well take this occasion to tell you +what you seem not to have suspected: I am engaged to Mr. Percival." + +"Of course, then, you were angry when I spoke of him as I did. But I beg +you will do me the justice to believe that I never for a moment dreamed +that he was anything to Mrs. Winthrop." + +"Your dreams must be unobservant." + +"I knew that he was with you, of course, and that you received his +letters--there is one in your pocket now. But it made no impression +upon me--that is, as far as you were concerned." + +"And why not? Even in the guise of an apology, Mr. Ford, you succeed in +insinuating your rudeness. What you have said, when translated, simply +means that you never dreamed that Mrs. Winthrop could be interested in +Mr. Percival. And why should she not be interested? But the truth is, +there is such an infinite space between you that you cannot in the least +comprehend him." She turned towards the door which led to the stairway. + +"That is very possible," said Ford. "But I have not now the honor to be +a rival of Mr. Percival's, even as an unfavored suitor; you did not +comply with my condition." + +They went down the stairs, past the shining statue of Necker, and out +into the sunshine. Benjamin Franklin brought forward the horses, and +Ford assisted her to mount. "You prefer that I should not go with you," +he said; "but of course I must. We cannot always have things just as we +wish them in this vexatious world, you know." + +The flush on her face was still deep; but she had recovered herself +sufficiently to smile. "We will select subjects that will act as safe +conductors down to commonplace," she said. They did. Only at the gate of +Miolans was any allusion made to the preceding conversation. + +He had said good-bye; the two riding-gloves had formally touched each +other. "It may be for a long time," he remarked. "I start towards Italy +this evening; I shall go to Chambery and Turin." + +She passed him; her horse turned into the plane-tree avenue. "Do not +suppose that I could not have been, that I could not be--if I chose--all +you described," she said, looking back. + +"I know you could. It was the possibilities in you which attracted me, +and made me say what I did." + +"_That_ for your possibilities!" she answered, making the gesture of +throwing something lightly away. + +He lifted his hat; she smiled, bowed slightly, and rode onward out of +sight. He took his horse to the stables, went down to the water-steps, +and unmoored his skiff. The next day Sylvia received a note from him; it +contained his good-bye, but he himself was already on the way to Italy. + + * * * * * + +The following summer found Miss Pitcher again at Miolans. But although +her little figure was still seen going down to the outlook at sunset, +although she still made wax flowers and read (with a mark) "Childe +Harold," it was evident that she was not as she had been. She was +languid, mournful, and by August these adjectives were no longer +sufficient to describe her condition, for she was now seriously ill. Her +nephew, who was spending the summer in Scotland, was notified by a +letter from Cousin Walpole. In answer he travelled southward to Lake +Leman without an hour's delay; for Sylvia and himself were the only ones +of their blood on the old side of the Atlantic, and if the gentle little +aunt was to pass from earth in a strange land, he wished to be beside +her. + +But Sylvia did not pass. Her nephew read her case so skilfully, and with +the others tended her so carefully, that in three weeks' time she was +lying on a couch by the window, with "Childe Harold" again by her side. +But if she was now well enough for a little literature, she was also +well enough for a little conversation. + +"I suppose you were much surprised, John, to find Katharine still Mrs. +Winthrop?" + +"No, not much." + +"But she told me that she had mentioned to you her engagement." + +"Yes, she mentioned it." + +"You speak as though she was one of the women who make and break +engagements lightly. But she is not, I assure you: far from it." + +"She broke this one, it seems." + +"One breaking does not make a--breaker," said Sylvia, thinking vaguely +of "swallows," and nearly saying "summer." She paused, then shook her +head sadly. "I have never understood it," she said, with a deep sigh. +"It lasted, I know, until the very end of June. I think I may say, +without exaggeration, that I spent the entire month of July, day and +night, picturing to myself his sufferings." + +"You took more time than he did. He was married before July was ended." + +"Simply despair." + +"Despair took on a cheerful guise. Some of the rest of us might not +object to it in such a shape." + +But Miss Pitcher continued her dirge. "So terrible for such a man! A +mere child--only seventeen!" + +"And he is--" + +"Thirty-seven years, eight months, and nine days," answered the lady, in +the tone of an obituary. "Twenty years younger than he is! Of course, +she cannot in the least appreciate the true depth of his poetry." + +"He may not care for that, you know, if she appreciates him," said +Ford--Miss Pitcher thought, heartlessly. + +During these three weeks of attendance upon his aunt he had, of course, +seen Mrs. Winthrop daily. Generally he met her in the sick-room, where +she gave to the patient a tender and devoted care. If she was in the +drawing-room when he came down, Cousin Walpole was there also; he had +not once seen her alone. He was not staying at Miolans, although he +spent most of his time there; his abode nominally was a farm-house near +by. Sylvia improved daily, and early in September her nephew prepared +for departure. He was going to Heidelberg. One beautiful morning he felt +in the mood for a long farewell ride. He sent word to Sylvia that he +should not be at Miolans before evening, mounted, and rode off at a +brisk pace. He was out all day under the blue sky, and enjoyed it. He +had some wonderful new views of Mont Blanc, some exhilarating speed over +tempting stretches of road, a lunch at a rustic inn among the vineyards, +and the uninterrupted companionship of his own thoughts. Towards five +o'clock, on his way home, he came by Coppet. Here the idle ease of the +long day was broken by the small accident of his horse losing a shoe. He +took him to the little blacksmith's shop in the village; then, while the +work was in slow Swiss progress, he strolled back up the ascent towards +the old chateau. + +A shaggy white dog came to meet him; it was his friend Gibbon, and a +moment later he recognized Mrs. Winthrop's groom, holding his own and +his mistress's horse. Mrs. Winthrop was in the garden, so Benjamin +Franklin said. He opened the high gate set in the stone wall and went +down the long walk. + +She was at the far end; her back was towards him, and she did not hear +his step; she started when he spoke her name. But she recovered herself +immediately, smiled, and began talking with much the same easy, graceful +manner she had shown upon his first arrival at Miolans, when they met at +the gate the year before. This meant that she had put him back as an +acquaintance where he was then. + +He did not seem unwilling to go. They strolled onward for ten minutes; +then Mrs. Winthrop said that she must start homeward; they turned +towards the gate. They had been speaking of Sylvia's illness and +recovery. "I often think, when I look at my little aunt," said Ford, +"how pretty she must have been in her youth. And, by-the-way, just +before leaving Scotland I met a lady who reminded me of her, or rather +of my idea of what she must have been. It was Mrs. Lorimer Percival." + +"She is charming, I am told," said the lady beside him. + +"I don't know about the charming; I dislike the word. But she is very +lovely and very lovable." + +"Did you see much of her?" + +"I saw her several times; but only saw her. We did not speak." + +"You judge, then, by appearance merely." + +"In this case--yes. Her nature is written on her face." + +"All are at liberty to study it, then. Pray describe her." + +He was silent. Then, "If I comply," he said, "will you bear in mind that +I am quite well aware that that which makes this little lady's happiness +is something that Mrs. Winthrop, of her own accord, has cast aside as +nothing worth?" As he rounded off this phrase he turned and looked at +her. + +But she did not meet his eyes. "I will remember," she answered. + +He waited. But she said nothing more. + +"Mrs. Percival," he resumed, "is a beautiful young girl, with a face +like a wild flower in the woods. She has an expression which is to me +enchanting--an expression of sweet and simple goodness, and gentle, +confiding trust. One is thankful to have even seen such a face." + +"You speak warmly. I am afraid you are jealous of poor Mr. Percival." + +"He did not strike me as poor. If I was jealous, it was not the first +time. He was always fortunate." + +"Perhaps there are other wild flowers in the woods; you must search more +diligently." She opened the gate, passed through, and signalled to her +groom. + +"That is what I am trying to do; but I do not succeed. It is terribly +lonely work sometimes." + +"What a confession of weakness!" + +He placed her in the saddle. "It may be. At any rate, it is the truth. +But women do not believe in truth for its own sake; it strikes them as +crude." + +"You mean cruel," said Katharine Winthrop. She rode off, the groom and +Gibbon following. He went back to the blacksmith's shop. The next day he +went to Heidelberg. + +But he had not seen the last of Corinne's old chateau. On the 25th of +October he was again riding up the plane-tree avenue of Miolans, this +time under bare boughs. + +"Oh, John! dear John!" said Miss Pitcher, hurrying into the drawing-room +when she was told he was there. "How glad I am to see you! But how did +you know--I mean, how did you get here at this time of year?" + +"By railway and on horseback," he answered. "I like autumn in the +country. And I am very glad to see you looking so well, Aunt Sylvia." + +But if Sylvia was well in body, she was ill at ease in mind. She began +sentences and did not finish them; she often held her little +handkerchief to her lips as if repressing herself. Cousin Walpole had +gone to Geneva, "on business for Katharine." No, Katharine was not with +him; she was out riding somewhere. She was not well, and needed the +exercise. Katharine, too, was fond of autumn in the country. But Sylvia +found it rainy. After a while Ford took leave, promising to return in +the evening. When he reached the country road he paused, looking up and +down it for a moment; then he turned his horse southward. It was a +dreary day for a ride; a long autumn rain had soaked the ground, clouds +covered the sky, and a raw wind was blowing. He rode at a rapid pace, +and when he came towards Coppet he again examined the wet track, then +turned towards the chateau. He was not mistaken; Mrs. Winthrop's horse +was there. There was no groom this time; the horse was tied in the +court-yard. Benjamin Franklin said that the lady was in the garden, and +he said it muffled in a worsted cap and a long wadded coat that came to +his heels. No doubt he permitted himself some wonder over the lady's +taste. + +The lady was at the end of the long walk as before. But to-day the long +walk was a picture of desolation; all the bright leaves, faded and +brown, were lying on the ground in heaps so sodden that the wind could +not lift them, strongly as it blew. Across one end of this vista +stretched the blank stone wall, its grayness streaked with wet spots; +across the other rose the old chateau among the bare trees, cold, naked, +and yellow, seeming to have already begun its long winter shiver. But +men do not mind such things as women mind them. A dull sky and stretch +of blank stone wall do not seem to them the end of the world--as they +seemed at that moment to Katharine Winthrop. This time she heard his +step; perhaps he intended that she should hear it. She turned. + +Her face was pale; her eyes, with the dark shadows under them, looked +larger than usual. She returned his greeting quietly; her trouble, +whatever it was, did not apparently connect itself with him. + +"You should not be walking here, Mrs. Winthrop," he said as he came up; +"it is too wet." + +"It is wet; but I am going now. You have been at Miolans?" + +"Yes. I saw my aunt. She told me you were out riding somewhere. I +thought perhaps you might be here." + +"Is that all she told you?" + +"I think so. No; she did say that you were fond of autumn in the +country. So am I. Wouldn't it be wise to stop at the old man's cottage, +before remounting, and dry your shoes a little?" + +"I never take cold." + +"Perhaps we could find a pair in the village that you could wear." + +"It is not necessary. I will ride rapidly; the exercise will be the best +safeguard." + +"Do you know why I have come back?" he said, abandoning the subject of +the shoes. + +"I do not," answered the lady. She looked very sad and weary. + +"I have come back, Katharine, to tell you plainly and humbly that I love +you. This time I make no conditions; I have none to make. Do with me as +you please; I must bear it. But believe that I love you with all my +heart. It has been against my will; I have not been willing to admit it +to myself; but of late the certainty has forced itself upon me so +overwhelmingly that I had no resource left save to come to you. I am +full of faults; but--I love you. I have said many things that displeased +you deeply; but--I love you. Do not deliberate. Send me away--if go I +must--now. Keep me--if you will keep me--now. You can punish me +afterwards." + +They had been walking onward, but now he stopped. She stopped also; but +she said nothing; her eyes were downcast. + +"It is a real love I offer you," he said, in a low tone. Then, as still +she did not speak, "I will make you very happy, Katharine," he added. + +Her face had remained pale, but at this assertion of his a slight color +rose, and a smile showed itself faintly. "You are always so sure!" she +murmured. And then she laughed, a little low, sweet, sudden laugh. + +"Let him laugh who wins," said Ford, triumphantly. The old streaked +stone wall, if dreary, was at least high; no one saw him but one very +wet and bedraggled little bird, who was in the tree above. This bird was +so much cheered (it must have been that) that he immediately chirruped +one note quite briskly, and coming out on a drier twig, began to +arrange his soaked feathers. + +"Now," said Ford, "we will have those shoes dried, whether you like it +or not. No more imprudence allowed. How angry you were when I said we +might find a pair in the village that you could wear! Of course I meant +children's size." He had drawn her hand through his arm, and was going +towards the gate. + +But she freed herself and stopped. "It is all a mistake," she said, +hurriedly. "It means nothing. I am not myself to-day. Do not think of +it." + +"Certainly I shall not trouble myself to think of it much when--what is +so much better--I have it." + +"No; it is nothing. Forget it. I shall not see you again. I am going +back to America immediately--next week." + +He looked at her as she uttered these short sentences. Then he took her +hands in his. "I know about the loss of your fortune, Katharine; you +need not tell me. No, Sylvia did not betray you. I heard it quite by +chance from another source while I was still in Heidelberg. That is the +reason I came." + +"The reason you came!" she repeated, moving from him, with the old proud +light coming back into her eyes. "You thought I would be +overwhelmed--you thought that I would be so broken that I would be +glad--you pitied me--you came to help me? And you were _sure_--" She +stopped; her voice was shaking. + +"Yes, Katharine, I did pity you. Yes, I came to help you if you would +let me. But I was not sure. I was sure of nothing but my own obstinate +love, which burst out uncontrollably when I thought of you in trouble. I +have never thought of you in that way before; you have always had +everything. The thought has brought me straight to your side." + +But she was not softened. "I withdraw all I have said," she answered. +"You have taken advantage." + +"As it happens, you have said nothing. As to taking advantage, of course +I took advantage: I was glad enough to see your pale face and sad eyes. +But that is because you have always carried things with such a high +hand. First and last, I have had a great deal of bad treatment." + +"That is not true." + +"Very well; then it is not. It shall be as you please. Do you want me to +go down on my knees to you on this wet gravel?" + +But she still turned from him. + +"Katharine," he said, in a graver tone, "I am sorry on your account that +your fortune is gone, or nearly gone; but on my own, how can I help +being glad? It was a barrier between us, which, as I am, and as you +are--but principally as you are--would have been, I fear, a hopeless +one. I doubt if I should ever have surmounted it. Your loss brings you +nearer to me--the woman I deeply love, love in spite of myself. Now if +you are my wife--and a tenderly loved wife you will be--you will in a +measure be dependent upon your husband, and that is very sweet to a +self-willed man like myself. Perhaps in time I can even make it sweet to +you." + +A red spot burned in each of her cheeks. "It is very hard," she said, +almost in a whisper. + +"Well, on the whole, life _is_ hard," answered John Ford. But the +expression in his eyes was more tender than his words. At any rate, it +seemed to satisfy her. + +"Do you know what I am going to do?" he said, some minutes later. "I am +going to make Benjamin Franklin light a fire on one of those old +literary hearths at the chateau. Your shoes shall be dried in the +presence of Corinne herself (who must, however, have worn a much larger +pair). And while they are drying I will offer a formal apology for any +past want of respect, not only to Corinne, but to all the other +portraits, especially to that blue-eyed Madame Necker in her very tight +white satin gown. We will drink their healths in some of the native +wine. If you insist, I will even make an effort to admire the yellow +turban." + +He carried out his plan. Benjamin Franklin, tempted by the fee offered, +and relying no doubt upon the gloomy weather as a barrier against +discovery, made a bright fire upon one of the astonished hearths, and +brought over a flask of native wine, a little loaf, and some fine +grapes. Ford arranged these on a spindle-legged table, and brought +forward an old tapestried arm-chair for Katharine. Then while she sat +sipping her wine and drying her shoes before the crackling flame, he +went gravely round the room, glass in hand, pausing before each portrait +to bow ceremoniously and drink to its health and long life--probably in +a pictorial sense. When he had finished the circuit, "Here's to you all, +charming vanished ladies of the past," he said; "may you each have every +honor in the picturesque, powdered, unorthographic age to which you +belong, and never by any possibility step over into ours!" + +"That last touch has spoiled the whole," said the lady in the tapestried +chair. + +But Ford declared that an expression in Madame Necker's blue eye +approved his words. + +He now came back to the hearth. "This will never do," he said. "The +shoes are not drying; you must take them off." And with that he knelt +down and began to unbutton them. But Katharine, agreeing to obey orders, +finished the task herself. The old custodian, who had been standing in +the doorway laughing at Ford's portrait pantomime, now saw an +opportunity to make himself useful; he came forward, took one of the +shoes, put it upon his hand, and, kneeling down, held it close to the +flame. The shoes were little boots of dark cloth like the habit, +slender, dainty, and made with thin soles; they were for riding, not +walking. Ford brought forward a second arm-chair and sat down. "The old +room looks really cheerful," he said. "The portraits are beginning to +thaw, presently we shall see them smile." + +Katharine too was smiling. She was also blushing a little. The blush and +slight embarrassment made her look like a school-girl. + +"Where shall we go for the winter?" said Ford. "I can give you one more +winter over here, and then I must go home and get to work again. And as +we have so little foreign time left, I suggest that we lose none of it, +and begin our married life at once. Don't be alarmed; he does not +understand a word of English. Shall we say, then, next week?" + +"No." + +"Are you waiting to know me better? Take me, and make me better." + +"What are your principal faults--I mean besides those I already know?" +she said, shielding her face from the heat of the fire with her riding +gauntlets. + +"I have very few. I like my own way; but it is always a good way. My +opinions are rather decided ones; but would you like an undecided man? +I do not enjoy general society, but I am extremely fond of the +particular. I think that is all." + +"And your obstinacy?" + +"Only firmness." + +"You are narrow, prejudiced; you do not believe in progress of any kind. +You would keep women down with an iron hand." + +"A velvet one." + +The custodian now took the other shoe. + +"He will certainly stretch them with that broad palm of his," said Ford. +"But perhaps it is as well; you have a habit of wearing shoes that are +too small. What ridiculous little affairs those are! Will twelve pairs a +year content you?" + +A flush rose in her cheeks; she made no reply. + +"It will be very hard for you to give up your independence, your control +of things," he said. + +But she turned towards him with a very sweet expression in her eyes. +"You will do it all for me," she answered. + +He rose, walked about the room, coming back to lean over the gilded top +of her chair and say, with emphasis, "What in the world does that old +wretch mean by staying here so persistently all this time?" + +She laughed. Benjamin Franklin, looking up from his task, laughed +too--probably on general principles of sociability and appreciation of +his fee. + +"To go back to your faults," she said; "please come and sit down, and +acknowledge them. You have a very jealous nature." + +"You are mistaken. However, if you like jealousy, I can easily take it +up." + +"It will not be necessary. It is already there." + +"You are thinking of some particular instance; of whom did you suppose I +was jealous?" + +But she would not say. + +After a while he came back to it. "You thought I was jealous of Lorimer +Percival," he said. + +The custodian now announced that both shoes were dry; she put them on, +buttoning them with an improvised button-hook made of a hair-pin. The +old man stood straightening himself after his bent posture; he still +smiled--probably on the same general principles. The afternoon was +drawing towards its close; Ford asked him to bring round the horses. He +went out; they could hear his slow, careful tread on each of the +slippery stairs. Katharine had risen; she went to the mirror to adjust +her riding-hat. Ford came up and stood behind her. "Do you remember when +I looked at you in the glass, in this same way, a year ago?" he said. + +"How you talked to me that day about my poor little book! You made me +feel terribly." + +"I am sorry. Forgive it." + +"But you do not forgive the book?" + +"I will forget it, instead. You will write no more." + +"Always so sure! However, I will promise, if you acknowledge that you +have a jealous disposition." + +She spoke gayly. He watched her in the glass a moment, then drew her +away. "Whether I have a jealous disposition or not I do not know," he +answered. "But I was never jealous of Lorimer Percival; I held him in +too light estimation. And I did not believe--no, not at any time--that +you loved him; he was not a man whom you would love. Why you allowed +yourself to become engaged to him I do not know; but I suspect it was +because he flattered what you thought your literary talent. I do not +believe you would ever have married him; you would have drawn back at +the last moment. To be engaged to him was one thing, to marry him +another. You kept your engagement along for months, when there was no +reason at all for the delay. If you had married him I should have +thought the less of you, but I should not have been jealous." He paused. +"I might never have let you know it, Katharine," he went on; "but I +prefer that there should be nothing but the truth between us. I know +that it was Percival who broke the engagement at the last, and not you. +I knew it when I was here in the summer. He himself told me when I met +him in Scotland just after his marriage." + +She broke from him. "How base are all men!" she said, in a voice unlike +her own. + +"In him it was simply egotism. He knew that I had known of his +engagement to you, and he wished me to appreciate that in order to marry +that sweet young girl, who was quite without fortune, he had been +obliged to make, and had made, a great sacrifice." + +"Great indeed!" she commented, bitterly. "You do well to commend him." + +"I do not commend him. I simply say that he was following out his +nature. Being a poet, he is what is called sympathetic, you know; and he +wanted my appreciation and sympathy--I will not say applause." + +She was standing with her back towards him. She now walked towards the +door. But her courage failed, she sank into a chair and covered her face +with her hands. "It is too much," she said. "You wait until I have lost +my fortune and am overwhelmed; you wait until I am rejected, cast aside; +and then you come and win from me an avowal of my love, telling me +afterwards--_afterwards_"--Her voice broke, she burst into tears. + +"Telling you afterwards nothing but that I love you. Telling you +afterwards that I have not had one really happy moment since our +conversation in this old house a year ago. Telling you afterwards that +my life has resolved itself into but one unceasing, tormenting wish--the +wish, Katharine, that you would love me, I suppose I ought to say a +little, but I mean a great deal. Look at me; is this humble enough for +you?" + +He drew her hands away; she saw that he was kneeling at her feet; and, +not only that, but she saw also something very like a mist in the gray +eyes she had always thought too cold. + + * * * * * + +In the library of Mr. John Ford, near New York, there hangs in the place +of honor a water-color sketch of an old yellow chateau. Beneath it, +ranged by themselves, are all the works of that eloquent authoress and +noble woman, Madame de Stael. + +"You admire her?" said a visitor recently, in some surprise. "To me she +always seemed a--a little antique, you know." + +"She is antiquity itself! But she once lent me her house, and I am +grateful. By-the-way, Katharine, I never told you, although I found it +out afterwards: Benjamin Franklin understood English, after all." + +THE END + + * * * * * + +BY MARY E. WILKINS. + +PEMBROKE. A Novel. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 50. + +JANE FIELD. A Novel. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. + +YOUNG LUCRETIA, and Other Stories. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, +Ornamental, $1 25. + +A NEW ENGLAND NUN, and Other Stories. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. + +A HUMBLE ROMANCE, and Other Stories. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. + +GILES COREY, YEOMAN. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 50 cents. + +We have long admired Miss Wilkins as one of the most powerful, original, +and profound writers of America; but we are bound to say that "Pembroke" +is entitled to a higher distinction than the critics have awarded to +Miss Wilkins's earlier productions. As a picture of New England life and +character, as a story of such surpassing interest that he who begins is +compelled to finish it, as a work of art without a fault or a +deficiency, we cannot see how it could possibly be improved.--_N. Y. +Sun._ + +The simplicity, purity, and quaintness of these stories set them apart +in a niche of distinction where they have no rivals.--_Literary World_, +Boston. + +Nowhere are there to be found such faithful, delicately drawn, +sympathetic, tenderly humorous pictures.--_N. Y. Tribune._ + +The charm of Miss Wilkins's stories is in her intimate acquaintance and +comprehension of humble life, and the sweet human interest she feels and +makes her readers partake of, in the simple, common, homely people she +draws.--_Springfield Republican._ + +PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. + +==>_The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by +the publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, +Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._ + +BY A. CONAN DOYLE + +Mr. Doyle has the gift of description, and he knows how to make fiction +seem reality.--_Independent_, N. Y. + +His descriptions are picturesque and vivid, and his narrative powers of +a high order.--_N. Y. Mail and Express._ + +Dr. Doyle's characters, whether historical or imaginary, are so instinct +with the breath of life that they compel our credence--they are never +puppets, but always creations.--_Spectator_, London. + +Few writers excel Conan Doyle in this class of literature. His style, +vigorous, terse, and thoughtful, united to a nice knowledge of the human +mind, makes every character a profoundly interesting psychological +study.--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._ + +THE REFUGEES. A Tale of Two Continents. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, +Ornamental, $1 75. + +THE WHITE COMPANY. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 75. + +MICAH CLARKE. His Statement. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, +$1 75; also 8vo, Paper, 45 cents. + +ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, +$1 50. + +MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 +50. + +THE PARASITE. A Story. Illustrated. 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It is worthy of companionship with its predecessor, "A Little +Journey in the World," and keeps Mr. Warner well in the front rank of +philosophic students of the tendencies of our civilization.--_Springfield +Republican_. + +A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE WORLD. A Novel. Post 8vo, Half Leather, Uncut +Edges and Gilt Top, $1 50; Paper, 75 cents. + +THEIR PILGRIMAGE. Illustrated by C. S. REINHART. Post 8vo, Half Leather, +Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 00. + +STUDIES IN THE SOUTH AND WEST, with Comments on Canada. Post 8vo, Half +Leather, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $1 75. + +OUR ITALY. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut Edges and Gilt +Top, $2 50. + +AS WE GO. With Portrait and Illustrations. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 +00. ("Harper's American Essayists.") + +AS WE WERE SAYING. With Portrait and Illustrations. 16mo, Cloth, +Ornamental, $1 00. ("Harper's American Essayists.") + +THE WORK OF WASHINGTON IRVING. With Portraits. 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, +50 cents. + +PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. + +==>_The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by +the publishers by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United +States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._ + + * * * * * + +This typographical error was corrected by the etext transcriber: + +Roberta overhead this attempt=>Roberta overheard this attempt + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dorothy and other Italian Stories, by +Constance Fenimore Woolson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOROTHY AND OTHER ITALIAN STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 39170.txt or 39170.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/1/7/39170/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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