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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19861-8.txt b/19861-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aba9a73 --- /dev/null +++ b/19861-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7548 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lady Paramount, by Henry Harland + +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 + + +Title: The Lady Paramount + +Author: Henry Harland + +Release Date: November 18, 2006 [EBook #19861] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LADY PARAMOUNT *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +THE LADY PARAMOUNT + +By HENRY HARLAND + + + +_Author of_ + +"THE CARDINAL'S SNUFF-BOX" + + + + + +JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD + +LONDON & NEW YORK -- MCMII + + + + +Copyright, 1902 + +BY JOHN LANE + +All rights reserved + + + + +To + +EDMUND GOSSE + + + + +The Lady Paramount + + +I + +On the twenty-second anniversary of Susanna's birth, old Commendatore +Fregi, her guardian, whose charge, by the provisions of her father's +will, on that day terminated, gave a festa in her honour at his villa +in Vallanza. Cannon had been fired in the morning: two-and-twenty +salvoes, if you please, though Susanna had protested that this was +false heraldry, and that it advertised her, into the bargain, for an +old maid. In the afternoon there had been a regatta. Seven tiny +sailing-boats, monotypes,--the entire fleet, indeed, of the Reale Yacht +Club d'Ilaria--had described a triangle in the bay, with Vallanza, +Presa, and Veno as its points; and I need n't tell anyone who knows the +island of Sampaolo that the Marchese Baldo del Ponte's _Mermaid_, +English name and all, had come home easily the first. Then, in the +evening, there was a dinner, followed by a ball, and fire-works in the +garden. + +Susanna was already staying at the summer palace on Isola Nobile, for +already--though her birthday falls on the seventeenth of April--the +warm weather had set in; and when the last guests had gone their way, +the Commendatore escorted her and her duenna, the Baroness Casaterrena, +down through the purple Italian night, musical with the rivalries of a +hundred nightingales, to the sea-wall, where, at his private +landing-stage, in the bat-haunted glare of two tall electric lamps, her +launch was waiting. But as he offered Susanna his hand, to help her +aboard, she stepped quickly to one side, and said, with a charming +indicative inclination of the head, "The Baronessa." + +The precedence, of course, was rightfully her own. How like her, and +how handsome of her, thought the fond old man, thus to waive it in +favour of her senior. So he transferred his attention to the Baroness. +She was a heavy body, slow and circumspect in her motions; but at +length she had safely found her place among the silk cushions in the +stern, and the Commendatore, turning back, again held out his hand to +his sometime ward. As he was in the act of doing so, however, his ears +were startled by a sound of puffing and of churning which caused him +abruptly to face about. + +"Hi! Stop!" he cried excitedly, for the launch was several yards out +in the bay; and one could hear the Baroness, equally excited, +expostulating with the man at the machine: + +"He! Ferma, ferma!" + +"It's all right," said Susanna, in that rather deep voice of hers, +tranquil and leisurely; "my orders." + +And the launch, unperturbed, held its course towards the glow-worm +lights of Isola Nobile. + +The Commendatore stared. . . . + + +For a matter of five seconds, his brows knitted together, his mouth +half open, the Commendatore stared, now at Susanna, now after the +bobbing lanterns of the launch,--whilst, clear in the suspension, the +choir of nightingales sobbed and shouted. + +"_Your_ orders?" he faltered at last. Many emotions were concentrated +in the pronoun. + +"Yes," said Susanna, with a naturalness that perhaps was studied. "The +first act of my reign." + +He had never known her to give an order before, without asking +permission; and this, in any case, was such an incomprehensible order. +How, for instance, was she to get back to the palace? + +"But how on earth," he puzzled, "will you get back to----" + +"Oh, I 'm not returning to Isola Nobile tonight," Susanna jauntily +mentioned, her chin a little perked up in the air. Then, with the +sweetest smile--through which there pierced, perhaps, just a faint +glimmer of secret mischief?--"I 'm starting on my wander-year," she +added, and waved her hand imperially towards the open sea. + +It was a progression of surprises for the tall, thin old Commendatore. +No sooner had Susanna thus bewilderingly spoken, than the rub and dip +of oars became audible, rhythmically nearing; and a minute after, from +the outer darkness, a row-boat, white and slender, manned by two rowers +in smart nautical uniforms, shot forward into the light, and drew up +alongside the quay. + +"A boat from the _Fiorimondo_," he gasped, in stupefaction. + +"Yes," said Susanna, pleasantly. "The _Fiorimondo_ takes me as far as +Venice. There I leave it for the train." + +The Commendatore's faded old blue eyes flickered anxiously. + +"I can't think I am dreaming," he remarked, with a kind of vague +plaintiveness; "and of course you are not serious. My dear, I don't +understand." + +"Oh, I 'm as serious as mathematics," she assured him. + +She gave her head a little pensive movement of affirmation, and lifted +her eyes to his, bright with an expression of trustful candour. This +was an expression she was somewhat apt to assume when her mood was a +teasing one; and it generally had the effect of breaking down the +Commendatore's gravity. "You are a witch," he would laugh, availing +himself without shame of the way-worn reproach, "a wicked, irresistible +little witch." + +"The thing," she explained, "is as simple as good-day. I 'm starting +on my travels--to see the world--Paris, which I have only seen +once--London, which I have never seen--the seaports of Bohemia, the +mountains of Thule, which I have often seen from a distance, in the +mists on the horizon. The _Fiorimondo_ takes me as far as Venice. +That is one of the advantages of owning a steam-yacht. Otherwise, I +should have to go by the Austrian-Lloyd packet; and that would n't be +half so comfortable." + +Her eyes, still raised to the Commendatore's, melted in a smile;--a +smile seemingly all innocence, persuasiveness, tender appeal for +approbation, but (I 'm afraid) with an undergleam that was like a +mocking challenge. + +He, perforce, smiled too, though with manifest reluctance; and at the +same time he frowned. + +"My dear, if it were possible, I should be angry with you. This is +scarcely an appropriate hour for mystifications." + +"_That_ it is n't," agreed Susanna, heartily. And she put up her hand, +to cover a weary little yawn. "But there 's _no_ mystification. There +'s a perfectly plain statement of fact. I 'm starting to-night for +Venice." + +He studied her intently for a moment, fixedly, pondering something. +Then, all at once, the lines of dismay cleared from his lean old +ivory-yellow face. + +"Ha! In a ball-dress," he scoffed, and pointed a finger at Susanna's +snowy confection of tulle and satin and silver embroidery, all +a-shimmer in the artificial moonlight of the electric lamps, against +the background of southern garden,--the outlines and masses, dim and +mysterious in the night, of palms and cypresses, of slender +eucalyptus-trees, oleanders, magnolias, of orange-trees, where the +oranges hung, amid the dark foliage, like dull-burning lanterns. A +crescent of diamonds twinkled in the warm blackness of her hair. She +wore a collar of pearls round her throat, and a long rope of pearls +that descended to her waist, and was then looped up and caught at the +bosom by an opal clasp. A delicate perfume, like the perfume of +violets, came and went in the air near her. She held a great fluffy +fan of white feathers in one hand, and in the other carried loose her +long white gloves; and gems sparkled on her fingers. The waters under +the sea-wall beside her kept up a perpetual whispering, like a +commentary on the situation. The old man considered these things, and +his misgivings were entirely dissipated. + +"Ha!" he scoffed, twisting his immense iron-grey moustaches with +complacency. "I can't guess what prank you may be up to, but you are +never starting for Venice in a ball-dress. You 're capable of a good +deal, my dear, but you 're not capable of that." + +"Oh, I 'm capable of anything and everything," Susanna answered, +cheerfully ominous. "Besides," she plausibly admonished him, "you +might do me the justice of supposing that I have changes aboard the +_Fiorimondo_. My maid awaits me there with quite a dozen boxes. +So--you see. Oh, and by the bye," she interjected, "Serafino also is +coming with me. He'll act as courier--buy my tickets, register my +luggage; and then, when we reach our ultimate destination, resume his +white cap and apron. My ultimate destination, you must know," she +said, with a lightness which, I think, on the face of it was spurious, +"is a little village in England--a little village called Craford; +and"--she smiled convincingly--"I hear that the cuisine is not to be +depended upon in little English villages." + +All the Commendatore's anxieties had revived. This time he frowned in +grim earnest. + +"_Créforrrd_!" he ejaculated. + +The word fell like an explosion; and there was the climax of horrified +astonishment in those reverberating r's. + +"I think you are mad," he said. "Or, if you are not mad, you are the +slyest young miss in Christendom." + +Susanna's eyes darkened, pathetic, wistful. + +"Ah, don't be cross," she pleaded. "I 'm not mad, and I 'm not sly. +But I 'm free and independent. What's the good of being free and +independent," she largely argued, "if you can't do the things you want +to? I 'm going to Craford to realise the aspiration of a lifetime. I +'m going to find out my cousin, and make his acquaintance, and see what +he 's like. And then--well, if he 's nice, who knows what may happen? +I planned it ever so long ago," she proclaimed, with an ingenuousness +that was almost brazen, "and made all my preparations. Then I sat down +and waited for the day when I should be free and independent." + +Her eyes melted again, deprecating his censure, beseeching his +indulgence, yet still, with a little glint of raillery, defying him to +do his worst. + +His hand sawed the air, his foot tapped the ground. + +"Free and independent, free and independent," he fumed, in derision. +"Fine words, fine words. And you made all your preparations +beforehand, in secrecy; and you 're not sly? Misericordia di Dio!" + +He groaned impotently; he shook his bony old fist at the stars in the +firmament. + +"Perhaps you will admit," he questioned loftily, "that there are +decencies to be observed even by the free and independent? It is not +decent for you to travel alone. If you mean a single word of what you +say, why are n't you accompanied by the Baronessa?" + +"The Baronessa fatigues me," Susanna answered gently. "And I +exasperate her and try her patience cruelly. She 's always putting +spokes in my wheel, and I 'm always saying and doing things she +disapproves of. Ah, if she only suspected the half of the things I +don't say or do, but think and feel!" + +She nodded with profound significance. + +"We belong," she pointed out, "to discrepant generations. I 'm so +intensely modern, and she 's so irredeemably eighteen-sixty. I 've +only waited for this blessed day of liberty to cut adrift from the +Baronessa. And the pleasure will be mutual, I promise you. She will +enjoy a peace and a calm that she has n't known for ages. Ouf! I feel +like Europe after the downfall of Napoleon." + +She gave her shoulders a little shake of satisfaction. + +"The Baronessa," she said, and I 'm afraid there was laughter in her +tone, "is a prisoner for the night on Isola Nobile." I 'm afraid she +tittered. "I gave orders that the launch was to start off the moment +she put her foot aboard it, and on no account was it to turn back, and +on no account was any boat to leave the island till to-morrow morning. +I expect she 'll be rather annoyed--and puzzled. But--cosa vuole? +It's all in the day's work." + +Then her voice modulated, and became confidential and exultant. + +"I 'm going to have such a delicious plunge. See--to-night I have put +on pearls, and diamonds, and rings, that the Baronessa would never let +me wear. And I 've got a whole bagful of books, to read in the +train--Anatole France, and Shakespeare, and Gyp, and Pierre Loti, and +Molière, and Max Beerbohm, and everybody: all the books the Baronessa +would have died a thousand deaths rather than let me look at. That's +the nuisance of being a woman of position--you 're brought up never to +read anything except the Lives of the Saints and the fashion papers. I +'ve had to do all my really important reading by stealth, like a thief +in the night. Ah," she sighed, "if I were only a man, like you! But +as for observing the decencies," she continued briskly, "you need have +no fear. I 'm going to the land of all lands where (if report speaks +true) one has most opportunities of observing them--I 'm going to +England, and I 'll observe them with both eyes. And I 'm not +travelling alone." She spurned the imputation. "There are Rosina and +Serafino; and at the end of my journey I shall have Miss Sandus. You +remember that nice Miss Sandus?" she asked, smiling up at him. "She is +my fellow-conspirator. We arranged it all before she went away last +autumn. I 'm to go to her house in London, and she will go with me to +Craford. She 's frantically interested about my cousin. She thinks +it's the most thrilling and romantic story she has ever heard. And she +thoroughly sympathises with my desire to make friends with him, and to +offer him some sort of reparation." + +The Commendatore was pacing nervously backwards and forwards, being, I +suppose, too punctilious an old-school Latin stickler for etiquette to +interrupt. + +But now, "Curse her for a meddlesome Englishwoman," he spluttered +violently. "To encourage a young girl like you in such midsummer +folly. A young girl?--a young hoyden, a young tom-boy. What? You +will travel from here to London without a chaperon? And books--French +novels--gr-r-r! I wish you had never been taught to read. I think it +is ridiculous to teach women to read. What good will they get by +reading? You deserve--upon my word you deserve . . . Well, never +mind. Oh, body of Bacchus!" + +He wrung his hands, as one in desperation. + +"A young girl, a mere child," he cried, in a wail to Heaven; "a +mere"--he paused, groping for an adequate definition--"a mere +irresponsible female orphan! And nobody with power to interfere." + +Susanna drew herself up. + +"Young?" she exclaimed. "A mere child? I? Good gracious, I 'm +_twenty-two_." + +She said it, scanning the syllables to give them weight, and in all +good faith I think, as who should say, "I 'm fifty." + +"You really can't accuse me of being young," she apodictically +pronounced. "I 'm twenty-two. Twenty-two long years--aïe, Dio mio! +And I look even older. I could pass for twenty-five. If," was her +suddenly-inspired concession, "if it will afford you the least atom of +consolation, I 'll _tell_ people that I am twenty-five. _There_." + +She wooed him anew with those melting eyes, and her tone was soft as a +caress. + +"It is n't every man that I 'd offer to sacrifice three of the best +years of my life for--and it is n't every man that I 'd offer to tell +fibs for." + +She threw back her head, and stood in an attitude to invite inspection. + +"Don't I look twenty-five?" she asked. "If you had n't the honour of +my personal acquaintance, would it ever occur to you that I 'm what you +call 'a young girl'? Would n't you go about enquiring of every one, +'Who is that handsome, accomplished, and perfectly dressed woman of the +world?'" + +And she made him the drollest of little quizzical moues. + +In effect, with her tall and rather sumptuously developed figure, with +the humour and vivacity, the character and decision, of her face, with +the glow deep in her eyes, the graver glow beneath the mirth that +danced near their surface,--and then too, perhaps, with the unequivocal +Southern richness of her colouring: the warm white and covert rose of +her skin, the dense black of her undulating abundant hair, the sudden, +sanguine red of her lips,--I think you would have taken her for more +than twenty-two. There was nothing of the immature or the unfinished, +nothing of the tentative, in her aspect. With no loss of freshness, +there were the strength, the poise, the assurance, that we are wont to +associate with a riper womanhood. Whether she looked twenty-five or +not, she looked, at any rate, a completed product; she looked +distinguished and worth while; she looked alive, alert: one in whom the +blood coursed swiftly, the spirit burned vigorously; one who would love +her pleasure, who could be wayward and provoking, but who could also be +generous and loyal; she looked high-bred, one in whom there was race, +as well as temperament and nerve. + +The Commendatore, however, was a thousand miles from these +considerations. He glared fiercely at her--as fiercely as it was _in_ +his mild old eyes to glare. He held himself erect and aloof, in a +posture that was eloquent of haughty indignation. + +"I will ask your Excellency a single question. Are you or are you not +the Countess of Sampaolo?" he demanded sternly. + +But Susanna was incorrigible. + +"At your service--unless I was changed at nurse," she assented, +dropping a curtsey; and an imp laughed in her eyes. + +"And are you aware," the Commendatore pursued, with the tremor of +restrained passion in his voice, "that the Countess of Sampaolo, a +countess in her own right, is a public personage? Are you aware that +the actions you are proposing--which would be disgraceful enough if you +were any little obscure bourgeoise--must precipitate a public scandal? +Have you reflected that it will all be printed in the newspapers, for +men to snigger at in their cafes, for women to cackle over in their +boudoirs? Have you reflected that you will make yourself a nine-days' +wonder, a subject for tittle-tattle with all the gossip-mongers of +Europe? Are you without pride, without modesty?" + +Susanna arched her eyebrows, in amiable surprise. + +"Oh?" she said. "Have I omitted to mention that I 'm to do the whole +thing in masquerade? How stupid of me. Yes,"--her voice became +explanatory,--"it's essential, you see, that my cousin Antonio should +never dream who I really am. He must fancy that I 'm just +anybody--till the time comes for me to cast my domino, and reveal the +fairy-princess. So I travel under a nom-de-guerre. I 'm a widow, a +rich, charming, dashing, not too-disconsolate widow; and my name . . . +is Madame Fregi." + +She brought out the last words after an instant's irresolution, and +marked them by a hazardous little smile. + +"What!" thundered the Commendatore. "You would dare to take _my_ name +as a cloak for your escapades? I forbid it. Understand. I +peremptorily forbid it." + +He stamped his foot, he nodded his outraged head, menacingly. + +But Susanna was indeed incorrigible. + +"Dear me," she grieved; "I hoped you would be touched by the +compliment. How strange men are. Never mind, though," she said, with +gay resignation. "I 'll call myself something else. Let's +think. . . . Would--would Torrebianca do?" Her eyes sought counsel +from his face. + +Torrebianca, I need n't remind those who are familiar with Sampaolo, is +the name of a mountain, a bare, white, tower-like peak of rock, that +rises in the middle of the island, the apex of the ridge separating the +coast of Vallanza from the coast of Orca. + +"Madame Torrebianca? La Nobil Donna Susanna Torrebianca?" She tried +the name on her tongue. "Yes, for an impromptu, Torrebianca is n't +bad. It's picturesque, and high-sounding, and yet not--not +_invraisemblable_. You don't think it _invraisemblable_? So here 's +luck to that bold adventuress, that knightess-errant, the widow +Torrebianca." + +She raised her fluffy white fan, as if it were a goblet from which to +quaff the toast, and flourished it aloft. + +The poor old Commendatore was mumbling helpless imprecations in his +moustache. One caught the word "atrocious" several times repeated. + +"And now," said Susanna brightly, "kiss me on both cheeks, and give me +your benediction." + +She moved towards him, and held up her face. + +But he drew away. + +"My child," he began, impressively, "I have no means to constrain you, +and I know by experience that when you have made up that perverse +little mind of yours, one might as well attempt to reason with a Hebrew +Jew. Therefore I can only beg, I can only implore. I implore you not +to do this fantastic, this incredible, this unheard-of thing. I will +go on my knees to you. I will entreat you, not for my sake, but for +your own sake, for the sake of your dead father and mother, to put this +ruinous vagary from you, to abandon this preposterous journey, and to +stay quietly here in Sampaolo. Then, if you must open up the past, if +you must get into communication with your distant cousin, I 'll help +you to find some other, some sane and decorous method of doing so." + +Still once again Susanna's eyes melted, but there was no mockery in +them now. + +"You are kind and patient," she said, with feeling; "and I hate to be a +brute. Yet what is there to do? I can't alter my resolution. And I +can't bear to refuse you when you talk to me like that. So--you must +forgive me if I take a brusque way of escaping the dilemma." + +She ran to the edge of the quay, and sprang lightly into her boat. + +"Avanti--avanti," she cried to the rowers, who instantly pushed the +boat free, and bent upon their oars. + +Then she waved her disfranchised guardian a kiss. + +"Addio, Commendatore. I 'll write to you from Venice." + + + + +II + +It was gay June weather, in a deep green English park: a park in the +south of England, near the sea, where parks are deepest and greenest, +and June weather, when it is n't grave, is gaiest. Blackbirds were +dropping their liquid notes, thrushes were singing, hidden in the +trees. Here and there, in spaces enclosed by hurdles, sheep browsed or +drowsed, still faintly a-blush from recent shearing. The may was in +bloom, the tardy may, and the laburnum. The sun shone ardently, and +the air was quick with the fragrant responses of the earth. + +A hundred yards up the avenue, Anthony Craford stopped his fly, a +shabby victoria, piled with the manifold leather belongings of a +traveller, and dismounted. + +"I 'll walk the rest of the way," he said to the flyman, giving him his +fare. "Drive on to the house. The servants will take charge of the +luggage." + +"Yes, sir," answered the flyman, briskly, and flicked his horse: +whereat, displaying a mettle one was by no means prepared for, the +horse dashed suddenly off in a great clattering gallop, and the ancient +vehicle behind him followed with a succession of alarming leaps and +lurches. + +"See," declaimed a voice, in a sort of whimsical recitative, + + "See how the young cabs bound, + As to the tabor's sound,--" + +a full-bodied baritone, warm and suave, that broke, at the end, into a +note or two of laughter. + +Anthony turned. + +On the greensward, a few paces distant, stood a man in white flannels: +rather a fat man, to avow the worst at once, but, for the rest, +distinctly a pleasant-looking; with a smiling, round, pink face, +smooth-shaven, and a noticeable pair of big and bright blue eyes. + +"Hello. Is that you, old Rosygills?" Anthony said, with a phlegm that +seemed rather premeditated. + +"Now, what a question," protested the other, advancing to meet him. He +walked with an odd kind of buoyant, measured step, as if he were +keeping time to a silent dance-tune. "All I can tell you is that it's +someone very nice and uncommonly like me. You should know at your age +that a person's identity is quite the most mysterious mystery under +heaven. You really must n't expect me to vouch for mine. How-d'ye-do?" + +He extended, casually, in the manner of a man preoccupied, a plump, +pink left hand. With his right hand he held up and flaunted, for +exhibition, a drooping bunch of poppies, poignantly red and green: the +subject, very likely, of his preoccupation, for, "Are n't they +beauties?" he demanded, and his manner had changed to one of fervour, +nothing less. "They 're the spoils of a raid on Farmer Blogrim's +chalk-pit. If eyes were made for seeing, see and admire--admire and +confess your admiration." + +He shook them at Anthony's face. But as Anthony looked at them with +composure, and only muttered, "H'm," "Oh, my little scarlet starlets," +he purred and chirped to the blossoms, "_would n't_ the apathetic man +admire you?" + +And he clasped them to his bosom with a gesture that was reminiscent of +the grateful prima-donna. + +"They look exactly as if I had plucked them from the foreground of a +Fifteenth Century painting, don't they?" he went on, holding them off +again. "Florentine, of course. Ah, in those days painting was a fine +art, and worth a rational being's consideration,--in those days, and in +just that little Tuscan corner of the world. But you," he pronounced +in deep tones, mournfully, "how cold, how callous, you are. Have you +no soul for the loveliness of flowers?" + +Anthony sighed. He was a tall young man, (thirty, at a guess), tall +and well set-up, with grey eyes, a wholesome brown skin, and a nose so +affirmatively patrician in its high bridge and slender aquilinity that +it was a fair matter for remark to discover it on the face of one who +actually chanced to be of the patrician order. Such a nose, perhaps, +carried with it certain obligations--an obligation of fastidious +dressing, for example. Anthony, at any rate, was very fastidiously +dressed indeed, in light-grey tweeds, with a straw hat, and a tie that +bespoke a practised hand beside a discerning taste. But his general +air, none the less,--the expression of his figure and his motions, as +well as of his face and voice,--was somehow that of an indolent +melancholy, a kind of unresentful disenchantment, as if he had long ago +perceived that cakes are mostly dough, and had accommodated himself to +the perception with a regret that was half amusement. + +His friend, by contrast, in loose white flannels, with a flannel shirt +and a leather belt, with yellowish hair, waving, under a white flannel +cricket-cap, a good inch longer than the conventional cut, was plainly +a man who set himself above the modes: though, in his plump, pink way +debonair and vivacious, not so tall as Anthony, yet tall enough never +to be contemned as short, and verging upon what he was fain to call +"the flower of a sound man's youth, the golden, gladsome, romantic age +of forty," he looked delightfully fresh, and wide-awake, and cheerful, +and perfectly in the scheme of the blue day and the bird-notes and the +smiling country. Permit me to introduce Mr. Adrian Willes, by vocation +a composer and singer of songs, and--"contrapuntally," as he would +explain--Anthony Craford's housemate, monitor, land-agent, and man of +business. + +Anthony sighed. + +"I 'll tell you what I admire," he answered drily. "I admire the +transports of delight with which you hail my unexpected home-coming. +The last you knew, I was in California; and here I might have tumbled +from the skies." + +Adrian regarded him with an eye in which, I think, kindled a certain +malicious satisfaction. + +"Silence," he said, "is the perfectest herald of joy. Besides, you +must n't flatter yourself that your home-coming is so deucedly +unexpected, either. I 've felt a pricking in my thumbs any time these +three months; and no longer ago than yesterday morning, I said to my +image in the glass, as I was shaving, 'I should n't wonder if Tony +turned up to-morrow,' said I." + +"That was merely your uneasy conscience," Tony expounded. "When the +cat's away, the mice are always feeling prickings in their thumbs." + +"Oh, if you stoop to bandying proverbs," retaliated Adrian, "there's a +proverb about a penny." He raised his bunch of poppies, and posed it +aloft before him, eyeing it, his head cocked a little to one side, in +critical enjoyment. "Shall we set out for the house?" he asked. + +"No," said Anthony, promptly, with decision. "_I 'll_ set out for the +house; and _you_ (unless your habits have strangely altered) will frisk +and gambol round about me. Come on." + + +And taking Adrian's arm, he led the way, amid the summer throng of +delicate scents and sounds, under the opulent old trees, over the +gold-green velvet of the turf, on which leaves and branches were +stencilled by the sun, as in an elaborate design for lace, towards a +house that was rather famous in the neighbourhood--I was on the point +of saying for its beauty: but are things ever famous in English +neighbourhoods for their mere beauty?--for its quaintness, and in some +measure too, perhaps, for its history:--Craford Old Manor, a red-brick +Tudor house, low, and, in the rectangular style of such houses, +rambling; with a paved inner court, and countless tall chimneys, like +minarets; with a secret chapel and a priests' "hiding-hole," for the +Crafords were one of those old Catholic families whose boast it is that +they "have never lost the Faith"; with a walled formal garden, and a +terrace, and a sun-dial; with close-cropped bordures of box, and yews +clipped to fantastic patterns: the house so placed withal, that, while +its north front faced the park, its south front, ivy-covered, looked +over a bright lawn and bright parterres of flowers, down upon the long +green levels of Rowland Marshes, and away to the blue sea beyond,--the +blue sea, the white cliffs, the yellow sands. + +Anthony and Adrian, arm in arm, sauntered on without speaking, till +they attained the crest of a sweeping bit of upland, and the house and +the sea came in view. Here they halted, and stood for a minute in +contemplation of the prospect. + +"The sea," said Adrian, disengaging his arm, that he might be free to +use it as a pointer, and then pointing with it, "the sea has put on her +bluest frock, to honour your return. And behold, decked in the hues of +Iris, that gallant procession of cliffs, like an army with banners, +zigzagging up from the world's rim, to bid you welcome. Oh, you were +clearly not unexpected. If no smoke rises from yonder chimneys,--if +your ancestral chimney-stone is cold,--that's merely because, despite +the season, we 're having a spell of warmish weather, and we 've let +the fires go out. 'T is June. Town 's full; country 's depopulated. +In Piccadilly, I gather from the public prints, vehicular traffic is +painfully congested. Meanwhile, I 've a grand piece of news for your +private ear. Guess a wee bit what it is." + +"Oh, I 'm no good at guessing," said Anthony, with languor, as they +resumed their walk. + +"Well--what will you give me, then, if I 'll blurt it out?" asked +Adrian, shuffling along sidewise, so that he might face his companion. + +"My undivided attention--provided you blurt it briefly," Anthony +promised. + +"Oh, come," Adrian urged, swaying his head and shoulders. "Betray a +little curiosity, at least." + +"Curiosity is a vice I was taught in my youth to suppress," said +Anthony. + +"A murrain on your youth," cried Adrian, testily. "However, since +there 's no quieting you otherwise, I suppose, for the sake of peace, I +'d best tell you, and have done with it. Well, then,"--he stood off, +to watch the effect of his announcement,--"Craford's Folly is let." + +"Ah?" said Anthony, with no sign of emotion. + +Adrian's face fell. + +"Was there ever such inhumanity?" he mourned. "I tell him that--thanks +to my supernatural diligence in his affairs--his own particular +millstone is lifted from his neck. I tell him that a great white +elephant of a house, which for years has been eating its head off, and +keeping him poor, is at last--by my supernatural diligence--converted +into an actual source of revenue. And 'Ah?' is all he says, as if it +did n't concern him. Blow, blow, thou winter wind,--thou art not so +unkind as Man's ingratitude." + +"Silence," Anthony mentioned, "is the perfectest herald of joy." + +"Pish, tush," said Adrian. "A fico for the phrase. I 'll bet a +shilling, all the same,"--and he scanned Anthony's countenance +apprehensively,--"that you 'll be wanting money?" + +"It's considered rather low," Anthony generalised, "to offer a bet on +what you have every ground for regarding as a certainty." + +"A certainty?" groaned Adrian. He tossed his plump arms heavenwards. +"There it is! He 's wanting money." + +And his voice broke, in something like a sob. + +"Do you know," he asked, "how many pounds sterling you 've had the +spending of during the past twelvemonth? Do you know how many times +your poor long-suffering bankers have written to me, with tears in +their eyes, to complain that your account was overdrawn, and would I be +such a dear as to set it right? No? You don't? I could have sworn +you did n't. Well, I do--to my consternation. And it is my duty to +caution you that the estate won't stand it--to call that an estate," he +divagated, with a kind of despairing sniff, "which is already, by the +extravagances of your ancestors, shrunken to scarcely more than three +acres and a cow. You 're wanting money? What do you _do_ with your +money? What secret profligacy must a man be guilty of, who squanders +such stacks of money? Burst me, if I might n't as well be steward to a +bottomless pit. However, Providence be praised,--and my own +supernatural diligence,--I 'm in command of quite unhoped-for +resources. Craford New Manor is let." + +"So you remarked before," said Anthony, all but yawning. + +"And shall again, if the impulse seizes me," Adrian tartly rejoined. +"The circumstance is a relevant and a lucky one for the man you 're +fondest of, since he's wanting money. If it were n't that the new +house is let, he 'd find my pockets in the condition of Lord Tumtoddy's +noddle. However, the saints are merciful, I 'm a highly efficient +agent, and the biggest, ugliest, costliest house in all this +countryside is let." + +"Have it so, dear Goldilocks," said Anthony, with submission. "I 'll +ne'er deny it more." + +"There would be no indiscretion," Adrian threw out, "in your asking +whom it's let to." + +"Needless to ask," Anthony threw back. "It's let to a duffer, of +course. None but a duffer would be duffer enough to take it." + +"Well, then, you 're quite mistaken," said Adrian, airily swaggering. +"It's let to a lady." + +"Oh, there be lady duffers," Anthony apprised him. + +"It's very ungallant of you to say so." Adrian frowned disapprobation. +"This lady, if you can bear to hear the whole improbable truth at once, +is an Italian lady." + +"An Italian lady? Oh?" Anthony's interest appeared to wake a little. + +Adrian laughed. + +"I expected that would rouse you. A Madame Torrebianca." + +"Ah?" said Anthony; and his interest appeared to drop. + +"Yes--la Nobil Donna Susanna Torrebianca. Is n't that a romantic name? +A lady like the heroine of some splendid old Italian story,--like +Pompilia, like Francesca,--like Kate the Queen, when her maiden was +binding her tresses. Young, and dark, and beautiful, and altogether +charming." + +"H'm. And not a duffer? An adventuress, then, clearly," said Anthony. +"You 'll never get the rent." + +"Nothing of the sort," Adrian asserted, with emphasis. "A lady of the +highest possible respectability. Trust me to know. A scrupulous +Catholic, besides. It was partly because we have a chapel that she +decided to take the house. Father David is hand and glove with her. +And rich. She gave the very best of banker's references. 'Get the +rent,' says he--as if I had n't got my quarter in advance. I let +furnished--what? Well, that's the custom--rent payable quarterly in +advance. And cultivated. She's read everything, and she prattles +English like you or me. She had English governesses when she was a +kiddie. And appreciative. She thinks I 'm without exception the +nicest man she 's ever met. She adores my singing, and delights in all +the brilliant things I say. She says things that are n't half bad +herself, and plays my accompaniments with really a great deal of +sympathy and insight. And Tony dear,"--he laid his hand impressively +on Tony's arm, while his voice sank to the pitch of deep emotion,--"she +has a cook--a cook--ah, me!" + +He smacked his lips, as at an unutterable recollection. + +"She brought him with her from Italy. He has a method of preparing +sweetbreads--well, you wait. His name is Serafino--and no wonder. And +she has the nicest person who was ever born to live with her: a Miss +Sandus, Miss Ruth Sandus, a daughter of the late Admiral Sir Geoffrey +Sandus. She 's a dove, she 's a duck, she 's a darling; she 's +completely won my heart. And I"--he took a few skipping steps, and +broke suddenly into song-- + + "'And I, and I have hers!' + +We dote upon each other. She calls me her Troubadour. She has the +prettiest hands of any woman out of Paradise. She 's as sweet as +remembered kisses after death. She 's as sharp as a needle. She 's as +bright as morning roses lightly tipped with dew. She has a house of +her own in Kensington. And she's seventy-four years of age." + +Anthony's interest appeared to wake again. + +"Seventy-four? You call that young?" he asked, with the inflection of +one who was open to be convinced. + +Adrian bridled. + +"You deliberately put a false construction on my words. I was alluding +to Miss Sandus, as you 're perfectly well aware. Madame Torrebianca is +n't seventy-four, nor anything near it. She's not twenty-four. Say +about twenty-five and a fraction. With such hair too--and such +frocks--and eyes. Oh, my dear!" He kissed his fingers, and wafted the +kiss to the sky. "Eyes! Imagine twin moons rising over a tropical--" + +"_Allons donc_," Anthony repressed him. "Contain yourself. Where is +Madame Torrebianca's husband?" + +"Ah," said Adrian, with a sudden lapse of tone. "Where is Madame +Torrebianca's husband? That's the question. Where?" And he winked +suggestively. "How can I tell you where he is? If I could tell you +that, you don't suppose I 'd be wearing myself to a shadow with +uncongenial and ill-remunerated labour, in an obscure backwater of the +country, like this, do you? If I could tell you that, I could tell you +the secretest secrets of the sages, and I should be making my +everlasting fortune--oh, but money hand over fist--as the oracle of a +general information bureau, in Bond Street, or somewhere. I should be +a millionaire, and a celebrity, and a regular cock-of-the-walk. Where +is Madame Torrebianca's husband? Ay! Gentle shepherd, tell me where?" + +"Ah?" wondered Anthony, off his guard. "A mysterious disappearance?" + +"Bravo!" crowed Adrian, gleefully. "I am not only witty myself, but +the cause of wit in others." He patted Anthony on the shoulder. "A +mysterious disappearance. The _mot_ is capital. That's it, to a +hair's breadth. Oft thought before, but ne'er so well expressed. The +gentleman (as the rude multitude in their unfeeling way would put it) +is dead." + +"On the whole," mused Anthony, looking him up and down with a +reflective eye, "you 're an effulgent sort of egotist, as egotists go; +but you yield much cry for precious little wool." + +"Yes, dead," Adrian repeated, pursuing his own train of ideas. "Donna +Susanna is a widow, a poor lone widow, a wealthy, eligible widow. You +must be kind to her." + +"Why don't you marry her?" Anthony enquired. + +"Pooh," said Adrian. + +"Why don't you?" Anthony insisted. "If she 's really rich? You don't +dislike her--you respect her--perhaps, if you set your mind to it, you +could even learn to love her. She 'd give you a home and a position in +the world; she 'd make a sober citizen of you; and she 'd take you off +my hands. You know whether you 're an expense--and a responsibility. +Why don't you marry her? You owe it to me not to let such an occasion +slip." + +"Pooh," said Adrian. But he looked conscious, and he laughed a +deliriously conscious laugh. "What nonsense you do talk. I 'm too +young, I 'm far too young, to think of marrying." + +"See him blush and giggle and shake his pretty curls," said Anthony, +with scorn, addressing the universe. + + +By this time they had skirted the house, and come round to the southern +front, where the sunshine lay unbroken on the lawn, and the smell of +the box hedges, strong in the still air, seemed a thing almost +ponderable: the low, long front, a mellow line of colour, with the +purple of its old red bricks and the dark green of its ivy, sunlit +against the darker green of the park, and the blue of the tender +English sky. The terrace steps were warm under their feet, as they +mounted them. In terra-cotta urns, at intervals upon the terrace +balustrade, roses grew, roses red and white; and from larger urns, one +at either side of the hall-door, red and white roses were espaliered, +intertwining overhead. + +The hall-door stood open; but the hall, as they entered it from the +brightness without, was black at first, like a room unlighted. Then, +little by little, it turned from black to brown, and defined +itself:--"that hackneyed type of Stage-property hall," I have heard +Adrian lament, "which connotes immediately a lost will, a family +secret, and the ghost of a man in armour"; "a noble apartment, square +and spacious, characteristic of the period when halls were meant to +serve at need as guard-rooms," says the _County History_. + +Square and spacious it was certainly, perhaps a hackneyed type none the +less: the ceiling and the walls panelled in dark well-polished oak; the +floor a pavement of broad stone flags, covered for the most part now by +a faded Turkey carpet; the narrow windows, small-paned and leaded, set +in deep stone embrasures; a vast fireplace jutting across a corner, the +Craford arms emblazoned in the chimney-piece above; and a wide oak +staircase leading to the upper storey. The room was furnished, +incongruously enough, in quite a modern fashion, rather shabbily, and I +daresay rather mannishly. There were leather arm-chairs and settles, +all a good deal worn, and stout tables littered with books and +periodicals. The narrow windows let in thin slants of mote-filled +sunshine, vortices of gold-dust; and on the faded carpet, by the door, +lay a bright parallelogram, warming to life its dim old colours. The +rest of the room seemed twilit. Someone had been too wise to defeat +that good oak panelling by hanging pictures on it. + +"Not a creature is stirring," said Adrian, "not even a mouse. +Sellers--oh, what men daily do, not knowing what they do!--is shut up +in the scullery, I suppose, torturing his poor defenceless fiddle. +That 's what it is to be a musical boot-and-knife boy. And Wickersmith +will be at his devotions. He tells me he never gets leisure for his +morning meditation till luncheon 's cleared away. And that's what it +is to be a pious butler. I 'm doubting whether there was anyone to +disembarrass that flyman of yours of your luggage. So he 's probably +driven off with it all to his humble, happy home. I see none of it +about. Never mind. There 'll be some of your old things in Mrs. W.'s +camphor-chest, perhaps; or if it comes to a pinch, I can lend you a +garment or so of my own,--and then won't Craford of Craford cut a +figure of fun! You will make her acquaintance . . . Let me see. +To-day is Wednesday. We 'll call on her to-morrow." + +"On whom?" asked Anthony, looking blank. + +"Have we been talking of Queen Berengaria?" Adrian, with his nose in +the air, enquired. "On _whom?_ says you. We 'll call to-morrow +afternoon." + +"Not I," said Anthony. + +"Not to-morrow?" Adrian raised his eyebrows, well-marked crescents of +reddish-brown above his ruddy face, and assumed thereby a physiognomy +of almost childlike naïveté. "Ah, well, on Friday, then;--though +Friday is unlucky, and one rarely shines on a day of abstinence, +anyhow. It's all a fallacy about fish being food for the brain. Meat, +red meat, is what the brain requires." He slapped his forehead. "But +Friday, since you prefer it." + +Anthony seated himself on the arm of a leather chair, and, with +calculated deliberation, produced his cigarette-case, selected a +cigarette, returned his cigarette-case to his pocket, took out his +matchbox, struck a match, and got his cigarette alight. + +"No, dear Nimbletongue," he said at last, through a screen of smoke, +"not Friday, either." He smiled, shaking his head. + +Disquiet began to paint itself in Adrian's mien. + +"Name your own day." He waited, anxious, in suspense. + +Anthony chuckled. + +"My own day is no day. I have n't the faintest desire to make the good +woman's acquaintance, and I shall not call on her at all." + +Adrian stretched out appealing hands. + +"But Anthony--" he adjured him. + +"No," said Anthony, with determination. "I 'm not a calling man. And +I 've come down here for rest and recreation. I 'll pay no calls. Let +that be understood. Calls, quotha! And in the country, at that. Oh, +don't I know them? Oh, consecrated British dulness! The smug faces, +the vacuous grins; the lifeless, limping attempts at conversation; the +stares of suspicious incomprehension if you chance to say a thing that +has a point; and then, the thick, sensible, slightly muddy boots. I +'ll pay no calls. And as for making acquaintances--save me from those +I 've made already. In broad England I can recall but three +acquaintances who are n't of a killing sameness;--and one of those," he +concluded sadly, with a bow to his companion, "one of those is fat, and +grows old." + +"Poor lad," Adrian commiserated him. "You are tired and overwrought. +Go to your room, and have a bath and a brush up. That will refresh +you. Then, at half-past four, you can renew the advantages of my +society at tea in the garden. Oh, you 'll find your room quite ready. +I 've felt a pricking in my thumbs any time these three months. Shall +I send Wick?" + +"Yes, if you will be so good," said Anthony. He rose, and moved +towards the staircase. + +Adrian waited till he had reached the top. + +Then, "You 'll meet her whether you like or not on Sunday. Where on +earth do you suppose she hears her Mass?" he called after him. + +"Oh, hang," Anthony called back. + +For, sure enough, unless she drove seven miles to Wetherleigh, where +could she hear her Mass, but as his guest, in the chapel of his house? + + + + +III + +Susanna was seated on the moss, at the roots of a wide-spreading oak. +She was leaning back, so that she could look up, up, through vistas of +changing greens,--black-green to gold-green,--through a thousand +labyrinthine avenues and counter-avenues of leaves and branches, with +broken shafts of sunlight caught in them here and there, to the +glimpses of blue sky visible beyond. The tree gave you a sense of +great spaces, and depths, and differences, like a world; and it was +full of life, like a city. Birds came and went and hopped from bough +to bough, twittering importantly of affairs to them important; +squirrels scampered over the rough bark, in sudden panic haste, darting +little glances, sidewise and behind, after pursuers that (we will hope) +were fancied; and other birds, out of sight in the loftier regions, +piped their insistent calls, or sang their tireless epithalamiums. +Spiders hung in their gossamer lairs, only too tensely motionless not +to seem dead; but if a gnat came--with what swift, accurate, and +relentless vigour they sprang upon and garotted him. Sometimes a twig +snapped, or a young acorn fell, or a caterpillar let himself down by a +long silken thread. And the air under the oak was tonic with its good +oaken smell. + +Susanna was leaning back in a sort of reverie, held by the charm of +these things. "We have no trees like this in Italy," she was vaguely +thinking. "The trees and the wild creatures are never so near to one +there; one never gets so intimate with them; Nature is not so +accessible and friendly." She remembered having read somewhere that +such enjoyment as she was now experiencing, the enjoyment of commune +with the mere sweet out-of-door things of the earth, was a Pagan +enjoyment, and un-Christian; and her mind revolted at this, and she +thought, "No. There would n't be any enjoyment, if one did n't know +that 'God's in His Heaven, all 's right with the world.'" + +And just then her reverie was interrupted. . . + +"He has arrived. I have seen him--what you call _seen_--with my own +eyes seen. There are about two yards of him; and a very spruce, +gentlemanlike, well-knit, and attractive two yards they are." + +Thus, with a good deal of animation, in a pleasant, crisp old voice, +thus spoke Miss Sandus: a little old lady in black: little and very +daintily finished, with a daintily-chiselled profile, and a neat, +small-framed figure; in a black walking-skirt, that was short enough to +disclose a small, high-instepped, but eminently business-like pair of +brown boots. Miss Sandus (she gave you her word for it) was +seventy-four;--and indeed (so are the generations linked), her father +had been a middie with Nelson at Trafalgar, and a lieutenant aboard the +_Bellerophon_ during that ship's historic voyage to St. Helena;--but +she confronted you with the lively eyes, the firm cheeks, the fresh +complexion, the erect and active carriage, of a well-preserved woman of +sixty; and in her plentiful light-brown hair there was scarcely a +thread of grey. She stepped trippingly across the grass, swinging a +malacca walking-stick, with a silver crook-handle. + +"He has arrived. I 've seen him." + +So her voice broke in upon Susanna's musings; and Susanna started, and +got up. She was wearing a muslin frock to-day, white, with a pattern +of flowers in mauve; and she was without a hat, so that one could see +how her fine black hair grew low about her brow, and thence swept away +in loose full billows, and little crinkling over-waves, to where it +drooped in a rich mass behind. But as she stood, awaiting Miss +Sandus's approach, her face was pale, and her eyes were wide open and +dark, as if with fright. + +"Dear me, child. Did I startle you? I 'm so sorry," said Miss Sandus, +coming up to her. "Yes, Don Antonio has arrived. I saw him as he +disembarked at his native railway-station. I was ordering a book at +Smith's. And such luggage, my dear. Boxes and bags, bags and boxes, +till you could n't count them; and all of stout brown leather--so nice +and manny. He looks nice and manny himself: tall, with nice manny +clothes, and nice eyes, and a nice brown skin; and with a nose, my +dear, a nose like Julius Caesar's. Well, you 'll meet him on Sunday, +at your Papistical place of worship,--if he does n't call before. I +daresay he 'll think himself obliged to." + +"Oh, Fairy Godmother," gasped Susanna, faintly; "feel." + +She took Miss Sandus's hand, and pressed it against her side. + +"Feel how my heart is beating." + +"Mercy!" exclaimed Miss Sandus. + + + + +IV + +"Hang it all, how she sticks in one's mind," said Anthony, with +impatience. "Am I returning to my cubhood, that the mere vision of a +woman should take possession of me like this?" + +And then, having, I suppose, weighed the question, "It's the weather," he +decided. "Yes--I 'll bet you ten-and-sixpence that it's nothing more +than just this silly, sentimental, languorous June weather." + +He was seated in a shaded corner of his garden, where the day was +murmurous with the humming of bees, and the mingled sweetness of many +flowers rose and fell in the air. Beyond the shade, the sunshine broke +into a mosaic of merry colours, on larkspur and iris, pansies and pink +geraniums, jessamine, sweet-peas, tulips shameless in their extravagance +of green and crimson, red and white carnations, red, white, and yellow +roses. The sunshine broke into colour, it laughed, it danced, it almost +rioted, among the flowers; but in the prim alleys, and on the formal +hedges of box, and the quaintly-clipped yews, and the old purple brick +walls, where fruit trees were trellised, it lay fast, fast asleep. +Without the walls, in the deep cool greenery of the park, there was a +perpetual drip-drip of bird-notes. This was the web, upon which a chosen +handful of more accomplished birds were embroidering and +cross-embroidering and inter-embroidering their bold, clear arabesques of +song. Anthony had a table and a writing-case before him, and was trying +to write letters. But now he put down his pen, and, for the twentieth +time this afternoon, went over the brief little encounter of the morning. + +Two ladies had passed him in a dog-cart, as he was walking home from the +village: a young lady driving, an oldish lady beside her, and a groom +behind. + +That was all: the affair of ten seconds; and at first he was not aware of +any deeper or more detailed impression. He had glanced at them vaguely; +he was naturally incurious; and he had been thinking of other things. + +But by-and-bye, as if his retina had reacted like a photographic plate, a +picture developed itself, which, in the end, by a series of recurrences, +became quite singularly circumstantial. The dog-cart and its occupants, +with the stretch of brown road, and the hedge-rows and meadows at either +side, were visible anew to him; and he saw that the young lady who was +driving had dark hair and dark eyes, and looked rather foreign; and he +said, but without much concern as yet, "Ah, that was no doubt Madame +Torrebianca, with her friend Miss What 's-her-name;"--and proceeded again +to think of other things. + +The picture faded; but presently it came back. He noticed now that the +slightly foreign-looking young woman was pretty, and even +interesting-looking; that besides its delicate modelling and its warm, +rather Southern colouring, there was character in her face, personality; +that there were intelligence, humour, vivacity; that she looked as if she +would have something to say. He noticed, too, that she had what they +call "a fine figure,"--that she was tall, for a woman, and slender +without being thin; that she bore herself well, with an air of strength, +with an air of suppleness and resistance. He could even see how she was +dressed: in grey cloth, close-fitting, with grey driving-gloves, and a +big black hat that carried out the darkness of her hair. And he was +intrepid enough to trust his man's judgment, and to formulate an opinion +of her dress. She was very well dressed, he ventured to opine; far too +cunningly and meticulously dressed for an Englishwoman. There was +something of French unity, intention, finish, in her toilet; there was +_line_ in it, the direct, crisp line, that only foreign women seem +anxious to achieve. + +And he said, "I rather hope it _is_ Madame Torrebianca--since one has got +to know her. She looks as if she might have a spice of something in her +not utterly banale." + +If that was n't saying a great deal, he reflected, one seldom enough, in +our staid, our stale society, meets a person of whom one can say so +much;--and again dismissed her. + +But still again, presently, back she came; and then again and again, in +spite of him. And her comings now were preceded by a strange little +perturbation. A strange little vague feeling of pleasantness, as if +something good had happened to him would begin, and well up, and grow +within him, penetrating and intensifying his sense of the summer +sweetness round about, till it distracted his attention, and he must +suspend his occupation of the moment, to wonder, "What is it?" In +response, the vague pleasantness, like a cloud, would draw together and +take shape; and there was the spirited grey figure in the dog-cart, with +the black hat, and the dark hair and eyes, again dashing past him. + +And little by little he discovered that she was more than merely pretty +and interesting-looking. Her face, with all its piquancy, was a serious +face, a strenuous face. Under its humour and vivacity, he discovered a +glow . . . a glow . . . could it be the glow of a soul? Her eyes were +lustrous, but they were deep, as well. A quality shone in them rarer +even than character: a natural quality, indeed, and one that should +naturally be common: but one that is rare in England among women--among +nice women, at least: the quality of sex. The woman in the dog-cart was +nice. About that, he recognised with instant certainty, there could be +no two conjectures. But she was also, he recognised with equal +certainty, a woman: the opposite, the complement of man. Her eyes were +eyes you could imagine laughing at you, mocking you, teasing you, leading +you on, putting you off, seeing through you, disdaining you; but constant +in them was the miracle of womanhood; and you could imagine them +softening adorably, filling with heavenly weakness, yielding in womanly +surrender, trusting you, calling you, needing you. + +Our melancholic young squire of Craford was not a man much given to +quick-born enthusiasms; but now, as he put down his pen, and her face +shone before him for the twentieth time this sunny afternoon, now all at +once, "By Jove, she's unique," he cried out. "I have never seen a woman +to touch her. If she _is_ Madame Torrebianca----" + +But there he checked himself. + +"Of course she is n't. No such luck," he said, in dejection. + +And yet, he speculated, who else could she be? The simultaneous presence +of _two_ young foreign women in this out-of-the-way country neighbourhood +seemed, of all contingencies, the most unlikely. Well, if she really was +. . . + +He was conscious suddenly of a sensation to the last degree unfamiliar: a +commotion, piercing, regretful, desirous, actually in his heart, an organ +he had for years proudly fancied immune; and he took alarm. + +"Am I eighteen again? Positively, I must not think of her any more." + +But it was useless. In two minutes he was thinking of her harder than +ever, and the commotion in his heart was renewed. + +"If she really is Madame Torrebianca," he told himself, with a thrill and +a craving, "I shall see her on Sunday." + +The flowers, beyond there, in the sun, the droning of the bees, the +liquid bird-notes, the perfumes in the still soft air, all seemed to melt +and become part of his thought of her, rendering it more poignant, more +insidiously sweet. + +At last he started up, in a kind of anger. + +"Bah!" he cried, "It's the weather. It's this imbecile, love-sick +weather." + +And he carried his writing-materials indoors, to the billiard-room, a +northern room, looking into the big square court, where the light was +colourless, and the only perfume on the air was a ghost-like perfume of +last night's tobacco-smoke. + +But I don't know that the change did much good. In a few minutes-- + +"Bah!" he cried again, "It's those confounded eyes of hers. It's those +laughing, searching, haunting, promising eyes." + + +"Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear." + +It was the voice of Adrian, raised in song. And repeating the same +complaisant proffer, to a tune which I suspect was improvised, it drew +near along the outer passage, till, in due process, the door of the +billiard-room was opened, and Adrian stood upon the threshold. + +"Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine e-e-ear," he trolled +robustly--and then, espying Anthony, fell silent. + +Anthony appeared to be deep engrossed in letter-writing. + +"Ahem," said Adrian, having waited a little. + +But Anthony did not look up. + +"Well, of all unlikely places," said Adrian, wondering. + +Anthony's pen flew busily backwards and forwards across his paper. + +"Remarkable power of mental concentration," said Adrian, on a key of +philosophic comment. + +"Eh? What?" Anthony at last questioned, but absently, from the depths, +without raising his eyes. + +"I 've been hunting far and wide for you--ransacking the house, turning +the park topsy-turvy," said Adrian. + +"Eh? What?" questioned Anthony, writing on. + +But Adrian lost patience. + +"Eh? What? I 'll eh-what you," he threatened, shaking his fist. "Come. +Put aside that tiresome letter. 'Do you happen to know where your master +is?' says I to Wickersmith. 'Well, if you 'll pardon my saying so, sir, +I think I see him agoing in the direction of the billiard-room, saving +your presence, sir,' says Wickersmith to me." Adrian pantomimed the +supposed deference of the butler. Then, loftily, "But, 'Shoo' says I. +'An optical delusion, my excellent Wick. A Christian man would be +incapable of such a villainy. The billiard-room, that darksome cavern, +on a heaven-sent day like this? Shucks,' says I. Yet"--his attitude +became exhortative--"see how mighty is truth, see how she prevails, see +how the scoffer is confounded. To the billiard-room I transport myself, +sceptically, on the off-chance, and--here, good-lack, you are." + +"It's the weather," Anthony explained, having finally relinquished his +correspondence. "I was in the garden--but I could n't stand the weather." + +"The weather?" wondered Adrian. "You could n't stand the weather? My +poor lamb. Ah, what a delicate constitution. He could n't stand the +weather." Eyes uplifted, he wagged a compassionate head. + +But suddenly, from the sarcastic note, he passed to the censorious, and +then to a kind of gay rhapsodic. + +"The weather? Shame upon your insinuations. I will not hear one +syllable against it. The weather? There never _was_ such weather. The +weather? Oh, for the tongues of men and angels, to chant the glory of +the weather. The weather is made of sugar and spice, of frankincense and +myrrh, of milk and honey, of every conceivable ingredient that's nice. +The sky is an inverted bowl of Sèvres--that priceless bleu-royal; and +there are appetising little clouds of whipped cream sticking to it. The +air is full of gold, like eau-de-vie de Dantzic;--if we only had a +liquefying apparatus, we could recapture the first fine careless nectar +of the gods, the poor dead gods of Greece. The earth is as aromatic as +an orange stuck with cloves; I can't begin to tell you all the wondrous +woody, mossy, racy things it smells of. The sea is a great sheet of +watered-silk, as blue as my blue eyes. And the birds, the robins and the +throstles, the blackbirds and the black-caps, the linnets and the little +Jenny Wrens, knowing the value of silence, are hoarding it like misers; +but like prodigals, they 're squandering sound. The ear of mortal never +heard such a delirious, delicious, such a crystalline, argentine, +ivory-smooth, velvety-soft, such a ravishing, such an enravished tumult +of sweet voices. Showers, cascades, of pearls and rubies, emeralds, +diamonds, sapphires. The weather, says Anthony Rowleigh. He could n't +stand the weather. The weather is as perfect as a perfect work of +art--as perfect as one of my own incomparable madrigals. It is +absolutely perfect." + +He tossed his head, in sign of finality. + +"It appears so," Anthony discriminated gloomily; "but appearances are +risky things to judge by. It may have charms for a voluptuary like you; +but I"--and he took a tone of high austerity--"I, as an Englishman, have +my suspicions of anything so flagrantly un-English." + +"Apropos of things un-English," said Adrian, "I 'm pining for a serious +word with you." + +Anthony pulled a wry face. + +"Oh, if you 've been attacked by one of your periodic spasms of +seriousness," he sighed. + +"It's about calling on Madame Torrebianca," said Adrian. + +"Oh," sighed Anthony. With a presence of mind that I can't help thinking +rather remarkable, he feigned a continuity of mood; but something went +_ping_ within him. + +"Look here," said Adrian, imperatively. "I 'll thank you to drop that +air of ineffable fatigue of yours, and to sit up and listen. I don't +suppose you wish to be deliberately discourteous, do you? And as those +ladies happen to be new-comers, and your immediate neighbours, not to say +your tenants, I expect you are sufficiently acquainted with the usages of +polite society to know that a failure on your part to call would be +tantamount to a direct affront. Furthermore, as one of them (Miss Sandus +is, unhappily, still in the Götterdämmerung of the Establishment), as +Madame Torrebianca is coming to your house, as your guest, to hear Mass +on Sunday morning, I sincerely hope I need n't tell you that it's simply +_de rigueur_ that you should call before that occasion." + +He stood off, and raised his brown-red eyebrows, as who, from an +altitude, speaking _de par le Roi_, should challenge contumacy. + +But two could play at the game of eyebrow-raising. Anthony raised his. + +"Coming as my guest? Coming as my _guest_? I like that," he exclaimed. +"What have _I_ to do with her coming? If every stranger to whom you +choose to extend the privilege of hearing Mass in the Chapel, is thereby +to be constituted a _guest_,--_my_ guest,--I shall have my hands full +indeed. If she's a guest at all, if she's anybody's guest, she's yours; +You 've created the situation. Don't try to thrust the brunt of it on +me." + +Adrian flung back his head, and spoke from a still loftier altitude. + +"I believe you are the master of the house?" + +"The titular master," Anthony distinguished. "I years ago resigned all +real power into the pink and chubby hands of my mayor of the palace." +And he slightly bowed. + +"I disdain to answer your silly quibble over the word _guest_," Adrian +continued, ignoring the rejoinder. "La Nobil Donna Susanna Torrebianca +is a guest. And as master of the house, by your return, you _ex officio_ +supersede me in the capacity of host." + +"_Ex officio_?" repeated Anthony, considering. "The fashion of adorning +ordinary speech with classical quotations has long since passed from use." + +"And therefore,"--Adrian brought his theorem to its conclusion,--"unless +you particularly aspire to seem--and to be--an absolute barbarian, a +bear, a boor, a churl, and a curmudgeon,"--each epithet received an +augmented stress,--"you must call at Craford New Manor with the least +possible delay. As I find myself in rather good form just now, and feel +that I should shine to perhaps exceptional advantage, I suggest that we +call forthwith." + +Anthony got up, and sleepily stretched his arms. + +"Ah, well," he consented; "since your fond heart is set upon it--there. +It will be an awful fag; but when Dimplechin becomes importunate, I can +deny him nothing." + +He stifled a yawn. + +Adrian's round face radiated triumph. + +"You are a good child, after all," he said, "and you shall have jam with +your tea." + +"I think I have fooled that fellow to the top of his bent," was Anthony's +silent self-gratulation. + + +His pulse beat high, as they walked across the park. + +"How could I ever have contemplated waiting till Sunday?" he asked +himself, in a maze. + +Sunday, the day after the day after to-morrow, seemed, in his present +eagerness, to belong to the dim distances of futurity. + +And all the way, as they passed under the great trees, over the cool, +close turf, with its powdering of daisies and buttercups and poppies, +through alternations of warm sun and deep shadow, where sheep browsed, +and little snow-white awkward lambkins sported, and birds piped, and the +air was magical with the scent of the blossoming may,--all the way, amid +the bright and dark green vistas of lawn and glade, the summer loveliness +mixed with his anticipation of standing face to face with her, and +rendered it more poignant. + + "If cats were always kittens, + And rats were always mice, + And elderberries were younger berries, + Now would n't that be nice?"-- + +Adrian, walking beside him, trilled joyously. + +"You seem in high spirits," Anthony remarked. + +"I 've been thinking of your suggestion," said Adrian. + +Anthony frowned, at a loss. + +"My suggestion--?" + +"Yes--your suggestion that I should marry her." + +Anthony stared. + +"What?" he ejaculated. + +"Yes," said Adrian, blandly. "I think the suggestion is decidedly a +happy one. I think I shall pay my court to her." + +"_You_? Man, you 're bereft of your senses," said Anthony, with force. + +"You need n't be so violent," said Adrian. "It's your own idea." + +"I was making game of you--I was pulling your leg. Marry her? She would +n't look at you," said Anthony, contumelious. + +"Why not, I should like to know?" Adrian haughtily enquired. + +"You 're--you 're too young," Anthony reminded him. + +"Too young?" mildly demurred Adrian, wide-eyed. "I 'm thirty, if I 'm a +day." + +"You 're thirty-nine, if you 're a day," said Anthony. "But you 'll +never be thirty--not even when you 're forty. You breathe perennial +spring." + +"I confess," said Adrian, with deliberation, "I freely confess that I am +not an effete and blasé old thing, like--like one who shall be nameless. +There is a variety of fruit (the husbandman's despair), a tough, +cross-grained, sour-hearted variety of fruit, that dries up and shrivels, +and never ripens. There is another variety of fruit that grows rounder +and rosier, tenderer and juicier and sweeter, the longer it hangs on the +tree. Time cannot wither it. The child of the sun and the zephyr, it is +honey-full and fragrant even unto its inmost ripe red core." + +He expanded his chest, and significantly thumped it. + +"Mark you," he resumed, "I name no names. The soul of delicacy and +discretion, as of modesty and kindness, I name no names. But as for +myself, that I am young I acknowledge. Those whom the gods love are ever +young. Yet I am old enough, at least, to be capable of fresh, impulsive +feelings. I am old enough to have cast the crude, harsh pessimism of +inexperience. I am old enough to have outlived my disillusions. I am +old enough to have learned that the good things of life are good, and to +understand that the rose-buds in the garden are there to be gathered. +And I 'm not such a silly as to forbear to gather them. I think I shall +make Madame Torrebianca the object of my respectful solicitations." + +Anthony fixed eyes of derision on him. + +"Oh, the fatuity of the man!" he jeered. "If you could see yourself. +You 're sandy-haired--and miles too fat." + +"I beg your pardon," said Adrian, with dignity. "My hair is of a very +fashionable shade--tawny, which indicates a passionate heart, with +under-waves of gold, as if the sunshine had got entangled in it. I will +not dwell upon its pretty truant tendency to curl. And as for what you +call _fat_--let me tell you that there are people who admire a rich, +ample figure in a man. I admit, I am not a mere anatomy, I am not a mere +hungry, lean-faced, lantern-jawed, hollow-eyed, sallow-cheeked, +vulture-beaked, over-dressed exiguity, like--well, mark you, I name no +names. I need not allude to my other and higher attributes--my wit, my +sympathy, my charming affectations, my underlying strength of character +(a lion clothed in rose-leaves--what?), my genius for the divinest of the +arts. I think I shall lay myself at the feet of Donna Susanna. The rest +of the sex"--his gesture put them from him--"may coif St. Catherine." + +"I have n't the honour of knowing the lady in question," said Anthony, +with detachment. "But if she is anything like the paragon you have led +me to expect, let me, as your sincere well-wisher, let me warn you not to +cherish hopes that are foredoomed to disappointment. If, on the other +hand, she should indeed admire your style of rich, ample figure, I shall +deem it my duty to save you from her--at no matter what cost to myself. +I cannot allow you to link yourself for life to a woman without taste." + +And then they rang the bell at the vast, much-bestuccoed portal of the +new house; and Anthony's heart, I think, for the minute stood still +within him. The door was opened, and he could look into the big, ugly, +familiar marble hall;--familiar still, and yet changed and strange, and +even beautified; with new soft hangings, and Persian carpets, and +flowers, and books, and bibelots about; with a new aspect of luxury and +elegance; with a strange new atmosphere of feminine habitation, that went +a little to Anthony's head, that called up clearer than ever the +dark-haired, strenuous-faced woman of the dog-cart, and turned his +imagination to visions and divinings of intimate feminine things. One +thought of chiffons, and faint, elusive perfumes, and the gleam and +rustle of silken garments; one heard soft voices, trills of feminine +laughter, the whispering of feminine secrets; one saw ladies in low +chairs, reading or embroidering by lamp-light. + +So, for an instant, Anthony stood at Susanna's threshold, looking into +her antechamber, breathless almost with his sense of her imminence;--and +then the tall flunkey said, in the fastidious accents of flunkeydom, "Net +et _em_, sir;" and all my hero's high-strung emotion must spend itself in +the depositing of a card. + +As they turned away, and the summer landscape again met him with its warm +breath and radiant smile, he gloomed at it savagely, from eyes of deep +rebuke, as at a thing that had beguiled him with false promises, wronged +and defrauded him. And he flew out petulantly at poor Adrian-- + +"Here's a pretty dance you 've led me, for the pleasure of a word with +Mr. Yellowplush." + +"Oh?" said Adrian, taken aback. "I expected you 'd be relieved. You did +n't want to see them. And the exigencies of the case are satisfied by +leaving cards." + +"I could have sent my card by you," growled Anthony. + +"You 've had a lovely walk, with a lovely comrade, in lovely weather," +said Adrian. + +"The weather is simply brazen," Anthony declared. + + + + +V + +Judged by the standards of a cit, countrymen, I believe, are generally +early risers; but even for a countryman, Anthony, next morning, rose at +an unlikely hour. The tall clock in the hall, accenting with its slow +sardonic tick the silence of the sleeping house, marked a quarter to +five, as he undid the heavy old-fashioned fastenings of the door, the +oaken bar, the iron bolts and chains, and let himself out. + +He let himself out; but then he stood still for a minute on the +terrace, arrested by the exquisite shock of the wonderful early air: +the wonderful light, keen air, a fabric woven of elfin filaments, the +breathings of green lives: an aether distilled of secret essences, in +the night, by the earth and the sea,--for there was the sea's tang, as +well as the earth's balm, there was the bitter-sweet of the sea and the +earth at one. + +He stood for a minute, stopped by the exquisite shock of it; and then +he set forth for an aimless morning ramble. + +The dew clung in big iridescent crystals to the grass, where the sheep +were already wide-awake and eager at their breakfasts; it gleamed like +sprinkled rubies on the scarlet petals of the poppies, and like +fairies' draughts of yellow wine in the enamelled hollows of the +buttercups; on the brown earth of the pathways, where the long shadows +were purple, it lay white like hoar-frost. The shadows were still +long, the sunbeams still almost level; the sun shone gently, as through +an imperceptible thin veil, gilding with pinkish gold the surfaces it +touched--glossy leaves, and the rough bark of tree-trunks, and the +points of the spears of grass. A thicker veil, a gauze of pearl and +silver, dimmed the blue of the sea, and blurred the architecture of the +cliffs. On the sea's edge lay a long grey cloud, a long, low, soft +cloud, flat, like a band of soft grey velvet. The cloud was grey +indeed; but (as if prismatic fires were smouldering there) its grey +held in solution all the colours of the spectrum, so that you could +discern elusive rose-tints, fugitive greens, translucent reflections of +amethyst and amber. + +The morning was inexpressibly calm and peaceful--yet it was busy with +sound and with movement. Rooks, those sanctimonious humbugs, circled +overhead, cawing thieves' warnings, that had the twang of sermons, to +other rooks, out of sight in neighbouring seed-fields. Lapwings, +humbugs too, but humbugs in a prettier cause, started from the +shrubberies where their eggs were hidden, and fluttered lamely towards +the open. Sparrows innumerable were holding their noisy, high-spirited +disputations; blackbirds were repeating and repeating that deep +melodious love-call of theirs, which they have repeated from the +beginning of the world, and no ear has ever tired of; finches were +singing, greenfinches, chaffinches; thrushes were singing, singing +ecstatically in the tree-tops, and lower down the imitative little +blackcaps were trying to imitate them. Recurrently, from a distance, +came the soft iterations of a cuckoo. Bees went about their affairs +with a mien of sombre resolution, mumbling to themselves, in stolid +monotone, "It-'s-got-to-be-done-and-it-'s-dogged-that-does-it, +it-'s-got-to-be-done-and-it-'s-dogged-that-does-it," and showing thus +that even the beautiful task of flying from flower to flower and +gathering honey, may, if you are a bee, fail to interest you, and +necessitate an act of will; while butterflies, charmed by the continual +surprises, satisfied by the immediate joys, of the present moment, +flitted irresponsibly, capriciously, whithersoever a bright colour +beckoned, and gave no thought to the moments that had not yet come. +Everywhere there was business, rumour, action; but everywhere, none the +less, there was the ineffable peace of early morning, of the hours when +man--the peace-destroyer?--is still at rest. And everywhere, +everywhere, there was the wonderful pristine air, the virginal air, +that seemed to penetrate beyond the senses, and to reach the +imagination, a voice whispering untranslatable messages, waking mystic +surmises of things unknown but somehow kindred. + +Anthony strolled on at random, down the purple-shaded paths, under the +spreading oaks and bending elms, over the sun-tipped greensward, +satisfied, like the butterflies, by the experiences of the passing +moment, enjoying, in leisurely intimacy, the aspects and vicissitudes +of his way; for a melancholy man, curiously cheerful; the tears of +things, the flat and unprofitable uses of the world, forgotten: for a +melancholy man, even curiously elated: elated--oh, more than likely +without recognising it--as one is to whom the house of life has +discovered a new chamber-door, and, therewith, new promises of +adventure. He strolled on at random, swinging his stick nonchalantly, +. . . till, all at once, he saw something that brought him, and the +heart within him, to a simultaneous standstill: something he had been +more or less sub-consciously thinking of the whole time, perhaps?--for +it brought him to a standstill, as if he saw his thought made flesh. + +He had just mounted a little knoll, and now, glancing down before him, +he saw, not twenty yards away, under a hawthorn in full blossom,-- + +"Madame Torrebianca, as I am alive," he gasped. + + + + +VI + +Susanna was standing under the tree, gazing intently upwards; and she +was vehemently shaking her fist at its foliage, and making, from the +point of her lips, a sound, sibilant, explosive (something like +"Ts-s-s! Ts-s-s-s! Ts-s-s-s-s!"), that was clearly meant as an +intimidation. She had on a dark-blue frock, blue flannel I think, +plain to the verge of severity: a straight-falling jacket, a straight, +loose skirt: plain, but appropriate to the hour no doubt; and, instead +of a hat, she wore a scarf of black lace, draped over her black hair +mantilla-wise. + +Anthony, glowing with a sense that he was in great luck, and trying to +think what practical step he should take to profit by it, watched her +for a minute before she caught sight of him. An obvious practical +step, she having evidently some trouble on her hands, might have been +to approach her with an offer of assistance. But if all who love are +poets, men near to love will be poets budding; and who was it said that +the obvious is the one thing a poet is incapable of seeing? + +When, however, she did catch sight of him, abruptly, without +hesitation, she called him to her. + +"Come here--come here at once," she called, and made an imperious +gesture. (I wonder whether she realised who he was, or thought no +further as yet, in her emergency, than just that here, providentially, +was a man who could help.) + +Marvelling, palpitating, Anthony flew to obey. + +"Look," said Susanna, breathlessly, pointing into the tree. "What is +one to do? He won't pay the slightest attention to me, and I have +nothing that I can throw." + +She had, in her left hand, a small leather-bound book, apparently a +prayer-book, and, twisted round her wrist, a red-coral rosary; but I +suppose she would not have liked to throw either of these. + +Bewildered a little by the suddenness with which the situation had come +to pass, but conscious, acutely, exultantly conscious of it as a +delectable situation,--exultantly conscious of her nearness to him, of +their solitude together, there in the privacy (as it were) of the +morning,--and tingling to the vibrations of her voice, to the freshness +and the warmth of her strong young beauty, Anthony was still able, +vaguely, half-mechanically, to lift his eyes, and look in the direction +whither she pointed. . . + +The spectacle that met him banished immediately, for the moment, all +preoccupations personal. + +On one of the lower of the flowering branches, but high enough to be +beyond arm's reach, or even cane's reach, in the crook of the bough, +crouched, making ready to spring, a big black cat, the tip of his tail +twitching with contained excitement, his yellow eyes fixed murderously +on the branch next above: where, in the agitation of supreme distress, +a chaffinch, a little grey hen-chaffinch, was hopping backwards and +forwards, sometimes rising a few inches into the air, but always +returning to the branch, and uttering a succession of terrified, +agonised, despairing tweets. + +It was a hateful thing to see. It was the genius of cruelty made +manifest in a single intense tableau. + +"Why does n't the bird fly away?" Susanna painfully questioned. She +was pale, and her lips were strained; she looked sick and hopeless. +"Is she fascinated? The cat will surely get her." + +"No--her nest must be somewhere there--she is guarding her nestlings," +said Anthony. + +Then he raised his stick menacingly, and, in tones of stern command, +addressed the cat. + +"Patapouf! I am ashamed of you. Come down--come down from there--come +down directly." + +And he emphasised each staccato summons by a sharp rap of his stick +against the highest point of the tree that he could reach. + +The cat turned his head, to look--and the spell was broken. His +attitude relaxed. Anthony put his hands on the tree, and made as if to +climb it. The cat gave a resigned shrug of the shoulders, and came +scrambling down. Next instant, (if you please), unabashed, tail erect, +back arched, he was rubbing his whiskers against Anthony's legs, +circling round them, s-shaping himself between them, and purring +conciliations, as who should say, "There, there. Though you _have_ +spoiled sport, I won't quarrel with you, and I _am_ delighted to see +you." The bird, twittering, flew up, and disappeared in the higher +foliage. + +Susanna breathed a deep sigh of relief. + +"Oh, thank you, thank you," she said, with fervour. Then she shook her +finger, and frowned, at Patapouf. "Oh, you bad cat! You cruel cat!" +And raising eyes dark with reproach to Anthony's, "Yet he seems to be a +friend of yours?" she wondered. (By this time, of course, she must +have realised who he was. Very likely she had her emotions.) + +Anthony, the bird in safety, could tingle anew to the deep notes of her +voice, could exult anew in their dual solitude. + +"Yes," he acknowledged, "Patapouf is a friend of mine--he is even a +member of my household. You must try not to think too ill of him. He +really is n't half a bad sort at bottom. But he 's English, and he +lives in the country. So, a true English country gentleman, he has +perhaps an exaggerated passion for the pleasures of the chase--and when +questions touching them arise, seems simply to be devoid of the ethical +sense. He 's not a whit worse than his human neighbours--and he 's a +hundred times handsomer and more intelligent." + +Susanna, smiling a little, looked down at Patapouf, and considered. + +"He is certainly very handsome," she agreed. "And--Patapouf? I like +his name. I will not think too ill of him if he will promise never +again to try to catch a--a _fringuello_. I don't remember the English +for _fringuello_?" + +Her glance and her inflection conveyed a request to be reminded. + +But Anthony shook his head. + +"And I shall at once proceed to forget it. _Fringuello_ is so much +prettier." + +Susanna gave a light little trill of laughter. + +"What a delicious laugh," thought he that heard it. + +And, laughing, "But before it has quite gone from you, do, pray, for my +instruction, just pronounce it once," she pleaded. + +"How extraordinarily becoming to her that mantilla is," he thought. +"How it sets off her hair and her complexion--how it brings out the +sparkle of her eyes." + +Her fine black hair, curling softly about her brow, and rippling away, +under the soft black lace, in loose abundance; her warm, clear +complexion; the texture of her skin, firm and smooth, with tiny blue +veins faintly showing at the temples; her sparkling, spirited dark +eyes, their merriment, their alertness, their graver underglow; the +spirited, high carriage of her head; that dark-blue, simple, +appropriate frock; and then her figure, upright, nervous, energetic, +with its fluent lines, with its fragrance of youth and of +womanhood,--oh, he was acutely conscious of them, he was thrilled by +his deep sense of their nearness to him, alone there, in the wide sunny +circle of green landscape, in the seclusion of that unfrequented hour. + +"The word comes back to me dimly," he said, "as--as something like +_finch_." + +"Finch?" said Susanna. "Thank you very much. Ah, yes,"--with an air +of recalling it,--"_finch_, to be sure. You are right," she smiled, +"_fringuello_ is prettier." + +"What an adorable mouth," thought he. "The red of it--the curves it +takes--and those incredible little white teeth, like snow shut in a +rose." + +"And this is a morning meet for pretty words, is it not?" he suggested. +"It might strike an unprejudiced observer as rather a pretty morning." + +"Oh, I should be less reticent," said Susanna. "If the unprejudiced +observer had his eyes open, would n't it strike him as a perfectly +lovely morning?" + +"We must not run the risk of spoiling it," Anthony cautioned her, +diminishing his voice, "by praising it too warmly to its face." + +She gave another light trill of laughter. + +"Her laugh is like rainbow-tinted spray. It is a fountain-jet of +musical notes, each note a cut gem," thought the infatuated fellow. + +"I trust," he hazarded, "that you will not condemn me for a swaggerer, +if I lay claim to share with you a singularity. The morning is a +morning like another. God is prodigal of lovely mornings. But we two +are singular in choosing to begin it at its sweeter end." + +"Yes," Susanna assented, "that is a singularity--in England. But in +Italy, or in the part of Italy where my habits were formed, it is one +of our lazy customs. We like always to be abroad in time to enjoy what +we call 'the hours immaculate,'--_l'ure immacolae_, in our dialect." + +"The hours immaculate? It is an uncommonly fine description," approved +Anthony. "They will be a race of poets in your part of Italy?" + +The graver underglow in Susanna's eyes eclipsed, for an instant, their +dancing surface lights. + +"They _were_ a race of poets," she said regretfully, "before they +learned how to read and write. But now, with the introduction of +popular education,"--she shook her head,--"the poetry is dying out." + +"Ah," said Anthony, with a meaning flourish of his stick, "there it is. +The poetic spirit always dies at the advance of that ghastly fetich." +Then he spoke sententiously. "Popular education is a contrivance of +the devil, whereby he looks to extinguish every last saving grace from +the life of the populace. Not poetry only, but all good things and all +good feelings,--religion, reverence, courtesy,--sane contentment, +rational ambition,--the right sort of humility, the right sort of +pride,--they all go down before it: whilst, in the ignorance which it +disseminates, blasphemy, covetousness, bumptiousness, bad taste (and +bad art and bad literature, to gratify it), every form of +wrong-headedness and wrong-heartedness flourish like the seven plagues +of Egypt. But it was all inevitable from the day that meddling German +busybody invented printing--if not from the day his heathenish +precursor invented letters." + +He delivered these sentiments with a good deal of warmth. + +Susanna's eyes brightened. I am not sure there was n't a quick little +flash of raillery in their brightness. + +"I would seem," she mused, "to have touched by accident upon a subject +that is near your heart." + +Anthony threw up a deploring hand. + +"There!" he grieved. "The subjects that are near my heart, it is the +study of my life to exclude from my conversation. But sometimes one +forgets oneself." + +Susanna smiled,--a smile, perhaps, that implied a tacit memorandum and +reflection, a subdued, withheld, occult little smile. Again, I am not +sure it had n't its tinge of raillery. + +"And since I _have_ forgotten myself," Anthony pursued, "I wonder +whether you will bear with me if I continue to do so twenty seconds +longer?" + +"Oh, I beg of you," Susanna politely hastened to accede. + +"There is another subject equally near my heart," said he. + +Her eyes were full of expectancy. + +"Yes--?" she encouraged him. + +"I was disappointed not to find you at home when I called yesterday," +said he. "I rejoice for a hundred reasons that chance has led to our +meeting this morning. Not to mention ninety-nine of them, I am anxious +to discharge, with as little loss of time as may be, the very onerous +debt I owe you." + +Susanna opened her eyes, in puzzlement. + +"A debt? I am your creditor unawares." + +"My debt of apologies and condolences," he explained. + +She knitted her brows, in mental effort. + +"I am ignorant alike of my grievance and of your offence," she said. + +"I am deeply sensible of your magnanimity," said he; "but I will not +abuse it. They have let you the ugliest house in the United Kingdom; +and, as the owner, the ultimate responsibility must come home to me." + +"Oh," cried Susanna. + +It was a gay, treble little cry, that told him he had been fortunate +enough to amuse as well as to surprise her. She shook her head, while +her eyes were liquid with mirth. + +"The house is ugly?" she enquired. "I have read of it as 'a vast and +imposing edifice in the style of the Renaissance.'" + +"As a confessor of the True Faith," Anthony warned her, "you must never +believe what you read in the _County History_. It was compiled by a +Protestant clergyman; it teems with misinformation; it ought to be +placed upon the Index. The house in question is a vast and pompous +contiguity of stucco, in the style of 1830. It looks like a Riviera +hotel a good deal run to seed. It looks like a shabby relation of +Buckingham Palace. It looks like a barrack decorated with the +discoloured trimmings of a bride-cake." + +"Ah, well, be it so," consented Susanna. "The house is ugly--but it is +comfortable. And, in any case, your conscience is too sensitive. The +ultimate responsibility for my having taken it comes home to no one, +unless--well, to be strictly just, unless to a grandfather of mine, who +has been dead these many long years." + +Which pronouncement may very possibly have struck her listener as +enigmatic. But I daresay he felt that he scarcely knew her well enough +to press for an elucidation. And, anyhow, without pause, she went on-- + +"Besides, everything else--the park, the country--is beyond words +beautiful." + +"Yes," acquiesced Anthony, "the country is beautiful, at this season. +That's why everyone abandons it, and scuttles up to town." + +Susanna's face lighted, with interest. + +"Indeed? Is _that_ the reason? I had observed the fact, but I was at +a loss to think what the reason for it could be." + +"No," said Anthony, eating his words, "that is not the reason. It were +base to deceive you. A normally-constituted Englishman no more objects +to beauty, than a deep-sea fish objects to dry weather or the +income-tax. He abandons the country during the three pleasantest +months of the year, not because it is beautiful, for he is sublimely +unconscious that it's beautiful, but because, during those months, in +the country, there's nothing that he can course, hunt, or shoot." + +Susanna pondered. + +"I see," she said. "And is--is there anything that he can course, +hunt, or shoot in town?" + +"Not exactly," Anthony admitted. "But there are people--to whom he can +do the next best thing. There are people whom he can bore. It is an +interim sport. It is an annual national tournament. The good knights +flock together from the four corners of England, to tilt at one +another, and try who shall approve himself the most indefatigable, the +most indomitable bore." + +Susanna gazed dreamily at the distance for a moment. Then, with sudden +actuality, "Apropos of interim sports," she demanded, "what are you +going to do about that cat of yours?" A movement of her head indicated +Patapouf. + +Hovering near them, Patapouf was busy with a game of +make-believe--pretending that the longish grass was a jungle, and +himself a tiger, stalking I know not what visionary prey: now gingerly, +with slow calculated liftings and down-puttings of his feet, stealing a +silent march; now, flat on his belly, rapidly creeping forward; now +halting, recoiling, masking himself behind some inequality of the +ground, peering warily over it, while his tail swayed responsive to the +eager activity of his brain; and now, having computed the range to a +nicety, his haunches wagging, now, with a leap all grace and +ruthlessness,--a flash of blackness through the air,--springing upon +the creature of his fancy. + +Susanna and Anthony watched him for a little without speaking. + +"You can't deny that he has imagination," said Anthony, at length, +turning towards her. + +"He is beautiful and clever," said Susanna, "I could wish he were as +virtuous. This, of course, is sheer play-acting. He 's simply waiting +till our backs are turned, to renew his designs upon the bird's nest." + +"When I turn my back I 'll carry him with me," Anthony answered. But +in his soul he said: "What 's the good of telling her that that will +only be to defer the evil moment? Of course he has marked the tree. +He will come back to it at his leisure." + +"I beg your pardon," said Susanna. "That will merely be to put the +evil off. The cat certainly knows the tree. Directly he 's at +liberty, he will come back." + +"Oh--?" faltered Anthony, a trifle disconcerted. "Oh? Do--do you +think so?" + +"Yes," she said. "There 's not a doubt of it. But I am acquainted +with a discipline, which, if I have your sanction to apply it, will +unnerve Monsieur Patapouf, so far as this particular tree is concerned, +until the end of time. Cats have a very high sense of their personal +freedom--they hate to be tied up. Well, if we tie Monsieur Patapouf to +this tree, so that he can't get away, and leave him alone here for an +hour or two, he will conceive such a distaste for everything connected +with this tree that he will never voluntarily come within speaking +distance of it again." + +"Really? That seems very ingenious," commented Anthony. + +"'T is an old wives' remedy," said Susanna. "You don't happen to have +such a thing as a piece of string in your pocket? It does n't matter. +But you have a penknife? Thank you. Now please catch your cat." + +Anthony called Patapouf, exerting those blandishments one must exert +who would coax a hesitating cat. + +Patapouf, by a series of étapes and délours, approached, and was +secured. + +Susanna, meanwhile, having laid her rosary and prayer-book on the +grass, unbuttoned her blue flannel jacket, and removed from round her +waist, where it was doing duty as a belt, a broad band of +cherry-coloured ribbon. This, with Anthony's penknife, she slitted and +ripped several times lengthwise, till she had obtained a yard or two of +practicable tether. + +"Now, first, we must make him a collar," she said, measuring off what +she deemed ribbon sufficient for that purpose. + +Anthony held Patapouf, who, flattered by their attentions, and +unsuspicious of their ulterior aim, submitted quietly, while Susanna +adjusted the collar to his neck. They had to stand rather close +together during this process; I am not sure that sometimes their +fingers did n't touch. From Susanna's garments--from her hair?--rose +never so faint a perfume, like the perfume of violets. I am quite sure +that Anthony's heart was in a commotion. + +"There," she remarked, finishing the collar with a bow, and bestowing +upon the bow a little tap of approbation; "red and black--it's very +becoming to him, is n't it?" + +Then she tied Patapouf to the tree, leaving him, in charity, perhaps +twice his own length of tether free, and resumed possession of her book +and beads. + +An instant later, she had slightly inclined her head, smiled a good-bye +into Anthony's eyes, and was moving briskly away, in the direction of +Craford New Manor. + + + + +VII + +Adrian, pink with the livelier pink of Adrian freshly tubbed and +razored, and shedding a cheerful aroma of bay-rum, regarded Anthony, +across the bowlful of roses that occupied the centre of the breakfast +table, with a show of perplexity. + +In the end, thrusting forward his chin, and dropping his eyelids, +whereby his expression became remote and superior, "The state of mind +of a person like you," he announced, "is a thing I am totally unable to +conceive." + +And he plunged his spoon into his first egg. + +"It is inexplicable, it is downright uncanny," Anthony was thinking, as +he munched his toast, "the effect she produces upon a man; the way she +pursues one, persists with one. I see her, I hear her voice, her +laughter, as clearly as if she were still present. I can't get rid of +her, I can't shut her out." + +Adrian, his announcement provoking no response, spoke up. + +"I am utterly unable," he repeated, "to conceive the state of mind of a +person like you." + +"Of course you are," said Anthony, with affability. + +"I suppose," he thought, "it's because she is what they call a +pronounced personality,--though that does n't seem a very flattering +description. I suppose it's her odylic force." + +Adrian selected a second egg, and placed it in his egg-cup. + +"You live, you move, you have a sort of being," he said, as he operated +upon the egg-shell; "and, apparently, you live contented. Yet, be +apprised by me, you live in the manner of the beasts that perish. For +the whole excuse, warrant, purpose, and business of life, you treat as +alien to your equation." + +"The business of life I entrust to my eminently competent man of +business," said Anthony, with a bow. + +"She 's so magnificently vivid," he thought. "That white skin of hers, +and the red lips, and the white teeth; that cloud of black hair, and +the sweep of it as it leaves her brow; and then those luminous, lucid, +glowing, glowing eyes--that last smile of them, before she went away! +She gives one such a sense of intense vitality, of withheld power, of +unknown possibilities." + +Adrian, with some expenditure of pains, extracted the spine from a +grilled sardine. + +"These children of the inconstant wave," he mused, "these captives from +the inscrutable depths of ocean--the cook ought to bone them before she +sends them to table, ought n't she? _Labor et amor_. The warrant for +life is labour, and the business of life is love." + +"You should address your complaints to the cook in person," said +Anthony. + +"That's it--unknown possibilities," he thought. "She 's vivid, but she +is n't obvious. It's a vividness that is all reserves--that hints, but +does n't tell. It's the vividness of the South, of the Italy that +produced her,--'Italy, whose work still serves the world for miracle.' +She's vivid, but not in primary colours. I defy you, for example, to +find the word for her--the word that would make her visible to one who +had never seen her." + +"They 're immensely improved by a drop or two of Worcester sauce," said +Adrian, with his mouth full. "Observe how, in the labyrinth of +destiny, journeys end in the most romantic and improbable conjunctions. +These fishlets from a southern sea--this sauce from a northern +manufacturing town." + +"And then her figure," thought Anthony; "that superb, tall, pliant +figure,--the flow of it, the spring of it,--the lines it takes when she +moves, when she walks,--its extraordinary union of strength with +fineness." + +"The longest night," said Adrian, "is followed by a dawn." He dropped +three lumps of sugar into his tea-cup. "There 's a paragraph in this +week's _Beaux and Belles_ which says that sugar in tea is quite the +correct thing again. Thank mercy. Tongue can never tell the +hankerings my sweet-tooth has suffered during the years that sugar has +been unfashionable. + + "Nearest neighbours though they dwell, + Neighbour Tongue can never tell + What Neighbour Tooth has had to dree, + Nearest neighbours though they be," + +he softly hummed. "But that's really from a poem about toothache, and +does n't perhaps apply. Do _you_ labour? Do _you_ love?" he enquired. + +"Love is such an ambiguous term," said Anthony, with languor. + +"Yes--strength and fineness: those are her insistent notes," he was +thinking. "She is strong, strong. She is strong as a perfect young +animal is strong. Yet she is fine. She is fine as only, of all +created beings, a fine woman can be fine--a woman delicate, sensitive, +high-bred, fine in herself, and with all her belongings fine." + +"Life," said Adrian, "is a thing a man should come by honestly; a thing +the possession of which a man should justify; a thing a man should +earn." + +"Some favoured individuals, I have heard, inherit it from their +forebears," said Anthony, as one loth to dogmatise, on the tone of a +mere suggestion. + +"Pish," answered Adrian, with absoluteness. "Our forebears affect my +thesis only in so far as they did not forbear. At most, they touched +the button. The rest--the adventurous, uncertain, interesting rest--we +must do ourselves. We must _earn_ our life; and then we should _spend_ +it--lavishly, like noble, freehanded gentlemen. Well, we earn our life +by labour; and then, if we spend as the gods design, we spend our life +in love. I could quote Browning, I could quote Byron, I could even +quote What's-his-name, the celebrated German." + +"You could--but you won't," interposed Anthony, with haste. "It is +excellent to have a giant's strength, but tyrannous to use it like a +giant." + +"The puzzling thing, however," he reflected, "is that I can't in the +least realise her as what she is. She is a widow, she has been +married. I can't in the least think of her as a woman who has been +married. Not that she strikes one exactly as a young girl, +either,--she exhibits too plentiful a lack of young-girlish rawness and +insipidity,--she 's a woman, she 's a _femme faite_. But I can't think +of her as a woman who has passed through marriage. One feels a +freshness, a bloom, a something untouched, intact. One feels the +presence of certain inexperiences. And yet--well, by the card, one's +feeling is mistaken." + +Adrian sprinkled sugar and poured cream over a plateful of big red +strawberries. + +"All this--and Heaven too," he piously murmured. + +Then, rosy face and blue eyes bright with anticipation, he tasted one. +Slowly the brightness faded. + +"Deceivers!" he cried, falling back in his seat, and shaking his fist +at the tall glass dish from which he had helped himself. "Fair as +Hyperion, false as dicers' oaths. Acid and watery--a mere sour bath. +You may have them all." He pushed the dish towards Anthony. "I +suppose it's too early in the season to hope for good ones. But +this"--he charged a plate with bread, butter, and marmalade--"this +honest, homely Scottish marmalade, this can always be depended upon to +fill the crannies." And therewith he broke into song. + + "To fill the crannies, + The mannie's crannies, + +Then hey for the sweeties of bonny Dundee!" he carolled lustily. "Let +me see--I was saying?" he resumed. "Ah, yes, I was saying that the +state of mind of a man like you is a thing I am utterly unable to +conceive. And that 's funny, because it is generally true that the +larger comprehends the less. But I look at you, and I think to myself, +thinks I, 'There is a man--or at least the semblance of a man,--a +breathing thing at least, with anthropoid features and dimensions,--who +is never, never, never tormented by the feeling--'Now, tell me, what +feeling do you conjecture I mean?" + +"Don't know, I 'm sure," said Anthony, without much animation. + +"'By the feeling that he ought to be bending over a sheet of paper, +ruled in pretty parallels of fives, trying to embellish the same with +semi-breves and crotchets.' That is what I think to myself, thinks I; +and the thought leaves me gasping. I am utterly unable to conceive +your state of mind." + +"I shan't--barring happy accidents--see her again till Sunday; and +to-day is only Friday," Anthony was brooding. + +"Apropos," he said to Adrian, "I remember your telling me that Friday +was unlucky." + +"Tut," said Adrian. "That is n't apropos in the slightest degree. The +difference that baffles me, I expect, is that I 've the positive, you +'ve the negative, temperament; I 've the active, you 've the passive; I +'ve the fertile, you 've the sterile. It's the difference between Yea +and Nay, between Willy and Nilly. Serenely, serenely, you will drift +to your grave, and never once know what it is to be consumed, harried, +driven by a deep, inextinguishable, unassuageable craving to write a +song. You 'll never know the heartburn, the unrest, the +conscience-sickness, the self-abasement that I know when I 'm not +writing one, nor the glorious anguish of exhilaration when I am. I can +get no conception of your state of mind--any more than a nightingale +could conceive the state of mind of a sparrow. In a sparrowish way, it +must be rather blissful--no? We artists are the salt of the earth, of +course; but every art knows its own bitterness, and--_il faut souffrir +pour être sel_." + +"It's the difference between egotism rampant and modesty regardant," +Anthony, with some grimness, returned. "I am content to sit in my +place, and watch the pantomime. You long to get upon the stage. Your +unassuageable craving to write a song is, in its essence, just an +unassuageable craving to make yourself an object of attention. And +that's the whole truth about you artists. I recollect your telling me +that Friday was unlucky." + +"Oh, how superficial you are," Adrian plaintively protested. "A man +like me, you should understand, is meant for the world--for the world's +delight, for mankind's wonder. And here unfortunate circumstances--my +poverty and not my will--constrain me to stint the world of its due: to +languish in this lost corner of Nowhere, like Wamba the son of Witless, +the mere professed buffoon of a merer franklin. Well, my unassuageable +craving to write a song is, in its essence, just a great, splendid, +generous desire to indemnify the world. The world needs me--the world +has me not--but the world _shall_ have me. For the world's behoof, I +will translate myself into semi-breves and crotchets. So _there_! +Besides, to be entirely frank, I can't help it. Nothing human is +perfect that does not exhibit somewhere a fine inconsequence. Thus I +exhibit mine. I make music from a high sense of duty, to enrich the +world; but at the same time I make it because I can't help making it. +I make it as the bee makes honey, as the Jew makes money, +spontaneously, inevitably. It is my nature to,--just as it 's the +nature of fire to burn, and of dairy-maids to churn. It is the +inherent, ineradicable impulse of my bounteous soul." + +"You told me in so many words that Friday was unlucky," said Anthony. + +"Well, and so it is," said Adrian. + +"I don't agree with you. Friday, in my experience, is the luckiest day +of the seven. All sorts of pleasant things have happened to me on +Friday." + +"That's merely because your sponsors in baptism happened to name you +Tony," Adrian explained. "Friday, and the still more dread thirteen, +are both lucky for people who happen to be named Tony. Because why? +Because the blessed St. Anthony of Padua was born on a Friday, and went +to his reward on a thirteenth--the thirteenth of June, this very month, +no less." He allowed Anthony's muttered "_A qui le dites-vous_?" to +pass unnoticed, and, making his voice grave, continued, "But for those +of us who don't happen to be named Tony--_unberufen_! Take a man like +me, for instance, an intellectual young fellow, with work to do, but +delicate, and dependent for his strength upon the regular +administration of sustaining nourishment. Well, Friday comes, and +there he is, for twenty-four hours by the clock, obliged to keep up, as +best he may, on fish and vegetables and suchlike kickshaws, when every +fibre of his frame is crying out for meat, red meat. And now"--he +pushed back his chair--"and now, dear heart, be brave. Steel yourself +to meet adversity. A sorrow stoically borne is already half a sorrow +vanquished. I must absent thee from thy felicity a while---I must be +stepping." He rose, and moved, with that dancing gait of his, to the +door. From the threshold he remarked, "If you will come to my +business-room about half an hour before luncheon, I shall hope to have +the last bars polished off, and I 'll sing you something sweeter than +ever plummet sounded. _Lebe wohl_." + +"Yes," thought Anthony, left to himself, "barring happy accidents, I +must wait till Sunday." + +And he went into the park. + +"The nuisance," he said to Patapouf, as he released him, "the nuisance +of things happening early is that they 're just so much the less likely +to happen late. The grudge I bear the Past is based upon the +circumstance that it has taken just so much from the Future. +Meanwhile, suggest the unthinking, let's enjoy the present. But +virtually, as I need n't remind _you_, there is no such thing as the +present. The present is an infinitesimal between two infinites. 'T is +a line (a thing without breadth or thickness) moving across the surface +of Eternity. The present is no more, by the time you have said, This +is present. So, then, it were inordinate to hope to fall in with her +again to-day, and you and I must face an anti-climax. Be thankful we +have the memories of the morning to feed upon. And, if you desire a +subject for meditation, observe how appetites are created. If we had +not met her at all, we should not hunger and thirst in this way for +another meeting." + +He left the red collar round Patapouf's neck. The rest of the torn +ribbon he carefully gathered up and put in his pocket-book. + + + + +VIII + +"One should, however, give happy accidents a certain encouragement," he +reflected, as he woke next morning. "She said it was her habit. We +will seek her again in the hours immaculate." + +He sought her far and near. He wandered the park till breakfast time. +The appropriate scene was set: the familiar sheep were there, the +trees, the birds, the dewy swards, the sunshine and the shadows: +but--though, at each new turning, as each new prospect opened, +expectancy anew looked eagerly from his eyes--the lady of the piece was +ever missing. + +"And yet you boasted it was your habit," bitterly he reproached his +vision of her. + +All day he held out to happy accidents what encouragement he might. +All day he roamed the park, and, as the day dragged on, became a deeply +dejected man. Even the certitude of seeing her to-morrow was of small +comfort. + +"Two minutes before Mass, and three minutes after--what is that?" he +grumbled. + +Towards five o'clock he took a resolution. + +"There are such things as accidents, but there is also," he argued, +"such a thing as design. Why is man endowed with free-will? I don't +care how it may look, nor what they may think. I 'm going to call upon +her, I 'm going to ask myself to tea." + +In this, however, he reckoned without the keeper of her door. + +"The ladies er _ait_, sir," announced that prim-lipped functionary. + +"Now farewell hope," he mourned, as the door closed in his face. +"There's nothing left for me to do but to go for a thundering long +walk, and tire myself into oblivion. I will walk to Wetherleigh." + +Head bent, eyes downcast, sternly resolved to banish her from his +thought, he set forwards, with rapid, dogged steps. He had gone, it +may be, a hundred yards, when a voice stopped him. + +"Sh--sh! Please--please!" it whispered. + + + + +IX + +The grounds immediately appertaining to Craford New Manor are traversed +by a brook. Springing from amidst a thicket of creepers up the +hillside, it comes tumbling and winding, a series of miniature +cascades, over brown rocks, between mossy banks shadowed by ferns and +eglantine, through the sun-shot dimness of a grove of pine-trees, to +fling itself with a final leap and flash (such light-hearted +self-immolation) into the ornamental pond at the bottom of the lawn. +It is a pretty brook, and pleasing to the ear, with its purl and tinkle +of crisp water. + +And now, as Anthony, heading for the Wetherleigh-wards exit of the +park, approached the brook, to cross it,--"Sh, sh--please, please,"--a +whisper stopped him. + +There by the bank, under the tall pines, where sun and shadow chequered +the russet carpet of pine-needles, there, white-robed, sat Susanna: +white-robed, hatless, gloveless. She was waving her hand, softly, in a +gesture invocative of caution; but her eyes smiled a welcome to him. + +Anthony halted, waited,--his heart, I think, high-bearing. + +"It is a blue tit," she explained, under her breath, eagerly. "The +rarest bird that ever comes. He is bathing--there--see." She pointed. + +Sure enough, in a little rock-formed pool a couple of yards up-stream, +a tiny blue titmouse was vigorously enjoying his bath--ducking, +fluttering, preening his plumage, ducking again, and sending off +shooting-stars of spray, prismatic stars where they crossed the +sunbeams. + +"That is the delight of this bit of water," Susanna said, always with +bated breath. "The birds for miles about come here to drink and bathe. +All the rarer and timider birds, that one never sees anywhere else." + +"Ah, yes. Very jolly, very interesting," said Anthony, not quite +knowing what he said, perhaps, for his faculties, I hope, were singing +a _Te Deum_. But--with that high nose of his, that cool grey eye, with +that high collar too, and the general self-assurance of his toilet--no +one could have appeared more composed or more collected. + +"You speak without conviction," said Susanna. "Don't you care for +birds?" + +("Come! You must get yourself in hand," his will admonished his wit.) + +"I beg your pardon," he said, "I care for them very much. They 're an +indispensable feature of the landscape, and immensely serviceable to +the agriculturist. But one cares for other things as well. And I had +always fancied that the crowning virtue of this bit of water (since you +mention it) was its amenability to the caprice of man." + +"Men _have_ caprices?" questioned she, surprise in her upward glance. + +"At any rate," he answered, with allowance for her point, "your +Scottish gardener has. At his caprice, he turns this torrent on or +off, with a tap. For all its air of naturalness and frank impetuosity, +it is an entirely artificial torrent; and your Scottish gardener turns +it on and off with a tap." + +"He sways the elements," murmured Susanna, as with awe. "Portentous +being." Then, changing her note to one of gaiety, "_Ecco_," she cried, +"Signor Cinciallegra has completed his ablutions--and _ecco_, he flies +away. Won't you--won't you sit down?" she asked, as her eyes came back +from the departing bird; and a motion of her hand made him free of the +pine-needles. + +"Thank you," responded Anthony, taking a place opposite her. "I 'm not +sure," he added, "whether in honesty I ought n't to confess that I have +just been calling upon you." + +"Oh," she said, with the politest smile and bow. "I am so sorry to +have missed your visit." + +"You are very good." He bowed in his turn. "I wanted to consult you +about a trifling matter of business," he informed her. + +"A matter of business--?" she wondered; and her face became all +attention. + +"Exactly," said he. "I wanted to ask what you meant by stating that it +was your habit always to be abroad in the hours immaculate? I happened +by the merest chance to be abroad in them myself this morning. I +examined every nook and cranny of them, I turned them inside out; but +not one jot or tittle of you could I discover." + +Susanna's eyes were pensive. + +"I was speaking of Italy, was I not?" she replied. "I said, I think, +that it was the habit of the people in my part of Italy. But, anyhow, +one sometimes varies one's habits. And, after all, one sometimes makes +statements that are rash." + +"And one is always free to repudiate one's responsibilities," +suggestively supplemented our young man. + +"Fortunately," she agreed. "Moreover," she changed her ground, "one +should not be too exclusive in one's sympathies, one should not be +unfair to other hours. This present hour here now--is it not +immaculate also? With its pure sky, and its odour of warm pines, its +deep cool shadows, its patines of bright gold where the sun penetrates, +and then, plashing through it, this curling, dimpling, artificial +torrent? It is not the hour's fault if it happens to arrive somewhat +late in the day--it had to wait its turn. Besides, if one can believe +what one reads in books, it will be the very earliest of early +hours--down there," (with the tip of a vertical finger she touched the +earth), "at the Antipodes." + +"To this present hour," said Anthony, with impressive slowness, "I +personally owe so great a debt of thankfulness, it would be churlish of +me even to hint a criticism. And yet--and yet--how shall I express it? +_Eppur' si muove_. It moves, it hastes away;--while I could wish it to +remain forever, fixed as the Northern Star. Do they know, in your part +of Italy, any means by which the sparkling minutes can be prevailed +upon to stay their flight?" + +"That is a sort of knowledge," Susanna answered, with a movement of the +head, "for which, I fear, one would have to go to a meta-physical and +thrifty land like Germany. We are not in the least metaphysical or +thrifty in my part of Italy. We allow the sparkling minutes to slip +between our fingers, like gold between the fingers of a spendthrift. +But--but we rather enjoy the feeling, as they slip." + +"I wonder," Anthony hazarded, "whether you would take it very much +amiss if--if I should make a remark?" + +Susanna's eyes lighted, dangerously. + +"I wonder," she said, on a key of dubious meditation. + +"I am not easily put off," said he, with firmness. "I am moved to +remark upon the astonishing facility with which you speak English. +Now--do your worst." + +Susanna smiled. + +"It would take more than that to provoke me to do my worst," she said. +"English is as natural to me as my mother-tongue. I always had English +governesses. Everyone has English governesses in Italy nowadays, you +know." + +"Yes," he said, "I know; and they are generally Irish, are they not? +Of course you 've lived a great deal in England?" he surmised. + +"On the contrary," she set him right, "this is my first visit here." + +"Is it possible?" he marvelled. "I thought the true Oxford accent +could only be acquired on the spot." + +"Have I the true Oxford accent?" Susanna brightly doubted, eye-brows +raised. + +"Thank heaven," he gravely charged her, "thank heaven, kneeling, that +you have n't the true Oxford manner. Does England," he asked, "seem +very rum?" + +"Yes," she answered, with immediate candour, "England seems very +rum--but not so rum as it might, perhaps, if I had n't read so many +English novels. English novels are the only novels you 're allowed to +read, in my part of Italy, when you 're young." + +"Ah," said Anthony, nodding, "that's because our English novelists are +such dabs at the art of omission." And after the briefest pause, "Mere +idle and impertinent curiosity," he postulated, "is one thing: honest +neighbourly interest is another. If I were a bolder man, I should ask +you point-blank what part of Italy your part of Italy is." + +Susanna (all a soft whiteness, in her white frock, in the mellow +penumbra of the pine-grove) leaned back, and softly laughed. + +"My part of Italy? That is not altogether easy to tell," she said, +considering. "In one sense, my part of Italy is Rome. I belong to a +Roman family, and am politically a subject of the Holy Father,--what +though, for the moment, his throne be usurped by the Duke of Savoy, and +his prerogatives exercised by the Camorra. But then my part of Italy +is also Venice. We are Venetians, if to have had a house in Venice for +some four hundred years is sufficient to constitute folk Venetians. +But the part of Italy where I most often live, the part I like best, is +a part you will never have heard of--a little castaway island in the +Adriatic, about fifty miles north from Ancona: a little mountainous +island, all fragrant of rosemary and basil, all grey with +olive-trees,--all grey, save where the grey is broken by the green of +vineyards, or the white and green of villas with their gardens, or the +white and red of villages, with their red roofs, and white walls and +campanili,--all grey, and yet all blue and gold, between the blue sea +and the blue sky, in the golden light,--the little, unknown, beautiful +island of Sampaolo." + +She was actress enough to look unconscious and unconcerned, as she +pronounced the name of Sampaolo. Her eyes gazed dreamily far away, as +if they could behold an air-vision of her island. At the same time, I +suspect, they kept a vigilant side-watch on Anthony. + +Did Anthony give never so slightly perceptible a start? Did _his_ eyes +quicken? Did he colour a little? At all events, we need not question, +he was aware of a sudden throb of excitement,--on the spur of which, +without stopping to reflect, "Really?" he exclaimed. "That is a very +odd coincidence. Sampaolo--I know all about it." + +"Indeed?" said Susanna, looking surprise. "You have been there? It is +rarely visited by travellers--except commercial ones." + +"No, I have never been there," he answered, so far truthfully enough. +"But--but I know--I used to know--a man whose--a man who had," he +concluded lamely. For, when he did stop to reflect, "If you care for +an amusing situation," he reflected, "you 'll leave her in the dark +touching your personal connection with Sampaolo." + +Susanna, being quite in the light touching that connection, could not +help smiling. + +"I must play the game on his conditions, and feign ignorance of all +that he does n't tell," she reminded herself. "But fancy his being so +secretive!" + +"I hope the 'man who had' reported favourably of us?" she threw out. + +"H'm--yes," said Anthony, with deliberation. "The truth is, he +reported nothing. He was one of those inarticulate fellows who travel +everywhere, and can give no better account of their travels than just a +catalogue of names. He chanced to let fall that he had visited +Sampaolo, and I thus learned that such a place existed. I can't tell +why, but the fact struck me, and stuck in my mind, and I have ever +since been curious to know something about it." + +"You said you knew _all_ about it," Susanna complained, her eyes +rebukeful, her tone a tone of disappointment. + +"Oh, that was a manner of speaking," Anthony quibbled, plausible and +unperturbed. "I meant that I knew of its existence--which, after all, +is relatively a good deal, being vastly more than most people know." + +"It would be worth your while," said Susanna, "the next time you find +yourself in its vicinity, to do Sampaolo the honour of an inspection. +It is easily reached. The Austrian-Lloyd coasting steamers from Venice +call there once a week, and there is a boat every Monday and Thursday +from Ancona. Sampaolo is an extremely interesting spot,--interesting +by reason of its natural beauty, its picturesque population, and (to +me, at least) by reason of its absurdly romantic, serio-comic, +lamentable little history." + +"Ah--?" said Anthony, but with a suspension of the voice, with a +solicitude of eye and posture, that pressed her to continue. + +"He is a poor dissembler," thought Susanna. "As if any mere chance +outsider would care a fig to hear about Sampaolo. However, so much the +better." + +"Yes," she said, and again she seemed rapt in dreamy contemplation of +an air-vision. "The natural beauty of Sampaolo is to my thinking +unparalleled. At a distance, as your ship approaches it, Sampaolo lies +on the horizon like a beautiful soft cloud, all vague rose-colours and +purples, a beautiful soft pinnacle of cloud. Then gradually, as you +come nearer, the cloud changes, crystallises; and Sampaolo is like a +great wonderful carving, a great wonderful carved jewel, a cameo cut on +the sea, with a sort of aureole about it, an opalescence of haze and +sunshine. Nearer still, its aspect is almost terrible, a scene of +breath-taking precipices, spire-like mountains, wild black gorges, +ravines; but, to humanise it, you can count at least twenty villages, +villages clinging to every hillside, perched on almost every hill-top, +each with its group of cypresses, like sentinels, and its campanile. +At last you pass between two promontories, the Capo del Turco and the +Capo del Papa, from the summits of which two great Crucifixes look +down, and you enter the Laguna di Vallanza, a land-locked bay, tranquil +as a lake. And there, floating on the water as it seems, there is a +palace like a palace in Fairyland, a palace of white marble, all +stately colonnades and terraces, yet looking, somehow, as light as if +it were built of the sea's foam. This is one of the palaces--the +summer palace--of the Counts of Sampaolo. It seems to float on the +water, but it really occupies a tiny mite of an islet, called Isola +Nobile; and connected with Isola Nobile by marble bridges are two other +tiny Islets, laid out in gardens, Isola Fratello and Isola Sorella. +The Counts of Sampaolo are one of the most ancient and illustrious +families in Europe, the Valdeschi della Spina, descendants of San Guido +Valdeschi, a famous soldier-saint of the Twelfth Century. They have +another palace in the town of Vallanza, their winter palace, the +Palazzo Rosso; and a splendid old mediaeval castle, Castel San Guido, +on the hill behind the town; and two or three delightful villas in +different parts of the island. A highly enviable family, are they not? +Orange-trees are in blossom at Sampaolo the whole year round, in +blossom and in fruit at the same time. The olive orchards of Sampaolo +are just so many wildernesses of wild flowers: violets, anemones, +narcissus; irises, white ones and purple ones; daffodils, which we call +asphodels; hyacinths, tulips, arums, orchids--oh, but a perfect riot of +wild flowers. In the spring the valleys of Sampaolo are pink with +blossoming peach-trees and almond-trees, where they are not scarlet +with pomegranates. Basil, rosemary, white heather, you can pluck where +you will. And everywhere that they can find a footing, oleanders grow, +the big double red ones, great trees of them, such wonder-worlds of +colour, such fountains of perfume. The birds of Sampaolo never cease +their singing--they sing as joyously in December as in June. And the +nightingales of Sampaolo sing all day, as well as all night. _Tiu, +tiu, tiu--will, will, will--weep, weep, weep_--I can hear them now. +But I must stop, or I shall go on for ever. Believe me, the beauties +of Sampaolo are very great." + +It was a long speech, but it had had an attentive listener. It was a +long speech, but it had been diversified by the varying modulations of +Susanna's voice, the varying expressions of her face, by little pauses, +hesitations, changes of time and of rhythm, by occasional little +gestures. + +It had had an attentive, even an absorbed listener: one who, already +interested in the speaker, happened to have a quite peculiar interest +in her theme. As she spoke, I think Anthony beheld his own air-vision +of Sampaolo; I fancy the familiar park of Craford, the smooth, +well-groomed, well-fed English landscape, melted away; I doubt if he +saw anything of the actual save the white form, the strenuous face, the +shining eyes, of his informant. + +But now, her voice ceasing, suddenly the actual came back--the brown +brook swirling at their feet, the tall pines whispering above, the warm +pine-incense, the tesserae of sun and shadow dancing together on the +carpet of pine-needles, as the tassels overhead swung in the moving air. + +"You paint Elysium," he said. "You paint a veritable Island of the +Blessed." + +Susanna's eyes clouded. + +"Once upon a time Sampaolo _was_ a veritable Island of the Blessed," +she answered sadly. "But now no more. Since its union with what they +call the Kingdom of Italy, Sampaolo has been, rather, an Island of the +Distressed." + +"Ah--?" said Anthony, again on a tone, with a mien, that pressed her to +continue. + +But all at once, as if recalled from an abstraction, Susanna gave a +little laugh,--what seemed a slightly annoyed, half-apologetic little +laugh,--and lifted her hands in a gesture of deprecation, of +self-reprehension. + +"I beg your pardon," she said. "I can't think how I have allowed +myself to become so tiresome. One prates of one's parish pump." + +"_Tiresome_?" cried out Anthony, in spontaneous protest. "I can't tell +you how much you interest me." + +"He is the poorest of poor dissemblers," thought Susanna. + +"You are extremely civil," she said. "But how can the condition of our +parish pump possibly interest a stranger?" + +"H'm," thought Anthony, taken aback, "I expect my interest _does_ seem +somewhat improbable." + +So, speciously, he sought to justify it. + +"For more reasons than a few," he alleged. "To begin with, if I dared, +I should say because it is _your_ parish pump." He ventured a little +bow. "But, in the next place, because it is an Italian parish pump, +and somehow everything connected with Italy interests one. Then, +because it is the parish pump of Sampaolo, and I have always been +curious about Sampaolo. And finally, because it is a _human_ parish +pump--_et nihil humanum_ . . . . So please go on. How did Sampaolo +come to be an Island of the Distressed?" + +"He 's not such a poor dissembler, after all,--when roused to action," +thought Susanna. "But perhaps we have had enough Sampaolo for one +session. I must leave him with an appetite for more." + +"Hark," she said, raising a finger, while her face became intent. "Is +n't that a skylark?" + +Somewhere--just where one could n't tell at first--a bird was singing. +Many birds were singing, innumerable birds were chirruping, all about. +But this bird's song soared clear above the others, distinct from them, +away from them, creating for itself a kind of airy isolation. It was +an exquisitely sweet, liquid song, it was jocund, joyous, and it was +sustained for an astonishing length of time. It went on and on and on, +never faltering, never pausing, in soft trills and gay roulades, shrill +skirls or flute-like warblings, a continuous outpour, for I don't know +how many minutes. It was a song marvellously apposite to the bright +day and the wide countryside. The freshness of the air, the raciness +of the earth, the green of grass and trees, the laughing sunlight,--one +might have fancied it was the spirits of all these singing together in +unison. + +"It's a skylark, sure enough," said Anthony, looking skywards. "But +where the mischief is he?" + +And they gave eyes and ears to trying to determine, searching the +empyrean. Now his voice seemed to come from the west, now from the +north, the south, the east; it was the most deceptive, the most elusive +thing. + +"Ah--there he is," Anthony cried, of a sudden, and pointed. + +"Where? Where?" breathlessly asked Susanna, anxious as if life and +death hung on the question. + +"There--look!" said Anthony, pointing again. + +High, high up in the air, directly over their heads, they could discern +a tiny speck of black against the blue of the sky. They sat with their +necks craned back as far as they would go, and gazed at it like people +transfixed, whilst the sky pulsated to their dazzled sight. + +"It is incredible," said Susanna. "A mere pin-point in that immensity, +yet he fills it full with his hosannas." + +But the pin-point grew bigger, the hosannas louder; the bird was +descending. + +"Literally it is music coming down upon us from heaven," she said. + +"Yes--but when it reaches us, it will stop, we shall lose it," said +Anthony. "It is music too ethereal to survive the contact of this +gross planet." + +Singing, singing, the bird sank, with folded wings; and sure enough, +the very instant he touched the earth, his song stopped short--a bubble +pricked, a light extinguished. + +"He has come to drink and bathe," said Susanna. + +He was hopping towards the water, on the other side of the brook, for a +poet the most prosaic-looking fellow, in the soberest brown coat. +Evidently he did n't dream that he was not alone. The trees had no +doubt hidden his watchers. But now Susanna's voice startled him. With +one wild glance at them, and a wild twitter of surprise, self-rebuke, +consternation, he bounded into the air, and in a second was a mere +speck again. + +"Oh, how silly of him," Susanna sighed. "Does he think we are dragons?" + +"No," said Anthony. "He would n't be half so frightened if he thought +we were dragons. He thinks we are much worse." + +"Oh--?" guilelessly questioned she. "What is that?" + +"He thinks we are human beings," Anthony explained. + +Susanna laughed, but it was rather a rueful laugh. + +"Anyhow," she said, "he 'll not come back so long as we remain here. +Yet he is hot and thirsty--and who knows from what a distance he may +have flown, just for this disappointment? Don't you think it would be +gracious on our part if we were to remove the cause of his alarm?" + +She rose, and led the way out of the pine-grove, towards her house. +When they reached the open, it was to discover, walking together from +the opposite direction, Adrian and Miss Sandus,--Adrian bending towards +his companion in voluble discourse, which he pointed and underlined by +copious gesticulation. + +"Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues," Anthony murmured, more or less +in his sleeve. + +But at sight of him, Adrian halted, and struck an attitude. + +"Oh, the underhand, the surreptitious villain!" he cried out. Then he +turned his pink face towards Susanna. "Lady, beauteous lady, vision of +loveliness," he saluted her, bowing to the ground. "But oh, to think +of that dark, secret villain! He 's gone and made your acquaintance +without waiting for me to introduce him, which I was so counting upon +doing to-morrow morning. Already he groans and totters under the +weight of obligations I 've heaped upon him. I wanted to add one +more--and now he 's gone and circumvented me." + +"You will add one more if you 'll be so good as to introduce me to Miss +Sandus," said Anthony. + +And when the introduction was accomplished, he proceeded to make +himself as agreeable to that lady as he possibly could. In the first +place, he liked her appearance, he liked her brisk, frank manner; and +then, is n't it always well to have a friend near the rose? + +The result was that when she and Susanna were alone, Miss Sandus +succinctly remarked, "My dear, your cousin is a trump." + + + + +X + +The shadows were long, as he and Adrian strolled back to Craford Old +Manor. + +"Well, now, Truepenny," Adrian began, "now that you 've met her, speak +out, and tell me on your heart and conscience how she impresses you." + +"She seems all right," was Anthony's temperate reply. + +"_All right_?" cried Adrian, looking scorn and pity. "My dear +Malaprop, she 's just simply the nicest person of her sex within the +confines of the Solar System. She is to other women what--well, I 'll +name no names--what somebody I _could_ name is to other men. And with +such eyes--hey? Are they bright? Are they sharp? Are they trusty? +Are they knowing?" + +"I expect she can see with them," said Anthony. + +"_See_ with them," Adrian sniffed. "I 'll tell you what she can +do--she can see round a corner with them. And then such pretty little +ears, besides. Did you notice her ears?" + +"I noticed she was n't earless," Anthony admitted. + +"_Earless_," cried Adrian. "Her ears are like roses and white lilies. +Earless, says he. I 'll bet three-halfpence you 'll presently be +denying that she 's witty." + +"She seems witty enough," assented Anthony. + +"_Witty_," Adrian scoffed, cutting a caper to signify his disdain for +the weak expression. "Witty is n't the word for it. And then, with +all her years, she 's so _young_, is n't she? She breathes the fresh, +refreshing savour of an unspoiled soul." + +"Yes, she's young--for the time being," Anthony agreed. "By the bye, +do you know where she comes from?" + +"_Do_ I know? I should rather think I know," said Adrian, swaggering. +"She has n't a secret from me. She comes from Westmoreland. They 're +an old Westmoreland family. But she lives in Kensington. She has one +of those jolly old houses in Kensington Square. Historic, romantic, +poetic Kensington Square, where burning Sappho loved and sang, and +Thackeray wrote the What-do-you-call-'ems. Who fears to speak of +Ninety-eight? That's her number. Ninety-eight, Kensington Square, W. +And whenever I have occasion to run up to town, mind, I 'm not to think +of going to an hotel, I 'm to drive straight to Ninety-eight, and it +will be her joy to take me in. So it sometimes pays to be charming, +after all." + +"I see," said Anthony. + +"You see? The deuce you do. What do you see?" asked Adrian, opening +his blue eyes wide, and peering about, as one who would fain see too. + +"You patter of Miss Sandus," said Anthony. + +Adrian came to a standstill, and raised his hands towards heaven. + +"Now I call upon the choirs of blessed Cherubim and Seraphim," he +exclaimed. "I call upon them to suspend their singing for an instant, +and to witness this. He sees that I patter of Miss Sandus. What +perspicuity. And he just a mortal man, like anybody--nay, by all +accounts, just a bluff country squire. Ah, what a noble understanding. +Well, then, my dear Hawkshaw, since there's no concealing anything from +you,--_fine mouche, allez_!--I own up. I patter of Miss Sandus." + +"Do you happen to know where Madame Torrebianca comes from?" Anthony +asked. + +"Oho!" cried Adrian. "It's Madame Torrebianca that _you 've_ been +raving about. Ah, yes. Oh, I concede at once that Madame Torrebianca +is very nice too. None readier than I to do her homage. But for fun +and devilment give me Peebles. Give me old ladies, or give me little +girls. You 're welcome to the betwixts and the betweens. Old ladies, +who have passed the age of folly, or little girls, who have n't reached +it. But women in the prime of their womanhood are always thinking of +fashion-plates and curling-irons and love and shopping. Name me, if +you can, four vainer, tiresomer, or more unfruitful topics. Have you +never waked in your bed at midnight to wonder how it has come to pass +that I, at my time of life, with my attractions, am still a bachelor? +To wonder what untold disappointment, what unwritten history of sorrow, +has left me the lonely, brooding celibate you see? I 'll lift the +veil--a moment of épanchement. It's because I 've never met a +marriageable woman who had n't her noddle stuffed with curling-irons +and fashion-plates and love and shopping." + +"Do you happen to know where she comes from?" Anthony repeated. + +"She--? Who?" asked Adrian, looking vague. Then, as Anthony +vouchsafed no answer, but merely twirled his stick, and gazed with +indifferent eyes at the horizon, "Oh--Madame Torrebianca?" he +conjectured. "Still harping on my daughter? Of course I know where +_she_ comes from. She comes from the land where the love of the turtle +now melts into sweetness, now maddens to crime--as who should say a +land of Guildhall banquets. She comes from Italy. Have you ever eaten +ortolans in Italy?" + +"Do you happen to know what part of Italy?" Anthony persisted. + +"From Rome, the pomp and pageant of imperial Rome," returned Adrian +promptly. "I 've got it in the lease. Nothing like having things in +leases. The business instinct--what? Put it in black and white, says +I. 'La Nobil Donna Susanna Torrebianca, of the Palazzo Sebastiani, via +Quattro Fontane, Rome, party of the second part.' A _beau vers_, is +n't it? The lilt, the swelling cadence, the rich rhyme, the hidden +alliterations,--and then the sensitive, haunting pathos, the eternal +verities adumbrated by its symbolism. I 've stood upon Achilles' tomb, +and heard Troy doubted. Time--that monster-mother, who brings forth +her children only to devour them--Time shall doubt of . . ." + +"Rome may be the official sort of address she gives to land-agents and +people," Anthony interposed. "But the part of Italy where she really +lives is a little castaway island in the Adriatic, some fifty miles +north from Ancona,--the little, unknown, beautiful island of Sampaolo." + +Adrian came to a standstill again, and dropped his jaw in sign of +astonishment. + +"Oh, come. Not really?" he gasped at length. + +"Yes, really," said Anthony. + +"My eye!" Adrian exclaimed. + +"It _is_ odd, is n't it?" said Anthony. + +"_Odd_?" cried Adrian. "It's--it--it beggars the English tongue." + +"Well, if it beggars yours, it is doing pretty well," said Anthony. + +"You goose," said Adrian, resuming his walk. "Can you actually suppose +that I 've passed all these golden days and weeks in friendly +hob-nobbings with her, and not learned that she came from the island of +Sampaolo? A fellow of penetration, like me? I appeal to your +honour--is it likely?" + +"Why the devil have you never told me?" Anthony demanded, with asperity. + +"You 've never asked me--you 've never given me a chance. You talk, +when you have me for a listener, you talk such an uninterrupted stream, +it's a miracle if I ever get a word in edgewise," Adrian explained. + +"I trust, at least, that you 've been equally taciturn with her," said +Anthony. + +"My good Absolute, I am the soul of taciturnity," Adrian boasted, +expanding his chest, and thumping it. "This bosom is a sealed +sanctuary for the confidences of those who confide in me. Besides, +when I 'm with Madame Torrebianca, believe me, we have other subjects +of conversation than the poor Squire o' Craford." + +"You see," said Anthony, "for the lark of the thing, I should like, for +the present, to leave her in ignorance of my connection with Sampaolo." + +"That's right," cried Adrian. "Dupe, cozen, jockey the trustful young +creature. Do. There 's a great-hearted gentleman. You need n't fear +_my_ undeceiving her. I know my place; I know who holds the +purse-strings; I know which side my bread is buttered on. Motley's my +wear. So long as you pay my wages, you may count upon my connivance." + +"I shall see her to-morrow morning at Mass. I wonder whether I am in +love with her," Anthony was thinking. + + + + +XI + +He gave her holy water at the door of the chapel, and her eyes +acknowledged it with a glance that sent something very pleasant into +his heart. + +Then, with an impulse of discretion, to efface himself, he knelt at the +first prie-dieu he came to. But Susanna, instead of going forward, +knelt at the prie-dieu next to his. + +The chapel at Craford is a dim, brown little room,--the same room that +in the days of persecution had been a "secret" chapel, where priests +and people worshipped at the peril of their lives. You enter it from +the hall by a door that was once a sliding panel. In the old days +there was no window, but now there is a window, a small one, +lancet-shaped, set with stained glass, opening into the court. Save +for the coloured light that came through this, and the two candles +burning on the altar, the chapel was quite dark. The Mass was said by +an old Capuchin, Father David, from the convent at Wetherleigh; it was +served by Adrian. + +You know "the hidden and unutterable sweetness of the Mass." + +For Anthony, kneeling there with Susanna, the sweetness of the Mass was +strangely intensified. He did not look at her, he looked at the altar, +or sometimes at his prayer-book; but the sense that she was beside him +possessed every atom of his consciousness. Her kneeling figure, her +white profile, her hair, her hat, her very frock,--he could see them, +somehow, without looking; his eye preserved a permanent vision of them. +Yet they did not distract his thoughts from the altar. He followed +with devout attention the Act that was being consummated there; the +emotion of her presence merged with and became part of the emotion of +the Mass. They were offering the Holy Sacrifice side by side, they +were offering it together, they were sharing the Sacred Mystery. It +seemed to him that by this they were drawn close to each other, and +placed in a new relation, a relation that was far beyond the mere +acquaintanceship of yesterday, that in a very special and beautiful way +was intimate. The priest crossed the sanctuary, and they stood +together for the Gospel; the bell was rung, and together they bowed +their heads for the Elevation. They knelt side by side in body, but in +spirit was it not more than this? In spirit, for the time, were they +not absolutely at one?--united, commingled, in the awe and the wonder, +the worship and the love, of the Presence that had come, that was +filling the dim and silent little chapel with a light eyes were not +needed to see, with a music ears were not needed to hear, that had +transformed the poor little altar into a painless Calvary, whence were +diffused all peace, all grace, all benediction? They knelt side by +side, adoring together, breathing together the air that was now in very +deed the air of Heaven. And it seemed to Anthony as if the Presence +smiled upon them, and sanctioned and sanctified the thing that was in +his heart. + +"Domine, non sum dignus," solemnly rose the voice of the priest, +"Domine, non sum dignus . . ." + +It was the supreme moment. + +They went forward, and side by side knelt at the rail of the sanctuary. + + + + +XII + +Alas, the uncertain glory of an English June. That night the weather +changed. Monday was grey and cold, the beginning of a cold grey week, +a week of rain and wind, of low skies and scudding clouds; the +sad-coloured sea flecked with angry white, the earth sodden; leaves, +torn from their trees, scurrying down the pathways; and Adrian, of all +persons, given over to peevishness and lamentations. + +"Oh, I brazenly confess it--I 'm a fair-weather friend," he said, as he +looked disconsolately forth from the window of his business-room, (a +room, by the bye, whereof the chief article of furniture was a +piano-à-queue). "Bring me sunshine and peaches, and I 'll be as sweet +as bright Apollo's lute strung with his hair. But this sort of gashly, +growsy, grim, sour, shuddery weather turns me into a broken-hearted +vixen. I could sit down and cry. I could lie down and die. I could +rise up and snap your head off. I am filled with verjuice and vitriol. +Oh, me! Oh, my!" + +He stamped backwards and forwards, in nervous exasperation. He went to +the piano, and brought his hands down in a discordant clang upon the +keys. + +"Can't anybody silence those stupid _birds_?" he cried, moving back to +the window, through which the merry piping of a robin was audible. +"How inept, how spiteful, of them to go on singing, singing, in the +face of such odious weather. Tell Wickersmith or someone to take a gun +and an umbrella, and to go out and shoot them. And the wind--the +strumpet wind," he cried. "All last night it gurgled and howled and +hooted in my chimney like a drunken banshee, and nearly frightened me +to death. And me a musician. And me the gentlest of God's +creatures--who never did any harm, but killed the mice in father's +barn. I ask you, as a man of the world, is it delicate, is it fair? +Drip, drip, drip--swish, swish, swash,--ugh, the rain! If it could +_guess_ how I despise it!" He made a face and shook his fist at it. +"Do you think the weather _knows_ how disagreeable it is? We all know +how disagreeable other people can be, but so few of us know how +disagreeable we ourselves can be. Do you think the weather knows? Do +you think it's behaving in this way purposely to vex me?" + +But for Anthony it was a period not without compensations. He saw +Susanna nearly every day. On Tuesday she and Miss Sandus were his +guests at dinner; on Wednesday he and Adrian were her guests at +luncheon; on Thursday, at tea-time, they paid their visit of digestion; +on Friday, the rain holding up for a few hours in the afternoon, he and +Susanna went for a walk on the cliffs. + +The sea-wind buffetted their faces, it lifted Susanna's hair and blew +stray locks about her temples, it summoned a lively colour to her +cheeks. Anthony could admire the resolute lines, the forceful action, +of her strong young body, as she braced herself to march against it. +From the turf under their feet rose the keen odour of wet earth, and +the mingled scents of clover and wild thyme. All round them +sand-martins wheeled and swerved, in a flight that was like aerial +skating. Far below, and beyond the dark-green of Rowland Marshes, +which followed the winding of the cliffs like a shadow, stretched the +grey sea, with its legions of white horses. + +"What a sense one gets, from here, of the sea's immensity," Susanna +said. "I think the horizon is a million miles away." + +"It is," affirmed Anthony, with conclusiveness, as one possessing exact +knowledge. Then, in a minute, "And, as we are speaking in round +numbers, are you aware that it's a million years since I last had the +pleasure of a word with you?" + +Susanna's dark eyes grew big. + +"A million years? Is it really," she doubted, in astonishment. + +"Really and truly," asseverated he. + +"A million years! How strange," she murmured, as one in a maze. + +"Truth is often strange," said he. + +"Yes--but this is particularly strange," she pointed out. "Because, +first, we have only known each other a week. And, secondly, I was +under the impression that you had had 'a word with me' yesterday--and +again the day before yesterday--and again the day before that." + +"I beg your pardon," said he. "I have not had a word with you since we +sat by the brink of your artificial streamlet last Saturday afternoon; +and that, speaking in round numbers, was a million years ago. As for +yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and the day before that,--I +don't count it having a word with you when we are surrounded by +strangers." + +"Strangers--?" wondered Susanna. + +"Yes," said he. "That fellow Willes, and your enchanting friend Miss +Sandus." + +Susanna gave one of her light trills of laughter. + +"We can't discuss our private affairs before them," said Anthony; "and +I 've been pining to discuss our private affairs." + +"Have we private affairs?" Susanna questioned, in surprise. + +"Of course we have," said he. "Everybody has. And it is to discuss +them that I have inveigled you into taking this walk with me. Does n't +the sort of English weather you 're at present getting a taste of make +you wish you had never left Italy?" + +"Oh," she acquainted him, "it sometimes rains in Italy." + +"Does it, indeed?" he enquired, opening his eyes. "But never--surely +never--at Sampaolo?" + +"Yes, even sometimes at Sampaolo," she laughed. "And mercy, how the +wind can blow there! This is nothing to it. I don't think you have +any winds in England so violent as our _temporali_." + +Anthony nodded, with satisfaction. + +"Please go on," he urged. "I have been longing to hear more about +Sampaolo." + +"Oh?" said Susanna, looking sceptical. "I feared I had wearied you +inexcusably with Sampaolo." + +"Every syllable you pronounced," vowed he, "was of palpitating +interest, and you broke off at the most palpitating moment. You were +on the point of telling me how, from an Island of the Blessed, Sampaolo +came to be an Island of the Distressed--when we were interrupted by a +skylark." + +"That would be a terribly long story," Susanna premonished him, shaking +her head. + +"I adore terribly long stories," he declared. "And have we not before +us the whole of future time?" + +"Sampaolo came to be an Island of the Distressed," said she, "because, +some half-century ago, the Sampaolesi got infected with an idea that +was then a kind of epidemic--the idea of Italian unity. So they had a +revolution, overthrew their legitimate sovereign, gave up their +Independence, and united themselves to the 'unholy and unhappy State' +which has since assumed the name of the Kingdom of Italy." + +"That is not a terribly long story," Anthony complained. "I 'm afraid +you are suppressing some of the details." + +"Yes," she at once acknowledged, "I daresay I 'm suppressing a good +many of the details." + +"That's not ingenuous," said he, "nor--nor kind." + +"It was not unkindly meant," said she. + +"But Sampaolo," he questioned, "had, then, been independent? Go on. +Be communicative, be copious; tell me all about it." + +"For more than seven hundred years," answered Susanna, "Sampaolo had +been independent. The Counts of Sampaolo were counts regnant, holding +the island by feudal tenure from the Pope, who was their suzerain, and +to whom they paid a tribute. They were counts regnant and lords +paramount, _tiranni_, as they were called in mediaeval Italy; they had +their own coinage, their own flag, their own little army; and though +some of the noble Sampaolese families bore the title of prince or duke +at Rome, they ranked only as barons at Sampaolo, and were subjects of +the Count." + +A certain enthusiasm rang in her voice. They walked on for some paces +in silence. + +"In the Palazzo Rosso at Vallanza, to this day," she continued, "you +will be shown the throne-room, with the great scarlet throne, and the +gilded coronet topping the canopy above it. But the Counts of Sampaolo +were good men and wise rulers; and, under them, for more than seven +hundred years, the island was free, prosperous, and happy. And though +many times the Turks tried to take it, and many times the Venetians, +and though sometimes the Pope tried to take it back, when the Pope +happened to be a difficult Pope, the Sampaolesi, who were splendid +fighters, always managed to hold their own." + +Again they took some paces in silence. + +"Then"--her voice had modulated--"then the idea of Italian unity was +preached to them, and in 1850 they had a revolution; and foolish, +foolish Sampaolo voluntarily submitted itself to the reign of Victor +Emmanuel. And ever since,"--her eyes darkened,--"what with the +impossible taxes, the military conscription, the corrupt officials, the +Camorra, Sampaolo has been in a very wretched plight indeed. +But--_pazienza_!" She gave her shoulders a light little shrug. "The +Kingdom of Italy will not last forever." + +"We will devoutly hope not," concurred Anthony. "Meanwhile, I am glad +to note that in politics you are a true-blue reactionary." + +"In Sampaolese politics," said she, "reaction would be progress. +Before 1850 the people of Sampaolo were prosperous, now they are +miserably poor; were pious, now they are horribly irreligious; were +governed by honest gentlemen, now they form part of a nation that is +governed by its criminal classes." + +"And what became of the honest gentlemen?" Anthony enquired. "What did +the counts do, after they were--'hurled,' I believe, is the consecrated +expression--after they were hurled from their scarlet thrones?" + +"Ah," said Susanna, seriously, "there you bring me to the chapter of +the story that is shameful." + +"Oh--?" said he, looking up. + +"The revolution at Sampaolo was headed by the Count's near kinsman," +she said. "The present legitimate Count of Sampaolo is an exile. His +title and properties are held by a cousin, who has no more right to +them, no more shadow of a right, of a moral right, than--than I have." + +"Ah," said Anthony. And then, philosophically, "A very pretty +miniature of an historical situation," he commented. "Orleans and +Bourbon, Hanover and Stuart. A count in possession, and a count over +the water, an usurper and a pretender." + +"Exactly," she assented, "save that the Count in possession happens to +be a Countess--the grand-daughter of the original usurper, whose male +line is extinct. Oh, the history of Sampaolo has been highly coloured. +A writer in some English magazine once described it as a patchwork of +melodrama and opera-bouffe. It ended, if you like, in melodrama and +opera-bouffe, but it began in pure romance and chivalry." + +"Don't stop," said Anthony. "Tell me about the beginning." + +"I can tell you that," announced Susanna, smiling, "in the words of +your own English historian, Alban Butler." + +She paused for an instant, as if to make sure of her memory, and then, +smiling, recited-- + +"'In the year 1102 or 1103,' he says, in his Life of St. Guy Valdescus +of The Thorn, as he Anglicises San Guido Valdeschi della Spina, 'when +the Saint was returning from the Holy Land, where he had been a +crusader, he was shipwrecked, by the Providence of God, upon the island +of Ilaria, in the Adriatic Sea; and he was greatly afflicted by the +discovery that the inhabitants of that country were almost totally +ignorant of the truths of our Holy Religion, while the little knowledge +they possessed was confused with many diabolical superstitions. They +still invoked the daemons of pagan mythology, and sacrilegiously +included our Divine Lord and His Blessed Mother in the number of these. +Now, St. Guy had distinguished himself in the Crusade alike for his +valour in action, for the edifying character of his conversation, and +for the devotion and recollection with which he performed the exercises +of religion; and he was surnamed Guy of the Thorn for that he had +caused to be fixed in the hilt of his sword a sharp thorn, or spine, +which, when he fought, should prick the flesh of his hand, and thus +keep him in mind of the pious purpose for which he was fighting, and +that it behoved a soldier of the Cross to fight, not in private anger +or martial pride, but in Christian zeal and humility. When, therefore, +after his shipwreck, and after many other perils and adventures by sea +and land, the Saint finally arrived at Rome, of which city his family +were patricians, and where his venerable mother, as well as his wife +and children, eagerly awaited his return, he was received with every +sign of favour by the Pope, Pascal the Second, who commended him warmly +upon the good reports he had had of him, and asked him to choose his +own reward. St. Guy answered that for his reward he prayed he might be +sent back to the island of Ilaria, with a bishop and a sufficient +company of priests, there to spread the pure light of the Faith among +the unfortunate natives. Whereupon the Pope created him Count and +Governor of the country, the heathen name of which he changed to St. +Paul, and gave him as the emblem of his authority a sword in the hilt +of which was fixed a thorn of gold. This holy relic, under the name of +the Spina d'Oro, is preserved, for the reverence of the faithful. In +the cathedral of the city of Vallanza, where the descendants of St. Guy +still reign as lieutenants of the Sovereign Pontiff.'--There," +concluded Susanna, with a little laugh, "that is the Reverend Alban +Butler's account of the matter." + +"I stand dumb with admiration," professed Anthony, his upcast hand +speaking volumes, "before your powers of memory. Fancy being able to +quote Alban Butler word for word, like that!" + +"When I was young," Susanna explained, "I was made by my English +governess to learn many of Butler's Lives by heart, and, as an Ilarian, +the Life of San Guido interested me particularly. He was canonised, by +the way, by Adrian the Fourth--the English Pope. As a consequence of +that, the Valdeschi have always had a great fondness for England, and +have often married English wives--English Catholics, of course. An +Englishwoman was Countess of Sampaolo when the end came, the patchwork +end." + +"Ah, yes," said Anthony, "the patchwork end--tell me about that." + +"The end," Susanna answered, "was an act of shameful treachery on the +part of one of the descendants of San Guido towards another, his +immediate kinsman, and the rightful head of the family. And now it is +melodrama and opera-bouffe as much as ever you will. It is a +revolution in a tea-cup. It is the ancient story of the Wicked Uncle." + +"Yes?" said Anthony. + +"It is perfectly trite," said Susanna, "and it would be perfectly +absurd, if it were n't rather tragic, or perfectly tragic, if it were +n't rather absurd." + +She thought for a moment. Anthony waited, attentive. + +"In 1850," she narrated, "Count Antonio the Seventeenth died, leaving a +widow, who was English, and an only son, a lad of twelve, who should +naturally have succeeded his father as Guido the Eleventh. But Count +Antonio had a younger brother, also named Guido, who coveted the +succession for himself, and had long been intriguing to secure +it--organising secret societies among the people, to further the idea +of Italian unity, and bargaining with the King of Sardinia for the +price he should receive if he contrived to bring the Sampaolesi to give +up their independence. Well," she went on, with a slight effect of +effort, "while his brother lay dying, Guido, spying his opportunity, +was especially active. 'Now,' he said to the people, 'is the time to +strike. If, at my brother's death, his son succeeds him, we shall have +a regency, and the regent will be a foreigner and a woman. Now is the +time to terminate this petty despotism forever, to repudiate the +suzerainty of the Pope, and to join in the great movement of Italia +Riunita. To the Palace! Let us seize the Englishwoman and her son, +and banish them from the island. Let us hoist the tricolour, and +proclaim ourselves Italians, and subjects of the King. To the Palace!' +So, while that poor lady"--her voice quavered a little--"while that +poor lady was kneeling at the bedside of her dead husband,"--her voice +sank,--"a great mob of insurgents broke into the Palazzo Rosso, singing +'Fuori l'Italia lo straniero,' seized her and the little Count, dragged +them to the sea-front, and put them aboard a ship that was leaving for +Trieste." + +She paused for a few seconds. + +"Then there was a plebiscite," she proceeded, "and Sampaolo solemnly +transformed itself into a province of the Kingdom of Sardinia." + +She paused again. + +"And the Wicked Uncle," she again proceeded, "received his price from +Turin. First, he was appointed Prefect of Sampaolo for life. +Secondly, the little Count and his mother were summoned to take the +oath of fidelity to the King, and as they did not turn up to do so, +having gone to her people in England, they were declared to have +outlawed themselves, and to be 'civilly dead', their properties, +accordingly, passing to the next heir, who, of course, was Guido +himself. Thirdly, Guido was created Count of Sampaolo by royal patent, +the Papal dignity being pronounced 'null and not recognisable in the +territories of the King.' It is Guido's granddaughter who is Countess +of Sampaolo to-day." + +She terminated her narration with a motion of the hand, as if she were +tossing something from her. Anthony waited a little before he spoke. + +"And the little Count?" he said, at length. + +"The little Count," said Susanna, "went through the formality of suing +his uncle for the recovery of his estates--or, rather, his mother, as +his guardian, did so for him. But as the action had to be tried in the +law-courts at Turin, I need n't tell you how it ended. In fact, it was +never tried at all. For at the outset the judges decided that the +suitor would have no standing before them until he had taken the oath +of allegiance to the King, and renounced his allegiance to the Pope. +He was 'civilly dead'--he must civilly resuscitate himself. As he +refused to do this, his cause was dismissed, unheard." + +"And then--?" said Anthony. + +"Then the little Count returned to England, and grew to be a big count, +and married an Englishwoman, and had a son, and died. He was adopted +by his mother's brother, an English country gentleman, who, surviving +him, and being a bachelor, adopted his son in turn. The son, however, +dropped his title of Count, a title more than seven hundred years old, +and assumed the name of his benevolent great-uncle. I 'm not sure," +she reflected, "that I quite approve of his dropping that magnificent +old title." + +"Oh, he very likely found it an encumbrance, living in England, as an +Englishman--especially if he was n't very rich," said Anthony. "He +very likely felt that it rendered him rather uncomfortably conspicuous. +Besides, a man does n't actually _drop_ a title--he merely puts it in +his pocket--he can always take it out again. You don't, I suppose," he +asked, with a skilfully-wrought semblance of indifference, "happen to +remember the name that he assumed?" + +"Of course, I happen to remember it," replied Susanna. "As you must +perceive, the history of Sampaolo is a matter I have studied somewhat +profoundly. How could I forget so salient a fact as that? The name +that he assumed," she said, her air elaborately detached, "was Craford." + +But Anthony evinced not the slightest sign of a sensation. + +"Craford?" he repeated. "Ah, indeed? That is a good name, a good old +south-country Saxon name." + +"Yes," agreed Susanna; "but it is not so good as Antonio Francesco +Guido Maria Valdeschi della Spina, Conte di Sampaolo." + +"It is not so long, at any rate," said he. + +"Nor so full of colour," supplemented she. + +"As I hinted before, a name like a herald's tabard might be something +of an inconvenience in work-a-day England," he returned. Then he +smiled, rather sorrily. "So you 've known all there was to be known +from the beginning, and my laborious dissimulation has been useless?" + +"Not useless," she consoled him, her eyes mirthfully meeting his. "It +has amused me hugely." + +"You've--if you don't mind the expression--you've jolly well taken me +in," he owned, with a laconic laugh. + +"Yes," laughed she, her chin in the air. + +And for a few minutes they walked on without speaking. + +The wind buffetted their faces, it wafted stray locks of hair about +Susanna's temples, it smelt of the sea and the rain-clouds, though it +could not blow away the nearer, friendlier smell of the wet earth, nor +the sweetness of the clover and wild thyme. All round them, +sand-martins performed their circling, swooping evolutions. In great +squares fenced by hurdles, flocks of sheep nibbled the wet grass. Far +beneath, the waters stretched grey to the blurred horizon, where they +and the low grey sky seemed one. + +But I think our young man and woman were oblivious of things external, +absorbed in their private meditations and emotions. They walked on +without speaking, till a turn in the cliff-line brought them in sight +of the little town of Blye, at the cliffs' base, where it rose from the +surrounding green of Rowland Marshes like a smoky red island. + +"Blye," said Anthony, glancing down. + +"Yes," said Susanna. "I had no idea we had come so far." + +"I 'm afraid we have come _too_ far. I 'm afraid I have allowed you to +tire yourself," said he, with anxiety. + +"Tired!" she protested. "Could one ever get tired walking in such +exhilarating air as this?" + +And, indeed, her colour, her bright eyes, her animated carriage, put to +scorn his apprehension. + +"But we must turn back, all the same," she added, "or--we shall not be +home for tea." + +She spoke in bated accents, and made a grave face, as if to miss tea +were to miss a function sacrosanct. + +Anthony laughed, and they turned back. + +"It's a bit of a coincidence," he remarked presently, "that, coming +from Sampaolo, you should just have chanced to take a house at Craford." + +"Nothing could be simpler," said Susanna. "I wished to pass the summer +in England, and was looking for a country house. The agent in London +mentioned Craford New Manor, among a number of others, and Miss Sandus +and I came down to see it. The prospect of finding myself the tenant +of my exiled sovereign rather appealed to me--appealed to my sense of +romance and to my sense of humour. And then,"--her eyes +brightened,--"when we met your perfectly irresistible Mr. Willes, +hesitation was impossible. He kept breaking out with little snatches +of song, while he was showing us over the place; and afterwards he +invited us to his music-room, (or I think he called it his +_business_-room), and sang properly to us--his own compositions. He +even permitted me to play some of his accompaniments." + +Anthony chuckled. + +"I 'm sure he did--I see my Adrian," he said. "Well, I owe him more +than he 's aware of." + +"Your Excellency is the legitimate Count of Sampaolo," said Susanna. +"Antonio, by the Grace of God, and the favour of the Holy See, Count of +Sampaolo--thirty-fourth count, and eighteenth of the name. I am your +very loyal subject. Let's conspire together for your restoration." + +"You told me the other day that you were a subject of the Pope," +Anthony objected. + +"That is during this interregnum," she explained. "The Pope is our +liege lord's liege lord, and, in our liege lord's absence, our homage +reverts to him. I will never, at all events, admit myself to be a +subject of the Duke of Savoy. Let's plot for your restoration." + +"My 'restoration,' if that is n't too sounding a term, is a thing past +praying for," said Anthony. "But I don't know that I should very +keenly desire it, even if it were n't." + +"What!" cried she. "Would n't it be fun to potentate it on a scarlet +throne?" + +"Not such good fun, I fancy, as it is to squire it in these green +meadows," he responded. "Are n't scarlet thrones apt to be upholstered +with worries and responsibilities?" + +"Are n't green meadows sown thick with worries and responsibilities?" +asked Susanna. + +"Very likely," he consented. "But for a moderate stipend I can always +hire a man like Willes to reap and deal with them for me." + +"Could n't you hire 'a man like Willis' to extract them from your +scarlet cushions? Potentates have grand viziers. Mr. Willes would +make a delicious grand vizier," she reflected, with a kind of +wistfulness. + +"He would indeed," said Anthony. "And we should have comic opera again +with interest." + +"But you only look at it from a selfish point of view," said Susanna. +"Think of poor Sampaolo--under the old régime, an Island of the +Blessed." + +"Seriously, is there at Sampaolo, the faintest sentiment in favour of a +return to the old régime?" he asked. + +"Seriously, and more 's the pity, not the faintest," Susanna confessed. +"I believe I am the only legitimist in the island--save a few priests +and nuns, and they don't count. I am the entire legitimist party." + +She turned towards him, making a little bow. + +"Yet there is every manner of discontent with the present régime," she +said. "The taxes, the conscription, the difficulties put in the way of +commerce, the monstrous number of officials, and the corruption of them +one and all, are felt and hated by everyone. Under the old régime, for +example," she illustrated, "Vallanza was a free port,--now we have to +pay both a national duty and a municipal duty on exports as well as +imports; nothing was taxed but land, and that very lightly--now nearly +everything is taxed, even salt, even a working-man's tools, even a +peasant's necessary donkey, so that out of every lira earned the +government takes from forty to sixty centimes; the fisheries of +Sampaolo, which are very valuable, were reserved for the +Sampaolesi,--now they are open to all Italy, and Sampaolo, an island, +cannot compete with Ancona, on the railway. In Sampaolo to-day, if you +have any public business to transact, from taking out a dog license to +seeking justice in the law-courts, every official you have to deal +with, including the judges, expects his buonamano. If you post a +letter, it is an even chance whether the Post-Office young men won't +destroy the letter and steal the stamps; while, if you go to the +Post-Office to buy stamps, it is highly possible that they will +playfully sell you forged ones." + +She gave a bitter little laugh. + +"The present Prefect of Sampaolo," she continued her illustrations, +"formerly kept a disreputable public house, a sailors' tavern, at +Ancona. He is known to be a Camorrista; and though his salary is only +a few thousand lire, he lives with the ostentation of a parvenu +millionaire, and no one doubts where he gets his money. These evils +are felt by everyone. But the worst evil of all is the condition of +the Church. In the old days the Sampaolesi were noted for their piety; +now, even in modern irreligious Italy, you would seek far to unearth a +people so flagrantly irreligious. From high to low the men are +atheists; and the few men who are not, have to be very careful how they +show it. It is as much as a tradesman's trade is worth, as much as an +employe's place is worth, to go to Mass; the one will sit behind a +deserted counter, the other will learn that his services are no longer +needed. The present régime is liked by no one save the officials who +benefit by it; but it tickles the vanity of the Sampaolesi to call +themselves citizens of a Great Power; and so, though many are +republicans, many socialists, none are legitimists. They would prefer +any burden to the burden of insignificance; and under the reign of the +Valdeschi, though free, prosperous, and happy, Sampaolo was +insignificant." + +"You paint a very sad state of things," said Anthony. + +"Believe me," said Susanna, "my painting is pale beside the reality." + +"And, apparently, a hopeless state," he added. + +"Some day the Kingdom of Italy must end in a tremendous smash-up. +Afterwards, perhaps, there will be a readjustment. Our hope is in +that," said she. + +"Meanwhile, you make it clear, I am afraid," he argued, "that we should +gain only our labour for our pains in plotting a restoration." + +"We should have the excitement of plotting," laughingly argued she. + +"A plotter's best reward, like an artist's, you suggest, is the +pleasure he takes in his work. But now you are inciting me to look at +it again from the selfish point of view, for which a moment ago you +were upbraiding me," he reminded her. + +"_Do_ look at it from the selfish point of view," inconsistent and +unashamed, she urged. "Think of your lands, your houses, your palaces +and gardens, Castel San Guido, Isola Nobile, think of your pictures, +your jewels, the thousand precious heirlooms that are rightly yours, +think of your mere crude money. How can you bear the thought that +these are in the possession of a stranger--these, your inheritance, the +inheritance of nearly eight hundred years? Oh, if I were in your +place, the wrong of it would fill the universe for me. I could not +endure it." + +"One has no choice but to endure it," said he. "One benumbs resentment +with a fatalistic 'needs must.'" + +"One would do better to inflame resentment with a defiant 'where there +'s a will there 's a way,'" Susanna answered. + +"The way is not plain to see." + +"No--but we must discover the way. That"--she smiled--"shall be the +aim of our plotting." + +And again for some time they walked on without speaking. + +"If she could only guess how little my heart's desire is centred upon +the lands and houses of Sampaolo," thought Anthony, "how entirely it is +centred upon something much nearer home. I wonder what she would do if +I should tell her." + +And at that thought his heart winced with delight and terror. + +He looked sidewise at her. Her dark hair curled about her temples, and +drooped in a loose mass behind; her dark eyes shone; there was a warm +colour in her cheeks. Her head held high, her body defined itself in +lines of strength and beauty, as she walked by the cliff's edge, +resisting the wind, with the sea and the sky for background. He looked +at her, and wondered what would happen if he should tell her; and his +heart glowed with delight, and winced with delight and terror,--glowed +with delight in the supreme reality of her presence, winced with +delight and terror at the imagination of telling her. + +And then the suspended rain came down in a sudden pelting shower; and +Anthony put up his umbrella. To keep in its shelter, they had to walk +very close to each other, their arms touching sometimes. I daresay +they were both pretty wet when they reached Craford New Manor, but I +don't think either minded much. + +Miss Sandus, who met them in the hall, insisted that Susanna must go +upstairs and change; but to Anthony she said, "There 'll be tea in a +minute or two," and led the way to the drawing-room, the big, oblong, +sombre red-and-gold drawing-room, with its heavy furniture, its heavy +red damask hangings, its heavy gilded woodwork, its heavy bronzes and +paintings. + +Wet as he was, he followed, and sat down, with his conductress, before +the huge red-marble fireplace, in which a fire of logs was blazing--by +no means unwelcome on this not-uncharacteristic English summer's day. + + + + +XIII + +"Well, you 've had a good sousing--had you a good walk?" asked the +little brisk old woman, in her pleasant light old voice. + +"Yes--to Blye, or nearly," said Anthony. "The rain only caught us +towards the end. But what I stand in need of now is your sympathy and +counsel." + +She sat back in a deep easy chair, her pretty little hands folded in +her lap, her pretty little feet, in dainty slippers, high-heeled and +silver-buckled, resting on a footstool. It was a pretty as well as a +kind and clever face that smiled enquiringly up at him, from under her +soft abundance of brown hair. + +"What's the matter?" she asked. + +"Nothing much. I 'm merely in love," he answered. + +Miss Sandus sat forward. + +"In love? That's delightful. Whom with? With me? Is this a +declaration? Or a confidence?" + +She fixed him with her humorous bright old eyes. + +"It's both. Of course, I 'm in love with you. Everyone who knows you +is that," he predicated. "But also," he added, on a key of profound +melancholy, "if you will forgive my forcing the confidence upon you, +also with _her_." + +He glanced indicatively ceilingwards. + +"H'm," Miss Sandus considered, looking into the fire, "also with _her_." + +"Yes," said Anthony. + +"H'm," repeated Miss Sandus. "You go a bit fast. How long have you +known her?" + +"All my life. I never lived until I knew her," he averred. + +"It was inevitable that you should say that--men always say that," the +lady generalised. "I heard it for the first time fifty-five years ago." + +"Then, I expect, there must be some truth in it," was Anthony's +deduction. "Anyhow, I have known her long enough. One does n't need +_time_ in these affairs. One recognises a perfect thing--one +recognises one's affinity. One knows when one is hit. I 'm in love +with her. Give me your sympathy and counsel." + +"You have my sympathy. What counsel do you wish?" + +"What shall I do?" asked Anthony. "Drown myself? Take to drink?" + +"I should n't drown myself," said Miss Sandus. "Drowning is so wet and +chilly; and I 'm told it's frightfully unbecoming, into the bargain. +As for drink, I hear it's nothing like what it's cracked up to be." + +"I daresay it is n't," admitted Anthony, with a sigh. "I suppose +there's not the ghost of a chance for me?" he gloomed. + +"H'm," said Miss Sandus. + +"I suppose it would be madness on my part to speak to her?" he pursued. + +"That would depend a good deal, I should think, on the nature of what +you said," his counsellor suggested, smiling. + +"If I said point-blank I loved her--?" + +Miss Sandus looked hard at the fire, her brows drawn together, +pondering. Her brows were drawn together, but the _vis comica_ played +about her lips. + +"I think, if I were in your place, I should try it," she decided at +last. + +"_Would_ you?" said Anthony, surprised, encouraged. But, in a second, +despondency had closed round him again. "You see," he signified, "the +situation is uncommonly delicate--one 's at a double and twisted +disadvantage." + +"How so?" Miss Sandus asked, looking up. + +"She's established here for the summer. I, of all men, must n't be the +one to make Craford impossible for her." + +"I see," said Miss Sandus. "Yes, there's that to be thought of." + +"There 's such a deuced lot of things to be thought of," said he, +despairingly. + +"Let's hear the deuced lot," said the lady, with business-like +cheerfulness. + +"Well, to begin with," he brought out painfully, "there 's the fact +that she 's rich." + +"Yes, she's rich," conceded Miss Sandus. "Does that diminish her +attractions?" + +"You know what I mean," groaned Anthony, with no heart for trifling. + +"For the matter of that, are n't you rich yourself?" Miss Sandus +retorted. + +"Rich!" he cried. "I totter on the brink of destitution." + +"Oh?" she murmured. "I 'd imagined you were by way of being rather an +extensive land owner." + +"So I am," said he. "And my rather extensive lands, what with +shrinkages and mortgages, with wages, pensions, subscriptions, and +general expenses,--I doubt if they yield a net income of fifteen +hundred a year. And I 've not a stiver else in the world." + +"Poor, poor young man," she laughingly commiserated him. "And yet I +hardly think you 're poor enough to let the fact of her wealth weigh +with you. If a man has enough for himself, it does n't matter how much +more his wife may have, since he 'll not depend upon her for his +support. I should n't lie awake o' nights, bothering about the money +question." + +Anthony got up, and stood at the end of the fireplace, with his elbow +on the mantel. + +"You 're awfully good," he said, looking down at the gracious little +old figure in the easy chair. + +"I 'm an old woman," said she. "All old women love a lover. You renew +the romance of things for us. You transport us back, a century or so, +to our hot youth, when George the Third was king, and we were lovers +ourselves. _Et in Arcadia ego_--but I 've lost my Greek." + +"You 'll never lose your Pierian," said Anthony, bowing. + +He took her hand, bent over it, and touched it with his lips. + +"If flattery can make friends, you 'll not lack 'em," said she, with a +pretty, pleased old blush. + +"But I 've not yet emptied my sack," said he, relapsing into gloom. +"There's a further and perhaps a greater difficulty." + +"Let's hear the further difficulty," cheerily proposed Miss Sandus. +Then, as he appeared to hesitate, "Has it anything to do with her +former marriage?" + +"You divine my thoughts," he replied, in an outburst. "Yet," he more +lightly added, "you know, I don't in the least believe in her former +marriage. She seems so--well, if not exactly girlish, so young, so +immaculately fresh, it's impossible to believe in. None the less, of +course, it 's an irrevocable fact, and it's a complication. I must n't +intrude on sacred ground. If she still grieves . . ." + +A gesture conveyed the rest. + +"Look here," said Miss Sandus, abruptly. "I'm going to betray a trust. +Think what you will of me, I 'm going to violate a confidence. She +does n't grieve, she has never grieved. Your intuitions about her are +right to the letter. She was never married, except in name--it was +purely a marriage of convenience--the man was a complete nonentity. +Don't ask me the whys and the wherefores. But make what you will of +that which I 've been indiscreet enough to tell you." + +"I think you are an angel out of Heaven," cried Anthony, with ardour. +"If you could know the load you have lifted from my heart, the balm you +have poured into it." + +"If you have n't wealth," Miss Sandus went on, summing the issue up, +"you have a good position and--a _beau nom_. You have more than one +indeed, if all I hear be true. You 're both of the old religion, you +'re both at the mating age. In every way it would be a highly suitable +match. Wait for a good occasion--occasion's everything. Wait +for--what does the poet say?--for the time and the place and the loved +one all together, and tell her that you love her. And now--here comes +the tea." + +And with the tea came Susanna, in a wonderful rustling blue-grey +confection of the material that is known, I believe, as _voile_; and +immediately after Susanna, Adrian. + + + + +XIV + +Adrian was clearly in a state of excitement. His hair was ruffled, his +pink face showed a deeper flush, his lips were parted, his bosom heaved. + +He halted near the threshold, he threw up his hands, he rolled his +eyes, he nodded. It was patent that something had happened. + +"Oh, my dears! my dears!" he gasped. + +His dears attended, curious, expectant. But as he stood silent, and +merely cast intensely significant glances from one to the other, and +thence to the walls and ceiling, Anthony, constituting himself +spokesman for the company, asked, "Well--? What's the row?" + +"Oh, my dears!" Adrian repeated, and advanced a few steps further into +the room, his hands still raised. + +"What _is_ it?" besought Susanna, breathless. + +"Oh, my dearie dears!" he gasped. + +He sank upon a chair. + +"I must have a cup of tea before I can speak. Perhaps a cup of tea +will pull me together." + +Susanna hastily poured and brought him a cup of tea. + +"Ministering angel!" was his acknowledgment. He tasted his tea. "But +oh--unkind--you 've forgotten the sugar." He gazed helplessly at the +tea-table. + +Anthony brought him the sugar-bowl. + +"Are those cruffins?" he asked, eyeing a dish on the cake-stand. + +"They 're mumpers," said Miss Sandus, pushing the cake-stand towards +him. "But you 're keeping us on tenter-hooks." + +"I 'm _so_ sorry. It's beyond my control. I must eat a mumpet. +Perhaps then I 'll be able to tell you all about it." + +He ate his mumpet--with every sign of relish; he sipped his tea; his +audience waited. In the end he breathed a deep, long sigh. + +"I 've had an experience--I 've had the experience of my life," he said. + +"Yes--?" said they. + +"I could n't lose an instant--I had to run--to tell you of it. I felt +it would consume me if I could n't share it." + +Their faces proclaimed their eagerness to hear. + +"May I have another cup?" he asked Susanna. + +This time, however, he rose, and went to the table. + +"The world is so strange," he said. + +"Come! we 're waiting for the experience of your life," said Anthony. + +"You must n't hurry me--you must n't worry me," Adrian remonstrated. +"I 'm in a very over-wrought condition. You must let me approach it in +my own way." + +"I believe the flighty creature has forgotten it," said Anthony. + +"Flighty creature?" Adrian levelled eyes black with reproach upon him. +Then turning to the ladies: "That shows how he misunderstands me. Just +because I had a witty mother,--just because I 'm not a stolid, +phlegmatic ox of a John Bull,--just because I 'm sensitive and +impressionable,--he calls me flighty. But you know better, _don't_ +you? You, with all your fine feminine instincts and perceptions, you +know that I 'm really as steady and as serious as the pyramids of +Egypt. Even my very jokes have a moral purpose--and what I teach in +them, I learned in sorrow. Flighty!" He shot another black glance at +the offender, and held out his cup for a third filling. + +"Blessings be on the man who invented tea," he devoutly murmured. "On +Friday especially"--he appealed to Susanna--"_is n't_ it a boon? I +don't know how one could get through Friday without it. You poor dear +fortunate Protestants"--he directed his remark to Miss Sandus--"have no +conception how frequently Friday comes. I think there are seven +Fridays in the week." + +Susanna was softly laughing, where (in that wonderful, crisp, fresh, +close-fitting, blue-grey gown, with its frills and laces and +embroideries) she sat in the corner of a long, red-damask-covered sofa, +by the prettily decked tea-table. Anthony, standing near her, looking +down at her, was conscious of a great content in his heart, and of a +great craving. "How splendid she is. Was there ever such hair? Were +there ever such eyes, such lips? Was there ever such a frock? And +then that faint, faint, faintest perfume, like a remembrance of +violets!" I daresay something to this effect was vaguely singing +itself to his thoughts. + +"But the experience of your life? The experience of your life?" Miss +Sandus insisted. + +"He's clean forgotten it," Anthony assured her. + +"Forgotten it? Tush," Adrian flung back, with scorn. "But you 're all +so precipitate. One has to collect one's faculties. There are fifty +possible ways of telling a thing--one must select the most effective. +And then, if you come to that, life has so many experiences, and so +many different sorts of experience. Life, to the man with an open eye, +is just one sequence of many-coloured astonishments. I never could and +never shall understand how it is possible for people to be bored. What +do you say "--he looked towards the piano--"to my singing you a little +song?" + +"You 're inimitable--but you 're inimitably exasperating." Miss Sandus +gave him up, with a resigned toss of the head. + +"Do sing us a little song," Susanna begged. + +He set off, dancing, in the direction of the instrument. But midway +there he stopped, and half turned round, poising, as it were, in his +flight. + +"Grave or gay? Sacred or profane?" he asked from over his shoulder. + +"Anything--what you will," Susanna answered. + +"I 'll sing you a little Ave Maria," he decided. Whereupon, instead of +proceeding, he turned his back squarely upon the piano, and squarely +faced his hearers. + +"When a musician composes an Ave Maria," he instructed them, "what he +ought to try for is exactly what those nice old Fifteenth Century +painters in Italy tried for when they painted their Annunciations. He +should try to represent what one would have heard, if one had been +there, just as they tried to represent what one would have seen. Now, +how was it? What would one have heard? What did our Blessed Lady +herself hear? Look. It was the springtime, and it was the end of the +day. And she sat in her garden. And God sent His Angel to announce +the 'great thing' to her. But she must not be frightened. She, so +dear to God, the little maid of fifteen, all wonder and shyness and +innocence, she must not be frightened. She sat in her garden, among +her lilies. Birds were singing round her; the breeze was whispering +lightly in the palm-trees; near-by a brook was plashing; from the +village came the rumour of many voices. All the pleasant, familiar +sounds of nature and of life were in the air. She sat there, thinking +her white thoughts, dreaming her holy day-dreams. And, half as if it +were a day-dream, she saw an Angel come and kneel before her. But she +was not frightened--for it was like a day-dream--and the Angel's face +was so beautiful and so tender and so reverent, she could not have been +frightened, even if it had seemed wholly real. He knelt before her, +and his lips moved, but, as in a dream, silently. All the familiar +music of the world went on--the bird-songs, the whisper of the wind, +the babble of the brook, the rumour of the village. They all went +on--there was no pause, no hush, no change--nothing to startle +her--only, somehow, they seemed all to draw together, to become a +single sound. All the sounds of earth and heaven, the homely, familiar +sounds of earth, but the choiring of the stars too, all the sounds of +the universe, at that moment, as the Angel knelt before her, drew +together into a single sound. And 'Hail,' it said, 'hail Mary full of +grace!'" + +For a minute, after he had finished, Adrian stood still, and no one +spoke. Then he returned to the fireside, and sank back into his chair. + +"What a beautiful--what a divinely beautiful--idea," Susanna said at +last, with feeling. + +"Beautiful," emphatically chimed in Protestant Miss Sandus. + +"Stand still, true poet that you are,--I know you, let me try and name +you," laughed Anthony, from the hearth-rug. + +"Chrysostom--he should be named Chrysostom," said Miss Sandus. + +"The world is a garden of beautiful ideas," was Adrian's modest +acceptance of these tributes. "One only has to cull them. But +now"--he rose--"I must toddle home. Are you going my way?" he inquired +of Anthony. + +"What?" protested Miss Sandus. "You're leaving us, without telling the +experience of your life--the experience that you 'had to run' to tell +us!" + +"And without singing us your song," protested Susanna. + +Adrian wrung his hands. + +"Oh, cruel ladies!" he complained. "How can you be so unjust? I have +told you the experience of my life. And as for singing my song--" + +"He can always leave off singing when he hears a master talk," put in +Anthony. + +"As for singing my song," said Adrian, ignoring him, "I must go home +and try to write it." + + + + +XV + +And then the weather changed again. The clouds drifted away, the sun +came back, the sunshine was like gold that had been washed and +polished. The landscape smiled with a new radiance, gay as if it had +never gloomed. The grass was greener, the flowers were brighter, the +birds sang louder and clearer. The sea, with its shimmer and sheen, +was like blue silk; the sky was like blue velvet. The trees lifted up +their arms, greedy for the returned light and warmth, the sweeter air. + +Susanna, at noon-day, in her pine grove, by her brookside, was bending +down, peering intently into the transparent water. + +Anthony, seeking, found her there. + +"Books in the running brooks. I interrupt your reading?" he suggested, +as one ready, at a hint, to retire. + +"No," said she, looking up--giving, for a second, her eyes to his, her +dark, half-laughing eyes. "It is not a book--it is the genius of the +place." + +She pointed to where, at her feet, the hurrying stream rested an +instant, to take breath, in a deep, dusky little pool, overhung by a +tangle of eglantine. + +"See how big he is, and how old and grey and grim, and how motionless +and silent. It seems almost discourteous of him, almost contemptuous, +not to show any perturbation when one intrudes upon him, does n't it?" + +The genius of the place, floating in the still water, his fixed small +beady eyes just above the surface, was a big grey frog. + +"Books in the running brooks indeed, none the less," Susanna went on, +meditating. "Brooks--even artificial ones--are so mysterious, are n't +they? They are filled with so many mysterious living things--frogs and +tadpoles and newts and strange water-insects, nixies and pixies. +Undines and Sabrinas fair and water-babies; and such strange plants +grow in them; and who can guess the meaning of the tales they tell, in +that never-ceasing, purling tongue of theirs? . . . And Signor +Ranocchio? What do you suppose he is thinking of, as he floats there, +so still, so saturnine, so indifferent to us? He is plainly in a deep, +deep reverie. How wise he looks--a grey, wise old water-hermit, with +his head full of strange, unimaginable water-secrets, and strange, +ancient water-memories. Perhaps he is--what was his name?--the god of +streams himself, the old pagan god of streams, disguised as a frog for +some wicked old pagan-godish adventure. Perhaps that 's why he is n't +afraid of us--mere mortals. You 'd expect a mere frog to leap away or +plunge under, would n't you?" + +Again, for a second, she gave Anthony her eyes. They were filled with +pensiveness and laughter. + +In celebration of the sun's return, she wore a white frock (some filmy +crinkled stuff, crêpe-de-chine perhaps), and carried a white sunshade, +a thing all frills and furbelows. This she opened, as, leaving the +shadow of the pines, she moved by the brook-side, down the lawn, where +the unimpeded sun shone hot, towards the pond. + +"The eighth wonder of the world--an olive-tree that bears roses," she +remarked. + +Her glance directed his to a gnarled old willow, growing by the pond. +Indeed, with the wryness of its branches, the grey-green of its leaves, +you might almost have mistaken it for an olive-tree. A rose-vine had +clambered up to the topmost top of it, and spread in all directions, so +that everywhere, vivid against the grey-green, hung red roses. + +"And now, if you will come, I 'll show you the ninth wonder of the +world," she promised. She led him down a long wide pathway, bordered +on each side by hortensias in full blossom, two swelling hedges of +fire, where purple dissolved into blue and crimson, blue into a hundred +green, mauve, and violet overtones and undertones of blue, and crimson +into every palest, vaguest, most elusive, and every intensest red the +broken sunbeam bleeds upon the spectrum. + +"But this," she said, "though you might well think it so, is not the +ninth wonder of the world." + +"I think the ninth wonder of the world, as well as the first and last, +is walking beside me," said Anthony, in silence, to the sky. + +The path ended in an arbour, roofed and walled with rose-vines; and +herein were garden-chairs and a table. + +"Shall we sit here a little?" proposed Susanna. + +She put down her sunshade, and they established themselves under the +roof of roses. On the table stood a Chinese vase, red and gold, with a +dragon-handled cover. + +"Occasion 's everything, beyond a doubt," thought Anthony. "But the +rub is to know an occasion when you see it. Is _this_ an occasion?" + +He looked at her, and his heart trembled, and held him back. + +"Oh, the fragrance of the roses," said Susanna. "How do they do it? A +pinch of sunshine, a drop or two of dew, a puff of air, a handful of +brown earth--and out of these they distil what seems as if it were the +very smell of heaven." + +But she spoke in tones noticeably hushed, as if fearing to be overheard. + +Anthony looked round. + +A moment ago there had not been a bird in sight (though, of course, the +day was thridded through and through with the notes of those who were +out of sight). But now, in the path before the arbour, all facing +towards it, there must have been a score of birds--three or four +sparrows, a pair of chaffinches, and then greenfinches, greenfinches, +greenfinches. They were all facing expectantly towards the arbour, +hopping towards it, hesitating, hopping on again, coming nearer, nearer. + +Susanna, moving softly, lifted the dragon-handled cover from the +Chinese vase. It was full of birdseed. + +"Ah, I see," said Anthony. "Pensioners. But I suppose you have +reflected that to give alms to the able-bodied is to pauperise them." + +"Hush," she whispered, scorning his economics. "Please make yourself +invisible, and be quiet." + +Then, taking a handful of seed, and leaning forward, softly, softly she +began to intone-- + + "Tu-ite, tu-ite, + Uccelli, fringuelli, + Passeri, verdonelli, + Venite, venite!" + +and so, da capo, over and over again. + +And the birds, hesitating, gaining confidence, holding back, hopping +on, came nearer, nearer. A few, the boldest, entered the arbour . . . +they all entered . . . they hesitated, hung back, hopped on. Now they +were at her feet; now three were in her lap; others were on the table. +On the table, in her lap, at her feet, she scattered seed. Then she +took a second handful, and softly, softly, to a sort of lullaby tune, + + "Perlino, Perlino, + Perlino Piumino, + Where is Perlino? + Come, Perlino," + +she sang, her open hand extended. + +A greenfinch new up to the table, flew down to her knee, flew up to her +shoulder, flew down to her hand, and, perching on her thumb, began to +feed. + +And she went on with her soft, soft intoning. + + "This is Perlino, + So green, oh, so green, oh. + He is the bravest heart, + The sweetest singer, of them all. + I 'm obliged to impart my information + In the form of a chant; + For if I were to speak it out, prose-wise, + They would be frightened, they would fly away. + But I hope you admire + My fine contempt for rhyme and rhythm. + Is this not the ninth wonder of the world? + Would you or could you have believed, + If you had n't seen it? + That these wild birds, + Not the sparrows only, + But the shy, shy finches, + Could become so tame, so fearless? + Oh, it took time--and patience. + One had to come every day, + At the same hour, + And sit very still, + And softly, softly, + Monotonously, monotonously, + Croon, croon, croon, + As I am crooning now. + At first one cast one's seed + At a distance-- + Then nearer, nearer, + Till at last-- + Well, you see the result." + + +Her eyes laughed, but she was very careful not to move. Anthony, +blotted against the leafy wall behind him, sat as still as a statue. +Her eyes laughed. "Oh, such eyes!" thought he. Her red lips, smiling, +took delicious curves. And the hand on which Perlino perched, with its +slender fingers, its soft modelling, its warm whiteness, was like a +thing carved of rose-marble and made alive. + +"And Perlino," she resumed her chant-- + + "Perlino Piumino + Is the bravest of them all. + And now that he has made an end + Of his handful of seed, + I hope he will be so good + As to favour us with a little music. + Sometimes he will, + And sometimes he just obstinately won't. + Tu-ite, tu-ite, tu-ite, + Andiamo, Perlino, tu-ite! + Canta, di grazia, canta." + + +And after some further persuasion,--you will suspect me of romancing, +but upon my word,--Perlino Piumino consented. Clinging to Susanna's +thumb, he threw back his head, opened his bill, and poured forth his +crystal song--a thin, bright, crystal rill, swift-flowing, winding in +delicate volutions. And mercy, how his green little bosom throbbed. + +"Is n't it incredible?" Susanna whispered. "It is wonderful to feel +him. His whole body is beating like a heart." + +And when his song was finished, she bent towards him, and--never, never +so softly--touched the top of his green head with her lips. + +"And, now--fly away, birdlings--back to your affairs," she said. +"Good-bye until to-morrow." + +She rose, and there was an instant whir of fluttering wings. + +"Shall we walk?" she said to Anthony. She shook her frock, to dust the +last grains of birdseed from it. "If we stay here, they will think +there is more to come. And they 've had quite sufficient for one day." + +She put up her sunshade, and they turned back into the alley of +hortensias. + +"You find me speechless," said Anthony. "Of course, it has n't really +happened. But how--how do you produce so strong an illusion of +reality? I could have sworn I saw a greenfinch feeding from your hand, +I could have sworn I saw him cling there, and heard him sing his song. +I could have sworn I saw you kiss him." + +Susanna, under her white sunshade, laughed, softly, victoriously. + +"Speaking with all moderation," he declared, "it is the most marvellous +performance I have ever witnessed. If it had been a sparrow--or a +pigeon--but--a greenfinch--!" + +"There are very few birds that can't be tamed," she said. "You 've +only got to familiarise them with your presence at a certain spot at a +certain hour, and keep very still, and be very, very gentle in your +movements, and croon to them, and bring them food. I have tamed wilder +birds than greenfinches, in Italy--I have tamed goldfinches, blackcaps, +and even an oriole. And if you have once tamed a bird, and made him +your friend, he never forgets you. Season after season, when he +returns from his migration, he recognises you, and takes up the +friendship where it was put down. Until at last"--her voice sank, and +she shook her head--"there comes a season when he returns no more." + +They had strolled beyond the hortensias, into a shady avenue of elms. +Round the trunk of one of these ran a circular bench. Susanna sat +down. Anthony stood before her. + +"I trust, at any rate," she said, whimsically smiling, "that the moral +of my little exhibition has not been lost upon you?" + +"A moral? Oh?" said he. "No. I had supposed it was beauty for +beauty's sake." + +"Ah, but beauty sometimes points a moral in spite of itself. The very +obvious moral of this is that where there 's a will there 's a way." + +She looked up, making her eyes grave; then smiled again. + +"We must resume our plotting. I think I have found the way by which +the Conte di Sampaolo can regain his inheritance." + +Anthony laughed. + +"There are exactly two ways by which he can do that," he said. "One is +to equip an army, and go to war with the King of Italy, and--a mere +detail--conquer him. The other is to procure a wishing-cap and wish +it. Which do you recommend?" + +"No," said Susanna. "There is a third and simpler way." + +She was tracing patterns on the ground with the point of her parasol. + +"There is the way of marriage." + +She completed a circle, and began to draw a star within it. + +"You should go to Sampaolo, and marry your cousin. So"--her eyes on +her drawing, she spoke slowly, with an effect supremely impersonal--"so +you would come to your own again; and so a house divided against +itself, an ancient noble house, would be reunited; and an ancient +historic line, broken for a little, would be made whole." + +She put the fifth point to her star. + +Anthony stood off, half laughing, and held up his hands, in admiring +protest. + +"Dear lady, what a programme!" was his laughing ejaculation. + +"I admit," said she, critically regarding the figure at her feet, "that +at first blush it may seem somewhat fantastic. But it is really worth +serious consideration. You are the heir to a great name, which has +been separated from the estates that are its appanage, and to a great +tradition, which has been interrupted. But the heir to such a name, to +such a tradition, is heir also to great duties, to great obligations. +He has no right to be passive, or to think only of himself. The +thirty-fourth Count of Sampaolo owes it to his thirty-three +predecessors--the descendant of San Guido owes it to San Guido--to +bestir himself, to do the very utmost in his power to revive and +maintain the tradition. He is a custodian, a trustee. He has no right +to sit down, idle and contented, to the life of a country gentleman in +England. He is the banner-bearer of his race. He has no right to +leave the banner folded in a dark closet. He must unfurl his banner, +and bear it bravely in the sight of the world. That is the +justification, that is the mission, of _noblesse_. A great nobleman +should not evade or hide his nobility--he should bear it nobly in the +sight of the world. That is the mission of the Conte di Sampaolo--that +is the work he was born to do. It seems to me that at present he is +pretty thoroughly neglecting his work." + +She shot a smile at him, then lowered her eyes again upon her encircled +star. + +"You preach a very eloquent sermon," said Anthony, "and in principle I +acknowledge its soundness. But in practice--there is just absolutely +nothing the Conte di Sampaolo can do." + +"He can go to Vallanza, and marry his cousin," reiterated she. "Thus +the name and the estates would be brought together again, and the +tradition would be renewed." + +She had slipped a ring from her finger, and was vaguely playing with it. + +Anthony only laughed. + +"Does n't my proposition deserve better than mere laughter?" said she. + +"I should laugh," said he, with secret meaning, "on the wrong side of +my mouth, if I thought you wished me to take it seriously." ("If I +thought she seriously wished me to marry another woman!" he breathed, +shuddering, to his soul.) + +"Why should n't I wish you to take it seriously?" she asked, studying +her ring. + +"The marriage of cousins is forbidden by Holy Church," said he. + +"She 's only your second or third cousin. The nearest Bishop would +give you a dispensation," answered Susanna, twirling her ring round in +the palm of her hand. + +"There would, of course, be no question of the lady rejecting me," he +laughed. + +"You would naturally endeavour to make yourself agreeable to her, and +to capture her affections," she retorted, slipping the ring back upon +its finger, and clasping her hands. "Besides, she could hardly be +indifferent to the circumstance that you have it in your power to +regularise her position. She calls herself the Countess of Sampaolo. +She could do so with a clear conscience if she were the wife of the +legitimate Count." + +"She can do so with a clear conscience as it is," said Anthony. "She +has the patent of the Italian King." + +"Pinchbeck to gold," said Susanna. "A title improvised yesterday--and +a title dating from 1104! The real thing, and a tawdry imitation. Go +to Sampaolo, make her acquaintance, fall in love with her, persuade her +to fall in love with you, marry her,--and there will be the grand old +House of Valdeschi itself again." + +Her eyes glowed. + +But Anthony only laughed. + +"You counsel procedures incompatible," he said. "If I am the custodian +of a tradition, which you would have me maintain, how better could I +play it false, than by marrying, of all women, the granddaughter, the +heiress and representative, of the man who upset it?" + +"You would heal a family feud, and blot out a wrong," said she, drawing +patterns again with her sunshade. "Magnanimity should be _part_ of +your tradition. You would not visit the sins of the fathers upon the +children? You don't hold your cousin personally responsible?" + +She looked up obliquely at him. + +"Personally," he answered, "my cousin may be the most innocent soul +alive. She is born to a ready-made situation, and accepts it. But it +is a situation which I, if I am to be loyal to my tradition, cannot +accept. It is the negation of my tradition. I am obliged to submit to +it, but I can't accept it. My cousin is the embodiment of the +anti-tradition. You say--marry her. That is like inviting the Pope to +ally himself with the Antipope." + +"No, no," contended Susanna, arresting her sunshade in the midst of an +intricate vermiculation. "For the Antipope must be in wilful personal +rebellion; while your cousin is what she is, quite independently of her +own will--perhaps in spite of it. Imagine me, for instance, in her +place--me," she smiled, "the sole legitimist in Sampaolo. What could I +do? I find myself in possession of stolen goods. I would, if I could, +restore them at once to their rightful owner. But I can't--because I +am only the tenant for life. I can't sell them, nor give them away, +nor even, dying, dispose of them by will. I am only the tenant for +life. After me, they must pass to the next heir. So, if I wish to +restore them to their rightful owner, there 's but a single means of +doing so open to me--I must induce the rightful owner to make me his +wife." + +She smiled again, mirthfully, but with conviction, with conclusiveness, +as who should say, "I have proved my point." + +"Ah," pronounced Anthony, with stress, though perhaps a trifle +ambiguously, "if it were you, it would be different." + +"In your cousin's case, to be sure," pursued Susanna, "there is one +other means. You happen to be, on the Valdeschi side, her nearest +kinsman, and therefore, until she marries and has children, you are her +heir presumptive. Well, if she were to retire into a convent, taking +vows of celibacy and poverty, then what they call the usufruct of her +properties could be settled upon her heir presumptive for her lifetime, +the properties themselves passing to him at her death." + +"We will wish the young lady no such dreary fate," laughed Anthony. +"Fortunately for her, she is not troubled by your scruples." + +"How do you know she is n't?" asked Susanna. + +"We can safely take it for granted," said he. "Besides, you have told +me so yourself." + +"_I_ have told you so--?" she puzzled. + +"You have told me that there is but one legitimist in Sampaolo. If my +cousin were troubled by your scruples, she would make a second. And of +the whole population of the island, can you suggest a less probable +second?" + +"They say that Queen Anne was at heart a Jacobite," Susanna reminded +him. "Your cousin is young. One could lay the case before her, one +could work upon her conscience. And, supposing her conscience to be +once roused, then, if you could n't be brought to offer her your hand, +she 'd have no choice but renunciation and the Cloister." + +"Let us hope, therefore, that her conscience may remain comfortably +asleep," said he. "For even to save her from the Cloister, I could not +offer her my hand." + +Susanna, leaning back against the rugged trunk of her elm, gazed down +the long shaded avenue, and appeared to muse. Here and there, the sun, +finding a way through the green cloud of leaves, a visible fillet of +light in the dim atmosphere, dappled the brown earth with rose. In her +white frock, her dark hair loose about her brow, a faint colour in her +cheeks, her dark eyes musing, musing but half smiling at the same time, +I think she looked very charming, very interesting, very warmly and +richly feminine, I think she looked very lovely, very lovable; and I +don't wonder that Anthony--as his eyes rested upon her, fed upon +her--felt something violent happen in his heart. + +"Occasion is everything--the occasion has come--the occasion has come," +a silent voice seemed to incite him. And as it were unseen hands +seemed to push him on. + +The blood rushed tumultuously to his head. + +"I 'm going to risk it, I 'm going to risk everything," he decreed, +suddenly, recklessly. + +"There are a thousand reasons why I could not offer her my hand," he +said. "One reason is that I am in love with another woman." + +His throat was dry, his voice sounded strained. His heart beat hard. +He had burned his first bridge. He kept his eyes on her. + +She continued to gaze down the avenue. I think she caught her breath, +though. + +"Oh--?" she said, after an instant, on a tone that tried in vain to be +a tone of conventional politeness. She had been perfectly aware, of +course, that it was bound to come. She had fancied herself perfectly +prepared to cope with it, when it should come. But she had not +expected it to come just yet. It took her off her guard. + +"Yes," said he; "and you know whom I am in love with." + +This time there could be no doubt that she caught her breath. She had +overestimated her power of self-command, her talent for dissembling. +She had known that it was bound to come; she had imagined that she +could meet it lightly, humorously, that she could parry it, and never +betray herself. And here she was, catching her breath, whilst her +heart trembled and sank and sang within her. She bit her lip, in +vexation; she closed her eyes, in ecstasy; she kept her face turned +down the avenue, in fear. + +Anthony's heart was leaping. A wild hope had kindled in it. + +"I am in love with _you_--with _you_," he cried, in a voice that shook. + +She did not speak, she did not look at him, but she caught her breath +audibly, a long tremulous breath. + +He knelt at her feet, he seized her hands. She did not withdraw them. + +"I love you, I love you. Don't keep your face turned from me. Look at +me. Answer me. I love you. Will you marry me?" + +He felt her hands tremble in his. Her surrender of them--was it not +fuel to the fire of his hope? He put his lips to them, he kissed them, +he covered them with kisses. They were warm, and sweet to smell, +faintly, terribly sweet to smell. + +At last she drew them away. She shrunk away herself, back along her +bench. She bit her lip, in chagrin at her weakness, her +self-indulgence. She knew that she was losing ground, precious, +indispensable, to that deep-laid, secret, cherished plot of hers. But +her heart sang and sang, but a joy such as she had never dreamed of +filled it. Oh, she had known that her heart would be filled with joy, +when he should say, "I love you"; but she had never dreamed of a joy +such as this. This was a joy the very elements of which were new to +her; different, not in degree only, but in kind, from any joy she had +experienced before. She could not so soon put it by, she could not yet +bid herself be stern. + +"Look at me. Answer me. I love you. Will you marry me?" he cried. + +But she _must_ bid herself be stern. "I must, I must," she thought. +She made a mighty effort. + +"No," she said, in a suffocated voice, painfully. + +"Oh, look at me," he pleaded. "Why do you keep your face turned away? +Why do you say no? I love you. Will you marry me? Say yes, say yes." + +But she did not look at him. + +"No. I can't. Don't ask me," she said. + +"Why can't you? I love you. I adore you. Why should n't I ask you?" + +The palest flicker of a smile passed over her face. + +"I want you to marry your cousin," she said. + +"Is that the only reason?" + +"Is n't that a sufficient reason?" + +Again there was the flicker of a smile. + +"For heaven's sake, look at me. Don't keep your face turned away. +Then you don't--you don't care for me--not an atom?" + +"I"--she could not deny herself one instant of weakness more, one +supreme instant; afterwards she would be stern in earnest, she would +draw back--"I never meant to let you know I did." + +And for the first time between two heart-beats her eyes met his, stayed +with his. + +For the time between two heart-beats, Time stood still, the world stood +still, Time and the world ceased to be. Her eyes stayed with his. +There was nothing else in all created space but her two eyes, her soft +and deep, dark and radiant eyes. Far, far within them shone a light. +Her soul came forth from its hiding place, and shining far, far within +her eyes, showed itself to his soul, yielded itself to his soul. + +"Then you do--you do," he cried. It was almost a wail. The universe +reeled round him. + +He had sprung to his feet. He threw himself on the bench beside her, +facing her. He seized her hands again. He tried again to get her eyes. + +"No, no, no," she said, freeing her hands, shrinking from him. "No. I +don't--I don't." + +"But you do. You said you did. You--you showed that you did." + +He waited, triumphant, anxious, breathless. + +"No, no, no. I did n't say it--I did n't mean it." + +"But you did mean it. Your eyes . . ." + +But when he remembered her eyes, speech deserted him. He could only +gasp and tingle. + +"No, no, no," she said. "I meant nothing. Please--please don't come +so near. Stand up--there" (her hand indicated where), "and we will +speak of it--reasonably." + +Her hand remained suspended, enjoining obedience. + +Anthony, perplexed, dashed a little, obeyed, and stood before her. + +"We must be reasonable," she said. "I meant nothing. If I seemed +moved, it was because--oh, because I was so taken by surprise, I +suppose." + +She was getting herself in hand. She looked at him quite fearlessly +now, with eyes that pretended to forget they had ever been complaisant. + +"The Count of Sampaolo," she argued calmly, "is not free to marry whom +he will. He has his inheritance to regain, his mission to fulfil. I +will never allow myself to be made an obstacle to that. He must marry +no one but his cousin. I will never stand between him and her--between +him and what is equally his interest and his duty." + +But Anthony, too, was getting himself in hand. + +"Look here," he said, with some peremptoriness. "You may just once for +all eliminate my cousin from your calculations. I beg you to +understand that even if you did n't exist, there could be no question +of my cousin. No earthly consideration could induce me to make any +sort of terms with that branch of my family--let alone a marriage. +So!" A wave of the hand dismissed his cousin for ever to Crack-limbo. +"But as you do exist, and as I happen to love you, and as I happen to +have discovered--what I could never wildly have dared to hope--that you +are not utterly indifferent to me, I may tell you that I intend to +marry _you--you--you_. You imperial, adorable woman! You!" + +Susanna hastily turned her eyes down the avenue. + +"In fact," Anthony added, with serene presumption, "I have the honour +to apprise you of our engagement." + +She could n't repress a nervous little laugh. Then she rose. + +"They 'll be expecting me at the house," she said, and moved in that +direction. + +"I 'm waiting for your congratulations," said he, walking beside her. + +She gave another little laugh. And neither spoke again until they had +reached the hall door, which he opened for her. + +"Well?" he asked. + +"Come back after luncheon," said she. "Come back at three o'clock--and +I will tell you something." + + + + +XVI + +"Own up--and name the day," said Miss Sandus, when she had heard +Susanna's story. "There 's nothing left for you to do, my dear, but to +make a clean breast of it, and name the happy day." + +They were in the billiard-room, after luncheon. Miss Sandus was +sipping coffee, while Susanna, cue in hand, more or less absently +knocked about the balls. So that their remarks were punctuated by an +erratic series of ivory _toc-tocs_. + +"I 'm afraid if I own up," she answered, "there won't be any happy day. +He swore that no earthly consideration could induce him to make any +sort of terms with my branch of the family. Those were his very words." + +_Toc_--she pocketed the red. + +"Fudge," pronounced Miss Sandus. "Capital words for eating. He 'll +gobble, he 'll bolt 'em. Give him the chance. It's astonishing how +becoming it is to you young women to play billiards, how it brings out +the grace of your blessed figures. Say, 'I, even I, am your cousin. +Do you still decline to marry her?'--and see what he 'll do. No, +no--you want to take it a little more to the right and lower down. +That's it." (_Toc-toc_--Susanna made a cannon.) "He 'll jump at you. +I know the man. There 's no possible question of it. So I must be +thinking of the gown I 'm to wear as bridesmaid." + +She laughed, and put down her cup. + +Susanna, trying for another cannon, fluked another pocket. + +"No," she said. "That would be to miss half the fun of the situation. +The thing must be more dramatic. Besides, I want it to happen at +Sampaolo. I want him to go to Sampaolo. And I want to tempt him and +test him. + + "'Not so, said she, but I will see + If there be any faith in man.'" + +she quoted (or misquoted?--I forget). "He shall go to Sampaolo and be +tempted. With his own eyes he shall behold the heritage of the +Valdeschi. Then he shall be approached by his cousin's friends,--by +the reluctant but obedient Commendatore Fregi, for example,--and sorely +tempted. I 've got rather a subtle little scheme. I 'll explain it to +you later--he 'll be arriving at any moment now. He shall leave for +Sampaolo to-morrow morning. You and I will leave the morning after, if +you please. Only, of course, he's to know nothing about that--he's to +suppose that we 're remaining here." + +She attempted a somewhat delicate stroke off the cushion, and achieved +it. + +"Good shot," approved Miss Sandus. "But you are forgetting Mr. Willes. +Mr. Willes will tell him." + +"No, I 've not forgotten Mr. Willes," said Susanna. "I should n't very +much mind letting Mr. Willes into my confidence. But I think on the +whole I 'll make him take Mr. Willes with him." + +"You 're nothing if not arbitrary," Miss Sandus laughed. + +"I come of a line of tyrants," said Susanna. "And, anyhow, what's the +good of possessing power, if you 're not to exercise and enjoy it?" + +The clock on the mantelpiece began to strike three. + +"Mr. Craford," announced a servant. + +Miss Sandus fled from the room by a French window. + +Susanna returned her cue to the rack. + + + + +XVII + +Anthony had passed, I imagine, the longest hour and a half that he had +ever passed, or will ever be likely to pass: the longest, the most +agitated, the most elated, the most impatient. + +Could he regard himself as accepted? Well, certainly, as the next +thing to it. And, in any case, she had confessed that she cared for +him. + +"I never meant to let you know I did." + +Oh, he heard it again and again. Again and again her eyes met his, as +they had met them at that consummate moment, discovering her soul to +him. Again and again he knelt before her, and kissed her hands, warm +and soft, and sweet with that faint perfume which caused cataclysms in +his heart. + +He went home, he went in to luncheon. Somehow he must wear out the +time till three o'clock. + +"Come back at three o'clock--and I will tell you something." + +What had she to tell him? What would he hear when he went back at +three o'clock? Here was a question for hope and fear to play about. + +Adrian prattled merrily over the luncheon table. I wonder how many of +his words Anthony took in. + +After luncheon he tramped about the park, counting the slow +minutes,--kissing her hands, looking into her eyes, racking his brain +with speculations as to what she might have to tell him, hoping, +fearing, and counting the long slow minutes. And his tug at Susanna's +doorbell coincided with the very first stroke of three from her +billiard-room clock. + +His throat was dry, his pulses pounded, his knees all but knocked +together under him, as he followed the manservant across the hall, into +her presence. + + + + +XVIII + +Susanna returned her cue to the rack. + +Anthony stood near the door, an incarnate question. + +"Well--?" he demanded, in a voice that was tense. + +"Come in," she amiably welcomed him. "Sit down." + +She pointed to a chair. She wore the same white frock that she had +worn before luncheon, only she had stuck a red rose in her belt. + +He did n't sit down, but he came forward, and stood by the fireplace. + +"What an age, what an eternity it has been," he profoundly sighed. "I +have grown grey waiting for this instant." + +She studied him, with amusement. + +"The grey is very skilfully concealed," she remarked. + +"The grey is in my soul," said he, with the accent of tragedy. +"Well--?" he again demanded. + +"Well what?" teased she, arching her eye-brows innocently. + +"Oh, come," he remonstrated. "Don't torture a defenceless animal. +Seal my fate, pronounce my doom. I love you--love you--love you. Will +you have me?" + +She stood silhouetted against a window, the light sifting and shining +through her hair. + +"I have a condition to make," she said. "You must promise to comply +with my condition--and then I can answer you." + +Her dark eyes smiled into his, quizzically, but perhaps with a kind of +tenderness too. + +He came nearer. + +"A condition? What's the condition?" + +"No--you must promise first to agree to it," she said. + +"A promise in the dark?" he objected. + +"Oh, if you can't trust me!" she cried, with a little shrug. + +"There's mischief in your eye," said he. "The man deserves what he +gets, who makes promises in the dark." + +"Then make the promise--and see whether you get what you deserve," she +laughed. + +"Mercy forbid that any man should get what he deserves," said he. "I +am a suppliant for grace, not justice." + +Susanna laughed again. She took her rose from her belt, and brushed +her face with it, touched it with her lips. + +"Do you care for roses?" she asked, with a glance of intellectual +curiosity, as one who spoke solely for the purpose of acquiring +knowledge. + +"I should care for that rose," said he, vehemently. + +She held it out to him, still laughing, but with a difference. + +He seized the rose--and suddenly, over-mastered by his impulse, +suddenly, violently, made towards her. + +But she drew away, extending her hands to protect herself. + +"I beg your pardon," he said, pulling himself up. "But you should make +a conscientious effort to be a trifle less adorable." + +He pressed her rose to his mouth, crushing it, breathing in its scent, +trying to possess himself of the touch her mouth had left upon it. + +She sank into the corner of a sofa, and leaned back among the cushions. + +"Well, do you promise?" she asked, smiling up at him. + +"Do you flatter yourself that you 're a trifle less adorable now?" +asked he, smiling down. + +"Do you promise?" she repeated, taking away her eyes. + +"I clean forget what it was you wished me to promise," said he. + +"You are to promise to comply with my condition. Do you?" + +"I suppose I must," he answered, with a gesture of submission. + +"But do you? You must say"--she made her voice sepulchral--"'I +solemnly do.'" + +She gave him her eyes again, held him with them. + +He was rigid for a minute, gazing fixedly at her. + +"I solemnly do," he said at last, relaxing. "What's the condition?" + +"The condition is an easy one--only a little journey to make." + +"A journey to make? Away from Craford?" + +He stood off, suspicious, prepared to be defiant. + +"Yes," said she, playing with the lace of one of her cushions. + +"Not for worlds," said he. "Anything else. But I won't leave Craford." + +"You have promised," said she. + +"Ah, but I did n't dream there would be any question of my leaving +Craford. There's a woman at Craford I 'm in love with. I won't leave +Craford." + +"You have solemnly promised," said she. + +"Hang my promise," gaily he outfaced her. + +"Promises are sacred." She looked serious. + +"Not promises extorted in the dark," contended he. + +"Give me back my rose," said she, putting forth her hand. + +"No," said he, pressing the rose anew to his face. + +"Yes," said she, her foolhardy hand awaiting it. + +For, instead of giving her back her rose, he threw himself upon her +hand, and had kissed it before she could catch it away. + +She bit her lip, frowning, smiling. + +"Then will you keep your promise?" she asked severely. + +"If you insist upon it, I suppose I 'll have to," he grudgingly +consented. "But a journey!" he sighed. "Ah, well. Where to?" + +Her eyes gleamed, maliciously. + +"To a very pleasant place," she said. "The journey is a pious +pilgrimage." + +"Craford, just now, is the only pleasant place on the face of the +earth," vowed he. "A pious pilgrimage? Where to?" + +He had, I think, some vague notion that she might mean a pilgrimage to +the Holy Well of St. Winefride in Wales; though, for that matter, why +not to the Holy Well of St. Govor in Kensington Gardens? + +"A pious pilgrimage to the home of your ancestors," said Susanna. "The +journey is a journey to the little, unknown, beautiful island of +Sampaolo." + +Her eyes gleamed, maliciously, exultantly. + +But Anthony fell back, aghast. + +"Sampaolo?" he cried. + +"Yes," said she, quietly. + +"Oh, I say!" He writhed, he groaned. "That is too much. Really!" + +"That is my condition," said Susanna. Her mouth was firm. + +"You don't mean it--you can't mean it." He frowned his incredulity. + +"I mean it literally," she persisted. "You must make a journey to +Sampaolo." + +"But what's the _sense_ of it?" he besought her. "Why on earth should +you _impose_ such a condition?" He frowned his incomprehension. + +"Because you have asked me to be your wife," she answered. + +He shook his head, mournfully, scornfully. + +"If ever an explanation darkened counsel!" mournfully he jeered. + +"You have asked me to be your wife. I reply that first you must make a +journey to Sampaolo. Is that not simple?" said Susanna. + +He was walking about the room. + +"Do you mean to say "--he came to a standstill--"that if I make a +journey to Sampaolo, you _will_ be my wife?" + +"I mean to say that I will never be your wife unless you do." + +"But if I do--?" + +She leaned back, smiling, among her cushions. + +"That will depend upon the result of your journey." + +He shook his head again. + +"I 'm utterly at sea," he professed. "I have never heard anything that +sounded so bewilderingly devoid of reason. Explain yourself. What is +it all about?" + +"Reflect for a moment," said she, assuming a tone argumentative. +"Consider the embarrassment of my position. You ask me to be your +wife. But if I consent, you give up your only chance of regaining your +Italian patrimony--do you not? But a man should at least _know_ what +he is giving up. _You_ should know what your patrimony consists of. +You should know, as the saying is, what you 'stand to lose.' Therefore +you must go to Sampaolo, and see it with your own eyes. Isola Nobile, +Castel San Guido, the Palazzo Rosso, Villa Formosa--you must see them +all, with their gardens and their pictures and their treasures. And +then you must ask yourself in cold blood, 'Is that woman I left at +Craford really worth it?'" + +She smiled. But, as he made to speak, her hand commanded silence. + +"No, no," she said. "You have not seen them yet, so you can't tell. +When you have seen them, you will very likely thank me for leaving you +free to-day. You will think, with a shudder, 'Good heavens, what a +narrow escape! What if she had taken me at my word?' Then you can +offer yourself to your cousin, and let us hope she 'll accept you." + +Again, as he made to speak, her hand silenced him. + +"But if," she went on, "if, by any chance, you should _not_ thank +me,--if, in cold blood, with your eyes open, you should decide that the +woman you left at Craford _is_ worth it,--why, then you can return to +her, and renew your suit. And she'll have the satisfaction of knowing +that _you_ know what's she costing you." + +Anthony stood over her, looked down upon her. + +"This is the most awful nonsense," he said, with a grave half-laugh. + +"It is my condition," said she. "You must start for Sampaolo to-morrow +morning." + +"You 'll never really send me on such a fool's errand," he protested. + +"You have promised," said she. + +"You won't hold me to the promise." + +"If I release you from it," she warned him, her eyes becoming +dangerous, "there must be no more talk of marriage between you and me." + +He flung away from her, and resumed his walk about the room. He gazed +distressfully into space, as if appealing to invisible arbiters. + +"This is too childish--and too cruel," he complained. "I 'm not an +idiot. I don't need an object-lesson. I am not utterly without +imagination. I can see Sampaolo with my mind's eye. And seeing it, I +decide in cold blood that not for forty million Sampaolos would I give +up the woman I adore. There--I 've made the journey, and come back. +Now I renew my suit. Will you have me?" + +He stood over her again. + +"There must be no more talk of having or not having between you and +me--till you have kept your promise," said Susanna, coldly avoiding his +gaze. + +Anthony clenched his fists, ground his teeth. + +"What folly--what obstinacy--what downright wanton capriciousness," in +anger he muttered. + +"And yet, two minutes ago, this man said he loved me," Susanna +murmured, meaningly, to the ceiling. + +"If I were n't unfortunate enough to love you, I should n't mind +your--your perfectly barbarous unkindness." + +He glared at her. But she met his glare with a smile that disarmed it. +And, in spite of himself, he smiled too. + +"Will you start to-morrow?" she asked, softly, coaxingly. + +"This is outrageous," he said. "How long do you expect me to stay?" + +"Oh, for that," she considered, "I shall be very moderate. A week will +do. A diligent sightseer should be able to see Sampaolo pretty +thoroughly in a week." + +"A week," he calculated, "and I suppose one must allow at least another +week for getting there and back. So you exile me for a fortnight?" + +His tone and his eyes pleaded with her. + +"A fortnight is not much," said she, lightly. + +"No," he gloomily acquiesced. "It is only fourteen lifetimes to a man +who happens to be in love." + +"Men are reputed to be stronger than women," she reproached him, with a +look. "If a mere woman can stand a fortnight----!" + +Anthony gasped--and sprang towards her. + +"No, no," she cried, shrinking away. + +"Do _you_ happen to be in love?" he said, restraining himself. + +She looked at him very kindly. + +"I will tell you that, when you come back--_if_ you come back," she +promised. + +"_If_ I come back!" he derided. Then, with eagerness, "You will write +to me? I may write to you?" he stipulated. + +"Oh, no--by no means. There must be no sort of communication between +us. You must give yourself every chance to forget me--and to think of +your cousin." + +"I won't go," said Anthony. + +He planted himself in a chair, facing her, and assumed the air of a +fixture. + +But Susanna rose. + +"Good-bye, then," she said, and held out her hand. + +"What do you mean?" said he. + +But he took her hand, and kept it. + +"All is over between us--if you won't go." + +But she left her hand in his. + +"You _will_ write to me?" + +He caressed the warm soft fingers. + +"No." + +"But I _may_ write to you?" + +He kissed the fragrant fingers. + +At last, slowly, gently, she drew her hand away. + +"Oh, if it will give you any satisfaction to write to me, I suppose you +may," she conceded. "But remember--you must n't expect your letters to +be answered." + +She went back to her place in the corner of the sofa. + +He left his chair, and stood over her again. + +"I love you," he said. + +She smiled and played with the lace of her cushion. + +"So you remarked before," she said. + +"I love you," said he, with fervour. + +"By the bye," she said, "I forgot to mention that you are to take Mr. +Willes with you." + +"Oh--?" puzzled Anthony. "Willes? Why?" + +"For several reasons," said Susanna. "But will one suffice?" + +"What's the one?" + +She looked up at him, and laughed. + +"Because I wish it." + +Anthony laughed too. + +"You are conscious of your power," he said. + +"Yes," she admitted. "So you will take Mr. Willes?" + +"You have said you wished it." + +And then, for a while, neither spoke, but I fancy their eyes carried on +the conversation. + + + + +XIX + +It was nearly time to dress for dinner when Anthony returned to Craford +Old Manor. + +Adrian, his collar loosened, his hair towzled, his head cocked +critically to one side, was in his business-room, seated at his piano, +playing over and over again a single phrase, and now and then making a +little alteration in it, which he would hurriedly jot down in a +manuscript music-book, laid open on a table at his elbow. + +"Are n't you going for a holiday this summer?" Anthony asked, with +languor, lounging in. + +"Hush-sh-sh!" said Adrian, intent upon his manuscript, waving an +admonitory hand. + +"It's time to dress," said Anthony. He lighted a cigarette. + +Adrian strummed through his phrase again, brows knitted, looking +intensely judicial. Then he swung round on his piano-stool. + +"Hey? What did you say?" he questioned, his blue eyes vague, his pink +face blank. + +"I merely asked whether you were n't going for a holiday this summer," +Anthony repeated, between two outputs of smoke. + +"And you interrupt a heaven-sent musician, when you see the fit's upon +him, merely to ask an irrelevant thing like that," Adrian reproved him. +"I was holding an assize, a gaol-delivery. That phrase was on trial +before me for its life. In art, sir, one should imitate the methods of +a hanging judge. Put every separate touch on trial for its life, and +deem it guilty till it can prove itself innocent. Yea, even though +these same touches be dear to you as her children to a mother. Such is +the high austerity of art. I thought you said it was time to dress." + +"So it is," said Anthony. "Are n't you going for a holiday this +summer?" + +Adrian closed his music-book, and got up. + +"Of course I am," he answered. + +"When?" said Anthony. + +"In September, as usual," said Adrian. + +"I was wondering," said Anthony, twiddling his cigarette, "whether you +would mind taking your holiday a little earlier than usual this +year--in August, for instance?" + +"Why?" asked Adrian, with caution. + +"It would suit me better, I could spare you better," Anthony said. + +Adrian eyed him suspiciously. + +"In August? We 're in August now, are n't we?" + +"I believe so," said Anthony. "Either August or late July. One could +find out from the almanac, I suppose. It would suit me very well if +you could take your holiday now--at once." + +Adrian's suspicion became acute. + +"What are you up to? What do you want to get rid of _me_ for?" + +Anthony smoked. + +"I don't want to get rid of you. On the contrary--I 'll go with you, +if you like." + +Adrian scrutinized him searchingly, suspicion reinforced by +astonishment. All at once his eyes flashed. + +"Aha!" he cried. "I see what you 've been at. You 've been trying to +philander with the Nobil Donna Susanna Torrebianca--and she 's sent you +about your business. Oh, _I 've_ seen how things were going." He +winked and nodded. + +"Nothing of the sort," said Anthony. "You might tell Wickersmith to +pack our things. We 'll take the eight-fifteen up to-morrow morning. +That will get us to Victoria in time for the eleven o'clock Continental +express." + +"Oh? We 're going abroad?" asked Adrian. + +"I suppose so. Where else is there to go?" said Anthony. + +"I could have told you beforehand," Adrian consoled him, "that you had +n't the ghost of a chance with her. You grim, glum, laconic sort of +men are n't at all the sort that would appeal to a rich, poetic, +southern nature like Madame Torrebianca's. She would be attracted by +an exuberant, expansive, warm, sunny sort of man,--a man genial and +fruity, like old wine,--sweet and tender and mellow, like ripe peaches. +If it were n't that I sternly discountenance the imperilling of +business interests by mixing them up with personal sentiment, I should +very probably have paid court to her myself. And now I expect you have +lost me a tenant. I expect she 'll not care to renew the lease." + +"Don't know, I 'm sure," said Anthony. "You might ask her. We 're +dining with her to-night. That would make a graceful dinner-table +topic." + +Adrian's blue eyes grew round. + +"We 're dining with her to-night?" + +That did n't at all fit his theory of the case. + +"At least I am," affirmed Anthony, dropping the end of his cigarette +into an ash-tray. "And she said I might bring you, if you 'd promise +to be good." + +"_The--deuce_!" ejaculated Adrian, in something between a whisper and a +whistle. "But--then--why--what--what under the sun are you going +abroad for?" + +"A mere whim--a sheer piece of perversity--a sleeveless errand," +Anthony answered. "So now we might set about sweeping and garnishing +ourselves," he suggested, moving towards the door. + +Susanna was very beautiful, I think, in a rose-coloured dinner-gown +(rose-coloured chiffon, with accessories of drooping old pale-yellowish +lace), a spray of scarlet geranium in her hair, pearls round her +throat, and, as you could now and then perceive, high-heeled scarlet +slippers on her feet. + +She was very beautiful, very pleasant and friendly; and if she seemed, +perhaps, a thought less merry, a thought more pensive, than her +wont--if sometimes, for a second or two, she seemed to lose herself, +while her eyes gazed far away, and her lips remained slightly parted--I +doubt if Anthony liked her any the less for this. + +But what he pined for was a minute alone with her; and that appeared to +be by no means forthcoming. After dinner they all went out upon the +terrace, where it was lighted by the open French windows of the +drawing-room, and reposed in wicker chairs, whilst they sipped their +coffee. He looked at her, and his heart grew big--with grief, with +resentment, with delight, with despair, with hope. "She cares for +me--she has said it, she has shown it. But then why does she send me +on this egregious wild-goose chase? She cares for me. But then why +does n't she arrange to give me a minute alone with her to-night?" + +In the end,--well, was it Adrian, or was it Miss Sandus, whom he had to +thank for their minute alone? + +"Why does nobody say, 'Dear kind Mr. Willes, do be nice, and sing us +something'?" Adrian plaintively inquired. + +Anthony grasped the skirts of happy chance. + +"Dear kind Mr. Willes, do be nice, and sing us something," he said at +once. + +"I 'll play your accompaniments," volunteered Miss Sandus. + +And she and the songster went into the drawing-room. + +"Thank heaven," said Anthony, under his breath, but fervently, gazing +hard at Susanna. + +She gave a little laugh. + +"What are you laughing at?" he asked. + +"At your sudden access of piety," said she. + +"At any rate," said he, "I owe no thanks to _you_. For all you cared, +apparently, we should have spent the whole of this last precious +evening surrounded by strangers." + + "Mamam, dites-moi ce qu'on sent + Quand on aime," + +came the voice of Adrian from within. + +"If you talk, we can't hear the music," said Susanna. + +"Bother the music," responded Anthony. + +"It was you who asked him to sing," she said. + +"Bother his singing. This is my last evening with you. Do you think a +woman has the right to be as gloriously beautiful as you are to-night? +Do you think it's fair to the feelings of a poor wretched man, who +adores her, and whom she, in mere wanton wickedness, is sending to the +uttermost ends of the earth?" + +Susanna had her fan of white feathers in her lap. She caressed it. + +"I want to ask you something," said Anthony. + +"What is it?" said she. + +"A piece of information, to help me on my journey. Will you give it +me?" + +"If I can, of course," said she, putting her fan on the table. + +"You promise?" said he. + +"If I have any information that can be of use to you, I 'll give it +with pleasure," she agreed. + +"Very good. That's a promise," said he. "Now then, for my question. +I love you. Do you love me?" + +He looked hard at her. + +She laughed, in acknowledgment that she had been fairly caught. Then +her eyes softened. + +"Yes," she said. + +But before he could move, she had sprung up, and disappeared through +one of the French windows, joining Miss Sandus and Adrian at the piano. + +In her flight, however, she forgot her fan. It lay where she had left +it on the table. + +Anthony picked it up, pressed it to his face. He closed his eyes, and +kept it pressed to his face. Its fragrance was more than a mere +fragrance--there was something of herself in it, something poignantly, +intimately personal. + +By and by he put the fan in his pocket, in the inside pocket of his +coat--feathers downwards, the better to conceal it. Then he too joined +the group at the piano. + + + + +XX + +In their sitting-room in the Hôtel de Rome, at Vallanza, Anthony and +Adrian were waiting for their breakfast. It is evident, therefore, +that Susanna's will had prevailed, and a fool's errand was in process +of accomplishment. The fool, no doubt, to the last moment, had renewed +his protests, his pleadings, his refusals; but, at each fresh outburst, +coldly, firmly, the lady had reiterated her ultimatum, "Then all is +over between you and me." And in the end, very conscious of his folly, +very much incensed by her perversity, disgusted, dejected, and, as his +travelling-companion had occasion to observe, in the very devil of a +temper, he had left Victoria by the eleven o'clock Continental express. +"Never forget," Miss Sandus whispered in his ear, as he paid her his +adieux, "never forget that sound old adage--'journeys end in lovers +meeting.'" This was oracular, and he had no opportunity to press for +an interpretation; but it was clearly intended as of good omen. At the +same time, in another part of the room, Susanna was whispering to +Adrian. As Adrian never again expressed the slightest curiosity anent +the motive of their hegira, I am led to wonder whether Susanna had +admitted him to her confidence. She had intimated that she should n't +especially mind doing so; and it is certain that he, from that time +forth, now and then smiled at the sky with an eye that looked very +knowing. + +Those who have recently visited Sampaolo will remember the Hôtel de +Rome as a small, new, spick-and-span establishment, built at the corner +of the Piazza San Guido and the Riva Vittorio Emmanuele, and presenting +none of that "local colour in the shape of dirt and discomfort" which +we are warned to expect in Italy, if we depart from the track beaten by +the tourist. I am told that the modern Italian commercial gentleman +(who is often a German, and not infrequently a Jew) has learned some of +the tourist's exactions. It is thanks to him, presumably, that even at +out-of-the-way Vallanza there exists a decent inn. + +Our friends' sitting-room was on the first floor, a corner room, having +two sets of windows. One set commanded the Piazza, with its grey old +church (the Cathedral of St. Paul and St. Guy), its detached campanile, +its big central fountain, and, occupying the entire eastern side, the +crumbling frescoed front of the Palazzo Rosso. The other set looked +across the Riva, and its double row of palms, out upon the bay, with +its anchored ships, its fishing-boats, its encircling olive-covered +hills, dotted high and low by villages and villas, and its embosomed +Islets, Isola Nobile, Isola Fratello, Isola Sorella, the whole wide +prospect glowing in the sun. + +The Piazza, which opens to the north, lay in cool blue shadow; and just +now a market was in progress there, a jumble-scene of merchandise, +animals, and humanity; men, women, and children, dogs and donkeys, +goats, calves, pigs, poultry; vegetables and fruit--quartered melons, +with green rind, black seeds, and rosy flesh, great golden pumpkins, +onions in festoons, figs in pyramids; boots, head-gear, and rough +shop-made clothing, for either sex; cheap jewellery also; and every +manner of requisite for the household, from pots and pans of wrought +copper, brass lamps, iron bedsteads and husk-filled bedding, to +portraits in brilliant oleograph of King and Queen and the inevitable +Garibaldi. The din was stupendous. Humanity hawked, chaffered, +haggled, laughed, vituperated. Donkeys brayed, calves mooed, dogs +barked, ducks quacked, pigs squealed. A dentist had set up his chair +near the fountain, and was brawling proffers of relief to the +tooth-distressed. Sometimes a beglamoured sufferer would allow himself +to be taken in hand; and therewith, above the general blare and blur of +noise, rose clear and lusty a series of shameless Latin howls. The +town-crier, in a cocked hat, wandered hither and thither, like a soul +in pain, feebly beating his drum, and droning out a nasal proclamation +to which, so far as was apparent, no one listened. The women, for the +most part, wore bright-coloured skirts,--striped green and red, or blue +and yellow,--and long black veils, covering the head, and falling below +the waist; the men, dark jerseys, corduroy trousers, red belts in lieu +of braces, and red fishers' caps with tassels that dangled over the +ear. Two such men, at this moment, passed up the Piazza arm-in-arm, +singing. I don't know what their song was, but they had good voices, +and while one of them carried the melody, the other sang a second. + +Anthony, morose and listless, Adrian, all agog with excitement, had +been looking down upon this spectacle for some minutes in silence. It +was their first glimpse of daylit Sampaolo. They had arrived from +Venice last night after dark. + +But now, as the men passed singing, Adrian was moved to utterance. + +"Italia, oh, Italia!" he exclaimed. "I thought I knew my Italy. I +thought I had visited my Italy every year or two, for more years than +you could shake a stick at. But this is too Italian to be true. This +is not Italy--this is Italian opera." + +Anthony gloomed. + +"It's an infernal bore, whatever it is," he declared. + +"Fie, fie," Adrian chid him. "Infernal? That is not at all a nice +word. Don't let me hear it a second time. How animated and southern +and picturesque that _arracheur-de-dents_ is, is n't he? What +distinction he confers upon the scene. Have you no teeth that need +attending to? I should love to see you operated on by a practitioner +like that, in the fresh air, under the azure canopy of heaven, in the +eye of the world, fearless and unashamed. The long, rather rusty +building opposite, with the pictures fading from its walls, is none +other than the Palazzo Rosso, the cradle of your race. It can be +visited between ten and four. I 've had a talk with our landlord's +daughter--such a pretty girl. Her name--what do you suppose her name +is? Her name is Pia. She has nice hair and eyes, and is a perfect +cornucopia of information.--Ah, at last!" he sighed, pressing his hand +to his heart, as the door opened, and the waiter appeared, bearing a +tray. + +Then, as the waiter set out the contents of his tray upon the table, +Adrian, bending forward, examined them with the devoutness, with the +intentness, of an impassioned connoisseur. + +"Grilled ham, gallantine of chicken _aux truffes_, mortadella, an +omelette _aux fines herbes_, coffee, hot milk, whipped cream, bread, +figs, apricots," he enumerated. "And if it had n't been for my talk +with the landlord's daughter, do you know what we should have had? We +should have had coffee and bread and _praeterea nihil_. That's what we +should have had," he pronounced tragically, shaking his head in +retrospective consternation at the thing escaped. "Oh, these +starveling Continental breakfasts! But I threw myself upon Pia's +clemency. I paid her compliments upon her hair, upon her toilet. I +called her Pia mia. I said that if I had only met her earlier in life, +I should have been a very different person. I appealed to the _woman_ +in her. I explained to her that my hollow-cheeked companion, with the +lack-lustre eye, was a star-crossed lover, and must be treated with +exceptional tenderness. I said that nothing mitigated the _tormento +d'amore_ like beginning the day with a sustaining meal. I said you +were a man of an unbounded stomach. I said you were subject to +paroxysms of the most violent rage, and if you did n't get the proper +variety and quantity of food, you 'd smash the furniture. I smiled +upon her with my bonniest, blithest eyne. I ogled her. I chucked her +under the chin. I did nothing of the sort. I was extremely dignified. +But I told her of a dream I had last night--oh, such a lovely +dream--and she was melted. What do you suppose I dreamed of? I +dreamed of plump, juicy English sausages." + +His face grew wistful, his voice sank. He piled his plate with ham and +omelette. + +"You 'd better write a song about it," fleered Anthony. "'The Homesick +Glutton's Dream.'" Then, making a face, "Why did you order coffee?" he +grumbled. "Why did n't you order tea?" + +"Tut, don't be peevish," said Adrian. "Sit up, and tie your +table-napkin round your neck, and try to be polite when the kind +gentleman speaks to you. I did order tea. But tea at Sampaolo is +regarded in the light of a pharmaceutical preparation. Pia said she +thought I might be able to procure some at the _farmacia_. This +omelette really is n't bad. You 'd better take some--before it +disappears in the darkness." + +But Anthony declined the omelette--and it disappeared in the darkness. + +"Come, cheer up, goodman Dull," Adrian exhorted him, selecting the +truffled portions from a plateful of gallantine. "'Men have died, and +worms have eaten them, but not for love.' Ginger is still hot in the +mouth, and there are more fish in the sea than have ever yet nibbled at +your bait and spurned it. Do you know why there are no mosquitoes at +Sampaolo, and no bandits? There are none--Pia gave me her word for it, +Pia mia gave me her pretty feminine word. But do you know why? Pia +told me why. The wind, Signore. The wind blows them away--away, away, +and far away, over the bright blue sea. Every afternoon we get a wind, +sweeping in from the north. Sometimes it is only a _venticello_, +sometimes a _temporale_, sometimes an _orogano terribile_, but it is +always sufficient to blow away the mosquitoes and the bandits. Pia +told me so. Sweet Pia." + +"Humph," said Anthony. + +"Humph, by all means," Adrian hastened to agree. "I have a sort of +humphy feeling myself--a sort of unsatisfied yearning, that is scarcely +akin to pain, and resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain. +I think it may be imputed to inadequate nourishment. I think I will +try some of that mortadella, if you 'll be so good as to pass it. +Thank you. And another cup of coffee, with plenty of whipped cream on +top, please. How cruel dairymaids must be, to whip such nice stuff as +cream. But they 're cruel only to be kind, are n't they?--cruel to the +cream, to be kind to us, the dear creatures. If you 'd give up smoking +and drinking, you 'd have a healthy appetite yourself. Come! Be +comforted. Cast off this green and yellow melancholy. Take me for +your exemplar. I too, when I first visited my ancestral home, I too +was filled with horror and resentment. I entered it screaming, as I am +credibly informed, kicking and screaming, protesting with all the +passion of latent genius, with all the force of a brand-new pair of +lungs. But I 've enjoyed it very well ever since. Ah, the strange +tale of Man. Conceived in sin, brought forth in pain, to live and +amuse himself in an impenetrable environment of mystery--in an +impenetrable fog. And never to see, of all things, his own face! To +see the faces of others, to see the telescopic stars and the +microscopic microbes, yet never to see his own face. And even the +reflection, the shadow of it, which he can see in a looking-glass, even +that he perforce sees _à rebours_. You can't deny it's rum. But if I +had a face as long as yours, I solemnly believe, I should deem it +likewise providential." + +"To think, to think," Anthony, long-faced, was brooding, "that she in +mere wilfulness has condemned me to a whole mortal week of this." + +"We lunch," said Adrian, "at one, though Pia suggested twelve, and dine +at seven, though Pia suggested six. At four we shall have a little +_goûté_--_caffé con pasticceria_--to take the place of tea. And now, +if you can tear yourself from the pleasures of the table, let's be up +and doing. We 'll begin with the Cathedral, and if we look sharp, we +'ll be in time to hear a Mass. There are Masses every half hour till +ten. Then the Palazzo Rosso. After luncheon and a brief siesta, Isola +Nobile. And after our _caffé con pasticceria_, a donkey-ride in the +country." + + +When they had heard their Mass, they were approached by the Sacristan, +a little, shrunken, brown old man in a cassock, who offered to serve +them as a guide. The church was very dim and very silent. Here and +there a woman knelt at prayer; here and there a candle burned. The +Sacristan removed the frontal from the High Altar, to show them the +golden reliquary that enshrines the dust of San Guido, and unveiled the +three fine altar-pieces, attributed to Giacomo Fiorentino, "San Guido +Shipwrecked," "San Guide's Return," and "The Good Death of San Guido." +He showed them also, in its glass case, the Sword of the Golden Thorn, +reciting its history; and finally he conducted them to the crypt, +where, under masses of sculptured ner'-antico, emblazoned with their +armorials, some five-and-twenty generations of Valdeschi lie entombed. +What were Anthony's emotions? He must have had emotions. + +At the Palazzo Rosso they were invited to write their names and +nationality in the visitors' book; and then a silver-haired, +soft-voiced, gentle-mannered servitor in livery led them up the grand +marble staircase and through an endless suite of airy, stately +rooms--rooms with floors of polished concrete, displaying elaborate +patterns, with tapestried walls and frescoed ceilings, with sparse but +ancient and precious articles of furniture, chandeliers of Venetian +glass, Venetian mirrors, and innumerable paintings, many of them +portraits. + +"It's astonishing," said Adrian, "how, by some occult process of +selection, in spite of perpetual marriage with new blood, in spite of +the thousand vicissitudes of time and circumstance, in a given family a +particular feature will persist. There 's the Habsburg lip, for +instance. And here is the Valdeschi nose. From generation to +generation, from century to century, one can recognize in these dead +forefathers of yours the identical nose that is on your face to-day." + +It was quite true. Again and again you saw repeated the same +high-bridged, slenderly aquiline nose. + +"Sala del trono," announced their cicerone (only, he pronounced it _Sa' +do truno_). + +And there, sure enough, at the end of a vast chamber, was "the great +scarlet throne, with the gilded coronet topping the canopy above," just +as Susanna had described it. What were Anthony's emotions? + +But the white-haired serving-man (as Adrian noticed) from time to time +allowed his eyes to fix themselves studiously upon Anthony's face, and +appeared to fall into a muse. Now he stopped before a high +white-and-gold double-door. "The entrance to the private apartments," +he said, and placed his hand upon the fancifully-wrought ormolu +door-knob. + +"Are the public admitted to the private apartments," Anthony doubted, +holding back. + +"No, Signore," said the old man. "But I think, if the Signore will +pardon me, that the Signore's Excellency will be a connection of the +family." + +Anthony all but jumped. + +"Why on earth should you think that?" he wondered. + +"It's the persistent feature," said Adrian, in English, with a chuckle. +"The Signore's Excellency is betrayed by the Signore's Excellency's +beak." + +"If the Signore will pardon me, I observed that the Signore's name, +when he wrote in the visitors' book, was Crahforrdi of England," the +old man explained. "But the Crahforrdi of England are a house cognate +to ours. The consort of the Conte who was Conte when I had the honour +of entering the family, nearly sixty years ago, was a Crahforrdi of +England, a lordessa. Moreover it is in the Signore's face. If the +Signori will favour me, it will give me great pleasure to show them +what they will think is the Signore's own portrait." + +In size and shape the private apartments were simply a continuation of +the state apartments, but they were furnished in modern fashion, with a +great deal of luxury, and, in so far as the enveloping brown hollands +would permit one to opine, with a great deal of taste. "The family +occupy this palace during the cold months only. In summer they make a +villegglatura to Isola Nobile. Therefore you do not see these rooms at +their best," the old man apologized. In what he described as the +_gabine'o segre'o_ of the Countess, over the fireplace, hung the +full-length, life-size portrait of a gentleman, in the dress of +eighteen-forty-something--high stock, flowered waistcoat, close-fitting +buff trousers, and full-bottomed blue frock-coat, very tight above the +hips. + +"Count Antonio the Seventeenth, the last of our tyrants. The Signori +will be aware that we were tyrants of Sampaolo for many centuries," +said the old man, not without a touch of pride. Then, bowing to +Anthony, "One would think properly the portrait of your Excellency." + +Indeed, the face of the last of the tyrants and his grandson's face +were surprisingly alike. + +"Conte Antonio Decimose'mo was Conte when, as a lad, I had the honour +to join the family," the old servant went on. "It was he who had for +consort the Lordessa Crahforrdi of England. After his death, there was +the Revolution, by which we annexed to Sampaolo another island called +Sardinia. The Lordessa was taken prisoner in these rooms, with the +Conte-figlio, and banished from the country. Then the King of Sardinia +was elected tyrant of both islands, and the government was removed from +Vallanza to Turin. That was many years ago, fifty years ago. When the +Pope died, the government was again removed, and now it is at Rome." + +"Oh? Is the Pope dead?" Adrian questioned. + +"Che sì, Signore--dupo lung' anni," the old man assured him. + +They strolled about the town for a little, before returning to the +hotel--through the narrow cobble-paved streets, with their alternations +of splendour and squalor, their palaces, churches, hovels, their dark +little shops, their neglected shrines, their vociferous population, +their heterogeneous smells--and along the Riva, with its waterside +bustle, its ships loading and unloading, and its unexampled view of bay +and mountains. + +"Do you see this stick?" asked Adrian, holding up his walking-stick. + +"What about it?" asked Anthony. + +"I 'm coming to that," said Adrian. "But first you must truthfully +answer a question. Which end of this stick would you prefer to be--the +bright silver handle or the earth-stained ferrule?" + +"Don't know," said Anthony, with an air of weariness. + +"Don't you?" marvelled Adrian. "How funny. Well, then, you must +understand that this stick is but an emblem--a thing's sign. Now for +the thing signified. Have you ever paused to moralize over the irony +that determines the fates of families? Take, for example, a family +that begins with a great man--a great soldier, a great saint, for +instance--and then for evermore thereafter produces none but +mediocrities. I hope you perceive the irony of that. But +contrariwise, take a family that goes on for centuries producing +mediocrities, and suddenly ends with the production of a genius. Take +my family, just for a case in point. Here I come of a chain of +progenitors reaching straight back to Adam; and of not one of them save +Adam and myself, has the world ever heard. And even Adam owes his +celebrity not in the least to his personal endowments, but solely to +the unique character of his position. The First Man could n't help +getting a certain reputation, would he, n'ould he. But from Adam to +Adrian--silence. Then sudden silvery music. And Adrian--mark the +predestination--Adrian is childless. He is the last link. With him +the chain, five thousand years long, stops. He is the sudden brilliant +flare-up of the fire before it goes out. Well, now, tell me--which end +of this stick would you prefer to be? The shining silver handle, or +the dull iron other end?" + +They were conveyed to Isola Nobile in one of those long slender +Sampaolese _vipere_--boats that are a good deal like gondolas, except +that they have no felze, and carry a short mast at the bow, with a sail +that is only spread when the wind is directly aft. I suppose the +palace at Isola Nobile is one of the most beautiful in the world, with +its four mellow-toned marble façades rising sheer out of the water, +with its long colonnades, its graceful moresque windows, and the +variety, profusion, and lace-like delicacy of its carved and incised +details. Here again they had to write their names in the visitors' +book, and again a servant (this time a young and rather taciturn +person) led them through countless vast and splendid rooms, far more +splendid than those at the Palazzo Rosso, rooms rich with porphyry, +alabaster, mosaics, gilded flourishes and arabesques of stucco, and +containing many treasures of painting and sculpture, some of which, I +believe, even the sceptical Morellists allow to be actually the +handiwork of the artists to whom they are ascribed. But so far from +there being any question of their visiting the private apartments at +Isola Nobile, their guide, at one point in their progress, sprang +forward and hurriedly closed a door that had stood open, and through +which they had caught a glimpse of a pleasantly furnished library. By +and by they were passed on to a gardener, who showed them the gardens +on Isola Fratello and Isola Sorella, with their camphor-trees and +cedars, their oranges, oleanders, magnolias, laurels, their terraces, +whence thousands of lizards whisked away at the approach of Man, their +fountains, grottoes, temples, their peacocks, flamingoes, and tame +ring-doves, and always, always, with that wonderful outlook upon the +bay and its girdle of sun-bathed hills. The gardener plucked many +flowers for them, so that they returned to Vallanza with armfuls of +roses, lilies, oleanders, and jessamine. + + +Later that afternoon, Adrian having gone alone for his donkey-ride in +the country (more power to the back of the donkey!), Anthony was seated +by the open window of his bedroom, in a state of deep depression. All +at once, between the two promontories that form the entrance to the +bay, the Capo del Papa and the Capo del Turco, appeared, heading for +Vallanza, a white steamer, clearly, from its size and lines, a yacht--a +very bright and gay object to look upon, as it gleamed in the sun and +crisped the blue waters. And all at once, his eye automatically +following it, Anthony experienced a perfectly inexplicable lightening +of the heart,--as if, indeed, the white yacht were bringing something +good to him. It was absurd, but he could not help it. Somehow, his +depression left him, and a feeling almost of joyousness took its place. + +"She said she loved me--she said she loved me," he remembered. "And at +the farthest," he reflected, "at the farthest I shall be with her again +in nine little days." + +He got out the fan that he had stolen, and pressed it to his face. He +got out his writing-materials, and wrote her a long, cheerful, +impassioned letter. + +His change of mood was all the more noteworthy, perhaps, because the +yacht chanced to be the _Fiorimondo_, bearing the Countess of Sampaolo +and her suite from Venice, whither it had proceeded two days before, +upon orders telegraphed from Paris. + + + + +XXI + +Adrian, coming in, saw Anthony's letter, superscribed and stamped, +lying on the table. + +"I 'm posting a lot of stuff of my own," he said. "Shall I post this +with it?" + +Had Susanna admitted him to her confidence? How otherwise could it +have befallen, as it did, that she received Anthony's letter, which was +of course addressed to Craford, at Isola Nobile no later than that very +evening? + +She read it, smiling. + +"Which of the many villas that overlook the bay and are visible from my +window, with their white walls and dark-green gardens,--which is +yours?" he questioned. "All day I have been wondering. That is the +single thing that really stirs me here, that really gives me a +_feeling_--its association with you. All day I have been hearing a +sonnet of Ronsard's--do you remember it?--_Voicy le bois_. But I wish +I knew which villa is your villa, which garden is your garden. Why did +n't I find out before I was driven from Paradise? I could easily find +out here by inquiring, I suppose. But your name is too sacred. I +can't profane it by speaking it aloud to people who might not bare +their heads at the sound of it." + +Susanna tittered. + +And on another page (the letter was eight pages long) he said:-- + +"It is all very beautiful, of course,--the way the town piles itself up +against the hillside, the pink and yellow and lilac _blondeur_ of the +houses, the olive gardens, the radiant sky overhead,--it is all very +picturesque and beautiful. But I am not hungry for beauty--at least, +for this beauty. If you were here with me,--ah, then indeed! But you +are not here, and I am hungry for Craford. There was a time when +Craford used to seem to me the tritest spot in Europe, and the thought +of Italy was luminous of everything romantic, of everything to be +desired. There was a time when nothing gave me such joy as to wake and +remember, 'I am in Italy--in Italy--in Italy!'--in Rome or Florence or +Venice, as the case might be. But the times have changed, have +changed. _You_ were in Italy in those days, and now you are at +Craford. Italy is dust and ashes. I hunger for Craford as the only +place in the world where life is life." + +And on still another page:-- + +"I can't deny that I got a certain emotion in the grey old Cathedral. +For so many generations one's people were baptized there, married +there, buried there. And then how many times must _you_ have +worshipped there, heard holy Mass there. They showed us the relics of +San Guido and the Spina d'Oro, of course, and--well, one is n't made of +wood. I tried to make up my mind in what part of the church you +usually knelt, which prie-dieu was your prie-dieu,--I 'm afraid without +any very notable success. But one felt something like a faint +afterglow of your presence, and it made one's heart beat. Again at the +Palazzo Rosso, under the eyes of all those motionless and silent, dead +and gone Valdeschi, in their armour, in their ruffs and puffs and +periwigs, one could n't be entirely wooden. The servant who showed us +about, an old man who said he had been in the family for I forget how +many hundred years, hailed me as a 'cognate,' having recognized the +name of Craford, and thereupon inducted us into the _appartamenti +segreti_, to exhibit a portrait of my grandsire. Wood itself, I dare +say, must have vibrated a little at that. In the throne-room I was +suddenly caught up and whisked away, back to a rainy afternoon at +Craford; and I walked beside you on the cliffs, and heard your voice, +and rejoiced in the sense of your nearness to me, and in your adorable +beauty, as you breasted the wind, with the sea and the sky for a +background. (Do you remember? Do you remember how keen and sweet the +air was, with the scent of the wild thyme? and how the sand-martins +circled round us?) As we passed through the long, bare, imposing rooms, +something like a shadow of you seemed to flit before us. Or if I +glanced out of one of the tall windows, it seemed as if you had just +passed under them, along the Riva or across the Piazza. As for Isola +Nobile, if I regret that it is n't mine, that is chiefly because I +should be glad to be in a position to offer so very lordly and lovely a +pleasure-house to _you_." + +Susanna laughed. + +Towards the end he wrote:-- + +"I look at the sea and I realize that it is continuous from here to +England, from here to Rowland Marshes; and it seems somehow to connect +us, to keep us in touch. Perhaps you, too, are looking at it at this +same moment. I fancy you walking on your terrace, and looking off upon +the grey-blue sea. It seems somehow to connect us. But there is no +grey in the blue of the sea here--it is blue, blue, unmitigated, almost +dazzling blue, save where in the sun it turns to quite dazzling white, +or in the deeper shadows takes on tints that are almost crimson, tints +of _lie-de-vin_. Oh, why are n't you here? If you were here, I think +a veil would fall from before my eyes, and I should see everything +differently. I could imagine myself _loving_ Sampaolo--if you were +here. In nine days--nine days! And to-morrow it will be only eight +days, and the day after to-morrow only seven. _Only_ do I say? I +count in that fashion to keep my courage up. Nine days! Why can't +those nine eternities be annihilated from the calendar? Why does n't +some kind person kill me, and then call me back to life in nine days? +Oh, it was cruel of you, cruel, cruel." + +Susanna looked out of her window, across the dark bay, to where the +electric lamps along the Riva threw wavering fronds of light upon the +water. She kissed her hand, and wafted the kiss (as nearly as the +darkness would let her guess) in the direction of the Piazza San Guido. +Then she went into the library, and hunted for a volume of Ronsard. + + + + +XXII + +There are two men, as they that know Sampaolo will not need to be +reminded, two young men, who, during the summer months, pervade the +island. In winter they go to Rome, or to Nice, or to England for the +hunting; but in summer they pervade Sampaolo, where they have a villa +just outside Vallanza, as well as the dark old palace of their family in +the town. + +The twin brothers, Franco and Baldo del Ponte--who that has once met them +can ever forget them? To begin with, they are giants--six-feet-four, and +stalwart in proportion. Then they are handsome giants, with good, +strong, regular features, close-cropped brown hair that tends to curl, +and hearty open-air complexions. Then they are jolly, pleasant-tempered, +simple-minded and clean-minded giants. Then they are indefatigable +giants--indefatigable in the pursuit of open-air amusements: now in their +sailing-boats, now in their motor-cars, or on horse-back, or driving +their four-in-hands. And finally, being Italians, they are Anglophile +giants;--like so many of the Italian aristocracy, they are more English +than the English. They are rigorously English in their dress, for +instance; they have all their clothes from London, and these invariably +of the latest mode. They give English names to their sailing-boats--the +_Mermaid_, the _Seagull_. They employ none but Englishmen in their +stables, which are of English design, with English fittings. They have +English dogs,--fox-terriers, bull-terriers, collies,--also with English +names, Toby, Jack, Spark, Snap, and so forth. They speak English with +only the remotest trace of foreignness--were they not educated at Eton, +and at Trinity College, Cambridge? And they would fain Anglicise, not +merely the uniform of the Italian police, but the Italian constitution. +"What Italy needs," they will assure you, looking wondrous wise, "is a +House of Peers." Their Italian friends laugh at them a good deal; but I +suspect that under the laughter there is a certain admiration, if not +even (for, as Italian fortunes go, theirs is an immense one) a certain +envy. + +Is all this apropos of boots, you wonder? No, for behold-- + +After breakfast, on the following morning, Adrian was alone, enjoying a +meditative digestion, in the sitting-room at the Hôtel de Rome, when he +saw come bowling along the Riva, turn rattling into the Piazza, and draw +up at the inn door, a very English-looking dog-cart, driven by a huge +young man in tweeds, with an apparent replica of himself beside him, and +an English-looking groom behind. The two huge young men descended; he +who had driven said something inaudible to the groom; and the groom, +touching his hat, answered: "Yes, my lord." + +"So," thought Adrian, "we are not the only Britons in this island. I +wonder who my lord is." + +And then, nothing if not consequent, he began to sing, softly to himself-- + + "Lord of thy presence, and no land besi-i-ide . . ." + +And he was still softly carolling that refrain, when the door of the +sitting-room was opened. + +"Marchese del Ponte, Marchese Baldo del Ponte," announced the waiter, +with sympathetic exhilaration, flourishing his inseparable napkin. + +The two huge young men entered. The room seemed all at once to contract, +and become half its former size. + +"Ah, Count," said one of them, advancing, and getting hold of Adrian's +hand. "How do you do? I am the Marchese del Ponte; this is my brother, +the Marchese Baldo. Welcome to Sampaolo. We are your connections, you +know. Our ancestors have intermarried any time these thousand years." + +Adrian's rosy face was wreathed in his most amiable smiles. + +"How do you do? I 'm very glad to see you. Won't you take chairs?" he +responded, and hospitably pushed chairs forward. "But I 'm afraid," he +added, shaking his head, still smiling, "I 'm afraid I 'm not a count." + +"Ah, yes," said Baldo, "we know you don't use your title." + +"You 're a count all right, whether you use your title or not," said +Franco. "Noblesse is in the bone. You can't get rid of it." + +"Your great-grandmother was a Ponte," said Baldo, "and our own +grandmother was a Valdeschi, your grandfather's cousin." + +"Really?" said Adrian, pleasantly. "But I 'm afraid," he explained to +Franco, "that there is n't any noblesse in _my_ bones. I 'm afraid I 'm +just a plain commoner." + +"Oh, you refer to the Act of Proscription--I understand," said Franco. +"But that was utterly invalid--a mere piece of political stage-play. The +Italian government had no more power to proscribe your title than it +would have to proscribe an English peerage,--no jurisdiction. It could +create a new Count of Sampaolo, which it did; but it could n't abolish +the dignity of the existing Count--a dignity that was ancient centuries +before the Italian government was dreamed of. You 're a count all right." + +"I see," said Adrian. "And are you, then," he inferred, with sprightly +interest, "agin the government?" + +The familiar formula appeared to tickle the two young Anglophiles +inordinately. They greeted it with deep-chested laughter. + +"We 're not exactly _agin_ the government," Baldo answered, "but we +believe in remodelling it. What Italy needs"--he looked a very Solon; +and his brother nodded concurrence in his opinion---"is a House of Lords." + +"I see--I see," said Adrian. + +"We want you to come and stay with us," said Franco. "We 've a villa +half a mile up the Riva. You 'd be more comfortable there than here, and +it would give us the greatest pleasure to have you." + +"The greatest possible pleasure," cordially echoed Baldo. + +"You 're exceedingly good," said Adrian. "And I should be most happy. +But I 'm afraid--" + +"Not another word," protested Franco. "You 'll come. That' s settled." + +"That's settled," echoed Baldo. + +"We 'll send down for your traps this afternoon," said Franco. "Have you +a man with you? No? Then we 'll send Grimes. He 'll pack for you, and +bring up your traps. But we hope to carry you off with us now--in time +for luncheon." + +"I don't know how to thank you," said Adrian. "But I 'm afraid--I hate +to destroy an illusion, yet in honesty I must--I 'm afraid I 'm not the +person you take me for. I 'm afraid there's a misapprehension. I--" + +"Oh, we 'll respect your incog all right, if that's what's troubling +you," promised Baldo. "You shall be Mr. Anthony Craford." + +"Craford _of_ Craford," Franco corrected him. + +"But there it is," said Adrian. "Now see how I 'm forced to disappoint +you. I 'm awfully sorry, but I 'm _not_ Mr. Anthony Craford--no, nor +Craford _of_ Craford, either." + +"What?" puzzled Franco. + +"Not Craford?" puzzled Baldo. + +"No," said Adrian, sadly. "I 'm awfully sorry, but my name is Willes." + +"Willes?" said Franco. "But it was Craford in the visitors' book at the +Palazzo Rosso. That's how we knew you were here." + +"My brother is the Hereditary Constable of the Palace," said Baldo. "It +is now merely an honorary office. But the visitors' book is brought to +him whenever there have been any visitors." + +"And we inquired for Craford downstairs," supplemented Franco. "And they +said you were at home, and showed us up." + +"I 'm awfully sorry," repeated Adrian. "But Craford and I are as +distinct as night and morning. Craford has gone out for a solitary walk. +My name is Willes. Craford and I are travelling together." + +"Oh, I see," cried Franco; and slapping his thigh, "Ho, ho, ho," he +laughed. + +"Ho, ho, ho," laughed Baldo. "We were jolly well sold." + +"We--ho, ho--we got the wrong sow by the ear," laughed Franco. + +"We put the saddle on the wrong horse--ho, ho," laughed Baldo. + +"We 're delighted to make your acquaintance, all the same," said Franco. + +"And we hold you to your promise--you 're to come and stay with us--you +and Craford both," said Baldo. + +"Yes--there 's no getting out of that. We count upon you," said Franco. + +"So far as I 'm concerned, I should be charmed," said Adrian. "But I +can't speak for Craford. He 's a bit run down and out of sorts. I 'm +not sure whether he 'll feel that he 's in a proper state for paying +visits. But here he comes." + +He inclined his head towards a window, through which Anthony could be +seen crossing the Piazza. + +"By Jove!" exclaimed Franco. "I should have known him for a Valdeschi +anywhere. He 's exactly like a portrait of his grandfather in the +Palazzo Rosso." + +"By Jove, so he is," exclaimed Baldo. + +And, to Adrian's surprise, when the introductions were accomplished, and +the invitation was repeated to him, Anthony at once accepted. + +"I 've given orders for my four-in-hand to come round here and pick us +up," said Franco. "Shall we all go for a spin, and get an appetite for +luncheon?" + +"In the afternoon, if there 's a breeze, I propose a sail," said Baldo. +"I 've just got a new boat out from England, schooner-rigged, the +_Spindrift_. I 've not yet really had a fair chance to try her." + +"Do you go in for tennis?" asked Franco. "We 've got a court at the +villa." + +"I don't know whether you care for swimming," said Baldo. "You get a +fairly decent dive-off from the landing-stage at the end of our garden. +The water here is pooty good. My brother and I generally go for a swim +before dinner." + +"Ah, here 's Tom with the four-in-hand," said Franco. And then, with a +readiness for self-effacement that was surely less British than the +language in which it found expression, "Would you care to take the +ribbons, Count?" he asked. And when Anthony had declined, "Would you, +Willes?" he proceeded. + +"Not just at the start, thanks," said Adrian. "I should like to watch +'em step a bit first." + +The hypocrite. As if he would have known what to do with the ribbons, +had they been given to him. + +So Franco took them himself, while Baldo blew the horn. + +"Have you visited Castel San Guido yet?" Franco questioned. "Shall we +make that our objective?" + +They drove up and up, round and round the winding road that leads to +Castel San Guido, where it clings to the almost vertical mountainside. +For the greater part the road was bordered by olive orchards, but +sometimes there were vineyards, sometimes groves of walnut-trees, clumps +of stone-pines, or fields of yellowing maize, and everywhere there were +oleanders growing wild, and always there was the view. + +Castel San Guido is very like a hundred other mediaeval castles, a grim +old fortress, with walls of I forget what prodigious thickness, with +round towers pierced by sinister-looking meutrières, and crowned by +battlements, with bare stone courts, stone halls, cold and dimly lighted, +and a dismantled stone chapel. But I dare say the descendant of San +Guido (not being made of wood) had his emotions. And the view was +magnificent--Vallanza below, its red roofs burning in the sun, the purple +bay, the olive-mantled hills, with a haze of gold-dust and pearl-dust +brooding over them, and white-walled villages shining in twenty +improbable situations, with their dark cypresses and slender campanili. + +They had toiled up slowly, but they came spinning back at a tremendous +pace, down the steep gradients, round the perilous curves, while Franco, +his jaws shut tight, his brows drawn together, gave all his attention to +his horses, Baldo merrily wound his horn, Anthony smoked cigarettes, and +Adrian, for dear life, with his heart in his mouth, held hard to the +seat-rail at his side. I think he pushed a very genuine _ouf_, when, +without accident, they had regained the level ground. + + +The Villa del Ponte is a long grey rectangular building, as severe in +outward aspect as a barrack or a prison, in a garden that stretches right +away to the sea-wall, a garden full of palms, oranges, tall, feathery +eucalyptus-trees, and lizards, perfectly Italian. But no sooner do you +pass the portal of the house, than you leave Italy, as on a magic-carpet, +and find yourself in the seventh circle of England, amid English +furniture, English books, English periodicals, daily, weekly, monthly, +(the _Pink 'un_ perhaps the most conspicuous), and between walls +embellished by English sporting-pictures and the masks and brushes of +English foxes. "We hunt a good bit, you know," said Franco. "We've a +little box in Northamptonshire, and hunt with the Pytchley. We both have +the button." One was n't in the least surprised when an English voice, +proceeding from the smuggest of smooth-shaven English countenances, +informed my lord that luncheon was served. + +After luncheon they sailed in the _Spindrift_. After that, (to Adrian's +delight, I hope) they had tea, with plenty of buttered toast. Then they +played tennis. Then they went for a breathless whirl along the Riva in a +motor-car. Then they swam. And after dinner they played billiards, +while Franco and Baldo smoked short pipes, and sipped whiskey and +soda--but a half-pennyworth of whiskey, as Adrian noticed, to an +intolerable deal of soda. Blood will tell, and theirs, in spite of +everything, was abstemious Italian blood. + + + + +XXIII + +"Now, Commendatore," said Susanna, making her face grave, "listen, and +you shall hear"--but then her gravity broke down--"of the midnight ride +of Paul Revere," she concluded, laughing. + +She raised her eyes to his, aglow with that tender, appealing, mocking, +defiant smile of hers. He, poor man, smiled too, though not very +happily, I fear--nay, even with a kind of suspicious bewilderment, as +one who sniffs brewing mischief, but knows not of what particular +variety it will be. They were seated in the shade and the coolness of +a long open colonnade at Isola Nobile, while, all round them, the +August morning, like a thing alive, pulsated with warmth and light, and +the dancing waves of the bay lapped musically against the walls below. +The Commendatore was clad in stiffly-starched white duck, and held a +white yachting-cap in his hand. Susanna wore a costume of some cool +gauzy tissue, pearl-grey, with white ruffles that looked as impalpable +as froth. + +"Listen," she said, "and you shall hear of the midday quest of +Commendatore Fregi. I will tell you step by step what steps you are to +take. My cousin is staying with the Ponte brothers at their villa. +Well,--first step of all,--you are to call upon him." + +"No," said the Commendatore, jerking his head, his baldish old head +with its fringe of iron-grey curls. + +"Yes," said Susanna, resolutely compressing her lips. + +"No," said he. "It is not etiquette. The new-comer pays the first +call." + +"That is Italian etiquette," said she. "But my cousin is an +Englishman." + +"_Nun fa nien'e_. He is in Italy. He must conform to the customs of +the country," insisted Commendatore Fregi, in the dialect of Sampaolo, +twirling his fierce old moustaches, glaring with his mild old eyes. + +"No," said Susanna, softly, firmly; "we must stretch a point in his +favour. He is English. We will adopt the custom of _his_ country. So +you will call upon him. I wish it." + +"Ph-h-h," puffed the Commendatore, fanning himself with his cap. +"Well--?" he questioned. + +Susanna, in her diaphanous light-coloured frock, leaned back, smiling. +The Commendatore fanned himself rapidly with his cap, and waited for +her instructions. + +"You call upon him, you introduce yourself as an old friend of the +family. 'As a boy, I knew your grandfather, your grandmother, and I +was a playfellow of your father's.'" + +She threw back her head, pouted out her lips, and achieved a very +admirable counterfeit of the Commendatore's manner. + +"You ask the usual questions, pay the usual compliments. 'Can I have +the pleasure of serving you in anyway? I beg leave to place myself at +your disposal. You must not fail to command me'--and patati and +patata." + +"You are an outrageous little ape," said the Commendatore, grinning in +spite of himself. "You would mimic the Devil to his face." + +"No," said Susanna. "I only mimic people when I am fond of them." + +And again she lifted her eyes to his, where they melted in her tender, +teasing smile. + +"Ph-h-h," puffed the Commendatore, agitating his cap. + +"And then," pursued Susanna, "having paid the usual compliments, you +rise to go." + +"Ah--_bene_," said the Commendatore, and his lean old yellow face +looked a good deal relieved. + +"Yes," said she. "But then, having risen to go, then, like the wily +and supple diplomat you are, you come to the real business of your +visit." + +"Oh?" said the Commendatore. + +He sat forward, on the edge of his chair, and frowned. He had thought +his troubles were over, and now it appeared that they had not yet begun. + +"Yes," said Susanna. "Having risen to go, you pause, you hesitate, and +then suddenly you take your courage in both hands. 'Count,' you say, +'I wish to speak to you about your cousin.' And thereupon, frankly, +confidentially, you proceed to lay before him the difficulties of your +position. 'I was your cousin's guardian; I am still her nearest +friend; I occupy the place of a parent towards her, and feel myself +responsible for her. And one of my chief concerns, one of my first +duties, is, of course, to see that she makes a good marriage. She is a +great heiress--she would be the natural prey of fortune-hunters. I +must protect her, I must direct her. With one hand I must keep away +undesirable suitors, with the other hand I must catch a desirable one. +But now observe my perplexities. Your cousin is peculiar. She is not +in the least like the typical submissive young Italian girl. She is +excessively self-willed, capricious, fantastic, unreasonable----'" + +"Bravo," put in the Commendatore, clapping his bony old hands. "I can +say all that with a clear conscience." He twirled his moustaches again. + +"Do you think I would ask you to say anything you could n't say with a +clear conscience?" Susanna demanded, with a glance of reproach. "So, +with a clear conscience, you go on: 'Your cousin is fantastic, +unreasonable, sentimental, romantic, extravagant. And--to come to the +point--she has got it into her unreasonable and romantic little head +that she has no right to the position which she occupies. She has +studied the history of her family, and she has got it into her perverse +little head that by the changes which took place in 1850 a very great +injustice was perpetrated. She has persuaded herself, in short, that +the properties here at Sampaolo, which are technically and legally +hers, are rightfully and morally _yours_; and, to tell you the whole +truth, since my guardianship expired, a few months ago, I have had hard +work to restrain her from taking measures to relinquish those +properties in your favour.' No--don't interrupt," she forbade him, +when the Commendatore made as if to speak. + +A sound of guttural impatience died in the old man's throat. He fanned +himself nervously, while Susanna, smiling, resumed the lesson. + +"'But,' you declare with energy, 'I _have_ restrained her, and I shall +continue to restrain her. She could only make the properties over to +you by becoming a nun and taking vows of perpetual poverty. I will +fight to my dying gasp to prevent her from doing that. However'--and +now you change your note, and speak as one anxious to conciliate and +convince--'however, it has occurred to me that there is a simple course +by which the whole awkward situation could be solved--by which your +cousin's scruples could be set at rest, and you yourself put in +possession of your ancestral estates. My dear Count, your cousin is a +charming girl, and it is my chief concern and duty to arrange a +suitable marriage for her. Let me have the very great satisfaction of +arranging a marriage between her and you.'" + +Susanna leaned back, and laughed. But the Commendatore frowned at her +with genuine anger. + +"_Macche_!" he cried. "What fool's talk is this? What farce are you +preparing?" + +"No farce," said Susanna, gently. "Only a wedding--at which you shall +give the bride away. And now--the launch is waiting. The sooner you +are off, the sooner you 'll return." + +"Never," said the Commendatore. "I would sell myself to be chopped +into sausage-meat, before I would become a party to any such carnival +tricks." + +"Carnival tricks? Do you call marriage a carnival trick?" Susanna +wondered. "Or do you wish me to live and die an old maid? Is it or is +it not your duty to arrange a suitable match for me?" + +"It is not my duty to arrange a match for you with a foreigner whom I +have n't the honour of knowing," he retorted. + +"Well, then," urged Susanna, "go to my cousin and make him the +proposition I have suggested. And if he says yes,--if he consents to +marry me,--I give you my most solemn promise that not for any +consideration in the world will I accept him." + +"What?" questioned the Commendatore, blinking at her. + +"If he says yes, I 'll say no. If he says no, he says no. So it is +no, either way," she pointed out. "And meanwhile--the launch is +waiting." + +"If he says no!" scoffed the Commendatore. "Is the man born who will +say no to a bag of gold?" + +"That's exactly what you have now an opportunity of discovering," she +replied. "But if he says yes, I give you my solemn promise, it will be +the end of him, so far as I 'm concerned." + +The Commendatore rubbed the back of his neck. + +"I never heard such a gallimaufry of headless and tailless nonsense," +he declared. + +"Think of that poor long-suffering launch," said Susanna. "You are +still keeping it waiting." + +"It may wait till the sea dries up, for all of me," said the +Commendatore, settling himself in his seat. "Do you take me for +Pulcinella? I will not begin at my time of life to play carnival +tricks." + +"Ah, well, after all," said Susanna, "it does n't really matter very +much." + +And apparently she abandoned her intention. But after a pause she +added, rather as if speaking to herself, "I must send for Father +Angelo, I suppose." + +"_What_?" snapped out the Commendatore, sitting up. + +"Yes," said Susanna, dreamily, "Father Angelo. _He_ won't refuse to do +what I ask him to." + +"Bah," said the Commendatore. "A priest--a monk--a shaveling--a +bare-toes." + +"A very good, kind, holy man," said Susanna. "And as my cousin is a +faithful Catholic, I think on all accounts Father Angelo will serve my +purpose best." + +"Peuh--a Jesuit," said the Commendatore, elevating his nose. + +"He is n't a Jesuit--he is a Capuchin," said Susanna. + +"They are all Jesuits," said the Commendatore, with a sweeping gesture. +"A brown-back--a funeral-follower--a prayer-monger," he growled, +brushing his immense moustaches upwards, to emphasize his scorn. + +"Hush," Susanna remonstrated, lifting her hand. "You must n't rail +against religion." + +"I do not rail against religion," answered the Commendatore. "Taken in +moderation, religion is an excellent thing--for women. Did I not see +that you were religiously brought up? But when it comes to these +priests, these Jesuits,--when it comes to that Father Angelo,--I would +have them all hung up and smoke-dried, to make bacon of. Garrh!" he +snorted, tossing his head. + +"Yes, I know," murmured Susanna. "You were always jealous of Father +Angelo." + +"I? Jealous of that gnawer of fish-bones? It is probable," sniffed +the Commendatore. + +He rose from his chair, and stood before her, very slim and erect, his +chin thrust forward, so that the tendons of his long thin neck showed +like wires. + +"But I am an old ass. I can deny you nothing. I go to your cousin," +he consented. + +"You are an old dear," said Susanna. "I knew you would go." + +Her eyes were brimming with mirth, with triumph, with fondness. She +rose too, and gently patted his stiffly-starched white duck sleeve. + + +After he was gone, she crossed one of the light marble bridges, and +walked in the garden on Isola Sorella, where it was shaded by a row of +ilexes. Blackcaps (those tireless ubiquitous minstrels) were singing +wildly overhead; ring-doves kept up their monotonous coo-cooing. +Beyond, in the sun, butterflies flitted among the flowers, cockchafers +heavily droned and blundered, a white peacock strutted, and at the +water's edge two long-legged, wry-necked flamingoes stood motionless, +like sentinels. At the other side of the ilexes stretched a bit of +bright green lawn, with a fountain plashing in the middle, from whose +spray the sun struck sparks of iridescent fire; and then, terrace upon +terrace, the garden rose to a summit, where there was a belvedere. + +I don't know how many times Susanna strolled backwards and forwards, I +don't know how many times she looked at her watch. Here and there +semi-circular marble benches were placed. Sometimes she would sit down +and rest for a little; but she was soon up again, walking, walking, +looking at her watch. At last she left the shade, crossed the lawn, +ascended the terraces, between orange and lemon-trees with their +undergrowth of jessamine, and entered the belvedere, having by this +progress created a panic indescribable in the community of lizards. + +From the belvedere she could command the whole sunlit surface of the +bay, here blue, here silver, here deepening to violet, paling to green, +here dimly, obscurely rose. A fleet of fishing-boats, their coloured +sails decorated with stripes and geometric patterns, or even now and +then with a representation of the owner's patron-saint, was putting out +to sea in single file, between the Capo del Turco and the Capo del +Papa. But Susanna concentrated her attention upon a part of the shore, +perhaps half a mile distant, and half a mile to the east of Vallanza, +where the grey-green of the prevailing olives was broken by the +dark-green of a garden. The garden ran out into the bay a little, +forming a point. Susanna waited and watched, watched and waited, till, +by-and-by, from behind the point, a boat appeared, a launch, and came +swiftly bobbing over the waves towards Isola Nobile. She must have +kept very still during this vigil, for now, when she turned to leave +the belvedere, she saw that at least a hundred lizards had come forth +from their hiding-places, and were staring at her with their twinkling +little pin-heads of eyes. But even as she saw them--zrrrp!--a flash, a +rustle, and there was not a lizard anywhere in sight. + +She went back to the colonnade. + + +"My dear," said Commendatore Fregi, "your cousin is an extremely fine +fellow, and upon my word I am sorry that my mission to him has failed. +I could not hope to find you a better husband." + +Whatever the Commendatore's emotion might be, it generally impelled him +to do something to his moustaches. Now he pulled them straight out at +either side. + +"Your mission has failed?" asked Susanna. "How do you mean?" + +"He cannot marry you," said the Commendatore, with a shake of the head, +a shrug of the shoulders. "He is engaged to a lady in England." + +"Ah--I see," said Susanna. + +"He is very good-looking," said the Commendatore. "He is his +grandfather come back to life." + +"Is he indeed?" said Susanna. + +"Yes," affirmed the Commendatore. "He dresses well. He has a good +manner. He is very quiet." + +"Englishmen are apt to be quiet," said Susanna. + +"He speaks Italian as well as I do," went on the Commendatore. "But he +cannot speak Sampaolese." + +"He could easily learn Sampaolese," said Susanna. + +"Yes," said the Commendatore. "When I repeated that humbug about your +becoming a nun and resigning the properties to him, he held up his +hands in horror. 'She must not think of such a thing,' he cried. +'Tell the young lady that I could never conceivably accept such a +sacrifice. I understand her scruples, and they do her great honour. +But she and I and all of us must accept the situation as we find it. +She must not think of becoming a nun.' You see, he has good sense as +well as good feeling. That is what I have always told you myself--we +must accept the situation as we find it. There's no use trying to open +up the past." + +"H'm," said Susanna, on a key of doubt. + +"And then, with my heart in the business, for I had seen that he was of +the right stuff, then I proposed a marriage," said the Commendatore. +"I put it to him as strongly as I could. I painted the advantages in +vivid colours. But it was no good. He cannot marry you. He is +already betrothed." + +"So you said," Susanna reminded him. "To a lady in England, I think?" + +"Yes," assented the Commendatore. "It is a pity on our account that he +will not throw her over. But it is to his credit. Let me tell you it +is not every man in his position who would stick at the point of +honour. Consider the alternative. He throws over his Englishwoman, +and he becomes master not only of one of the noblest estates in Europe, +but of an estate which must have for him the incalculable additional +value of being his patrimony." Never chary of gesture, the speaker was +at this point lavish of it. + +"May I be permitted," said Susanna, raising her eyebrows, "to admire +the light-hearted way in which you leave _me_ out of the saga?" + +"You?" puzzled the Commendatore. "Out of the--what? What is a saga?" + +"A Scandinavian legend," Susanna instructed him. "Now see how you +leave me out of your Scandinavian legend. 'Consider the alternative,' +said you. 'He throws over his Englishwoman, and he becomes--' Well, +_you_ said, 'Master of a noble estate.' But a really gallant person +might have said, 'Husband of a perfectly entrancing Italian woman.'" + +She pulled a little face. + +"Ha," laughed the Commendatore, briefly. "You must have your joke." +And his hand instinctively made for his moustaches. "Well, I am sorry. +I can never hope to find you a better husband." + +"You need never try," said Susanna. "He will do." + +"What?" said the Commendatore. + +"He will do," said she. "We'll have a grand wedding in the Cathedral. +The Bishop shall officiate, in his very best cope and mitre, and you, +with your grandest flourish, shall give the bride away." + +The Commendatore shrugged his shoulders, and gazed for commiseration at +the sky. + +"You are incomprehensible," he said. "Haven't I spent an hour telling +you he is affianced to a lady in England?" + +"No," said Susanna; "only something like ten minutes." + +"Brrr," said the Commendatore, contemptuous of the quibble. + +"And anyhow, I shall marry him," said Susanna. "You have made me quite +fall in love with him, by your glowing description--and I rather liked +him before. The lady in England is neither here nor there. We 'll be +married in the Cathedral, where so many generations of our ancestors +have been married. His friend Mr. Willes shall be best man; and the +Pontes shall pontificate in their most British manner, with +wedding-favours sent out from London. And so the ancient legitimate +line of the Valdeschi shall be restored." + +"You are mad," said the Commendatore, simply. + +"And you shall offer us a wedding-breakfast at the Villa Fregi," she +pursued. "We 'll have all sorts of nice things to eat and drink, and +you shall propose the health of the bride, and make a magnificent +speech. And I shall wear my coronet--which I have never yet worn--for +then I shall be the Countess of Sampaolo with a clear right to the +title. And now I 'll tell you a secret. Would you like me to tell you +a secret?" she inquired. + +"I can tell _you_ a secret that will soon be a matter of public +notoriety," said the Commendatore. "And that is that you 've clean +gone out of your senses." + +"The lady he is engaged to in England," said Susanna, "guess who she +is. I give it to you in a million." + +"How the devil can I guess who she is?" said the Commendatore. + +"Well, then, listen," said Susanna. "You must n't faint, or explode, +or anything--but the lady he's engaged to in England is your old +friend--that bold adventuress, that knightess errant--the widow +Torrebianca." + +"_Domeniddio_!" gasped the Commendatore, falling back in his chair. + +And I half think he would have pulled his moustaches out by their roots +if Susanna had n't interceded with him to spare them. + +"Don't--don't," she pleaded. "You won't have any left." + +"_Domeniddio_!" he gasped three separate times, on three separate notes. + +"If you're surprised," said Susanna, "think how much more surprised he +will be." + +"_Do-men-id-dio_!" said the Commendatore, in a whisper. + +And then a servant came to announce that luncheon was ready. + + + + +XXIV + +That morning Anthony had received a letter from Miss Sandus. It was +dated and postmarked Craford, where, indeed, (although Miss Sandus was +now at Isola Nobile), it had been written. It had been written at +Susanna's request, almost under her dictation. Then she had given it +to a confidential servant, with orders that it should be committed to +the post three days after her departure. + +"I sometimes forget, my dear," Miss Sandus had improved the occasion to +remark, "that you are not English; but the Italian in you comes out in +your unconquerable passion for intrigue." + +The initial and principal paragraph of the letter ran as follows:-- + +"Do you remember once upon a time complaining to me of your lady-love +that she was rich? and setting up her wealth as an obstacle to your +happy wooing?--and how I pooh-poohed the notion? Well, now, it would +appear, that obstacle is by way of being removed. You will have +learned in your copy-book days that Fortune is a mighty uncertain +goddess. And I am writing by Susanna's desire to let you know that +circumstances have quite suddenly arisen which make it seem likely that +she may be in some danger, if not actually on the point, of losing +nearly everything that she possesses. I don't altogether clearly +understand the matter, but it springs from some complication in her +family, and a question whether a rather distant relative has n't a +better claim than her own upon the properties she has been enjoying. +She wishes me to tell you this, because, as she says, 'It may make some +difference in his plans.' I am well aware, of course, as I have +assured her, that it will make none--unless, indeed, it may intensify +your impatience for an early wedding-day. But she insists upon my +writing; and when she insists, I notice that no one ever for very long +resists. What is that mysterious virtue, which some people have in +abundance, (but most of us so abundantly lack), by which one is +compelled, if they say _go_, to go, if they say _come_, to come? There +is a question for you to meditate, as you walk by the shores of the +Adriatic, under 'the golden leaves of the olives.' I wonder whether +you will recollect from what poet that is quoted--'the golden leaves of +the olives.' Well, they _are_ golden in certain lights." + +I dare say Anthony was still digesting his letter from Miss Sandus, +when it was followed by the somewhat startling visit of Commendatore +Fregi; and perhaps he was still under the impression of that, when, in +the afternoon, he was summoned from a game of tennis, to receive the +communication which I transcribe below, from the Contessa di Sampaolo. +It was brought to him by a Capuchin friar, a soft-spoken, aged man, +with a long milk-white beard, who said he would wait for an answer. + +The Pontes, their tennis thus interrupted, strolled off towards the +stables, leading Adrian with them,--an Adrian consumed, I fancy, by +curiosity to know what business a Capuchin friar might have to transact +with his friend. "Of course it is something to do with the plots and +plans of my lady," he reflected; "but exactly _what_? If people take +you into their confidence, they ought to take you into the entirety of +it, and keep you _au courant_ as the theme develops." + +Anthony paused for an instant to admire his correspondent's strong, +clear-flowing, determined hand; and then, in that stiff-jointed, formal +Tuscan of the schools, which no human being was ever heard to speak, +but educated Italians will persist in writing, he read:-- + +"Illustrissimo Signore e caro Cugino"--Nay, better translate:-- + +"Most Illustrious Sir and dear Cousin: From my earliest childhood I +have always felt that the Revolution of 1850 was accompanied by great +injustices, and particularly that, without reference to the political +changes, there should have been no transfer of the hereditaments of our +family from the legal heir, your Excellency's father, then a minor, to +his uncle, my grandfather. At the age of twelve I made a vow, before +the shrine of our Sainted Progenitor, that if ever the power to do so +should be mine, I would set this injustice right. + +"By the testament of my father, however, I was left under the control +of a guardian until I was twenty-two, which age I attained in April +last. Since April I have been constantly in the intention of restoring +to the head of my family the properties that are rightly his. But many +impeding circumstances, besides the dissuasions of friends whose age +and wisdom I was concerned to regard, have detained me until now, when, +learning that your Excellency is sojourning in the island, I feel that +I must no longer postpone an act of due reparation. + +"As I am but the life-tenant of these estates, and as your Excellency, +being my nearest male kinsman, is legally my heir-apparent, (though +morally always the head of our house), I can, I am informed, make the +estates over to you by entering a Religious Order, and taking vows of +celibacy for life. The small fortune which I have inherited from my +mother will provide me with the dowry necessary to this step. + +"Most Illustrious Sir and dear Cousin, it would give me great pleasure +to make the acquaintance of your Excellency, and to do homage to the +Chief of the House of San Guido, before my retirement from the world. +The good Father Angelo, who bears this letter, who has my full +confidence and approves of my purpose, will bring me your Excellency's +answer, to say if and when you will honour me with your presence at +Isola Nobile. + +"I beg leave to subscribe myself. Most Illustrious Sir and dear +Cousin, with sentiments of distinguished respect and affection, of your +Lordship's Excellency the good cousin, + +"S. del Valdeschi della Spina, + Contessa di Sampaolo." + +"Al Illmo. Signore, S. E. il Conte di Sampaolo, + Alla Villa del Ponte, Vallanza." + + +Anthony, his cousin's letter held at arm's length, turned to the +white-bearded Capuchin, where he stood in his brown habit, patiently +waiting, with his clasped hands covered by his sleeves. + +"My dear Father," he said, speaking quickly, his face white, his eyes +troubled, "the Countess tells me that you have her full confidence and +approve her purpose. But do you _know_ what purpose she has intimated +here?" + +"Yes," said Father Angelo, calmly, bowing his head. + +"But then," Anthony hurried on, his excitement unconcealed, "it is +impossible you should approve it--it is impossible any one should +approve it. She must be stopped. The thing she proposes to do is out +of all reason. I cannot allow it. Her friends must not allow it. Her +friends must prevent it." + +"The thing she proposes to do is an act of simple justice," said the +Father, in his soft voice. + +Anthony waved his arms, intolerantly. + +"Simple justice--or simple madness," he said, "it is a thing that must +not even be discussed. She is twenty-two years old--she is a +child--she is irresponsible--she does n't, she can't, know what she is +doing. She proposes to impoverish herself, to condemn herself to a +convent for life, and, so far as one can see, without the slightest +vocation. Her friends must restrain her." + +"She is not a person easily restrained, when she has made up her mind," +said the Father, quietly. + +"At all events," said Anthony, "she will be restrained in spite of +herself, if the fact is impressed upon her that the sacrifice she +contemplates making on my behalf is one that I will not accept--that no +man could accept. She can't make her properties over to me if I refuse +to accept them." + +"No, I suppose she cannot," said Father Angelo. His hand came forth +from his sleeve, to stroke his beard, thoughtfully. "But the +properties are in all right and justice yours. Why should you not +accept them? You are the legitimate Conte di Sampaolo. You are +entitled to your own." + +"My dear Father!" Anthony cried out, almost writhing. "It is a matter, +I tell you, that I cannot even discuss. Accept them! And allow an +inexperienced young girl, who can't possibly understand the +consequences of her action, on a quixotic impulse, to beggar herself +for me, to give up everything, to retire from the world and die by slow +inches in a convent! The thing is too monstrous. A man could never +hold up his head again." + +"It would be well," said the Father, slowly, "if you were to tell her +this in person. You had better see her, and tell her it in person." + +"When can I see her?" Anthony asked, impetuous. + +"When you will. She much desires to see you," the Father answered. + +"The sooner, the better," said Anthony. "The sooner she definitely and +permanently dismisses this folly from her mind, the better for every +one concerned." + +"Possibly you could go with me now?" the Father suggested. "Her +launch, which brought me here, attends at the end of the garden." + +"Certainly I will go with you now," said Anthony. "Wait while I put on +a coat." + +He ran back to the tennis-court, caught up his coat, and donned it. +Then, all heated and in flannels as he was, he accompanied Father +Angelo to the launch. + + + + +XXV + +Susanna, Miss Sandus, a white peacock, and six ring-doves were taking +refreshments in the garden, in the shade of an oleander-tree. There +were cakes, figs, and lemonade, grains of dried maize, and plenty of +good succulent hemp-seed. The ring-doves liked the hemp-seed and the +maize, but the white peacock seemed to prefer sponge-cake soaked in +lemonade. + +"I know a literary man who once taught a peacock to eat sponge-cake +soaked in absinthe," Miss Sandus remarked, on a key of reminiscence. + +"Really? An unprincipled French literary man, I suppose?" was +Susanna's natural inference. + +"No, that's the funny part of it," said Miss Sandus. "He is an eminent +and highly respectable English literary man, and the father of a family +into the bargain. I dare n't give his name, lest he might have the law +of me." + +"He ought to have been ashamed of himself," Susanna said. "What became +of the poor peacock? Did it descend to a drunkard's grave?" + +"That's a long story," said Miss Sandus. "When you 're married and +come to stay with me in Kensington, I 'll ask the literary man to +dinner. Perhaps he 'll give you his account of the affair. Ah, here +'s your ambassador returned," she exclaimed all at once, as Father +Angelo, his beads swinging beside him, appeared advancing down the +pathway. + +"Well, Father----?" Susanna questioned, looking at him with eyes that +were dark and anxious. + +"Your cousin is a very headstrong person," said Father Angelo. "He +refuses to accept your offer. He swept it aside like a whirlwind." + +"Ah,--who told you he would?" crowed Miss Sandus. + +"He is here to speak with you in person. He is waiting in the loggia," +said Father Angelo. + +Susanna leaned back in her chair. She had turned very pale. + +"I think I am going to faint," she said. + +"For mercy's sake, _don't_," Miss Sandus implored her, starting. + +"I won't," Susanna promised, drawing a deep breath. "But you will +admit I have some provocation. Must I--must I see him?" + +"_Must_ you?" cried Miss Sandus. "Are n't you _dying_ to see him?" + +"Yes," Susanna confessed, with a flutter of laughter. "I 'm dying to +see him. But I 'm so _afraid_." + +"I 'll disappear," said Miss Sandus, rising. "Then the good Father can +bring him to you." + +"Oh, don't--don't leave me," Susanna begged, stretching out her hand. + +"My dear!" laughed Miss Sandus, and she tripped off towards the Palace. + +"Well, Father," Susanna said, after a pause, "will you show him the +way?" + + +The loggia, as Father Angelo called it, where he had left Anthony, +while he went to announce his arrival, was the same long open colonnade +in which, that morning, Susanna had had her conference with +Commendatore Fregi. It was arranged as a sort of out-of-doors +living-room. There were rugs on the marble pavement, and chairs and +tables; and on the tables, besides vases with flowers, and other +things, there were a good many books. + +Absently, mechanically, (as one will when one is waiting in a strange +place where books are within reach), Anthony picked a book up. It was +an old, small book, in tree-calf, stamped, in the midst of much +elaborate gold tooling, with the Valdeschi arms and coronet. +Half-consciously examining it, he became aware presently that it was a +volume of the poems of Ronsard. And then somehow it fell open, at a +page that was marked by the insertion of an empty envelope. + +The envelope caught Anthony's eye, and held it; and that was scarcely +to be wondered at, for, in his own unmistakable handwriting, it was +addressed to Madame Torrebianca, at the New Manor, Craford, England, +and its upper corner bore an uncancelled twenty-five centime Italian +postage-stamp. + +On the page the envelope marked was printed the sonnet, "Voicy le Bois." + +What happened at this moment in Anthony's head and heart? Many things +must have become rather violently and painfully clear to him; many +things must have changed their aspect, and adjusted themselves in new +combinations. Many things that had seemed trifling or meaningless must +have assumed significance and importance. No doubt he was shaken by +many tumultuous thoughts and feelings. But outwardly he appeared +almost unmoved. He returned the book to the table, and began to walk +backwards and forwards, his head bowed a little, as one considering. +Sometimes he would give a brief low laugh. Sometimes he would look up, +frown, and vaguely shake his fist. Once, shaking his fist, he +muttered, "Oh, that Adrian!" And once, with a delighted chuckle, "By +Jove, how awfully she 'll be dished!" + +Then Father Angelo came back. + +"The Countess is in the garden. May I show you the way?" he said. + +But when they had reached the marble bridge that connects the garden +with the Palace, "I think it will be best if you see her alone," the +Father said. "Cross this bridge, and keep straight up the path beyond, +and you will come to her." + +"Thank you, Father," said Anthony, and crossed the bridge. + + +He crossed the marble bridge, and kept straight up the path beyond. +And there, at the end of the path, in the shade of an oleander-tree, +with her back towards him, stood a young woman--a young woman in a +pearl-grey frock, and a garden-hat, beneath which one could see that +her hair was dark. Young women's backs, however, in this world, to the +undiscerning eyes of men, are apt to present no immediately +recognizable characteristic features; and so if it had n't been for +Ronsard, I don't know what would have happened. + +It was very still in the garden. The birds were taking their afternoon +siesta. The breeze faintly lisped in the tree-tops. Even the +sunshine, as if it were not always still, seemed stiller than its wont. + +"Oh, what--what--what will he think, what will he say, what will he do, +when I turn round, and he sees who I am?" The question repeated and +repeated itself in Susanna's mind, rhythmically, to the tremulous +beating of her heart, as she heard Anthony's footsteps coming near. + +He walked quickly, but a few paces short of where she stood he halted, +and for a breathing-space or two there was silence. + +Then at last, in English, in his smoothest, his most detached, his most +languid manner, but with an overtone of exultancy that could not be +subdued, he said-- + +"These ingenuous attempts at mystification are immensely entertaining; +but are there to be many more of them, before you can permit our little +comedy to reach its happy dénouement?" + +"Good heavens!" thought Susanna, wildly. + +She did n't turn round, but presently her shoulders began to shake. +She could n't help it. The discomfiture was hers; she had been +"awfully dished" indeed. But her shoulders shook and shook with silent +laughter. + +In the end, of course, she turned. + +In her dark eyes disappointment, satisfaction, amazement, and amusement +shone together. + +"How in the world did you find out?" she asked. "How _could_ you have +found out? When did you find out? How long have you known? And if +you knew, why did you pretend not to know?" + +But Anthony, at the sight of her face, forgot everything. + +"Oh, never mind," he cried, and advanced upon her with swift strides. + +By-and-by, "Let me look at your right hand," said Susanna. "I want to +see whether you have the Valdeschi pit." + +"The Valdeschi what?" said Anthony. + +"The Valdeschi pit," said she. + +"What is that?" he asked. + +"The Valdeschi pit!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that you, the +head of the family, don't know?" + +"What is it?" he asked. + +"Every true-born son or daughter of San Guido," she explained, "bears +in the palm of the hand a little pit or dint, which is the survival in +his descendants of the scar made by the thorn in the hand of San Guido +himself. See--I have it." + +She held out her hand. + +Anthony took it, bent ever it, kissed it, studied it. + +"It is a delicious hand--but I see no pit," he said. + +"_There_," said she, placing the tip of her finger upon a tiny +concavity in the rose-white flesh. + +"That?" laughed Anthony. "That is nothing but a pretty little dimple." + +"Oh, no," said she, seriously. "That is the mark of the Valdeschi. I +'m sure you have it too--we all have it. Let me see." + +She took his lean brown hand, and examined it carefully, eagerly. + +"There! I was sure!" she cried. + +She pointed to where, in a position corresponding to that of the "mark +of the Valdeschi" in her own hand, there was an indentation that looked +like a half-obliterated scar. + +Presently, in the direction of the Palace, a bell began to ring, rather +a deep-toned bell, like a church-bell. + +Susanna rose. + +"When you were here the other day as a mere visitor," she said, "I +suppose they did n't show you the chapel, did they?" + +"No," said Anthony. + +"They don't show it to mere visitors," she went on. "But come with me +now, and you shall see it. Father Angelo is going to give Benediction. +That is what the bell is ringing for." + +She led the way towards the Palace. As they were crossing the bridge, +"Look," she said, and pointed to a flagstaff that sprang from the +highest pinnacle of the building. A flag was being hoisted there; and +now it fluttered forth and flew in the breeze, a red flag with a design +in gold upon it. + +"The flag of the Count of Sampaolo: gules, a spine or," said Susanna. +"Of course you know why they are flying it now?" + +"No--?" wondered Anthony. + +"Because the Count of Sampaolo is at home," she said. + +Then they went in to Benediction. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lady Paramount, by Henry Harland + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LADY PARAMOUNT *** + +***** This file should be named 19861-8.txt or 19861-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/8/6/19861/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +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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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** + diff --git a/19861-8.zip b/19861-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0cb0df6 --- /dev/null +++ b/19861-8.zip diff --git a/19861.txt b/19861.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3614532 --- /dev/null +++ b/19861.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7548 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lady Paramount, by Henry Harland + +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 + + +Title: The Lady Paramount + +Author: Henry Harland + +Release Date: November 18, 2006 [EBook #19861] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LADY PARAMOUNT *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +THE LADY PARAMOUNT + +By HENRY HARLAND + + + +_Author of_ + +"THE CARDINAL'S SNUFF-BOX" + + + + + +JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD + +LONDON & NEW YORK -- MCMII + + + + +Copyright, 1902 + +BY JOHN LANE + +All rights reserved + + + + +To + +EDMUND GOSSE + + + + +The Lady Paramount + + +I + +On the twenty-second anniversary of Susanna's birth, old Commendatore +Fregi, her guardian, whose charge, by the provisions of her father's +will, on that day terminated, gave a festa in her honour at his villa +in Vallanza. Cannon had been fired in the morning: two-and-twenty +salvoes, if you please, though Susanna had protested that this was +false heraldry, and that it advertised her, into the bargain, for an +old maid. In the afternoon there had been a regatta. Seven tiny +sailing-boats, monotypes,--the entire fleet, indeed, of the Reale Yacht +Club d'Ilaria--had described a triangle in the bay, with Vallanza, +Presa, and Veno as its points; and I need n't tell anyone who knows the +island of Sampaolo that the Marchese Baldo del Ponte's _Mermaid_, +English name and all, had come home easily the first. Then, in the +evening, there was a dinner, followed by a ball, and fire-works in the +garden. + +Susanna was already staying at the summer palace on Isola Nobile, for +already--though her birthday falls on the seventeenth of April--the +warm weather had set in; and when the last guests had gone their way, +the Commendatore escorted her and her duenna, the Baroness Casaterrena, +down through the purple Italian night, musical with the rivalries of a +hundred nightingales, to the sea-wall, where, at his private +landing-stage, in the bat-haunted glare of two tall electric lamps, her +launch was waiting. But as he offered Susanna his hand, to help her +aboard, she stepped quickly to one side, and said, with a charming +indicative inclination of the head, "The Baronessa." + +The precedence, of course, was rightfully her own. How like her, and +how handsome of her, thought the fond old man, thus to waive it in +favour of her senior. So he transferred his attention to the Baroness. +She was a heavy body, slow and circumspect in her motions; but at +length she had safely found her place among the silk cushions in the +stern, and the Commendatore, turning back, again held out his hand to +his sometime ward. As he was in the act of doing so, however, his ears +were startled by a sound of puffing and of churning which caused him +abruptly to face about. + +"Hi! Stop!" he cried excitedly, for the launch was several yards out +in the bay; and one could hear the Baroness, equally excited, +expostulating with the man at the machine: + +"He! Ferma, ferma!" + +"It's all right," said Susanna, in that rather deep voice of hers, +tranquil and leisurely; "my orders." + +And the launch, unperturbed, held its course towards the glow-worm +lights of Isola Nobile. + +The Commendatore stared. . . . + + +For a matter of five seconds, his brows knitted together, his mouth +half open, the Commendatore stared, now at Susanna, now after the +bobbing lanterns of the launch,--whilst, clear in the suspension, the +choir of nightingales sobbed and shouted. + +"_Your_ orders?" he faltered at last. Many emotions were concentrated +in the pronoun. + +"Yes," said Susanna, with a naturalness that perhaps was studied. "The +first act of my reign." + +He had never known her to give an order before, without asking +permission; and this, in any case, was such an incomprehensible order. +How, for instance, was she to get back to the palace? + +"But how on earth," he puzzled, "will you get back to----" + +"Oh, I 'm not returning to Isola Nobile tonight," Susanna jauntily +mentioned, her chin a little perked up in the air. Then, with the +sweetest smile--through which there pierced, perhaps, just a faint +glimmer of secret mischief?--"I 'm starting on my wander-year," she +added, and waved her hand imperially towards the open sea. + +It was a progression of surprises for the tall, thin old Commendatore. +No sooner had Susanna thus bewilderingly spoken, than the rub and dip +of oars became audible, rhythmically nearing; and a minute after, from +the outer darkness, a row-boat, white and slender, manned by two rowers +in smart nautical uniforms, shot forward into the light, and drew up +alongside the quay. + +"A boat from the _Fiorimondo_," he gasped, in stupefaction. + +"Yes," said Susanna, pleasantly. "The _Fiorimondo_ takes me as far as +Venice. There I leave it for the train." + +The Commendatore's faded old blue eyes flickered anxiously. + +"I can't think I am dreaming," he remarked, with a kind of vague +plaintiveness; "and of course you are not serious. My dear, I don't +understand." + +"Oh, I 'm as serious as mathematics," she assured him. + +She gave her head a little pensive movement of affirmation, and lifted +her eyes to his, bright with an expression of trustful candour. This +was an expression she was somewhat apt to assume when her mood was a +teasing one; and it generally had the effect of breaking down the +Commendatore's gravity. "You are a witch," he would laugh, availing +himself without shame of the way-worn reproach, "a wicked, irresistible +little witch." + +"The thing," she explained, "is as simple as good-day. I 'm starting +on my travels--to see the world--Paris, which I have only seen +once--London, which I have never seen--the seaports of Bohemia, the +mountains of Thule, which I have often seen from a distance, in the +mists on the horizon. The _Fiorimondo_ takes me as far as Venice. +That is one of the advantages of owning a steam-yacht. Otherwise, I +should have to go by the Austrian-Lloyd packet; and that would n't be +half so comfortable." + +Her eyes, still raised to the Commendatore's, melted in a smile;--a +smile seemingly all innocence, persuasiveness, tender appeal for +approbation, but (I 'm afraid) with an undergleam that was like a +mocking challenge. + +He, perforce, smiled too, though with manifest reluctance; and at the +same time he frowned. + +"My dear, if it were possible, I should be angry with you. This is +scarcely an appropriate hour for mystifications." + +"_That_ it is n't," agreed Susanna, heartily. And she put up her hand, +to cover a weary little yawn. "But there 's _no_ mystification. There +'s a perfectly plain statement of fact. I 'm starting to-night for +Venice." + +He studied her intently for a moment, fixedly, pondering something. +Then, all at once, the lines of dismay cleared from his lean old +ivory-yellow face. + +"Ha! In a ball-dress," he scoffed, and pointed a finger at Susanna's +snowy confection of tulle and satin and silver embroidery, all +a-shimmer in the artificial moonlight of the electric lamps, against +the background of southern garden,--the outlines and masses, dim and +mysterious in the night, of palms and cypresses, of slender +eucalyptus-trees, oleanders, magnolias, of orange-trees, where the +oranges hung, amid the dark foliage, like dull-burning lanterns. A +crescent of diamonds twinkled in the warm blackness of her hair. She +wore a collar of pearls round her throat, and a long rope of pearls +that descended to her waist, and was then looped up and caught at the +bosom by an opal clasp. A delicate perfume, like the perfume of +violets, came and went in the air near her. She held a great fluffy +fan of white feathers in one hand, and in the other carried loose her +long white gloves; and gems sparkled on her fingers. The waters under +the sea-wall beside her kept up a perpetual whispering, like a +commentary on the situation. The old man considered these things, and +his misgivings were entirely dissipated. + +"Ha!" he scoffed, twisting his immense iron-grey moustaches with +complacency. "I can't guess what prank you may be up to, but you are +never starting for Venice in a ball-dress. You 're capable of a good +deal, my dear, but you 're not capable of that." + +"Oh, I 'm capable of anything and everything," Susanna answered, +cheerfully ominous. "Besides," she plausibly admonished him, "you +might do me the justice of supposing that I have changes aboard the +_Fiorimondo_. My maid awaits me there with quite a dozen boxes. +So--you see. Oh, and by the bye," she interjected, "Serafino also is +coming with me. He'll act as courier--buy my tickets, register my +luggage; and then, when we reach our ultimate destination, resume his +white cap and apron. My ultimate destination, you must know," she +said, with a lightness which, I think, on the face of it was spurious, +"is a little village in England--a little village called Craford; +and"--she smiled convincingly--"I hear that the cuisine is not to be +depended upon in little English villages." + +All the Commendatore's anxieties had revived. This time he frowned in +grim earnest. + +"_Creforrrd_!" he ejaculated. + +The word fell like an explosion; and there was the climax of horrified +astonishment in those reverberating r's. + +"I think you are mad," he said. "Or, if you are not mad, you are the +slyest young miss in Christendom." + +Susanna's eyes darkened, pathetic, wistful. + +"Ah, don't be cross," she pleaded. "I 'm not mad, and I 'm not sly. +But I 'm free and independent. What's the good of being free and +independent," she largely argued, "if you can't do the things you want +to? I 'm going to Craford to realise the aspiration of a lifetime. I +'m going to find out my cousin, and make his acquaintance, and see what +he 's like. And then--well, if he 's nice, who knows what may happen? +I planned it ever so long ago," she proclaimed, with an ingenuousness +that was almost brazen, "and made all my preparations. Then I sat down +and waited for the day when I should be free and independent." + +Her eyes melted again, deprecating his censure, beseeching his +indulgence, yet still, with a little glint of raillery, defying him to +do his worst. + +His hand sawed the air, his foot tapped the ground. + +"Free and independent, free and independent," he fumed, in derision. +"Fine words, fine words. And you made all your preparations +beforehand, in secrecy; and you 're not sly? Misericordia di Dio!" + +He groaned impotently; he shook his bony old fist at the stars in the +firmament. + +"Perhaps you will admit," he questioned loftily, "that there are +decencies to be observed even by the free and independent? It is not +decent for you to travel alone. If you mean a single word of what you +say, why are n't you accompanied by the Baronessa?" + +"The Baronessa fatigues me," Susanna answered gently. "And I +exasperate her and try her patience cruelly. She 's always putting +spokes in my wheel, and I 'm always saying and doing things she +disapproves of. Ah, if she only suspected the half of the things I +don't say or do, but think and feel!" + +She nodded with profound significance. + +"We belong," she pointed out, "to discrepant generations. I 'm so +intensely modern, and she 's so irredeemably eighteen-sixty. I 've +only waited for this blessed day of liberty to cut adrift from the +Baronessa. And the pleasure will be mutual, I promise you. She will +enjoy a peace and a calm that she has n't known for ages. Ouf! I feel +like Europe after the downfall of Napoleon." + +She gave her shoulders a little shake of satisfaction. + +"The Baronessa," she said, and I 'm afraid there was laughter in her +tone, "is a prisoner for the night on Isola Nobile." I 'm afraid she +tittered. "I gave orders that the launch was to start off the moment +she put her foot aboard it, and on no account was it to turn back, and +on no account was any boat to leave the island till to-morrow morning. +I expect she 'll be rather annoyed--and puzzled. But--cosa vuole? +It's all in the day's work." + +Then her voice modulated, and became confidential and exultant. + +"I 'm going to have such a delicious plunge. See--to-night I have put +on pearls, and diamonds, and rings, that the Baronessa would never let +me wear. And I 've got a whole bagful of books, to read in the +train--Anatole France, and Shakespeare, and Gyp, and Pierre Loti, and +Moliere, and Max Beerbohm, and everybody: all the books the Baronessa +would have died a thousand deaths rather than let me look at. That's +the nuisance of being a woman of position--you 're brought up never to +read anything except the Lives of the Saints and the fashion papers. I +'ve had to do all my really important reading by stealth, like a thief +in the night. Ah," she sighed, "if I were only a man, like you! But +as for observing the decencies," she continued briskly, "you need have +no fear. I 'm going to the land of all lands where (if report speaks +true) one has most opportunities of observing them--I 'm going to +England, and I 'll observe them with both eyes. And I 'm not +travelling alone." She spurned the imputation. "There are Rosina and +Serafino; and at the end of my journey I shall have Miss Sandus. You +remember that nice Miss Sandus?" she asked, smiling up at him. "She is +my fellow-conspirator. We arranged it all before she went away last +autumn. I 'm to go to her house in London, and she will go with me to +Craford. She 's frantically interested about my cousin. She thinks +it's the most thrilling and romantic story she has ever heard. And she +thoroughly sympathises with my desire to make friends with him, and to +offer him some sort of reparation." + +The Commendatore was pacing nervously backwards and forwards, being, I +suppose, too punctilious an old-school Latin stickler for etiquette to +interrupt. + +But now, "Curse her for a meddlesome Englishwoman," he spluttered +violently. "To encourage a young girl like you in such midsummer +folly. A young girl?--a young hoyden, a young tom-boy. What? You +will travel from here to London without a chaperon? And books--French +novels--gr-r-r! I wish you had never been taught to read. I think it +is ridiculous to teach women to read. What good will they get by +reading? You deserve--upon my word you deserve . . . Well, never +mind. Oh, body of Bacchus!" + +He wrung his hands, as one in desperation. + +"A young girl, a mere child," he cried, in a wail to Heaven; "a +mere"--he paused, groping for an adequate definition--"a mere +irresponsible female orphan! And nobody with power to interfere." + +Susanna drew herself up. + +"Young?" she exclaimed. "A mere child? I? Good gracious, I 'm +_twenty-two_." + +She said it, scanning the syllables to give them weight, and in all +good faith I think, as who should say, "I 'm fifty." + +"You really can't accuse me of being young," she apodictically +pronounced. "I 'm twenty-two. Twenty-two long years--aie, Dio mio! +And I look even older. I could pass for twenty-five. If," was her +suddenly-inspired concession, "if it will afford you the least atom of +consolation, I 'll _tell_ people that I am twenty-five. _There_." + +She wooed him anew with those melting eyes, and her tone was soft as a +caress. + +"It is n't every man that I 'd offer to sacrifice three of the best +years of my life for--and it is n't every man that I 'd offer to tell +fibs for." + +She threw back her head, and stood in an attitude to invite inspection. + +"Don't I look twenty-five?" she asked. "If you had n't the honour of +my personal acquaintance, would it ever occur to you that I 'm what you +call 'a young girl'? Would n't you go about enquiring of every one, +'Who is that handsome, accomplished, and perfectly dressed woman of the +world?'" + +And she made him the drollest of little quizzical moues. + +In effect, with her tall and rather sumptuously developed figure, with +the humour and vivacity, the character and decision, of her face, with +the glow deep in her eyes, the graver glow beneath the mirth that +danced near their surface,--and then too, perhaps, with the unequivocal +Southern richness of her colouring: the warm white and covert rose of +her skin, the dense black of her undulating abundant hair, the sudden, +sanguine red of her lips,--I think you would have taken her for more +than twenty-two. There was nothing of the immature or the unfinished, +nothing of the tentative, in her aspect. With no loss of freshness, +there were the strength, the poise, the assurance, that we are wont to +associate with a riper womanhood. Whether she looked twenty-five or +not, she looked, at any rate, a completed product; she looked +distinguished and worth while; she looked alive, alert: one in whom the +blood coursed swiftly, the spirit burned vigorously; one who would love +her pleasure, who could be wayward and provoking, but who could also be +generous and loyal; she looked high-bred, one in whom there was race, +as well as temperament and nerve. + +The Commendatore, however, was a thousand miles from these +considerations. He glared fiercely at her--as fiercely as it was _in_ +his mild old eyes to glare. He held himself erect and aloof, in a +posture that was eloquent of haughty indignation. + +"I will ask your Excellency a single question. Are you or are you not +the Countess of Sampaolo?" he demanded sternly. + +But Susanna was incorrigible. + +"At your service--unless I was changed at nurse," she assented, +dropping a curtsey; and an imp laughed in her eyes. + +"And are you aware," the Commendatore pursued, with the tremor of +restrained passion in his voice, "that the Countess of Sampaolo, a +countess in her own right, is a public personage? Are you aware that +the actions you are proposing--which would be disgraceful enough if you +were any little obscure bourgeoise--must precipitate a public scandal? +Have you reflected that it will all be printed in the newspapers, for +men to snigger at in their cafes, for women to cackle over in their +boudoirs? Have you reflected that you will make yourself a nine-days' +wonder, a subject for tittle-tattle with all the gossip-mongers of +Europe? Are you without pride, without modesty?" + +Susanna arched her eyebrows, in amiable surprise. + +"Oh?" she said. "Have I omitted to mention that I 'm to do the whole +thing in masquerade? How stupid of me. Yes,"--her voice became +explanatory,--"it's essential, you see, that my cousin Antonio should +never dream who I really am. He must fancy that I 'm just +anybody--till the time comes for me to cast my domino, and reveal the +fairy-princess. So I travel under a nom-de-guerre. I 'm a widow, a +rich, charming, dashing, not too-disconsolate widow; and my name . . . +is Madame Fregi." + +She brought out the last words after an instant's irresolution, and +marked them by a hazardous little smile. + +"What!" thundered the Commendatore. "You would dare to take _my_ name +as a cloak for your escapades? I forbid it. Understand. I +peremptorily forbid it." + +He stamped his foot, he nodded his outraged head, menacingly. + +But Susanna was indeed incorrigible. + +"Dear me," she grieved; "I hoped you would be touched by the +compliment. How strange men are. Never mind, though," she said, with +gay resignation. "I 'll call myself something else. Let's +think. . . . Would--would Torrebianca do?" Her eyes sought counsel +from his face. + +Torrebianca, I need n't remind those who are familiar with Sampaolo, is +the name of a mountain, a bare, white, tower-like peak of rock, that +rises in the middle of the island, the apex of the ridge separating the +coast of Vallanza from the coast of Orca. + +"Madame Torrebianca? La Nobil Donna Susanna Torrebianca?" She tried +the name on her tongue. "Yes, for an impromptu, Torrebianca is n't +bad. It's picturesque, and high-sounding, and yet not--not +_invraisemblable_. You don't think it _invraisemblable_? So here 's +luck to that bold adventuress, that knightess-errant, the widow +Torrebianca." + +She raised her fluffy white fan, as if it were a goblet from which to +quaff the toast, and flourished it aloft. + +The poor old Commendatore was mumbling helpless imprecations in his +moustache. One caught the word "atrocious" several times repeated. + +"And now," said Susanna brightly, "kiss me on both cheeks, and give me +your benediction." + +She moved towards him, and held up her face. + +But he drew away. + +"My child," he began, impressively, "I have no means to constrain you, +and I know by experience that when you have made up that perverse +little mind of yours, one might as well attempt to reason with a Hebrew +Jew. Therefore I can only beg, I can only implore. I implore you not +to do this fantastic, this incredible, this unheard-of thing. I will +go on my knees to you. I will entreat you, not for my sake, but for +your own sake, for the sake of your dead father and mother, to put this +ruinous vagary from you, to abandon this preposterous journey, and to +stay quietly here in Sampaolo. Then, if you must open up the past, if +you must get into communication with your distant cousin, I 'll help +you to find some other, some sane and decorous method of doing so." + +Still once again Susanna's eyes melted, but there was no mockery in +them now. + +"You are kind and patient," she said, with feeling; "and I hate to be a +brute. Yet what is there to do? I can't alter my resolution. And I +can't bear to refuse you when you talk to me like that. So--you must +forgive me if I take a brusque way of escaping the dilemma." + +She ran to the edge of the quay, and sprang lightly into her boat. + +"Avanti--avanti," she cried to the rowers, who instantly pushed the +boat free, and bent upon their oars. + +Then she waved her disfranchised guardian a kiss. + +"Addio, Commendatore. I 'll write to you from Venice." + + + + +II + +It was gay June weather, in a deep green English park: a park in the +south of England, near the sea, where parks are deepest and greenest, +and June weather, when it is n't grave, is gaiest. Blackbirds were +dropping their liquid notes, thrushes were singing, hidden in the +trees. Here and there, in spaces enclosed by hurdles, sheep browsed or +drowsed, still faintly a-blush from recent shearing. The may was in +bloom, the tardy may, and the laburnum. The sun shone ardently, and +the air was quick with the fragrant responses of the earth. + +A hundred yards up the avenue, Anthony Craford stopped his fly, a +shabby victoria, piled with the manifold leather belongings of a +traveller, and dismounted. + +"I 'll walk the rest of the way," he said to the flyman, giving him his +fare. "Drive on to the house. The servants will take charge of the +luggage." + +"Yes, sir," answered the flyman, briskly, and flicked his horse: +whereat, displaying a mettle one was by no means prepared for, the +horse dashed suddenly off in a great clattering gallop, and the ancient +vehicle behind him followed with a succession of alarming leaps and +lurches. + +"See," declaimed a voice, in a sort of whimsical recitative, + + "See how the young cabs bound, + As to the tabor's sound,--" + +a full-bodied baritone, warm and suave, that broke, at the end, into a +note or two of laughter. + +Anthony turned. + +On the greensward, a few paces distant, stood a man in white flannels: +rather a fat man, to avow the worst at once, but, for the rest, +distinctly a pleasant-looking; with a smiling, round, pink face, +smooth-shaven, and a noticeable pair of big and bright blue eyes. + +"Hello. Is that you, old Rosygills?" Anthony said, with a phlegm that +seemed rather premeditated. + +"Now, what a question," protested the other, advancing to meet him. He +walked with an odd kind of buoyant, measured step, as if he were +keeping time to a silent dance-tune. "All I can tell you is that it's +someone very nice and uncommonly like me. You should know at your age +that a person's identity is quite the most mysterious mystery under +heaven. You really must n't expect me to vouch for mine. How-d'ye-do?" + +He extended, casually, in the manner of a man preoccupied, a plump, +pink left hand. With his right hand he held up and flaunted, for +exhibition, a drooping bunch of poppies, poignantly red and green: the +subject, very likely, of his preoccupation, for, "Are n't they +beauties?" he demanded, and his manner had changed to one of fervour, +nothing less. "They 're the spoils of a raid on Farmer Blogrim's +chalk-pit. If eyes were made for seeing, see and admire--admire and +confess your admiration." + +He shook them at Anthony's face. But as Anthony looked at them with +composure, and only muttered, "H'm," "Oh, my little scarlet starlets," +he purred and chirped to the blossoms, "_would n't_ the apathetic man +admire you?" + +And he clasped them to his bosom with a gesture that was reminiscent of +the grateful prima-donna. + +"They look exactly as if I had plucked them from the foreground of a +Fifteenth Century painting, don't they?" he went on, holding them off +again. "Florentine, of course. Ah, in those days painting was a fine +art, and worth a rational being's consideration,--in those days, and in +just that little Tuscan corner of the world. But you," he pronounced +in deep tones, mournfully, "how cold, how callous, you are. Have you +no soul for the loveliness of flowers?" + +Anthony sighed. He was a tall young man, (thirty, at a guess), tall +and well set-up, with grey eyes, a wholesome brown skin, and a nose so +affirmatively patrician in its high bridge and slender aquilinity that +it was a fair matter for remark to discover it on the face of one who +actually chanced to be of the patrician order. Such a nose, perhaps, +carried with it certain obligations--an obligation of fastidious +dressing, for example. Anthony, at any rate, was very fastidiously +dressed indeed, in light-grey tweeds, with a straw hat, and a tie that +bespoke a practised hand beside a discerning taste. But his general +air, none the less,--the expression of his figure and his motions, as +well as of his face and voice,--was somehow that of an indolent +melancholy, a kind of unresentful disenchantment, as if he had long ago +perceived that cakes are mostly dough, and had accommodated himself to +the perception with a regret that was half amusement. + +His friend, by contrast, in loose white flannels, with a flannel shirt +and a leather belt, with yellowish hair, waving, under a white flannel +cricket-cap, a good inch longer than the conventional cut, was plainly +a man who set himself above the modes: though, in his plump, pink way +debonair and vivacious, not so tall as Anthony, yet tall enough never +to be contemned as short, and verging upon what he was fain to call +"the flower of a sound man's youth, the golden, gladsome, romantic age +of forty," he looked delightfully fresh, and wide-awake, and cheerful, +and perfectly in the scheme of the blue day and the bird-notes and the +smiling country. Permit me to introduce Mr. Adrian Willes, by vocation +a composer and singer of songs, and--"contrapuntally," as he would +explain--Anthony Craford's housemate, monitor, land-agent, and man of +business. + +Anthony sighed. + +"I 'll tell you what I admire," he answered drily. "I admire the +transports of delight with which you hail my unexpected home-coming. +The last you knew, I was in California; and here I might have tumbled +from the skies." + +Adrian regarded him with an eye in which, I think, kindled a certain +malicious satisfaction. + +"Silence," he said, "is the perfectest herald of joy. Besides, you +must n't flatter yourself that your home-coming is so deucedly +unexpected, either. I 've felt a pricking in my thumbs any time these +three months; and no longer ago than yesterday morning, I said to my +image in the glass, as I was shaving, 'I should n't wonder if Tony +turned up to-morrow,' said I." + +"That was merely your uneasy conscience," Tony expounded. "When the +cat's away, the mice are always feeling prickings in their thumbs." + +"Oh, if you stoop to bandying proverbs," retaliated Adrian, "there's a +proverb about a penny." He raised his bunch of poppies, and posed it +aloft before him, eyeing it, his head cocked a little to one side, in +critical enjoyment. "Shall we set out for the house?" he asked. + +"No," said Anthony, promptly, with decision. "_I 'll_ set out for the +house; and _you_ (unless your habits have strangely altered) will frisk +and gambol round about me. Come on." + + +And taking Adrian's arm, he led the way, amid the summer throng of +delicate scents and sounds, under the opulent old trees, over the +gold-green velvet of the turf, on which leaves and branches were +stencilled by the sun, as in an elaborate design for lace, towards a +house that was rather famous in the neighbourhood--I was on the point +of saying for its beauty: but are things ever famous in English +neighbourhoods for their mere beauty?--for its quaintness, and in some +measure too, perhaps, for its history:--Craford Old Manor, a red-brick +Tudor house, low, and, in the rectangular style of such houses, +rambling; with a paved inner court, and countless tall chimneys, like +minarets; with a secret chapel and a priests' "hiding-hole," for the +Crafords were one of those old Catholic families whose boast it is that +they "have never lost the Faith"; with a walled formal garden, and a +terrace, and a sun-dial; with close-cropped bordures of box, and yews +clipped to fantastic patterns: the house so placed withal, that, while +its north front faced the park, its south front, ivy-covered, looked +over a bright lawn and bright parterres of flowers, down upon the long +green levels of Rowland Marshes, and away to the blue sea beyond,--the +blue sea, the white cliffs, the yellow sands. + +Anthony and Adrian, arm in arm, sauntered on without speaking, till +they attained the crest of a sweeping bit of upland, and the house and +the sea came in view. Here they halted, and stood for a minute in +contemplation of the prospect. + +"The sea," said Adrian, disengaging his arm, that he might be free to +use it as a pointer, and then pointing with it, "the sea has put on her +bluest frock, to honour your return. And behold, decked in the hues of +Iris, that gallant procession of cliffs, like an army with banners, +zigzagging up from the world's rim, to bid you welcome. Oh, you were +clearly not unexpected. If no smoke rises from yonder chimneys,--if +your ancestral chimney-stone is cold,--that's merely because, despite +the season, we 're having a spell of warmish weather, and we 've let +the fires go out. 'T is June. Town 's full; country 's depopulated. +In Piccadilly, I gather from the public prints, vehicular traffic is +painfully congested. Meanwhile, I 've a grand piece of news for your +private ear. Guess a wee bit what it is." + +"Oh, I 'm no good at guessing," said Anthony, with languor, as they +resumed their walk. + +"Well--what will you give me, then, if I 'll blurt it out?" asked +Adrian, shuffling along sidewise, so that he might face his companion. + +"My undivided attention--provided you blurt it briefly," Anthony +promised. + +"Oh, come," Adrian urged, swaying his head and shoulders. "Betray a +little curiosity, at least." + +"Curiosity is a vice I was taught in my youth to suppress," said +Anthony. + +"A murrain on your youth," cried Adrian, testily. "However, since +there 's no quieting you otherwise, I suppose, for the sake of peace, I +'d best tell you, and have done with it. Well, then,"--he stood off, +to watch the effect of his announcement,--"Craford's Folly is let." + +"Ah?" said Anthony, with no sign of emotion. + +Adrian's face fell. + +"Was there ever such inhumanity?" he mourned. "I tell him that--thanks +to my supernatural diligence in his affairs--his own particular +millstone is lifted from his neck. I tell him that a great white +elephant of a house, which for years has been eating its head off, and +keeping him poor, is at last--by my supernatural diligence--converted +into an actual source of revenue. And 'Ah?' is all he says, as if it +did n't concern him. Blow, blow, thou winter wind,--thou art not so +unkind as Man's ingratitude." + +"Silence," Anthony mentioned, "is the perfectest herald of joy." + +"Pish, tush," said Adrian. "A fico for the phrase. I 'll bet a +shilling, all the same,"--and he scanned Anthony's countenance +apprehensively,--"that you 'll be wanting money?" + +"It's considered rather low," Anthony generalised, "to offer a bet on +what you have every ground for regarding as a certainty." + +"A certainty?" groaned Adrian. He tossed his plump arms heavenwards. +"There it is! He 's wanting money." + +And his voice broke, in something like a sob. + +"Do you know," he asked, "how many pounds sterling you 've had the +spending of during the past twelvemonth? Do you know how many times +your poor long-suffering bankers have written to me, with tears in +their eyes, to complain that your account was overdrawn, and would I be +such a dear as to set it right? No? You don't? I could have sworn +you did n't. Well, I do--to my consternation. And it is my duty to +caution you that the estate won't stand it--to call that an estate," he +divagated, with a kind of despairing sniff, "which is already, by the +extravagances of your ancestors, shrunken to scarcely more than three +acres and a cow. You 're wanting money? What do you _do_ with your +money? What secret profligacy must a man be guilty of, who squanders +such stacks of money? Burst me, if I might n't as well be steward to a +bottomless pit. However, Providence be praised,--and my own +supernatural diligence,--I 'm in command of quite unhoped-for +resources. Craford New Manor is let." + +"So you remarked before," said Anthony, all but yawning. + +"And shall again, if the impulse seizes me," Adrian tartly rejoined. +"The circumstance is a relevant and a lucky one for the man you 're +fondest of, since he's wanting money. If it were n't that the new +house is let, he 'd find my pockets in the condition of Lord Tumtoddy's +noddle. However, the saints are merciful, I 'm a highly efficient +agent, and the biggest, ugliest, costliest house in all this +countryside is let." + +"Have it so, dear Goldilocks," said Anthony, with submission. "I 'll +ne'er deny it more." + +"There would be no indiscretion," Adrian threw out, "in your asking +whom it's let to." + +"Needless to ask," Anthony threw back. "It's let to a duffer, of +course. None but a duffer would be duffer enough to take it." + +"Well, then, you 're quite mistaken," said Adrian, airily swaggering. +"It's let to a lady." + +"Oh, there be lady duffers," Anthony apprised him. + +"It's very ungallant of you to say so." Adrian frowned disapprobation. +"This lady, if you can bear to hear the whole improbable truth at once, +is an Italian lady." + +"An Italian lady? Oh?" Anthony's interest appeared to wake a little. + +Adrian laughed. + +"I expected that would rouse you. A Madame Torrebianca." + +"Ah?" said Anthony; and his interest appeared to drop. + +"Yes--la Nobil Donna Susanna Torrebianca. Is n't that a romantic name? +A lady like the heroine of some splendid old Italian story,--like +Pompilia, like Francesca,--like Kate the Queen, when her maiden was +binding her tresses. Young, and dark, and beautiful, and altogether +charming." + +"H'm. And not a duffer? An adventuress, then, clearly," said Anthony. +"You 'll never get the rent." + +"Nothing of the sort," Adrian asserted, with emphasis. "A lady of the +highest possible respectability. Trust me to know. A scrupulous +Catholic, besides. It was partly because we have a chapel that she +decided to take the house. Father David is hand and glove with her. +And rich. She gave the very best of banker's references. 'Get the +rent,' says he--as if I had n't got my quarter in advance. I let +furnished--what? Well, that's the custom--rent payable quarterly in +advance. And cultivated. She's read everything, and she prattles +English like you or me. She had English governesses when she was a +kiddie. And appreciative. She thinks I 'm without exception the +nicest man she 's ever met. She adores my singing, and delights in all +the brilliant things I say. She says things that are n't half bad +herself, and plays my accompaniments with really a great deal of +sympathy and insight. And Tony dear,"--he laid his hand impressively +on Tony's arm, while his voice sank to the pitch of deep emotion,--"she +has a cook--a cook--ah, me!" + +He smacked his lips, as at an unutterable recollection. + +"She brought him with her from Italy. He has a method of preparing +sweetbreads--well, you wait. His name is Serafino--and no wonder. And +she has the nicest person who was ever born to live with her: a Miss +Sandus, Miss Ruth Sandus, a daughter of the late Admiral Sir Geoffrey +Sandus. She 's a dove, she 's a duck, she 's a darling; she 's +completely won my heart. And I"--he took a few skipping steps, and +broke suddenly into song-- + + "'And I, and I have hers!' + +We dote upon each other. She calls me her Troubadour. She has the +prettiest hands of any woman out of Paradise. She 's as sweet as +remembered kisses after death. She 's as sharp as a needle. She 's as +bright as morning roses lightly tipped with dew. She has a house of +her own in Kensington. And she's seventy-four years of age." + +Anthony's interest appeared to wake again. + +"Seventy-four? You call that young?" he asked, with the inflection of +one who was open to be convinced. + +Adrian bridled. + +"You deliberately put a false construction on my words. I was alluding +to Miss Sandus, as you 're perfectly well aware. Madame Torrebianca is +n't seventy-four, nor anything near it. She's not twenty-four. Say +about twenty-five and a fraction. With such hair too--and such +frocks--and eyes. Oh, my dear!" He kissed his fingers, and wafted the +kiss to the sky. "Eyes! Imagine twin moons rising over a tropical--" + +"_Allons donc_," Anthony repressed him. "Contain yourself. Where is +Madame Torrebianca's husband?" + +"Ah," said Adrian, with a sudden lapse of tone. "Where is Madame +Torrebianca's husband? That's the question. Where?" And he winked +suggestively. "How can I tell you where he is? If I could tell you +that, you don't suppose I 'd be wearing myself to a shadow with +uncongenial and ill-remunerated labour, in an obscure backwater of the +country, like this, do you? If I could tell you that, I could tell you +the secretest secrets of the sages, and I should be making my +everlasting fortune--oh, but money hand over fist--as the oracle of a +general information bureau, in Bond Street, or somewhere. I should be +a millionaire, and a celebrity, and a regular cock-of-the-walk. Where +is Madame Torrebianca's husband? Ay! Gentle shepherd, tell me where?" + +"Ah?" wondered Anthony, off his guard. "A mysterious disappearance?" + +"Bravo!" crowed Adrian, gleefully. "I am not only witty myself, but +the cause of wit in others." He patted Anthony on the shoulder. "A +mysterious disappearance. The _mot_ is capital. That's it, to a +hair's breadth. Oft thought before, but ne'er so well expressed. The +gentleman (as the rude multitude in their unfeeling way would put it) +is dead." + +"On the whole," mused Anthony, looking him up and down with a +reflective eye, "you 're an effulgent sort of egotist, as egotists go; +but you yield much cry for precious little wool." + +"Yes, dead," Adrian repeated, pursuing his own train of ideas. "Donna +Susanna is a widow, a poor lone widow, a wealthy, eligible widow. You +must be kind to her." + +"Why don't you marry her?" Anthony enquired. + +"Pooh," said Adrian. + +"Why don't you?" Anthony insisted. "If she 's really rich? You don't +dislike her--you respect her--perhaps, if you set your mind to it, you +could even learn to love her. She 'd give you a home and a position in +the world; she 'd make a sober citizen of you; and she 'd take you off +my hands. You know whether you 're an expense--and a responsibility. +Why don't you marry her? You owe it to me not to let such an occasion +slip." + +"Pooh," said Adrian. But he looked conscious, and he laughed a +deliriously conscious laugh. "What nonsense you do talk. I 'm too +young, I 'm far too young, to think of marrying." + +"See him blush and giggle and shake his pretty curls," said Anthony, +with scorn, addressing the universe. + + +By this time they had skirted the house, and come round to the southern +front, where the sunshine lay unbroken on the lawn, and the smell of +the box hedges, strong in the still air, seemed a thing almost +ponderable: the low, long front, a mellow line of colour, with the +purple of its old red bricks and the dark green of its ivy, sunlit +against the darker green of the park, and the blue of the tender +English sky. The terrace steps were warm under their feet, as they +mounted them. In terra-cotta urns, at intervals upon the terrace +balustrade, roses grew, roses red and white; and from larger urns, one +at either side of the hall-door, red and white roses were espaliered, +intertwining overhead. + +The hall-door stood open; but the hall, as they entered it from the +brightness without, was black at first, like a room unlighted. Then, +little by little, it turned from black to brown, and defined +itself:--"that hackneyed type of Stage-property hall," I have heard +Adrian lament, "which connotes immediately a lost will, a family +secret, and the ghost of a man in armour"; "a noble apartment, square +and spacious, characteristic of the period when halls were meant to +serve at need as guard-rooms," says the _County History_. + +Square and spacious it was certainly, perhaps a hackneyed type none the +less: the ceiling and the walls panelled in dark well-polished oak; the +floor a pavement of broad stone flags, covered for the most part now by +a faded Turkey carpet; the narrow windows, small-paned and leaded, set +in deep stone embrasures; a vast fireplace jutting across a corner, the +Craford arms emblazoned in the chimney-piece above; and a wide oak +staircase leading to the upper storey. The room was furnished, +incongruously enough, in quite a modern fashion, rather shabbily, and I +daresay rather mannishly. There were leather arm-chairs and settles, +all a good deal worn, and stout tables littered with books and +periodicals. The narrow windows let in thin slants of mote-filled +sunshine, vortices of gold-dust; and on the faded carpet, by the door, +lay a bright parallelogram, warming to life its dim old colours. The +rest of the room seemed twilit. Someone had been too wise to defeat +that good oak panelling by hanging pictures on it. + +"Not a creature is stirring," said Adrian, "not even a mouse. +Sellers--oh, what men daily do, not knowing what they do!--is shut up +in the scullery, I suppose, torturing his poor defenceless fiddle. +That 's what it is to be a musical boot-and-knife boy. And Wickersmith +will be at his devotions. He tells me he never gets leisure for his +morning meditation till luncheon 's cleared away. And that's what it +is to be a pious butler. I 'm doubting whether there was anyone to +disembarrass that flyman of yours of your luggage. So he 's probably +driven off with it all to his humble, happy home. I see none of it +about. Never mind. There 'll be some of your old things in Mrs. W.'s +camphor-chest, perhaps; or if it comes to a pinch, I can lend you a +garment or so of my own,--and then won't Craford of Craford cut a +figure of fun! You will make her acquaintance . . . Let me see. +To-day is Wednesday. We 'll call on her to-morrow." + +"On whom?" asked Anthony, looking blank. + +"Have we been talking of Queen Berengaria?" Adrian, with his nose in +the air, enquired. "On _whom?_ says you. We 'll call to-morrow +afternoon." + +"Not I," said Anthony. + +"Not to-morrow?" Adrian raised his eyebrows, well-marked crescents of +reddish-brown above his ruddy face, and assumed thereby a physiognomy +of almost childlike naivete. "Ah, well, on Friday, then;--though +Friday is unlucky, and one rarely shines on a day of abstinence, +anyhow. It's all a fallacy about fish being food for the brain. Meat, +red meat, is what the brain requires." He slapped his forehead. "But +Friday, since you prefer it." + +Anthony seated himself on the arm of a leather chair, and, with +calculated deliberation, produced his cigarette-case, selected a +cigarette, returned his cigarette-case to his pocket, took out his +matchbox, struck a match, and got his cigarette alight. + +"No, dear Nimbletongue," he said at last, through a screen of smoke, +"not Friday, either." He smiled, shaking his head. + +Disquiet began to paint itself in Adrian's mien. + +"Name your own day." He waited, anxious, in suspense. + +Anthony chuckled. + +"My own day is no day. I have n't the faintest desire to make the good +woman's acquaintance, and I shall not call on her at all." + +Adrian stretched out appealing hands. + +"But Anthony--" he adjured him. + +"No," said Anthony, with determination. "I 'm not a calling man. And +I 've come down here for rest and recreation. I 'll pay no calls. Let +that be understood. Calls, quotha! And in the country, at that. Oh, +don't I know them? Oh, consecrated British dulness! The smug faces, +the vacuous grins; the lifeless, limping attempts at conversation; the +stares of suspicious incomprehension if you chance to say a thing that +has a point; and then, the thick, sensible, slightly muddy boots. I +'ll pay no calls. And as for making acquaintances--save me from those +I 've made already. In broad England I can recall but three +acquaintances who are n't of a killing sameness;--and one of those," he +concluded sadly, with a bow to his companion, "one of those is fat, and +grows old." + +"Poor lad," Adrian commiserated him. "You are tired and overwrought. +Go to your room, and have a bath and a brush up. That will refresh +you. Then, at half-past four, you can renew the advantages of my +society at tea in the garden. Oh, you 'll find your room quite ready. +I 've felt a pricking in my thumbs any time these three months. Shall +I send Wick?" + +"Yes, if you will be so good," said Anthony. He rose, and moved +towards the staircase. + +Adrian waited till he had reached the top. + +Then, "You 'll meet her whether you like or not on Sunday. Where on +earth do you suppose she hears her Mass?" he called after him. + +"Oh, hang," Anthony called back. + +For, sure enough, unless she drove seven miles to Wetherleigh, where +could she hear her Mass, but as his guest, in the chapel of his house? + + + + +III + +Susanna was seated on the moss, at the roots of a wide-spreading oak. +She was leaning back, so that she could look up, up, through vistas of +changing greens,--black-green to gold-green,--through a thousand +labyrinthine avenues and counter-avenues of leaves and branches, with +broken shafts of sunlight caught in them here and there, to the +glimpses of blue sky visible beyond. The tree gave you a sense of +great spaces, and depths, and differences, like a world; and it was +full of life, like a city. Birds came and went and hopped from bough +to bough, twittering importantly of affairs to them important; +squirrels scampered over the rough bark, in sudden panic haste, darting +little glances, sidewise and behind, after pursuers that (we will hope) +were fancied; and other birds, out of sight in the loftier regions, +piped their insistent calls, or sang their tireless epithalamiums. +Spiders hung in their gossamer lairs, only too tensely motionless not +to seem dead; but if a gnat came--with what swift, accurate, and +relentless vigour they sprang upon and garotted him. Sometimes a twig +snapped, or a young acorn fell, or a caterpillar let himself down by a +long silken thread. And the air under the oak was tonic with its good +oaken smell. + +Susanna was leaning back in a sort of reverie, held by the charm of +these things. "We have no trees like this in Italy," she was vaguely +thinking. "The trees and the wild creatures are never so near to one +there; one never gets so intimate with them; Nature is not so +accessible and friendly." She remembered having read somewhere that +such enjoyment as she was now experiencing, the enjoyment of commune +with the mere sweet out-of-door things of the earth, was a Pagan +enjoyment, and un-Christian; and her mind revolted at this, and she +thought, "No. There would n't be any enjoyment, if one did n't know +that 'God's in His Heaven, all 's right with the world.'" + +And just then her reverie was interrupted. . . + +"He has arrived. I have seen him--what you call _seen_--with my own +eyes seen. There are about two yards of him; and a very spruce, +gentlemanlike, well-knit, and attractive two yards they are." + +Thus, with a good deal of animation, in a pleasant, crisp old voice, +thus spoke Miss Sandus: a little old lady in black: little and very +daintily finished, with a daintily-chiselled profile, and a neat, +small-framed figure; in a black walking-skirt, that was short enough to +disclose a small, high-instepped, but eminently business-like pair of +brown boots. Miss Sandus (she gave you her word for it) was +seventy-four;--and indeed (so are the generations linked), her father +had been a middie with Nelson at Trafalgar, and a lieutenant aboard the +_Bellerophon_ during that ship's historic voyage to St. Helena;--but +she confronted you with the lively eyes, the firm cheeks, the fresh +complexion, the erect and active carriage, of a well-preserved woman of +sixty; and in her plentiful light-brown hair there was scarcely a +thread of grey. She stepped trippingly across the grass, swinging a +malacca walking-stick, with a silver crook-handle. + +"He has arrived. I 've seen him." + +So her voice broke in upon Susanna's musings; and Susanna started, and +got up. She was wearing a muslin frock to-day, white, with a pattern +of flowers in mauve; and she was without a hat, so that one could see +how her fine black hair grew low about her brow, and thence swept away +in loose full billows, and little crinkling over-waves, to where it +drooped in a rich mass behind. But as she stood, awaiting Miss +Sandus's approach, her face was pale, and her eyes were wide open and +dark, as if with fright. + +"Dear me, child. Did I startle you? I 'm so sorry," said Miss Sandus, +coming up to her. "Yes, Don Antonio has arrived. I saw him as he +disembarked at his native railway-station. I was ordering a book at +Smith's. And such luggage, my dear. Boxes and bags, bags and boxes, +till you could n't count them; and all of stout brown leather--so nice +and manny. He looks nice and manny himself: tall, with nice manny +clothes, and nice eyes, and a nice brown skin; and with a nose, my +dear, a nose like Julius Caesar's. Well, you 'll meet him on Sunday, +at your Papistical place of worship,--if he does n't call before. I +daresay he 'll think himself obliged to." + +"Oh, Fairy Godmother," gasped Susanna, faintly; "feel." + +She took Miss Sandus's hand, and pressed it against her side. + +"Feel how my heart is beating." + +"Mercy!" exclaimed Miss Sandus. + + + + +IV + +"Hang it all, how she sticks in one's mind," said Anthony, with +impatience. "Am I returning to my cubhood, that the mere vision of a +woman should take possession of me like this?" + +And then, having, I suppose, weighed the question, "It's the weather," he +decided. "Yes--I 'll bet you ten-and-sixpence that it's nothing more +than just this silly, sentimental, languorous June weather." + +He was seated in a shaded corner of his garden, where the day was +murmurous with the humming of bees, and the mingled sweetness of many +flowers rose and fell in the air. Beyond the shade, the sunshine broke +into a mosaic of merry colours, on larkspur and iris, pansies and pink +geraniums, jessamine, sweet-peas, tulips shameless in their extravagance +of green and crimson, red and white carnations, red, white, and yellow +roses. The sunshine broke into colour, it laughed, it danced, it almost +rioted, among the flowers; but in the prim alleys, and on the formal +hedges of box, and the quaintly-clipped yews, and the old purple brick +walls, where fruit trees were trellised, it lay fast, fast asleep. +Without the walls, in the deep cool greenery of the park, there was a +perpetual drip-drip of bird-notes. This was the web, upon which a chosen +handful of more accomplished birds were embroidering and +cross-embroidering and inter-embroidering their bold, clear arabesques of +song. Anthony had a table and a writing-case before him, and was trying +to write letters. But now he put down his pen, and, for the twentieth +time this afternoon, went over the brief little encounter of the morning. + +Two ladies had passed him in a dog-cart, as he was walking home from the +village: a young lady driving, an oldish lady beside her, and a groom +behind. + +That was all: the affair of ten seconds; and at first he was not aware of +any deeper or more detailed impression. He had glanced at them vaguely; +he was naturally incurious; and he had been thinking of other things. + +But by-and-bye, as if his retina had reacted like a photographic plate, a +picture developed itself, which, in the end, by a series of recurrences, +became quite singularly circumstantial. The dog-cart and its occupants, +with the stretch of brown road, and the hedge-rows and meadows at either +side, were visible anew to him; and he saw that the young lady who was +driving had dark hair and dark eyes, and looked rather foreign; and he +said, but without much concern as yet, "Ah, that was no doubt Madame +Torrebianca, with her friend Miss What 's-her-name;"--and proceeded again +to think of other things. + +The picture faded; but presently it came back. He noticed now that the +slightly foreign-looking young woman was pretty, and even +interesting-looking; that besides its delicate modelling and its warm, +rather Southern colouring, there was character in her face, personality; +that there were intelligence, humour, vivacity; that she looked as if she +would have something to say. He noticed, too, that she had what they +call "a fine figure,"--that she was tall, for a woman, and slender +without being thin; that she bore herself well, with an air of strength, +with an air of suppleness and resistance. He could even see how she was +dressed: in grey cloth, close-fitting, with grey driving-gloves, and a +big black hat that carried out the darkness of her hair. And he was +intrepid enough to trust his man's judgment, and to formulate an opinion +of her dress. She was very well dressed, he ventured to opine; far too +cunningly and meticulously dressed for an Englishwoman. There was +something of French unity, intention, finish, in her toilet; there was +_line_ in it, the direct, crisp line, that only foreign women seem +anxious to achieve. + +And he said, "I rather hope it _is_ Madame Torrebianca--since one has got +to know her. She looks as if she might have a spice of something in her +not utterly banale." + +If that was n't saying a great deal, he reflected, one seldom enough, in +our staid, our stale society, meets a person of whom one can say so +much;--and again dismissed her. + +But still again, presently, back she came; and then again and again, in +spite of him. And her comings now were preceded by a strange little +perturbation. A strange little vague feeling of pleasantness, as if +something good had happened to him would begin, and well up, and grow +within him, penetrating and intensifying his sense of the summer +sweetness round about, till it distracted his attention, and he must +suspend his occupation of the moment, to wonder, "What is it?" In +response, the vague pleasantness, like a cloud, would draw together and +take shape; and there was the spirited grey figure in the dog-cart, with +the black hat, and the dark hair and eyes, again dashing past him. + +And little by little he discovered that she was more than merely pretty +and interesting-looking. Her face, with all its piquancy, was a serious +face, a strenuous face. Under its humour and vivacity, he discovered a +glow . . . a glow . . . could it be the glow of a soul? Her eyes were +lustrous, but they were deep, as well. A quality shone in them rarer +even than character: a natural quality, indeed, and one that should +naturally be common: but one that is rare in England among women--among +nice women, at least: the quality of sex. The woman in the dog-cart was +nice. About that, he recognised with instant certainty, there could be +no two conjectures. But she was also, he recognised with equal +certainty, a woman: the opposite, the complement of man. Her eyes were +eyes you could imagine laughing at you, mocking you, teasing you, leading +you on, putting you off, seeing through you, disdaining you; but constant +in them was the miracle of womanhood; and you could imagine them +softening adorably, filling with heavenly weakness, yielding in womanly +surrender, trusting you, calling you, needing you. + +Our melancholic young squire of Craford was not a man much given to +quick-born enthusiasms; but now, as he put down his pen, and her face +shone before him for the twentieth time this sunny afternoon, now all at +once, "By Jove, she's unique," he cried out. "I have never seen a woman +to touch her. If she _is_ Madame Torrebianca----" + +But there he checked himself. + +"Of course she is n't. No such luck," he said, in dejection. + +And yet, he speculated, who else could she be? The simultaneous presence +of _two_ young foreign women in this out-of-the-way country neighbourhood +seemed, of all contingencies, the most unlikely. Well, if she really was +. . . + +He was conscious suddenly of a sensation to the last degree unfamiliar: a +commotion, piercing, regretful, desirous, actually in his heart, an organ +he had for years proudly fancied immune; and he took alarm. + +"Am I eighteen again? Positively, I must not think of her any more." + +But it was useless. In two minutes he was thinking of her harder than +ever, and the commotion in his heart was renewed. + +"If she really is Madame Torrebianca," he told himself, with a thrill and +a craving, "I shall see her on Sunday." + +The flowers, beyond there, in the sun, the droning of the bees, the +liquid bird-notes, the perfumes in the still soft air, all seemed to melt +and become part of his thought of her, rendering it more poignant, more +insidiously sweet. + +At last he started up, in a kind of anger. + +"Bah!" he cried, "It's the weather. It's this imbecile, love-sick +weather." + +And he carried his writing-materials indoors, to the billiard-room, a +northern room, looking into the big square court, where the light was +colourless, and the only perfume on the air was a ghost-like perfume of +last night's tobacco-smoke. + +But I don't know that the change did much good. In a few minutes-- + +"Bah!" he cried again, "It's those confounded eyes of hers. It's those +laughing, searching, haunting, promising eyes." + + +"Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear." + +It was the voice of Adrian, raised in song. And repeating the same +complaisant proffer, to a tune which I suspect was improvised, it drew +near along the outer passage, till, in due process, the door of the +billiard-room was opened, and Adrian stood upon the threshold. + +"Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine e-e-ear," he trolled +robustly--and then, espying Anthony, fell silent. + +Anthony appeared to be deep engrossed in letter-writing. + +"Ahem," said Adrian, having waited a little. + +But Anthony did not look up. + +"Well, of all unlikely places," said Adrian, wondering. + +Anthony's pen flew busily backwards and forwards across his paper. + +"Remarkable power of mental concentration," said Adrian, on a key of +philosophic comment. + +"Eh? What?" Anthony at last questioned, but absently, from the depths, +without raising his eyes. + +"I 've been hunting far and wide for you--ransacking the house, turning +the park topsy-turvy," said Adrian. + +"Eh? What?" questioned Anthony, writing on. + +But Adrian lost patience. + +"Eh? What? I 'll eh-what you," he threatened, shaking his fist. "Come. +Put aside that tiresome letter. 'Do you happen to know where your master +is?' says I to Wickersmith. 'Well, if you 'll pardon my saying so, sir, +I think I see him agoing in the direction of the billiard-room, saving +your presence, sir,' says Wickersmith to me." Adrian pantomimed the +supposed deference of the butler. Then, loftily, "But, 'Shoo' says I. +'An optical delusion, my excellent Wick. A Christian man would be +incapable of such a villainy. The billiard-room, that darksome cavern, +on a heaven-sent day like this? Shucks,' says I. Yet"--his attitude +became exhortative--"see how mighty is truth, see how she prevails, see +how the scoffer is confounded. To the billiard-room I transport myself, +sceptically, on the off-chance, and--here, good-lack, you are." + +"It's the weather," Anthony explained, having finally relinquished his +correspondence. "I was in the garden--but I could n't stand the weather." + +"The weather?" wondered Adrian. "You could n't stand the weather? My +poor lamb. Ah, what a delicate constitution. He could n't stand the +weather." Eyes uplifted, he wagged a compassionate head. + +But suddenly, from the sarcastic note, he passed to the censorious, and +then to a kind of gay rhapsodic. + +"The weather? Shame upon your insinuations. I will not hear one +syllable against it. The weather? There never _was_ such weather. The +weather? Oh, for the tongues of men and angels, to chant the glory of +the weather. The weather is made of sugar and spice, of frankincense and +myrrh, of milk and honey, of every conceivable ingredient that's nice. +The sky is an inverted bowl of Sevres--that priceless bleu-royal; and +there are appetising little clouds of whipped cream sticking to it. The +air is full of gold, like eau-de-vie de Dantzic;--if we only had a +liquefying apparatus, we could recapture the first fine careless nectar +of the gods, the poor dead gods of Greece. The earth is as aromatic as +an orange stuck with cloves; I can't begin to tell you all the wondrous +woody, mossy, racy things it smells of. The sea is a great sheet of +watered-silk, as blue as my blue eyes. And the birds, the robins and the +throstles, the blackbirds and the black-caps, the linnets and the little +Jenny Wrens, knowing the value of silence, are hoarding it like misers; +but like prodigals, they 're squandering sound. The ear of mortal never +heard such a delirious, delicious, such a crystalline, argentine, +ivory-smooth, velvety-soft, such a ravishing, such an enravished tumult +of sweet voices. Showers, cascades, of pearls and rubies, emeralds, +diamonds, sapphires. The weather, says Anthony Rowleigh. He could n't +stand the weather. The weather is as perfect as a perfect work of +art--as perfect as one of my own incomparable madrigals. It is +absolutely perfect." + +He tossed his head, in sign of finality. + +"It appears so," Anthony discriminated gloomily; "but appearances are +risky things to judge by. It may have charms for a voluptuary like you; +but I"--and he took a tone of high austerity--"I, as an Englishman, have +my suspicions of anything so flagrantly un-English." + +"Apropos of things un-English," said Adrian, "I 'm pining for a serious +word with you." + +Anthony pulled a wry face. + +"Oh, if you 've been attacked by one of your periodic spasms of +seriousness," he sighed. + +"It's about calling on Madame Torrebianca," said Adrian. + +"Oh," sighed Anthony. With a presence of mind that I can't help thinking +rather remarkable, he feigned a continuity of mood; but something went +_ping_ within him. + +"Look here," said Adrian, imperatively. "I 'll thank you to drop that +air of ineffable fatigue of yours, and to sit up and listen. I don't +suppose you wish to be deliberately discourteous, do you? And as those +ladies happen to be new-comers, and your immediate neighbours, not to say +your tenants, I expect you are sufficiently acquainted with the usages of +polite society to know that a failure on your part to call would be +tantamount to a direct affront. Furthermore, as one of them (Miss Sandus +is, unhappily, still in the Goetterdaemmerung of the Establishment), as +Madame Torrebianca is coming to your house, as your guest, to hear Mass +on Sunday morning, I sincerely hope I need n't tell you that it's simply +_de rigueur_ that you should call before that occasion." + +He stood off, and raised his brown-red eyebrows, as who, from an +altitude, speaking _de par le Roi_, should challenge contumacy. + +But two could play at the game of eyebrow-raising. Anthony raised his. + +"Coming as my guest? Coming as my _guest_? I like that," he exclaimed. +"What have _I_ to do with her coming? If every stranger to whom you +choose to extend the privilege of hearing Mass in the Chapel, is thereby +to be constituted a _guest_,--_my_ guest,--I shall have my hands full +indeed. If she's a guest at all, if she's anybody's guest, she's yours; +You 've created the situation. Don't try to thrust the brunt of it on +me." + +Adrian flung back his head, and spoke from a still loftier altitude. + +"I believe you are the master of the house?" + +"The titular master," Anthony distinguished. "I years ago resigned all +real power into the pink and chubby hands of my mayor of the palace." +And he slightly bowed. + +"I disdain to answer your silly quibble over the word _guest_," Adrian +continued, ignoring the rejoinder. "La Nobil Donna Susanna Torrebianca +is a guest. And as master of the house, by your return, you _ex officio_ +supersede me in the capacity of host." + +"_Ex officio_?" repeated Anthony, considering. "The fashion of adorning +ordinary speech with classical quotations has long since passed from use." + +"And therefore,"--Adrian brought his theorem to its conclusion,--"unless +you particularly aspire to seem--and to be--an absolute barbarian, a +bear, a boor, a churl, and a curmudgeon,"--each epithet received an +augmented stress,--"you must call at Craford New Manor with the least +possible delay. As I find myself in rather good form just now, and feel +that I should shine to perhaps exceptional advantage, I suggest that we +call forthwith." + +Anthony got up, and sleepily stretched his arms. + +"Ah, well," he consented; "since your fond heart is set upon it--there. +It will be an awful fag; but when Dimplechin becomes importunate, I can +deny him nothing." + +He stifled a yawn. + +Adrian's round face radiated triumph. + +"You are a good child, after all," he said, "and you shall have jam with +your tea." + +"I think I have fooled that fellow to the top of his bent," was Anthony's +silent self-gratulation. + + +His pulse beat high, as they walked across the park. + +"How could I ever have contemplated waiting till Sunday?" he asked +himself, in a maze. + +Sunday, the day after the day after to-morrow, seemed, in his present +eagerness, to belong to the dim distances of futurity. + +And all the way, as they passed under the great trees, over the cool, +close turf, with its powdering of daisies and buttercups and poppies, +through alternations of warm sun and deep shadow, where sheep browsed, +and little snow-white awkward lambkins sported, and birds piped, and the +air was magical with the scent of the blossoming may,--all the way, amid +the bright and dark green vistas of lawn and glade, the summer loveliness +mixed with his anticipation of standing face to face with her, and +rendered it more poignant. + + "If cats were always kittens, + And rats were always mice, + And elderberries were younger berries, + Now would n't that be nice?"-- + +Adrian, walking beside him, trilled joyously. + +"You seem in high spirits," Anthony remarked. + +"I 've been thinking of your suggestion," said Adrian. + +Anthony frowned, at a loss. + +"My suggestion--?" + +"Yes--your suggestion that I should marry her." + +Anthony stared. + +"What?" he ejaculated. + +"Yes," said Adrian, blandly. "I think the suggestion is decidedly a +happy one. I think I shall pay my court to her." + +"_You_? Man, you 're bereft of your senses," said Anthony, with force. + +"You need n't be so violent," said Adrian. "It's your own idea." + +"I was making game of you--I was pulling your leg. Marry her? She would +n't look at you," said Anthony, contumelious. + +"Why not, I should like to know?" Adrian haughtily enquired. + +"You 're--you 're too young," Anthony reminded him. + +"Too young?" mildly demurred Adrian, wide-eyed. "I 'm thirty, if I 'm a +day." + +"You 're thirty-nine, if you 're a day," said Anthony. "But you 'll +never be thirty--not even when you 're forty. You breathe perennial +spring." + +"I confess," said Adrian, with deliberation, "I freely confess that I am +not an effete and blase old thing, like--like one who shall be nameless. +There is a variety of fruit (the husbandman's despair), a tough, +cross-grained, sour-hearted variety of fruit, that dries up and shrivels, +and never ripens. There is another variety of fruit that grows rounder +and rosier, tenderer and juicier and sweeter, the longer it hangs on the +tree. Time cannot wither it. The child of the sun and the zephyr, it is +honey-full and fragrant even unto its inmost ripe red core." + +He expanded his chest, and significantly thumped it. + +"Mark you," he resumed, "I name no names. The soul of delicacy and +discretion, as of modesty and kindness, I name no names. But as for +myself, that I am young I acknowledge. Those whom the gods love are ever +young. Yet I am old enough, at least, to be capable of fresh, impulsive +feelings. I am old enough to have cast the crude, harsh pessimism of +inexperience. I am old enough to have outlived my disillusions. I am +old enough to have learned that the good things of life are good, and to +understand that the rose-buds in the garden are there to be gathered. +And I 'm not such a silly as to forbear to gather them. I think I shall +make Madame Torrebianca the object of my respectful solicitations." + +Anthony fixed eyes of derision on him. + +"Oh, the fatuity of the man!" he jeered. "If you could see yourself. +You 're sandy-haired--and miles too fat." + +"I beg your pardon," said Adrian, with dignity. "My hair is of a very +fashionable shade--tawny, which indicates a passionate heart, with +under-waves of gold, as if the sunshine had got entangled in it. I will +not dwell upon its pretty truant tendency to curl. And as for what you +call _fat_--let me tell you that there are people who admire a rich, +ample figure in a man. I admit, I am not a mere anatomy, I am not a mere +hungry, lean-faced, lantern-jawed, hollow-eyed, sallow-cheeked, +vulture-beaked, over-dressed exiguity, like--well, mark you, I name no +names. I need not allude to my other and higher attributes--my wit, my +sympathy, my charming affectations, my underlying strength of character +(a lion clothed in rose-leaves--what?), my genius for the divinest of the +arts. I think I shall lay myself at the feet of Donna Susanna. The rest +of the sex"--his gesture put them from him--"may coif St. Catherine." + +"I have n't the honour of knowing the lady in question," said Anthony, +with detachment. "But if she is anything like the paragon you have led +me to expect, let me, as your sincere well-wisher, let me warn you not to +cherish hopes that are foredoomed to disappointment. If, on the other +hand, she should indeed admire your style of rich, ample figure, I shall +deem it my duty to save you from her--at no matter what cost to myself. +I cannot allow you to link yourself for life to a woman without taste." + +And then they rang the bell at the vast, much-bestuccoed portal of the +new house; and Anthony's heart, I think, for the minute stood still +within him. The door was opened, and he could look into the big, ugly, +familiar marble hall;--familiar still, and yet changed and strange, and +even beautified; with new soft hangings, and Persian carpets, and +flowers, and books, and bibelots about; with a new aspect of luxury and +elegance; with a strange new atmosphere of feminine habitation, that went +a little to Anthony's head, that called up clearer than ever the +dark-haired, strenuous-faced woman of the dog-cart, and turned his +imagination to visions and divinings of intimate feminine things. One +thought of chiffons, and faint, elusive perfumes, and the gleam and +rustle of silken garments; one heard soft voices, trills of feminine +laughter, the whispering of feminine secrets; one saw ladies in low +chairs, reading or embroidering by lamp-light. + +So, for an instant, Anthony stood at Susanna's threshold, looking into +her antechamber, breathless almost with his sense of her imminence;--and +then the tall flunkey said, in the fastidious accents of flunkeydom, "Net +et _em_, sir;" and all my hero's high-strung emotion must spend itself in +the depositing of a card. + +As they turned away, and the summer landscape again met him with its warm +breath and radiant smile, he gloomed at it savagely, from eyes of deep +rebuke, as at a thing that had beguiled him with false promises, wronged +and defrauded him. And he flew out petulantly at poor Adrian-- + +"Here's a pretty dance you 've led me, for the pleasure of a word with +Mr. Yellowplush." + +"Oh?" said Adrian, taken aback. "I expected you 'd be relieved. You did +n't want to see them. And the exigencies of the case are satisfied by +leaving cards." + +"I could have sent my card by you," growled Anthony. + +"You 've had a lovely walk, with a lovely comrade, in lovely weather," +said Adrian. + +"The weather is simply brazen," Anthony declared. + + + + +V + +Judged by the standards of a cit, countrymen, I believe, are generally +early risers; but even for a countryman, Anthony, next morning, rose at +an unlikely hour. The tall clock in the hall, accenting with its slow +sardonic tick the silence of the sleeping house, marked a quarter to +five, as he undid the heavy old-fashioned fastenings of the door, the +oaken bar, the iron bolts and chains, and let himself out. + +He let himself out; but then he stood still for a minute on the +terrace, arrested by the exquisite shock of the wonderful early air: +the wonderful light, keen air, a fabric woven of elfin filaments, the +breathings of green lives: an aether distilled of secret essences, in +the night, by the earth and the sea,--for there was the sea's tang, as +well as the earth's balm, there was the bitter-sweet of the sea and the +earth at one. + +He stood for a minute, stopped by the exquisite shock of it; and then +he set forth for an aimless morning ramble. + +The dew clung in big iridescent crystals to the grass, where the sheep +were already wide-awake and eager at their breakfasts; it gleamed like +sprinkled rubies on the scarlet petals of the poppies, and like +fairies' draughts of yellow wine in the enamelled hollows of the +buttercups; on the brown earth of the pathways, where the long shadows +were purple, it lay white like hoar-frost. The shadows were still +long, the sunbeams still almost level; the sun shone gently, as through +an imperceptible thin veil, gilding with pinkish gold the surfaces it +touched--glossy leaves, and the rough bark of tree-trunks, and the +points of the spears of grass. A thicker veil, a gauze of pearl and +silver, dimmed the blue of the sea, and blurred the architecture of the +cliffs. On the sea's edge lay a long grey cloud, a long, low, soft +cloud, flat, like a band of soft grey velvet. The cloud was grey +indeed; but (as if prismatic fires were smouldering there) its grey +held in solution all the colours of the spectrum, so that you could +discern elusive rose-tints, fugitive greens, translucent reflections of +amethyst and amber. + +The morning was inexpressibly calm and peaceful--yet it was busy with +sound and with movement. Rooks, those sanctimonious humbugs, circled +overhead, cawing thieves' warnings, that had the twang of sermons, to +other rooks, out of sight in neighbouring seed-fields. Lapwings, +humbugs too, but humbugs in a prettier cause, started from the +shrubberies where their eggs were hidden, and fluttered lamely towards +the open. Sparrows innumerable were holding their noisy, high-spirited +disputations; blackbirds were repeating and repeating that deep +melodious love-call of theirs, which they have repeated from the +beginning of the world, and no ear has ever tired of; finches were +singing, greenfinches, chaffinches; thrushes were singing, singing +ecstatically in the tree-tops, and lower down the imitative little +blackcaps were trying to imitate them. Recurrently, from a distance, +came the soft iterations of a cuckoo. Bees went about their affairs +with a mien of sombre resolution, mumbling to themselves, in stolid +monotone, "It-'s-got-to-be-done-and-it-'s-dogged-that-does-it, +it-'s-got-to-be-done-and-it-'s-dogged-that-does-it," and showing thus +that even the beautiful task of flying from flower to flower and +gathering honey, may, if you are a bee, fail to interest you, and +necessitate an act of will; while butterflies, charmed by the continual +surprises, satisfied by the immediate joys, of the present moment, +flitted irresponsibly, capriciously, whithersoever a bright colour +beckoned, and gave no thought to the moments that had not yet come. +Everywhere there was business, rumour, action; but everywhere, none the +less, there was the ineffable peace of early morning, of the hours when +man--the peace-destroyer?--is still at rest. And everywhere, +everywhere, there was the wonderful pristine air, the virginal air, +that seemed to penetrate beyond the senses, and to reach the +imagination, a voice whispering untranslatable messages, waking mystic +surmises of things unknown but somehow kindred. + +Anthony strolled on at random, down the purple-shaded paths, under the +spreading oaks and bending elms, over the sun-tipped greensward, +satisfied, like the butterflies, by the experiences of the passing +moment, enjoying, in leisurely intimacy, the aspects and vicissitudes +of his way; for a melancholy man, curiously cheerful; the tears of +things, the flat and unprofitable uses of the world, forgotten: for a +melancholy man, even curiously elated: elated--oh, more than likely +without recognising it--as one is to whom the house of life has +discovered a new chamber-door, and, therewith, new promises of +adventure. He strolled on at random, swinging his stick nonchalantly, +. . . till, all at once, he saw something that brought him, and the +heart within him, to a simultaneous standstill: something he had been +more or less sub-consciously thinking of the whole time, perhaps?--for +it brought him to a standstill, as if he saw his thought made flesh. + +He had just mounted a little knoll, and now, glancing down before him, +he saw, not twenty yards away, under a hawthorn in full blossom,-- + +"Madame Torrebianca, as I am alive," he gasped. + + + + +VI + +Susanna was standing under the tree, gazing intently upwards; and she +was vehemently shaking her fist at its foliage, and making, from the +point of her lips, a sound, sibilant, explosive (something like +"Ts-s-s! Ts-s-s-s! Ts-s-s-s-s!"), that was clearly meant as an +intimidation. She had on a dark-blue frock, blue flannel I think, +plain to the verge of severity: a straight-falling jacket, a straight, +loose skirt: plain, but appropriate to the hour no doubt; and, instead +of a hat, she wore a scarf of black lace, draped over her black hair +mantilla-wise. + +Anthony, glowing with a sense that he was in great luck, and trying to +think what practical step he should take to profit by it, watched her +for a minute before she caught sight of him. An obvious practical +step, she having evidently some trouble on her hands, might have been +to approach her with an offer of assistance. But if all who love are +poets, men near to love will be poets budding; and who was it said that +the obvious is the one thing a poet is incapable of seeing? + +When, however, she did catch sight of him, abruptly, without +hesitation, she called him to her. + +"Come here--come here at once," she called, and made an imperious +gesture. (I wonder whether she realised who he was, or thought no +further as yet, in her emergency, than just that here, providentially, +was a man who could help.) + +Marvelling, palpitating, Anthony flew to obey. + +"Look," said Susanna, breathlessly, pointing into the tree. "What is +one to do? He won't pay the slightest attention to me, and I have +nothing that I can throw." + +She had, in her left hand, a small leather-bound book, apparently a +prayer-book, and, twisted round her wrist, a red-coral rosary; but I +suppose she would not have liked to throw either of these. + +Bewildered a little by the suddenness with which the situation had come +to pass, but conscious, acutely, exultantly conscious of it as a +delectable situation,--exultantly conscious of her nearness to him, of +their solitude together, there in the privacy (as it were) of the +morning,--and tingling to the vibrations of her voice, to the freshness +and the warmth of her strong young beauty, Anthony was still able, +vaguely, half-mechanically, to lift his eyes, and look in the direction +whither she pointed. . . + +The spectacle that met him banished immediately, for the moment, all +preoccupations personal. + +On one of the lower of the flowering branches, but high enough to be +beyond arm's reach, or even cane's reach, in the crook of the bough, +crouched, making ready to spring, a big black cat, the tip of his tail +twitching with contained excitement, his yellow eyes fixed murderously +on the branch next above: where, in the agitation of supreme distress, +a chaffinch, a little grey hen-chaffinch, was hopping backwards and +forwards, sometimes rising a few inches into the air, but always +returning to the branch, and uttering a succession of terrified, +agonised, despairing tweets. + +It was a hateful thing to see. It was the genius of cruelty made +manifest in a single intense tableau. + +"Why does n't the bird fly away?" Susanna painfully questioned. She +was pale, and her lips were strained; she looked sick and hopeless. +"Is she fascinated? The cat will surely get her." + +"No--her nest must be somewhere there--she is guarding her nestlings," +said Anthony. + +Then he raised his stick menacingly, and, in tones of stern command, +addressed the cat. + +"Patapouf! I am ashamed of you. Come down--come down from there--come +down directly." + +And he emphasised each staccato summons by a sharp rap of his stick +against the highest point of the tree that he could reach. + +The cat turned his head, to look--and the spell was broken. His +attitude relaxed. Anthony put his hands on the tree, and made as if to +climb it. The cat gave a resigned shrug of the shoulders, and came +scrambling down. Next instant, (if you please), unabashed, tail erect, +back arched, he was rubbing his whiskers against Anthony's legs, +circling round them, s-shaping himself between them, and purring +conciliations, as who should say, "There, there. Though you _have_ +spoiled sport, I won't quarrel with you, and I _am_ delighted to see +you." The bird, twittering, flew up, and disappeared in the higher +foliage. + +Susanna breathed a deep sigh of relief. + +"Oh, thank you, thank you," she said, with fervour. Then she shook her +finger, and frowned, at Patapouf. "Oh, you bad cat! You cruel cat!" +And raising eyes dark with reproach to Anthony's, "Yet he seems to be a +friend of yours?" she wondered. (By this time, of course, she must +have realised who he was. Very likely she had her emotions.) + +Anthony, the bird in safety, could tingle anew to the deep notes of her +voice, could exult anew in their dual solitude. + +"Yes," he acknowledged, "Patapouf is a friend of mine--he is even a +member of my household. You must try not to think too ill of him. He +really is n't half a bad sort at bottom. But he 's English, and he +lives in the country. So, a true English country gentleman, he has +perhaps an exaggerated passion for the pleasures of the chase--and when +questions touching them arise, seems simply to be devoid of the ethical +sense. He 's not a whit worse than his human neighbours--and he 's a +hundred times handsomer and more intelligent." + +Susanna, smiling a little, looked down at Patapouf, and considered. + +"He is certainly very handsome," she agreed. "And--Patapouf? I like +his name. I will not think too ill of him if he will promise never +again to try to catch a--a _fringuello_. I don't remember the English +for _fringuello_?" + +Her glance and her inflection conveyed a request to be reminded. + +But Anthony shook his head. + +"And I shall at once proceed to forget it. _Fringuello_ is so much +prettier." + +Susanna gave a light little trill of laughter. + +"What a delicious laugh," thought he that heard it. + +And, laughing, "But before it has quite gone from you, do, pray, for my +instruction, just pronounce it once," she pleaded. + +"How extraordinarily becoming to her that mantilla is," he thought. +"How it sets off her hair and her complexion--how it brings out the +sparkle of her eyes." + +Her fine black hair, curling softly about her brow, and rippling away, +under the soft black lace, in loose abundance; her warm, clear +complexion; the texture of her skin, firm and smooth, with tiny blue +veins faintly showing at the temples; her sparkling, spirited dark +eyes, their merriment, their alertness, their graver underglow; the +spirited, high carriage of her head; that dark-blue, simple, +appropriate frock; and then her figure, upright, nervous, energetic, +with its fluent lines, with its fragrance of youth and of +womanhood,--oh, he was acutely conscious of them, he was thrilled by +his deep sense of their nearness to him, alone there, in the wide sunny +circle of green landscape, in the seclusion of that unfrequented hour. + +"The word comes back to me dimly," he said, "as--as something like +_finch_." + +"Finch?" said Susanna. "Thank you very much. Ah, yes,"--with an air +of recalling it,--"_finch_, to be sure. You are right," she smiled, +"_fringuello_ is prettier." + +"What an adorable mouth," thought he. "The red of it--the curves it +takes--and those incredible little white teeth, like snow shut in a +rose." + +"And this is a morning meet for pretty words, is it not?" he suggested. +"It might strike an unprejudiced observer as rather a pretty morning." + +"Oh, I should be less reticent," said Susanna. "If the unprejudiced +observer had his eyes open, would n't it strike him as a perfectly +lovely morning?" + +"We must not run the risk of spoiling it," Anthony cautioned her, +diminishing his voice, "by praising it too warmly to its face." + +She gave another light trill of laughter. + +"Her laugh is like rainbow-tinted spray. It is a fountain-jet of +musical notes, each note a cut gem," thought the infatuated fellow. + +"I trust," he hazarded, "that you will not condemn me for a swaggerer, +if I lay claim to share with you a singularity. The morning is a +morning like another. God is prodigal of lovely mornings. But we two +are singular in choosing to begin it at its sweeter end." + +"Yes," Susanna assented, "that is a singularity--in England. But in +Italy, or in the part of Italy where my habits were formed, it is one +of our lazy customs. We like always to be abroad in time to enjoy what +we call 'the hours immaculate,'--_l'ure immacolae_, in our dialect." + +"The hours immaculate? It is an uncommonly fine description," approved +Anthony. "They will be a race of poets in your part of Italy?" + +The graver underglow in Susanna's eyes eclipsed, for an instant, their +dancing surface lights. + +"They _were_ a race of poets," she said regretfully, "before they +learned how to read and write. But now, with the introduction of +popular education,"--she shook her head,--"the poetry is dying out." + +"Ah," said Anthony, with a meaning flourish of his stick, "there it is. +The poetic spirit always dies at the advance of that ghastly fetich." +Then he spoke sententiously. "Popular education is a contrivance of +the devil, whereby he looks to extinguish every last saving grace from +the life of the populace. Not poetry only, but all good things and all +good feelings,--religion, reverence, courtesy,--sane contentment, +rational ambition,--the right sort of humility, the right sort of +pride,--they all go down before it: whilst, in the ignorance which it +disseminates, blasphemy, covetousness, bumptiousness, bad taste (and +bad art and bad literature, to gratify it), every form of +wrong-headedness and wrong-heartedness flourish like the seven plagues +of Egypt. But it was all inevitable from the day that meddling German +busybody invented printing--if not from the day his heathenish +precursor invented letters." + +He delivered these sentiments with a good deal of warmth. + +Susanna's eyes brightened. I am not sure there was n't a quick little +flash of raillery in their brightness. + +"I would seem," she mused, "to have touched by accident upon a subject +that is near your heart." + +Anthony threw up a deploring hand. + +"There!" he grieved. "The subjects that are near my heart, it is the +study of my life to exclude from my conversation. But sometimes one +forgets oneself." + +Susanna smiled,--a smile, perhaps, that implied a tacit memorandum and +reflection, a subdued, withheld, occult little smile. Again, I am not +sure it had n't its tinge of raillery. + +"And since I _have_ forgotten myself," Anthony pursued, "I wonder +whether you will bear with me if I continue to do so twenty seconds +longer?" + +"Oh, I beg of you," Susanna politely hastened to accede. + +"There is another subject equally near my heart," said he. + +Her eyes were full of expectancy. + +"Yes--?" she encouraged him. + +"I was disappointed not to find you at home when I called yesterday," +said he. "I rejoice for a hundred reasons that chance has led to our +meeting this morning. Not to mention ninety-nine of them, I am anxious +to discharge, with as little loss of time as may be, the very onerous +debt I owe you." + +Susanna opened her eyes, in puzzlement. + +"A debt? I am your creditor unawares." + +"My debt of apologies and condolences," he explained. + +She knitted her brows, in mental effort. + +"I am ignorant alike of my grievance and of your offence," she said. + +"I am deeply sensible of your magnanimity," said he; "but I will not +abuse it. They have let you the ugliest house in the United Kingdom; +and, as the owner, the ultimate responsibility must come home to me." + +"Oh," cried Susanna. + +It was a gay, treble little cry, that told him he had been fortunate +enough to amuse as well as to surprise her. She shook her head, while +her eyes were liquid with mirth. + +"The house is ugly?" she enquired. "I have read of it as 'a vast and +imposing edifice in the style of the Renaissance.'" + +"As a confessor of the True Faith," Anthony warned her, "you must never +believe what you read in the _County History_. It was compiled by a +Protestant clergyman; it teems with misinformation; it ought to be +placed upon the Index. The house in question is a vast and pompous +contiguity of stucco, in the style of 1830. It looks like a Riviera +hotel a good deal run to seed. It looks like a shabby relation of +Buckingham Palace. It looks like a barrack decorated with the +discoloured trimmings of a bride-cake." + +"Ah, well, be it so," consented Susanna. "The house is ugly--but it is +comfortable. And, in any case, your conscience is too sensitive. The +ultimate responsibility for my having taken it comes home to no one, +unless--well, to be strictly just, unless to a grandfather of mine, who +has been dead these many long years." + +Which pronouncement may very possibly have struck her listener as +enigmatic. But I daresay he felt that he scarcely knew her well enough +to press for an elucidation. And, anyhow, without pause, she went on-- + +"Besides, everything else--the park, the country--is beyond words +beautiful." + +"Yes," acquiesced Anthony, "the country is beautiful, at this season. +That's why everyone abandons it, and scuttles up to town." + +Susanna's face lighted, with interest. + +"Indeed? Is _that_ the reason? I had observed the fact, but I was at +a loss to think what the reason for it could be." + +"No," said Anthony, eating his words, "that is not the reason. It were +base to deceive you. A normally-constituted Englishman no more objects +to beauty, than a deep-sea fish objects to dry weather or the +income-tax. He abandons the country during the three pleasantest +months of the year, not because it is beautiful, for he is sublimely +unconscious that it's beautiful, but because, during those months, in +the country, there's nothing that he can course, hunt, or shoot." + +Susanna pondered. + +"I see," she said. "And is--is there anything that he can course, +hunt, or shoot in town?" + +"Not exactly," Anthony admitted. "But there are people--to whom he can +do the next best thing. There are people whom he can bore. It is an +interim sport. It is an annual national tournament. The good knights +flock together from the four corners of England, to tilt at one +another, and try who shall approve himself the most indefatigable, the +most indomitable bore." + +Susanna gazed dreamily at the distance for a moment. Then, with sudden +actuality, "Apropos of interim sports," she demanded, "what are you +going to do about that cat of yours?" A movement of her head indicated +Patapouf. + +Hovering near them, Patapouf was busy with a game of +make-believe--pretending that the longish grass was a jungle, and +himself a tiger, stalking I know not what visionary prey: now gingerly, +with slow calculated liftings and down-puttings of his feet, stealing a +silent march; now, flat on his belly, rapidly creeping forward; now +halting, recoiling, masking himself behind some inequality of the +ground, peering warily over it, while his tail swayed responsive to the +eager activity of his brain; and now, having computed the range to a +nicety, his haunches wagging, now, with a leap all grace and +ruthlessness,--a flash of blackness through the air,--springing upon +the creature of his fancy. + +Susanna and Anthony watched him for a little without speaking. + +"You can't deny that he has imagination," said Anthony, at length, +turning towards her. + +"He is beautiful and clever," said Susanna, "I could wish he were as +virtuous. This, of course, is sheer play-acting. He 's simply waiting +till our backs are turned, to renew his designs upon the bird's nest." + +"When I turn my back I 'll carry him with me," Anthony answered. But +in his soul he said: "What 's the good of telling her that that will +only be to defer the evil moment? Of course he has marked the tree. +He will come back to it at his leisure." + +"I beg your pardon," said Susanna. "That will merely be to put the +evil off. The cat certainly knows the tree. Directly he 's at +liberty, he will come back." + +"Oh--?" faltered Anthony, a trifle disconcerted. "Oh? Do--do you +think so?" + +"Yes," she said. "There 's not a doubt of it. But I am acquainted +with a discipline, which, if I have your sanction to apply it, will +unnerve Monsieur Patapouf, so far as this particular tree is concerned, +until the end of time. Cats have a very high sense of their personal +freedom--they hate to be tied up. Well, if we tie Monsieur Patapouf to +this tree, so that he can't get away, and leave him alone here for an +hour or two, he will conceive such a distaste for everything connected +with this tree that he will never voluntarily come within speaking +distance of it again." + +"Really? That seems very ingenious," commented Anthony. + +"'T is an old wives' remedy," said Susanna. "You don't happen to have +such a thing as a piece of string in your pocket? It does n't matter. +But you have a penknife? Thank you. Now please catch your cat." + +Anthony called Patapouf, exerting those blandishments one must exert +who would coax a hesitating cat. + +Patapouf, by a series of etapes and delours, approached, and was +secured. + +Susanna, meanwhile, having laid her rosary and prayer-book on the +grass, unbuttoned her blue flannel jacket, and removed from round her +waist, where it was doing duty as a belt, a broad band of +cherry-coloured ribbon. This, with Anthony's penknife, she slitted and +ripped several times lengthwise, till she had obtained a yard or two of +practicable tether. + +"Now, first, we must make him a collar," she said, measuring off what +she deemed ribbon sufficient for that purpose. + +Anthony held Patapouf, who, flattered by their attentions, and +unsuspicious of their ulterior aim, submitted quietly, while Susanna +adjusted the collar to his neck. They had to stand rather close +together during this process; I am not sure that sometimes their +fingers did n't touch. From Susanna's garments--from her hair?--rose +never so faint a perfume, like the perfume of violets. I am quite sure +that Anthony's heart was in a commotion. + +"There," she remarked, finishing the collar with a bow, and bestowing +upon the bow a little tap of approbation; "red and black--it's very +becoming to him, is n't it?" + +Then she tied Patapouf to the tree, leaving him, in charity, perhaps +twice his own length of tether free, and resumed possession of her book +and beads. + +An instant later, she had slightly inclined her head, smiled a good-bye +into Anthony's eyes, and was moving briskly away, in the direction of +Craford New Manor. + + + + +VII + +Adrian, pink with the livelier pink of Adrian freshly tubbed and +razored, and shedding a cheerful aroma of bay-rum, regarded Anthony, +across the bowlful of roses that occupied the centre of the breakfast +table, with a show of perplexity. + +In the end, thrusting forward his chin, and dropping his eyelids, +whereby his expression became remote and superior, "The state of mind +of a person like you," he announced, "is a thing I am totally unable to +conceive." + +And he plunged his spoon into his first egg. + +"It is inexplicable, it is downright uncanny," Anthony was thinking, as +he munched his toast, "the effect she produces upon a man; the way she +pursues one, persists with one. I see her, I hear her voice, her +laughter, as clearly as if she were still present. I can't get rid of +her, I can't shut her out." + +Adrian, his announcement provoking no response, spoke up. + +"I am utterly unable," he repeated, "to conceive the state of mind of a +person like you." + +"Of course you are," said Anthony, with affability. + +"I suppose," he thought, "it's because she is what they call a +pronounced personality,--though that does n't seem a very flattering +description. I suppose it's her odylic force." + +Adrian selected a second egg, and placed it in his egg-cup. + +"You live, you move, you have a sort of being," he said, as he operated +upon the egg-shell; "and, apparently, you live contented. Yet, be +apprised by me, you live in the manner of the beasts that perish. For +the whole excuse, warrant, purpose, and business of life, you treat as +alien to your equation." + +"The business of life I entrust to my eminently competent man of +business," said Anthony, with a bow. + +"She 's so magnificently vivid," he thought. "That white skin of hers, +and the red lips, and the white teeth; that cloud of black hair, and +the sweep of it as it leaves her brow; and then those luminous, lucid, +glowing, glowing eyes--that last smile of them, before she went away! +She gives one such a sense of intense vitality, of withheld power, of +unknown possibilities." + +Adrian, with some expenditure of pains, extracted the spine from a +grilled sardine. + +"These children of the inconstant wave," he mused, "these captives from +the inscrutable depths of ocean--the cook ought to bone them before she +sends them to table, ought n't she? _Labor et amor_. The warrant for +life is labour, and the business of life is love." + +"You should address your complaints to the cook in person," said +Anthony. + +"That's it--unknown possibilities," he thought. "She 's vivid, but she +is n't obvious. It's a vividness that is all reserves--that hints, but +does n't tell. It's the vividness of the South, of the Italy that +produced her,--'Italy, whose work still serves the world for miracle.' +She's vivid, but not in primary colours. I defy you, for example, to +find the word for her--the word that would make her visible to one who +had never seen her." + +"They 're immensely improved by a drop or two of Worcester sauce," said +Adrian, with his mouth full. "Observe how, in the labyrinth of +destiny, journeys end in the most romantic and improbable conjunctions. +These fishlets from a southern sea--this sauce from a northern +manufacturing town." + +"And then her figure," thought Anthony; "that superb, tall, pliant +figure,--the flow of it, the spring of it,--the lines it takes when she +moves, when she walks,--its extraordinary union of strength with +fineness." + +"The longest night," said Adrian, "is followed by a dawn." He dropped +three lumps of sugar into his tea-cup. "There 's a paragraph in this +week's _Beaux and Belles_ which says that sugar in tea is quite the +correct thing again. Thank mercy. Tongue can never tell the +hankerings my sweet-tooth has suffered during the years that sugar has +been unfashionable. + + "Nearest neighbours though they dwell, + Neighbour Tongue can never tell + What Neighbour Tooth has had to dree, + Nearest neighbours though they be," + +he softly hummed. "But that's really from a poem about toothache, and +does n't perhaps apply. Do _you_ labour? Do _you_ love?" he enquired. + +"Love is such an ambiguous term," said Anthony, with languor. + +"Yes--strength and fineness: those are her insistent notes," he was +thinking. "She is strong, strong. She is strong as a perfect young +animal is strong. Yet she is fine. She is fine as only, of all +created beings, a fine woman can be fine--a woman delicate, sensitive, +high-bred, fine in herself, and with all her belongings fine." + +"Life," said Adrian, "is a thing a man should come by honestly; a thing +the possession of which a man should justify; a thing a man should +earn." + +"Some favoured individuals, I have heard, inherit it from their +forebears," said Anthony, as one loth to dogmatise, on the tone of a +mere suggestion. + +"Pish," answered Adrian, with absoluteness. "Our forebears affect my +thesis only in so far as they did not forbear. At most, they touched +the button. The rest--the adventurous, uncertain, interesting rest--we +must do ourselves. We must _earn_ our life; and then we should _spend_ +it--lavishly, like noble, freehanded gentlemen. Well, we earn our life +by labour; and then, if we spend as the gods design, we spend our life +in love. I could quote Browning, I could quote Byron, I could even +quote What's-his-name, the celebrated German." + +"You could--but you won't," interposed Anthony, with haste. "It is +excellent to have a giant's strength, but tyrannous to use it like a +giant." + +"The puzzling thing, however," he reflected, "is that I can't in the +least realise her as what she is. She is a widow, she has been +married. I can't in the least think of her as a woman who has been +married. Not that she strikes one exactly as a young girl, +either,--she exhibits too plentiful a lack of young-girlish rawness and +insipidity,--she 's a woman, she 's a _femme faite_. But I can't think +of her as a woman who has passed through marriage. One feels a +freshness, a bloom, a something untouched, intact. One feels the +presence of certain inexperiences. And yet--well, by the card, one's +feeling is mistaken." + +Adrian sprinkled sugar and poured cream over a plateful of big red +strawberries. + +"All this--and Heaven too," he piously murmured. + +Then, rosy face and blue eyes bright with anticipation, he tasted one. +Slowly the brightness faded. + +"Deceivers!" he cried, falling back in his seat, and shaking his fist +at the tall glass dish from which he had helped himself. "Fair as +Hyperion, false as dicers' oaths. Acid and watery--a mere sour bath. +You may have them all." He pushed the dish towards Anthony. "I +suppose it's too early in the season to hope for good ones. But +this"--he charged a plate with bread, butter, and marmalade--"this +honest, homely Scottish marmalade, this can always be depended upon to +fill the crannies." And therewith he broke into song. + + "To fill the crannies, + The mannie's crannies, + +Then hey for the sweeties of bonny Dundee!" he carolled lustily. "Let +me see--I was saying?" he resumed. "Ah, yes, I was saying that the +state of mind of a man like you is a thing I am utterly unable to +conceive. And that 's funny, because it is generally true that the +larger comprehends the less. But I look at you, and I think to myself, +thinks I, 'There is a man--or at least the semblance of a man,--a +breathing thing at least, with anthropoid features and dimensions,--who +is never, never, never tormented by the feeling--'Now, tell me, what +feeling do you conjecture I mean?" + +"Don't know, I 'm sure," said Anthony, without much animation. + +"'By the feeling that he ought to be bending over a sheet of paper, +ruled in pretty parallels of fives, trying to embellish the same with +semi-breves and crotchets.' That is what I think to myself, thinks I; +and the thought leaves me gasping. I am utterly unable to conceive +your state of mind." + +"I shan't--barring happy accidents--see her again till Sunday; and +to-day is only Friday," Anthony was brooding. + +"Apropos," he said to Adrian, "I remember your telling me that Friday +was unlucky." + +"Tut," said Adrian. "That is n't apropos in the slightest degree. The +difference that baffles me, I expect, is that I 've the positive, you +'ve the negative, temperament; I 've the active, you 've the passive; I +'ve the fertile, you 've the sterile. It's the difference between Yea +and Nay, between Willy and Nilly. Serenely, serenely, you will drift +to your grave, and never once know what it is to be consumed, harried, +driven by a deep, inextinguishable, unassuageable craving to write a +song. You 'll never know the heartburn, the unrest, the +conscience-sickness, the self-abasement that I know when I 'm not +writing one, nor the glorious anguish of exhilaration when I am. I can +get no conception of your state of mind--any more than a nightingale +could conceive the state of mind of a sparrow. In a sparrowish way, it +must be rather blissful--no? We artists are the salt of the earth, of +course; but every art knows its own bitterness, and--_il faut souffrir +pour etre sel_." + +"It's the difference between egotism rampant and modesty regardant," +Anthony, with some grimness, returned. "I am content to sit in my +place, and watch the pantomime. You long to get upon the stage. Your +unassuageable craving to write a song is, in its essence, just an +unassuageable craving to make yourself an object of attention. And +that's the whole truth about you artists. I recollect your telling me +that Friday was unlucky." + +"Oh, how superficial you are," Adrian plaintively protested. "A man +like me, you should understand, is meant for the world--for the world's +delight, for mankind's wonder. And here unfortunate circumstances--my +poverty and not my will--constrain me to stint the world of its due: to +languish in this lost corner of Nowhere, like Wamba the son of Witless, +the mere professed buffoon of a merer franklin. Well, my unassuageable +craving to write a song is, in its essence, just a great, splendid, +generous desire to indemnify the world. The world needs me--the world +has me not--but the world _shall_ have me. For the world's behoof, I +will translate myself into semi-breves and crotchets. So _there_! +Besides, to be entirely frank, I can't help it. Nothing human is +perfect that does not exhibit somewhere a fine inconsequence. Thus I +exhibit mine. I make music from a high sense of duty, to enrich the +world; but at the same time I make it because I can't help making it. +I make it as the bee makes honey, as the Jew makes money, +spontaneously, inevitably. It is my nature to,--just as it 's the +nature of fire to burn, and of dairy-maids to churn. It is the +inherent, ineradicable impulse of my bounteous soul." + +"You told me in so many words that Friday was unlucky," said Anthony. + +"Well, and so it is," said Adrian. + +"I don't agree with you. Friday, in my experience, is the luckiest day +of the seven. All sorts of pleasant things have happened to me on +Friday." + +"That's merely because your sponsors in baptism happened to name you +Tony," Adrian explained. "Friday, and the still more dread thirteen, +are both lucky for people who happen to be named Tony. Because why? +Because the blessed St. Anthony of Padua was born on a Friday, and went +to his reward on a thirteenth--the thirteenth of June, this very month, +no less." He allowed Anthony's muttered "_A qui le dites-vous_?" to +pass unnoticed, and, making his voice grave, continued, "But for those +of us who don't happen to be named Tony--_unberufen_! Take a man like +me, for instance, an intellectual young fellow, with work to do, but +delicate, and dependent for his strength upon the regular +administration of sustaining nourishment. Well, Friday comes, and +there he is, for twenty-four hours by the clock, obliged to keep up, as +best he may, on fish and vegetables and suchlike kickshaws, when every +fibre of his frame is crying out for meat, red meat. And now"--he +pushed back his chair--"and now, dear heart, be brave. Steel yourself +to meet adversity. A sorrow stoically borne is already half a sorrow +vanquished. I must absent thee from thy felicity a while---I must be +stepping." He rose, and moved, with that dancing gait of his, to the +door. From the threshold he remarked, "If you will come to my +business-room about half an hour before luncheon, I shall hope to have +the last bars polished off, and I 'll sing you something sweeter than +ever plummet sounded. _Lebe wohl_." + +"Yes," thought Anthony, left to himself, "barring happy accidents, I +must wait till Sunday." + +And he went into the park. + +"The nuisance," he said to Patapouf, as he released him, "the nuisance +of things happening early is that they 're just so much the less likely +to happen late. The grudge I bear the Past is based upon the +circumstance that it has taken just so much from the Future. +Meanwhile, suggest the unthinking, let's enjoy the present. But +virtually, as I need n't remind _you_, there is no such thing as the +present. The present is an infinitesimal between two infinites. 'T is +a line (a thing without breadth or thickness) moving across the surface +of Eternity. The present is no more, by the time you have said, This +is present. So, then, it were inordinate to hope to fall in with her +again to-day, and you and I must face an anti-climax. Be thankful we +have the memories of the morning to feed upon. And, if you desire a +subject for meditation, observe how appetites are created. If we had +not met her at all, we should not hunger and thirst in this way for +another meeting." + +He left the red collar round Patapouf's neck. The rest of the torn +ribbon he carefully gathered up and put in his pocket-book. + + + + +VIII + +"One should, however, give happy accidents a certain encouragement," he +reflected, as he woke next morning. "She said it was her habit. We +will seek her again in the hours immaculate." + +He sought her far and near. He wandered the park till breakfast time. +The appropriate scene was set: the familiar sheep were there, the +trees, the birds, the dewy swards, the sunshine and the shadows: +but--though, at each new turning, as each new prospect opened, +expectancy anew looked eagerly from his eyes--the lady of the piece was +ever missing. + +"And yet you boasted it was your habit," bitterly he reproached his +vision of her. + +All day he held out to happy accidents what encouragement he might. +All day he roamed the park, and, as the day dragged on, became a deeply +dejected man. Even the certitude of seeing her to-morrow was of small +comfort. + +"Two minutes before Mass, and three minutes after--what is that?" he +grumbled. + +Towards five o'clock he took a resolution. + +"There are such things as accidents, but there is also," he argued, +"such a thing as design. Why is man endowed with free-will? I don't +care how it may look, nor what they may think. I 'm going to call upon +her, I 'm going to ask myself to tea." + +In this, however, he reckoned without the keeper of her door. + +"The ladies er _ait_, sir," announced that prim-lipped functionary. + +"Now farewell hope," he mourned, as the door closed in his face. +"There's nothing left for me to do but to go for a thundering long +walk, and tire myself into oblivion. I will walk to Wetherleigh." + +Head bent, eyes downcast, sternly resolved to banish her from his +thought, he set forwards, with rapid, dogged steps. He had gone, it +may be, a hundred yards, when a voice stopped him. + +"Sh--sh! Please--please!" it whispered. + + + + +IX + +The grounds immediately appertaining to Craford New Manor are traversed +by a brook. Springing from amidst a thicket of creepers up the +hillside, it comes tumbling and winding, a series of miniature +cascades, over brown rocks, between mossy banks shadowed by ferns and +eglantine, through the sun-shot dimness of a grove of pine-trees, to +fling itself with a final leap and flash (such light-hearted +self-immolation) into the ornamental pond at the bottom of the lawn. +It is a pretty brook, and pleasing to the ear, with its purl and tinkle +of crisp water. + +And now, as Anthony, heading for the Wetherleigh-wards exit of the +park, approached the brook, to cross it,--"Sh, sh--please, please,"--a +whisper stopped him. + +There by the bank, under the tall pines, where sun and shadow chequered +the russet carpet of pine-needles, there, white-robed, sat Susanna: +white-robed, hatless, gloveless. She was waving her hand, softly, in a +gesture invocative of caution; but her eyes smiled a welcome to him. + +Anthony halted, waited,--his heart, I think, high-bearing. + +"It is a blue tit," she explained, under her breath, eagerly. "The +rarest bird that ever comes. He is bathing--there--see." She pointed. + +Sure enough, in a little rock-formed pool a couple of yards up-stream, +a tiny blue titmouse was vigorously enjoying his bath--ducking, +fluttering, preening his plumage, ducking again, and sending off +shooting-stars of spray, prismatic stars where they crossed the +sunbeams. + +"That is the delight of this bit of water," Susanna said, always with +bated breath. "The birds for miles about come here to drink and bathe. +All the rarer and timider birds, that one never sees anywhere else." + +"Ah, yes. Very jolly, very interesting," said Anthony, not quite +knowing what he said, perhaps, for his faculties, I hope, were singing +a _Te Deum_. But--with that high nose of his, that cool grey eye, with +that high collar too, and the general self-assurance of his toilet--no +one could have appeared more composed or more collected. + +"You speak without conviction," said Susanna. "Don't you care for +birds?" + +("Come! You must get yourself in hand," his will admonished his wit.) + +"I beg your pardon," he said, "I care for them very much. They 're an +indispensable feature of the landscape, and immensely serviceable to +the agriculturist. But one cares for other things as well. And I had +always fancied that the crowning virtue of this bit of water (since you +mention it) was its amenability to the caprice of man." + +"Men _have_ caprices?" questioned she, surprise in her upward glance. + +"At any rate," he answered, with allowance for her point, "your +Scottish gardener has. At his caprice, he turns this torrent on or +off, with a tap. For all its air of naturalness and frank impetuosity, +it is an entirely artificial torrent; and your Scottish gardener turns +it on and off with a tap." + +"He sways the elements," murmured Susanna, as with awe. "Portentous +being." Then, changing her note to one of gaiety, "_Ecco_," she cried, +"Signor Cinciallegra has completed his ablutions--and _ecco_, he flies +away. Won't you--won't you sit down?" she asked, as her eyes came back +from the departing bird; and a motion of her hand made him free of the +pine-needles. + +"Thank you," responded Anthony, taking a place opposite her. "I 'm not +sure," he added, "whether in honesty I ought n't to confess that I have +just been calling upon you." + +"Oh," she said, with the politest smile and bow. "I am so sorry to +have missed your visit." + +"You are very good." He bowed in his turn. "I wanted to consult you +about a trifling matter of business," he informed her. + +"A matter of business--?" she wondered; and her face became all +attention. + +"Exactly," said he. "I wanted to ask what you meant by stating that it +was your habit always to be abroad in the hours immaculate? I happened +by the merest chance to be abroad in them myself this morning. I +examined every nook and cranny of them, I turned them inside out; but +not one jot or tittle of you could I discover." + +Susanna's eyes were pensive. + +"I was speaking of Italy, was I not?" she replied. "I said, I think, +that it was the habit of the people in my part of Italy. But, anyhow, +one sometimes varies one's habits. And, after all, one sometimes makes +statements that are rash." + +"And one is always free to repudiate one's responsibilities," +suggestively supplemented our young man. + +"Fortunately," she agreed. "Moreover," she changed her ground, "one +should not be too exclusive in one's sympathies, one should not be +unfair to other hours. This present hour here now--is it not +immaculate also? With its pure sky, and its odour of warm pines, its +deep cool shadows, its patines of bright gold where the sun penetrates, +and then, plashing through it, this curling, dimpling, artificial +torrent? It is not the hour's fault if it happens to arrive somewhat +late in the day--it had to wait its turn. Besides, if one can believe +what one reads in books, it will be the very earliest of early +hours--down there," (with the tip of a vertical finger she touched the +earth), "at the Antipodes." + +"To this present hour," said Anthony, with impressive slowness, "I +personally owe so great a debt of thankfulness, it would be churlish of +me even to hint a criticism. And yet--and yet--how shall I express it? +_Eppur' si muove_. It moves, it hastes away;--while I could wish it to +remain forever, fixed as the Northern Star. Do they know, in your part +of Italy, any means by which the sparkling minutes can be prevailed +upon to stay their flight?" + +"That is a sort of knowledge," Susanna answered, with a movement of the +head, "for which, I fear, one would have to go to a meta-physical and +thrifty land like Germany. We are not in the least metaphysical or +thrifty in my part of Italy. We allow the sparkling minutes to slip +between our fingers, like gold between the fingers of a spendthrift. +But--but we rather enjoy the feeling, as they slip." + +"I wonder," Anthony hazarded, "whether you would take it very much +amiss if--if I should make a remark?" + +Susanna's eyes lighted, dangerously. + +"I wonder," she said, on a key of dubious meditation. + +"I am not easily put off," said he, with firmness. "I am moved to +remark upon the astonishing facility with which you speak English. +Now--do your worst." + +Susanna smiled. + +"It would take more than that to provoke me to do my worst," she said. +"English is as natural to me as my mother-tongue. I always had English +governesses. Everyone has English governesses in Italy nowadays, you +know." + +"Yes," he said, "I know; and they are generally Irish, are they not? +Of course you 've lived a great deal in England?" he surmised. + +"On the contrary," she set him right, "this is my first visit here." + +"Is it possible?" he marvelled. "I thought the true Oxford accent +could only be acquired on the spot." + +"Have I the true Oxford accent?" Susanna brightly doubted, eye-brows +raised. + +"Thank heaven," he gravely charged her, "thank heaven, kneeling, that +you have n't the true Oxford manner. Does England," he asked, "seem +very rum?" + +"Yes," she answered, with immediate candour, "England seems very +rum--but not so rum as it might, perhaps, if I had n't read so many +English novels. English novels are the only novels you 're allowed to +read, in my part of Italy, when you 're young." + +"Ah," said Anthony, nodding, "that's because our English novelists are +such dabs at the art of omission." And after the briefest pause, "Mere +idle and impertinent curiosity," he postulated, "is one thing: honest +neighbourly interest is another. If I were a bolder man, I should ask +you point-blank what part of Italy your part of Italy is." + +Susanna (all a soft whiteness, in her white frock, in the mellow +penumbra of the pine-grove) leaned back, and softly laughed. + +"My part of Italy? That is not altogether easy to tell," she said, +considering. "In one sense, my part of Italy is Rome. I belong to a +Roman family, and am politically a subject of the Holy Father,--what +though, for the moment, his throne be usurped by the Duke of Savoy, and +his prerogatives exercised by the Camorra. But then my part of Italy +is also Venice. We are Venetians, if to have had a house in Venice for +some four hundred years is sufficient to constitute folk Venetians. +But the part of Italy where I most often live, the part I like best, is +a part you will never have heard of--a little castaway island in the +Adriatic, about fifty miles north from Ancona: a little mountainous +island, all fragrant of rosemary and basil, all grey with +olive-trees,--all grey, save where the grey is broken by the green of +vineyards, or the white and green of villas with their gardens, or the +white and red of villages, with their red roofs, and white walls and +campanili,--all grey, and yet all blue and gold, between the blue sea +and the blue sky, in the golden light,--the little, unknown, beautiful +island of Sampaolo." + +She was actress enough to look unconscious and unconcerned, as she +pronounced the name of Sampaolo. Her eyes gazed dreamily far away, as +if they could behold an air-vision of her island. At the same time, I +suspect, they kept a vigilant side-watch on Anthony. + +Did Anthony give never so slightly perceptible a start? Did _his_ eyes +quicken? Did he colour a little? At all events, we need not question, +he was aware of a sudden throb of excitement,--on the spur of which, +without stopping to reflect, "Really?" he exclaimed. "That is a very +odd coincidence. Sampaolo--I know all about it." + +"Indeed?" said Susanna, looking surprise. "You have been there? It is +rarely visited by travellers--except commercial ones." + +"No, I have never been there," he answered, so far truthfully enough. +"But--but I know--I used to know--a man whose--a man who had," he +concluded lamely. For, when he did stop to reflect, "If you care for +an amusing situation," he reflected, "you 'll leave her in the dark +touching your personal connection with Sampaolo." + +Susanna, being quite in the light touching that connection, could not +help smiling. + +"I must play the game on his conditions, and feign ignorance of all +that he does n't tell," she reminded herself. "But fancy his being so +secretive!" + +"I hope the 'man who had' reported favourably of us?" she threw out. + +"H'm--yes," said Anthony, with deliberation. "The truth is, he +reported nothing. He was one of those inarticulate fellows who travel +everywhere, and can give no better account of their travels than just a +catalogue of names. He chanced to let fall that he had visited +Sampaolo, and I thus learned that such a place existed. I can't tell +why, but the fact struck me, and stuck in my mind, and I have ever +since been curious to know something about it." + +"You said you knew _all_ about it," Susanna complained, her eyes +rebukeful, her tone a tone of disappointment. + +"Oh, that was a manner of speaking," Anthony quibbled, plausible and +unperturbed. "I meant that I knew of its existence--which, after all, +is relatively a good deal, being vastly more than most people know." + +"It would be worth your while," said Susanna, "the next time you find +yourself in its vicinity, to do Sampaolo the honour of an inspection. +It is easily reached. The Austrian-Lloyd coasting steamers from Venice +call there once a week, and there is a boat every Monday and Thursday +from Ancona. Sampaolo is an extremely interesting spot,--interesting +by reason of its natural beauty, its picturesque population, and (to +me, at least) by reason of its absurdly romantic, serio-comic, +lamentable little history." + +"Ah--?" said Anthony, but with a suspension of the voice, with a +solicitude of eye and posture, that pressed her to continue. + +"He is a poor dissembler," thought Susanna. "As if any mere chance +outsider would care a fig to hear about Sampaolo. However, so much the +better." + +"Yes," she said, and again she seemed rapt in dreamy contemplation of +an air-vision. "The natural beauty of Sampaolo is to my thinking +unparalleled. At a distance, as your ship approaches it, Sampaolo lies +on the horizon like a beautiful soft cloud, all vague rose-colours and +purples, a beautiful soft pinnacle of cloud. Then gradually, as you +come nearer, the cloud changes, crystallises; and Sampaolo is like a +great wonderful carving, a great wonderful carved jewel, a cameo cut on +the sea, with a sort of aureole about it, an opalescence of haze and +sunshine. Nearer still, its aspect is almost terrible, a scene of +breath-taking precipices, spire-like mountains, wild black gorges, +ravines; but, to humanise it, you can count at least twenty villages, +villages clinging to every hillside, perched on almost every hill-top, +each with its group of cypresses, like sentinels, and its campanile. +At last you pass between two promontories, the Capo del Turco and the +Capo del Papa, from the summits of which two great Crucifixes look +down, and you enter the Laguna di Vallanza, a land-locked bay, tranquil +as a lake. And there, floating on the water as it seems, there is a +palace like a palace in Fairyland, a palace of white marble, all +stately colonnades and terraces, yet looking, somehow, as light as if +it were built of the sea's foam. This is one of the palaces--the +summer palace--of the Counts of Sampaolo. It seems to float on the +water, but it really occupies a tiny mite of an islet, called Isola +Nobile; and connected with Isola Nobile by marble bridges are two other +tiny Islets, laid out in gardens, Isola Fratello and Isola Sorella. +The Counts of Sampaolo are one of the most ancient and illustrious +families in Europe, the Valdeschi della Spina, descendants of San Guido +Valdeschi, a famous soldier-saint of the Twelfth Century. They have +another palace in the town of Vallanza, their winter palace, the +Palazzo Rosso; and a splendid old mediaeval castle, Castel San Guido, +on the hill behind the town; and two or three delightful villas in +different parts of the island. A highly enviable family, are they not? +Orange-trees are in blossom at Sampaolo the whole year round, in +blossom and in fruit at the same time. The olive orchards of Sampaolo +are just so many wildernesses of wild flowers: violets, anemones, +narcissus; irises, white ones and purple ones; daffodils, which we call +asphodels; hyacinths, tulips, arums, orchids--oh, but a perfect riot of +wild flowers. In the spring the valleys of Sampaolo are pink with +blossoming peach-trees and almond-trees, where they are not scarlet +with pomegranates. Basil, rosemary, white heather, you can pluck where +you will. And everywhere that they can find a footing, oleanders grow, +the big double red ones, great trees of them, such wonder-worlds of +colour, such fountains of perfume. The birds of Sampaolo never cease +their singing--they sing as joyously in December as in June. And the +nightingales of Sampaolo sing all day, as well as all night. _Tiu, +tiu, tiu--will, will, will--weep, weep, weep_--I can hear them now. +But I must stop, or I shall go on for ever. Believe me, the beauties +of Sampaolo are very great." + +It was a long speech, but it had had an attentive listener. It was a +long speech, but it had been diversified by the varying modulations of +Susanna's voice, the varying expressions of her face, by little pauses, +hesitations, changes of time and of rhythm, by occasional little +gestures. + +It had had an attentive, even an absorbed listener: one who, already +interested in the speaker, happened to have a quite peculiar interest +in her theme. As she spoke, I think Anthony beheld his own air-vision +of Sampaolo; I fancy the familiar park of Craford, the smooth, +well-groomed, well-fed English landscape, melted away; I doubt if he +saw anything of the actual save the white form, the strenuous face, the +shining eyes, of his informant. + +But now, her voice ceasing, suddenly the actual came back--the brown +brook swirling at their feet, the tall pines whispering above, the warm +pine-incense, the tesserae of sun and shadow dancing together on the +carpet of pine-needles, as the tassels overhead swung in the moving air. + +"You paint Elysium," he said. "You paint a veritable Island of the +Blessed." + +Susanna's eyes clouded. + +"Once upon a time Sampaolo _was_ a veritable Island of the Blessed," +she answered sadly. "But now no more. Since its union with what they +call the Kingdom of Italy, Sampaolo has been, rather, an Island of the +Distressed." + +"Ah--?" said Anthony, again on a tone, with a mien, that pressed her to +continue. + +But all at once, as if recalled from an abstraction, Susanna gave a +little laugh,--what seemed a slightly annoyed, half-apologetic little +laugh,--and lifted her hands in a gesture of deprecation, of +self-reprehension. + +"I beg your pardon," she said. "I can't think how I have allowed +myself to become so tiresome. One prates of one's parish pump." + +"_Tiresome_?" cried out Anthony, in spontaneous protest. "I can't tell +you how much you interest me." + +"He is the poorest of poor dissemblers," thought Susanna. + +"You are extremely civil," she said. "But how can the condition of our +parish pump possibly interest a stranger?" + +"H'm," thought Anthony, taken aback, "I expect my interest _does_ seem +somewhat improbable." + +So, speciously, he sought to justify it. + +"For more reasons than a few," he alleged. "To begin with, if I dared, +I should say because it is _your_ parish pump." He ventured a little +bow. "But, in the next place, because it is an Italian parish pump, +and somehow everything connected with Italy interests one. Then, +because it is the parish pump of Sampaolo, and I have always been +curious about Sampaolo. And finally, because it is a _human_ parish +pump--_et nihil humanum_ . . . . So please go on. How did Sampaolo +come to be an Island of the Distressed?" + +"He 's not such a poor dissembler, after all,--when roused to action," +thought Susanna. "But perhaps we have had enough Sampaolo for one +session. I must leave him with an appetite for more." + +"Hark," she said, raising a finger, while her face became intent. "Is +n't that a skylark?" + +Somewhere--just where one could n't tell at first--a bird was singing. +Many birds were singing, innumerable birds were chirruping, all about. +But this bird's song soared clear above the others, distinct from them, +away from them, creating for itself a kind of airy isolation. It was +an exquisitely sweet, liquid song, it was jocund, joyous, and it was +sustained for an astonishing length of time. It went on and on and on, +never faltering, never pausing, in soft trills and gay roulades, shrill +skirls or flute-like warblings, a continuous outpour, for I don't know +how many minutes. It was a song marvellously apposite to the bright +day and the wide countryside. The freshness of the air, the raciness +of the earth, the green of grass and trees, the laughing sunlight,--one +might have fancied it was the spirits of all these singing together in +unison. + +"It's a skylark, sure enough," said Anthony, looking skywards. "But +where the mischief is he?" + +And they gave eyes and ears to trying to determine, searching the +empyrean. Now his voice seemed to come from the west, now from the +north, the south, the east; it was the most deceptive, the most elusive +thing. + +"Ah--there he is," Anthony cried, of a sudden, and pointed. + +"Where? Where?" breathlessly asked Susanna, anxious as if life and +death hung on the question. + +"There--look!" said Anthony, pointing again. + +High, high up in the air, directly over their heads, they could discern +a tiny speck of black against the blue of the sky. They sat with their +necks craned back as far as they would go, and gazed at it like people +transfixed, whilst the sky pulsated to their dazzled sight. + +"It is incredible," said Susanna. "A mere pin-point in that immensity, +yet he fills it full with his hosannas." + +But the pin-point grew bigger, the hosannas louder; the bird was +descending. + +"Literally it is music coming down upon us from heaven," she said. + +"Yes--but when it reaches us, it will stop, we shall lose it," said +Anthony. "It is music too ethereal to survive the contact of this +gross planet." + +Singing, singing, the bird sank, with folded wings; and sure enough, +the very instant he touched the earth, his song stopped short--a bubble +pricked, a light extinguished. + +"He has come to drink and bathe," said Susanna. + +He was hopping towards the water, on the other side of the brook, for a +poet the most prosaic-looking fellow, in the soberest brown coat. +Evidently he did n't dream that he was not alone. The trees had no +doubt hidden his watchers. But now Susanna's voice startled him. With +one wild glance at them, and a wild twitter of surprise, self-rebuke, +consternation, he bounded into the air, and in a second was a mere +speck again. + +"Oh, how silly of him," Susanna sighed. "Does he think we are dragons?" + +"No," said Anthony. "He would n't be half so frightened if he thought +we were dragons. He thinks we are much worse." + +"Oh--?" guilelessly questioned she. "What is that?" + +"He thinks we are human beings," Anthony explained. + +Susanna laughed, but it was rather a rueful laugh. + +"Anyhow," she said, "he 'll not come back so long as we remain here. +Yet he is hot and thirsty--and who knows from what a distance he may +have flown, just for this disappointment? Don't you think it would be +gracious on our part if we were to remove the cause of his alarm?" + +She rose, and led the way out of the pine-grove, towards her house. +When they reached the open, it was to discover, walking together from +the opposite direction, Adrian and Miss Sandus,--Adrian bending towards +his companion in voluble discourse, which he pointed and underlined by +copious gesticulation. + +"Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues," Anthony murmured, more or less +in his sleeve. + +But at sight of him, Adrian halted, and struck an attitude. + +"Oh, the underhand, the surreptitious villain!" he cried out. Then he +turned his pink face towards Susanna. "Lady, beauteous lady, vision of +loveliness," he saluted her, bowing to the ground. "But oh, to think +of that dark, secret villain! He 's gone and made your acquaintance +without waiting for me to introduce him, which I was so counting upon +doing to-morrow morning. Already he groans and totters under the +weight of obligations I 've heaped upon him. I wanted to add one +more--and now he 's gone and circumvented me." + +"You will add one more if you 'll be so good as to introduce me to Miss +Sandus," said Anthony. + +And when the introduction was accomplished, he proceeded to make +himself as agreeable to that lady as he possibly could. In the first +place, he liked her appearance, he liked her brisk, frank manner; and +then, is n't it always well to have a friend near the rose? + +The result was that when she and Susanna were alone, Miss Sandus +succinctly remarked, "My dear, your cousin is a trump." + + + + +X + +The shadows were long, as he and Adrian strolled back to Craford Old +Manor. + +"Well, now, Truepenny," Adrian began, "now that you 've met her, speak +out, and tell me on your heart and conscience how she impresses you." + +"She seems all right," was Anthony's temperate reply. + +"_All right_?" cried Adrian, looking scorn and pity. "My dear +Malaprop, she 's just simply the nicest person of her sex within the +confines of the Solar System. She is to other women what--well, I 'll +name no names--what somebody I _could_ name is to other men. And with +such eyes--hey? Are they bright? Are they sharp? Are they trusty? +Are they knowing?" + +"I expect she can see with them," said Anthony. + +"_See_ with them," Adrian sniffed. "I 'll tell you what she can +do--she can see round a corner with them. And then such pretty little +ears, besides. Did you notice her ears?" + +"I noticed she was n't earless," Anthony admitted. + +"_Earless_," cried Adrian. "Her ears are like roses and white lilies. +Earless, says he. I 'll bet three-halfpence you 'll presently be +denying that she 's witty." + +"She seems witty enough," assented Anthony. + +"_Witty_," Adrian scoffed, cutting a caper to signify his disdain for +the weak expression. "Witty is n't the word for it. And then, with +all her years, she 's so _young_, is n't she? She breathes the fresh, +refreshing savour of an unspoiled soul." + +"Yes, she's young--for the time being," Anthony agreed. "By the bye, +do you know where she comes from?" + +"_Do_ I know? I should rather think I know," said Adrian, swaggering. +"She has n't a secret from me. She comes from Westmoreland. They 're +an old Westmoreland family. But she lives in Kensington. She has one +of those jolly old houses in Kensington Square. Historic, romantic, +poetic Kensington Square, where burning Sappho loved and sang, and +Thackeray wrote the What-do-you-call-'ems. Who fears to speak of +Ninety-eight? That's her number. Ninety-eight, Kensington Square, W. +And whenever I have occasion to run up to town, mind, I 'm not to think +of going to an hotel, I 'm to drive straight to Ninety-eight, and it +will be her joy to take me in. So it sometimes pays to be charming, +after all." + +"I see," said Anthony. + +"You see? The deuce you do. What do you see?" asked Adrian, opening +his blue eyes wide, and peering about, as one who would fain see too. + +"You patter of Miss Sandus," said Anthony. + +Adrian came to a standstill, and raised his hands towards heaven. + +"Now I call upon the choirs of blessed Cherubim and Seraphim," he +exclaimed. "I call upon them to suspend their singing for an instant, +and to witness this. He sees that I patter of Miss Sandus. What +perspicuity. And he just a mortal man, like anybody--nay, by all +accounts, just a bluff country squire. Ah, what a noble understanding. +Well, then, my dear Hawkshaw, since there's no concealing anything from +you,--_fine mouche, allez_!--I own up. I patter of Miss Sandus." + +"Do you happen to know where Madame Torrebianca comes from?" Anthony +asked. + +"Oho!" cried Adrian. "It's Madame Torrebianca that _you 've_ been +raving about. Ah, yes. Oh, I concede at once that Madame Torrebianca +is very nice too. None readier than I to do her homage. But for fun +and devilment give me Peebles. Give me old ladies, or give me little +girls. You 're welcome to the betwixts and the betweens. Old ladies, +who have passed the age of folly, or little girls, who have n't reached +it. But women in the prime of their womanhood are always thinking of +fashion-plates and curling-irons and love and shopping. Name me, if +you can, four vainer, tiresomer, or more unfruitful topics. Have you +never waked in your bed at midnight to wonder how it has come to pass +that I, at my time of life, with my attractions, am still a bachelor? +To wonder what untold disappointment, what unwritten history of sorrow, +has left me the lonely, brooding celibate you see? I 'll lift the +veil--a moment of epanchement. It's because I 've never met a +marriageable woman who had n't her noddle stuffed with curling-irons +and fashion-plates and love and shopping." + +"Do you happen to know where she comes from?" Anthony repeated. + +"She--? Who?" asked Adrian, looking vague. Then, as Anthony +vouchsafed no answer, but merely twirled his stick, and gazed with +indifferent eyes at the horizon, "Oh--Madame Torrebianca?" he +conjectured. "Still harping on my daughter? Of course I know where +_she_ comes from. She comes from the land where the love of the turtle +now melts into sweetness, now maddens to crime--as who should say a +land of Guildhall banquets. She comes from Italy. Have you ever eaten +ortolans in Italy?" + +"Do you happen to know what part of Italy?" Anthony persisted. + +"From Rome, the pomp and pageant of imperial Rome," returned Adrian +promptly. "I 've got it in the lease. Nothing like having things in +leases. The business instinct--what? Put it in black and white, says +I. 'La Nobil Donna Susanna Torrebianca, of the Palazzo Sebastiani, via +Quattro Fontane, Rome, party of the second part.' A _beau vers_, is +n't it? The lilt, the swelling cadence, the rich rhyme, the hidden +alliterations,--and then the sensitive, haunting pathos, the eternal +verities adumbrated by its symbolism. I 've stood upon Achilles' tomb, +and heard Troy doubted. Time--that monster-mother, who brings forth +her children only to devour them--Time shall doubt of . . ." + +"Rome may be the official sort of address she gives to land-agents and +people," Anthony interposed. "But the part of Italy where she really +lives is a little castaway island in the Adriatic, some fifty miles +north from Ancona,--the little, unknown, beautiful island of Sampaolo." + +Adrian came to a standstill again, and dropped his jaw in sign of +astonishment. + +"Oh, come. Not really?" he gasped at length. + +"Yes, really," said Anthony. + +"My eye!" Adrian exclaimed. + +"It _is_ odd, is n't it?" said Anthony. + +"_Odd_?" cried Adrian. "It's--it--it beggars the English tongue." + +"Well, if it beggars yours, it is doing pretty well," said Anthony. + +"You goose," said Adrian, resuming his walk. "Can you actually suppose +that I 've passed all these golden days and weeks in friendly +hob-nobbings with her, and not learned that she came from the island of +Sampaolo? A fellow of penetration, like me? I appeal to your +honour--is it likely?" + +"Why the devil have you never told me?" Anthony demanded, with asperity. + +"You 've never asked me--you 've never given me a chance. You talk, +when you have me for a listener, you talk such an uninterrupted stream, +it's a miracle if I ever get a word in edgewise," Adrian explained. + +"I trust, at least, that you 've been equally taciturn with her," said +Anthony. + +"My good Absolute, I am the soul of taciturnity," Adrian boasted, +expanding his chest, and thumping it. "This bosom is a sealed +sanctuary for the confidences of those who confide in me. Besides, +when I 'm with Madame Torrebianca, believe me, we have other subjects +of conversation than the poor Squire o' Craford." + +"You see," said Anthony, "for the lark of the thing, I should like, for +the present, to leave her in ignorance of my connection with Sampaolo." + +"That's right," cried Adrian. "Dupe, cozen, jockey the trustful young +creature. Do. There 's a great-hearted gentleman. You need n't fear +_my_ undeceiving her. I know my place; I know who holds the +purse-strings; I know which side my bread is buttered on. Motley's my +wear. So long as you pay my wages, you may count upon my connivance." + +"I shall see her to-morrow morning at Mass. I wonder whether I am in +love with her," Anthony was thinking. + + + + +XI + +He gave her holy water at the door of the chapel, and her eyes +acknowledged it with a glance that sent something very pleasant into +his heart. + +Then, with an impulse of discretion, to efface himself, he knelt at the +first prie-dieu he came to. But Susanna, instead of going forward, +knelt at the prie-dieu next to his. + +The chapel at Craford is a dim, brown little room,--the same room that +in the days of persecution had been a "secret" chapel, where priests +and people worshipped at the peril of their lives. You enter it from +the hall by a door that was once a sliding panel. In the old days +there was no window, but now there is a window, a small one, +lancet-shaped, set with stained glass, opening into the court. Save +for the coloured light that came through this, and the two candles +burning on the altar, the chapel was quite dark. The Mass was said by +an old Capuchin, Father David, from the convent at Wetherleigh; it was +served by Adrian. + +You know "the hidden and unutterable sweetness of the Mass." + +For Anthony, kneeling there with Susanna, the sweetness of the Mass was +strangely intensified. He did not look at her, he looked at the altar, +or sometimes at his prayer-book; but the sense that she was beside him +possessed every atom of his consciousness. Her kneeling figure, her +white profile, her hair, her hat, her very frock,--he could see them, +somehow, without looking; his eye preserved a permanent vision of them. +Yet they did not distract his thoughts from the altar. He followed +with devout attention the Act that was being consummated there; the +emotion of her presence merged with and became part of the emotion of +the Mass. They were offering the Holy Sacrifice side by side, they +were offering it together, they were sharing the Sacred Mystery. It +seemed to him that by this they were drawn close to each other, and +placed in a new relation, a relation that was far beyond the mere +acquaintanceship of yesterday, that in a very special and beautiful way +was intimate. The priest crossed the sanctuary, and they stood +together for the Gospel; the bell was rung, and together they bowed +their heads for the Elevation. They knelt side by side in body, but in +spirit was it not more than this? In spirit, for the time, were they +not absolutely at one?--united, commingled, in the awe and the wonder, +the worship and the love, of the Presence that had come, that was +filling the dim and silent little chapel with a light eyes were not +needed to see, with a music ears were not needed to hear, that had +transformed the poor little altar into a painless Calvary, whence were +diffused all peace, all grace, all benediction? They knelt side by +side, adoring together, breathing together the air that was now in very +deed the air of Heaven. And it seemed to Anthony as if the Presence +smiled upon them, and sanctioned and sanctified the thing that was in +his heart. + +"Domine, non sum dignus," solemnly rose the voice of the priest, +"Domine, non sum dignus . . ." + +It was the supreme moment. + +They went forward, and side by side knelt at the rail of the sanctuary. + + + + +XII + +Alas, the uncertain glory of an English June. That night the weather +changed. Monday was grey and cold, the beginning of a cold grey week, +a week of rain and wind, of low skies and scudding clouds; the +sad-coloured sea flecked with angry white, the earth sodden; leaves, +torn from their trees, scurrying down the pathways; and Adrian, of all +persons, given over to peevishness and lamentations. + +"Oh, I brazenly confess it--I 'm a fair-weather friend," he said, as he +looked disconsolately forth from the window of his business-room, (a +room, by the bye, whereof the chief article of furniture was a +piano-a-queue). "Bring me sunshine and peaches, and I 'll be as sweet +as bright Apollo's lute strung with his hair. But this sort of gashly, +growsy, grim, sour, shuddery weather turns me into a broken-hearted +vixen. I could sit down and cry. I could lie down and die. I could +rise up and snap your head off. I am filled with verjuice and vitriol. +Oh, me! Oh, my!" + +He stamped backwards and forwards, in nervous exasperation. He went to +the piano, and brought his hands down in a discordant clang upon the +keys. + +"Can't anybody silence those stupid _birds_?" he cried, moving back to +the window, through which the merry piping of a robin was audible. +"How inept, how spiteful, of them to go on singing, singing, in the +face of such odious weather. Tell Wickersmith or someone to take a gun +and an umbrella, and to go out and shoot them. And the wind--the +strumpet wind," he cried. "All last night it gurgled and howled and +hooted in my chimney like a drunken banshee, and nearly frightened me +to death. And me a musician. And me the gentlest of God's +creatures--who never did any harm, but killed the mice in father's +barn. I ask you, as a man of the world, is it delicate, is it fair? +Drip, drip, drip--swish, swish, swash,--ugh, the rain! If it could +_guess_ how I despise it!" He made a face and shook his fist at it. +"Do you think the weather _knows_ how disagreeable it is? We all know +how disagreeable other people can be, but so few of us know how +disagreeable we ourselves can be. Do you think the weather knows? Do +you think it's behaving in this way purposely to vex me?" + +But for Anthony it was a period not without compensations. He saw +Susanna nearly every day. On Tuesday she and Miss Sandus were his +guests at dinner; on Wednesday he and Adrian were her guests at +luncheon; on Thursday, at tea-time, they paid their visit of digestion; +on Friday, the rain holding up for a few hours in the afternoon, he and +Susanna went for a walk on the cliffs. + +The sea-wind buffetted their faces, it lifted Susanna's hair and blew +stray locks about her temples, it summoned a lively colour to her +cheeks. Anthony could admire the resolute lines, the forceful action, +of her strong young body, as she braced herself to march against it. +From the turf under their feet rose the keen odour of wet earth, and +the mingled scents of clover and wild thyme. All round them +sand-martins wheeled and swerved, in a flight that was like aerial +skating. Far below, and beyond the dark-green of Rowland Marshes, +which followed the winding of the cliffs like a shadow, stretched the +grey sea, with its legions of white horses. + +"What a sense one gets, from here, of the sea's immensity," Susanna +said. "I think the horizon is a million miles away." + +"It is," affirmed Anthony, with conclusiveness, as one possessing exact +knowledge. Then, in a minute, "And, as we are speaking in round +numbers, are you aware that it's a million years since I last had the +pleasure of a word with you?" + +Susanna's dark eyes grew big. + +"A million years? Is it really," she doubted, in astonishment. + +"Really and truly," asseverated he. + +"A million years! How strange," she murmured, as one in a maze. + +"Truth is often strange," said he. + +"Yes--but this is particularly strange," she pointed out. "Because, +first, we have only known each other a week. And, secondly, I was +under the impression that you had had 'a word with me' yesterday--and +again the day before yesterday--and again the day before that." + +"I beg your pardon," said he. "I have not had a word with you since we +sat by the brink of your artificial streamlet last Saturday afternoon; +and that, speaking in round numbers, was a million years ago. As for +yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and the day before that,--I +don't count it having a word with you when we are surrounded by +strangers." + +"Strangers--?" wondered Susanna. + +"Yes," said he. "That fellow Willes, and your enchanting friend Miss +Sandus." + +Susanna gave one of her light trills of laughter. + +"We can't discuss our private affairs before them," said Anthony; "and +I 've been pining to discuss our private affairs." + +"Have we private affairs?" Susanna questioned, in surprise. + +"Of course we have," said he. "Everybody has. And it is to discuss +them that I have inveigled you into taking this walk with me. Does n't +the sort of English weather you 're at present getting a taste of make +you wish you had never left Italy?" + +"Oh," she acquainted him, "it sometimes rains in Italy." + +"Does it, indeed?" he enquired, opening his eyes. "But never--surely +never--at Sampaolo?" + +"Yes, even sometimes at Sampaolo," she laughed. "And mercy, how the +wind can blow there! This is nothing to it. I don't think you have +any winds in England so violent as our _temporali_." + +Anthony nodded, with satisfaction. + +"Please go on," he urged. "I have been longing to hear more about +Sampaolo." + +"Oh?" said Susanna, looking sceptical. "I feared I had wearied you +inexcusably with Sampaolo." + +"Every syllable you pronounced," vowed he, "was of palpitating +interest, and you broke off at the most palpitating moment. You were +on the point of telling me how, from an Island of the Blessed, Sampaolo +came to be an Island of the Distressed--when we were interrupted by a +skylark." + +"That would be a terribly long story," Susanna premonished him, shaking +her head. + +"I adore terribly long stories," he declared. "And have we not before +us the whole of future time?" + +"Sampaolo came to be an Island of the Distressed," said she, "because, +some half-century ago, the Sampaolesi got infected with an idea that +was then a kind of epidemic--the idea of Italian unity. So they had a +revolution, overthrew their legitimate sovereign, gave up their +Independence, and united themselves to the 'unholy and unhappy State' +which has since assumed the name of the Kingdom of Italy." + +"That is not a terribly long story," Anthony complained. "I 'm afraid +you are suppressing some of the details." + +"Yes," she at once acknowledged, "I daresay I 'm suppressing a good +many of the details." + +"That's not ingenuous," said he, "nor--nor kind." + +"It was not unkindly meant," said she. + +"But Sampaolo," he questioned, "had, then, been independent? Go on. +Be communicative, be copious; tell me all about it." + +"For more than seven hundred years," answered Susanna, "Sampaolo had +been independent. The Counts of Sampaolo were counts regnant, holding +the island by feudal tenure from the Pope, who was their suzerain, and +to whom they paid a tribute. They were counts regnant and lords +paramount, _tiranni_, as they were called in mediaeval Italy; they had +their own coinage, their own flag, their own little army; and though +some of the noble Sampaolese families bore the title of prince or duke +at Rome, they ranked only as barons at Sampaolo, and were subjects of +the Count." + +A certain enthusiasm rang in her voice. They walked on for some paces +in silence. + +"In the Palazzo Rosso at Vallanza, to this day," she continued, "you +will be shown the throne-room, with the great scarlet throne, and the +gilded coronet topping the canopy above it. But the Counts of Sampaolo +were good men and wise rulers; and, under them, for more than seven +hundred years, the island was free, prosperous, and happy. And though +many times the Turks tried to take it, and many times the Venetians, +and though sometimes the Pope tried to take it back, when the Pope +happened to be a difficult Pope, the Sampaolesi, who were splendid +fighters, always managed to hold their own." + +Again they took some paces in silence. + +"Then"--her voice had modulated--"then the idea of Italian unity was +preached to them, and in 1850 they had a revolution; and foolish, +foolish Sampaolo voluntarily submitted itself to the reign of Victor +Emmanuel. And ever since,"--her eyes darkened,--"what with the +impossible taxes, the military conscription, the corrupt officials, the +Camorra, Sampaolo has been in a very wretched plight indeed. +But--_pazienza_!" She gave her shoulders a light little shrug. "The +Kingdom of Italy will not last forever." + +"We will devoutly hope not," concurred Anthony. "Meanwhile, I am glad +to note that in politics you are a true-blue reactionary." + +"In Sampaolese politics," said she, "reaction would be progress. +Before 1850 the people of Sampaolo were prosperous, now they are +miserably poor; were pious, now they are horribly irreligious; were +governed by honest gentlemen, now they form part of a nation that is +governed by its criminal classes." + +"And what became of the honest gentlemen?" Anthony enquired. "What did +the counts do, after they were--'hurled,' I believe, is the consecrated +expression--after they were hurled from their scarlet thrones?" + +"Ah," said Susanna, seriously, "there you bring me to the chapter of +the story that is shameful." + +"Oh--?" said he, looking up. + +"The revolution at Sampaolo was headed by the Count's near kinsman," +she said. "The present legitimate Count of Sampaolo is an exile. His +title and properties are held by a cousin, who has no more right to +them, no more shadow of a right, of a moral right, than--than I have." + +"Ah," said Anthony. And then, philosophically, "A very pretty +miniature of an historical situation," he commented. "Orleans and +Bourbon, Hanover and Stuart. A count in possession, and a count over +the water, an usurper and a pretender." + +"Exactly," she assented, "save that the Count in possession happens to +be a Countess--the grand-daughter of the original usurper, whose male +line is extinct. Oh, the history of Sampaolo has been highly coloured. +A writer in some English magazine once described it as a patchwork of +melodrama and opera-bouffe. It ended, if you like, in melodrama and +opera-bouffe, but it began in pure romance and chivalry." + +"Don't stop," said Anthony. "Tell me about the beginning." + +"I can tell you that," announced Susanna, smiling, "in the words of +your own English historian, Alban Butler." + +She paused for an instant, as if to make sure of her memory, and then, +smiling, recited-- + +"'In the year 1102 or 1103,' he says, in his Life of St. Guy Valdescus +of The Thorn, as he Anglicises San Guido Valdeschi della Spina, 'when +the Saint was returning from the Holy Land, where he had been a +crusader, he was shipwrecked, by the Providence of God, upon the island +of Ilaria, in the Adriatic Sea; and he was greatly afflicted by the +discovery that the inhabitants of that country were almost totally +ignorant of the truths of our Holy Religion, while the little knowledge +they possessed was confused with many diabolical superstitions. They +still invoked the daemons of pagan mythology, and sacrilegiously +included our Divine Lord and His Blessed Mother in the number of these. +Now, St. Guy had distinguished himself in the Crusade alike for his +valour in action, for the edifying character of his conversation, and +for the devotion and recollection with which he performed the exercises +of religion; and he was surnamed Guy of the Thorn for that he had +caused to be fixed in the hilt of his sword a sharp thorn, or spine, +which, when he fought, should prick the flesh of his hand, and thus +keep him in mind of the pious purpose for which he was fighting, and +that it behoved a soldier of the Cross to fight, not in private anger +or martial pride, but in Christian zeal and humility. When, therefore, +after his shipwreck, and after many other perils and adventures by sea +and land, the Saint finally arrived at Rome, of which city his family +were patricians, and where his venerable mother, as well as his wife +and children, eagerly awaited his return, he was received with every +sign of favour by the Pope, Pascal the Second, who commended him warmly +upon the good reports he had had of him, and asked him to choose his +own reward. St. Guy answered that for his reward he prayed he might be +sent back to the island of Ilaria, with a bishop and a sufficient +company of priests, there to spread the pure light of the Faith among +the unfortunate natives. Whereupon the Pope created him Count and +Governor of the country, the heathen name of which he changed to St. +Paul, and gave him as the emblem of his authority a sword in the hilt +of which was fixed a thorn of gold. This holy relic, under the name of +the Spina d'Oro, is preserved, for the reverence of the faithful. In +the cathedral of the city of Vallanza, where the descendants of St. Guy +still reign as lieutenants of the Sovereign Pontiff.'--There," +concluded Susanna, with a little laugh, "that is the Reverend Alban +Butler's account of the matter." + +"I stand dumb with admiration," professed Anthony, his upcast hand +speaking volumes, "before your powers of memory. Fancy being able to +quote Alban Butler word for word, like that!" + +"When I was young," Susanna explained, "I was made by my English +governess to learn many of Butler's Lives by heart, and, as an Ilarian, +the Life of San Guido interested me particularly. He was canonised, by +the way, by Adrian the Fourth--the English Pope. As a consequence of +that, the Valdeschi have always had a great fondness for England, and +have often married English wives--English Catholics, of course. An +Englishwoman was Countess of Sampaolo when the end came, the patchwork +end." + +"Ah, yes," said Anthony, "the patchwork end--tell me about that." + +"The end," Susanna answered, "was an act of shameful treachery on the +part of one of the descendants of San Guido towards another, his +immediate kinsman, and the rightful head of the family. And now it is +melodrama and opera-bouffe as much as ever you will. It is a +revolution in a tea-cup. It is the ancient story of the Wicked Uncle." + +"Yes?" said Anthony. + +"It is perfectly trite," said Susanna, "and it would be perfectly +absurd, if it were n't rather tragic, or perfectly tragic, if it were +n't rather absurd." + +She thought for a moment. Anthony waited, attentive. + +"In 1850," she narrated, "Count Antonio the Seventeenth died, leaving a +widow, who was English, and an only son, a lad of twelve, who should +naturally have succeeded his father as Guido the Eleventh. But Count +Antonio had a younger brother, also named Guido, who coveted the +succession for himself, and had long been intriguing to secure +it--organising secret societies among the people, to further the idea +of Italian unity, and bargaining with the King of Sardinia for the +price he should receive if he contrived to bring the Sampaolesi to give +up their independence. Well," she went on, with a slight effect of +effort, "while his brother lay dying, Guido, spying his opportunity, +was especially active. 'Now,' he said to the people, 'is the time to +strike. If, at my brother's death, his son succeeds him, we shall have +a regency, and the regent will be a foreigner and a woman. Now is the +time to terminate this petty despotism forever, to repudiate the +suzerainty of the Pope, and to join in the great movement of Italia +Riunita. To the Palace! Let us seize the Englishwoman and her son, +and banish them from the island. Let us hoist the tricolour, and +proclaim ourselves Italians, and subjects of the King. To the Palace!' +So, while that poor lady"--her voice quavered a little--"while that +poor lady was kneeling at the bedside of her dead husband,"--her voice +sank,--"a great mob of insurgents broke into the Palazzo Rosso, singing +'Fuori l'Italia lo straniero,' seized her and the little Count, dragged +them to the sea-front, and put them aboard a ship that was leaving for +Trieste." + +She paused for a few seconds. + +"Then there was a plebiscite," she proceeded, "and Sampaolo solemnly +transformed itself into a province of the Kingdom of Sardinia." + +She paused again. + +"And the Wicked Uncle," she again proceeded, "received his price from +Turin. First, he was appointed Prefect of Sampaolo for life. +Secondly, the little Count and his mother were summoned to take the +oath of fidelity to the King, and as they did not turn up to do so, +having gone to her people in England, they were declared to have +outlawed themselves, and to be 'civilly dead', their properties, +accordingly, passing to the next heir, who, of course, was Guido +himself. Thirdly, Guido was created Count of Sampaolo by royal patent, +the Papal dignity being pronounced 'null and not recognisable in the +territories of the King.' It is Guido's granddaughter who is Countess +of Sampaolo to-day." + +She terminated her narration with a motion of the hand, as if she were +tossing something from her. Anthony waited a little before he spoke. + +"And the little Count?" he said, at length. + +"The little Count," said Susanna, "went through the formality of suing +his uncle for the recovery of his estates--or, rather, his mother, as +his guardian, did so for him. But as the action had to be tried in the +law-courts at Turin, I need n't tell you how it ended. In fact, it was +never tried at all. For at the outset the judges decided that the +suitor would have no standing before them until he had taken the oath +of allegiance to the King, and renounced his allegiance to the Pope. +He was 'civilly dead'--he must civilly resuscitate himself. As he +refused to do this, his cause was dismissed, unheard." + +"And then--?" said Anthony. + +"Then the little Count returned to England, and grew to be a big count, +and married an Englishwoman, and had a son, and died. He was adopted +by his mother's brother, an English country gentleman, who, surviving +him, and being a bachelor, adopted his son in turn. The son, however, +dropped his title of Count, a title more than seven hundred years old, +and assumed the name of his benevolent great-uncle. I 'm not sure," +she reflected, "that I quite approve of his dropping that magnificent +old title." + +"Oh, he very likely found it an encumbrance, living in England, as an +Englishman--especially if he was n't very rich," said Anthony. "He +very likely felt that it rendered him rather uncomfortably conspicuous. +Besides, a man does n't actually _drop_ a title--he merely puts it in +his pocket--he can always take it out again. You don't, I suppose," he +asked, with a skilfully-wrought semblance of indifference, "happen to +remember the name that he assumed?" + +"Of course, I happen to remember it," replied Susanna. "As you must +perceive, the history of Sampaolo is a matter I have studied somewhat +profoundly. How could I forget so salient a fact as that? The name +that he assumed," she said, her air elaborately detached, "was Craford." + +But Anthony evinced not the slightest sign of a sensation. + +"Craford?" he repeated. "Ah, indeed? That is a good name, a good old +south-country Saxon name." + +"Yes," agreed Susanna; "but it is not so good as Antonio Francesco +Guido Maria Valdeschi della Spina, Conte di Sampaolo." + +"It is not so long, at any rate," said he. + +"Nor so full of colour," supplemented she. + +"As I hinted before, a name like a herald's tabard might be something +of an inconvenience in work-a-day England," he returned. Then he +smiled, rather sorrily. "So you 've known all there was to be known +from the beginning, and my laborious dissimulation has been useless?" + +"Not useless," she consoled him, her eyes mirthfully meeting his. "It +has amused me hugely." + +"You've--if you don't mind the expression--you've jolly well taken me +in," he owned, with a laconic laugh. + +"Yes," laughed she, her chin in the air. + +And for a few minutes they walked on without speaking. + +The wind buffetted their faces, it wafted stray locks of hair about +Susanna's temples, it smelt of the sea and the rain-clouds, though it +could not blow away the nearer, friendlier smell of the wet earth, nor +the sweetness of the clover and wild thyme. All round them, +sand-martins performed their circling, swooping evolutions. In great +squares fenced by hurdles, flocks of sheep nibbled the wet grass. Far +beneath, the waters stretched grey to the blurred horizon, where they +and the low grey sky seemed one. + +But I think our young man and woman were oblivious of things external, +absorbed in their private meditations and emotions. They walked on +without speaking, till a turn in the cliff-line brought them in sight +of the little town of Blye, at the cliffs' base, where it rose from the +surrounding green of Rowland Marshes like a smoky red island. + +"Blye," said Anthony, glancing down. + +"Yes," said Susanna. "I had no idea we had come so far." + +"I 'm afraid we have come _too_ far. I 'm afraid I have allowed you to +tire yourself," said he, with anxiety. + +"Tired!" she protested. "Could one ever get tired walking in such +exhilarating air as this?" + +And, indeed, her colour, her bright eyes, her animated carriage, put to +scorn his apprehension. + +"But we must turn back, all the same," she added, "or--we shall not be +home for tea." + +She spoke in bated accents, and made a grave face, as if to miss tea +were to miss a function sacrosanct. + +Anthony laughed, and they turned back. + +"It's a bit of a coincidence," he remarked presently, "that, coming +from Sampaolo, you should just have chanced to take a house at Craford." + +"Nothing could be simpler," said Susanna. "I wished to pass the summer +in England, and was looking for a country house. The agent in London +mentioned Craford New Manor, among a number of others, and Miss Sandus +and I came down to see it. The prospect of finding myself the tenant +of my exiled sovereign rather appealed to me--appealed to my sense of +romance and to my sense of humour. And then,"--her eyes +brightened,--"when we met your perfectly irresistible Mr. Willes, +hesitation was impossible. He kept breaking out with little snatches +of song, while he was showing us over the place; and afterwards he +invited us to his music-room, (or I think he called it his +_business_-room), and sang properly to us--his own compositions. He +even permitted me to play some of his accompaniments." + +Anthony chuckled. + +"I 'm sure he did--I see my Adrian," he said. "Well, I owe him more +than he 's aware of." + +"Your Excellency is the legitimate Count of Sampaolo," said Susanna. +"Antonio, by the Grace of God, and the favour of the Holy See, Count of +Sampaolo--thirty-fourth count, and eighteenth of the name. I am your +very loyal subject. Let's conspire together for your restoration." + +"You told me the other day that you were a subject of the Pope," +Anthony objected. + +"That is during this interregnum," she explained. "The Pope is our +liege lord's liege lord, and, in our liege lord's absence, our homage +reverts to him. I will never, at all events, admit myself to be a +subject of the Duke of Savoy. Let's plot for your restoration." + +"My 'restoration,' if that is n't too sounding a term, is a thing past +praying for," said Anthony. "But I don't know that I should very +keenly desire it, even if it were n't." + +"What!" cried she. "Would n't it be fun to potentate it on a scarlet +throne?" + +"Not such good fun, I fancy, as it is to squire it in these green +meadows," he responded. "Are n't scarlet thrones apt to be upholstered +with worries and responsibilities?" + +"Are n't green meadows sown thick with worries and responsibilities?" +asked Susanna. + +"Very likely," he consented. "But for a moderate stipend I can always +hire a man like Willes to reap and deal with them for me." + +"Could n't you hire 'a man like Willis' to extract them from your +scarlet cushions? Potentates have grand viziers. Mr. Willes would +make a delicious grand vizier," she reflected, with a kind of +wistfulness. + +"He would indeed," said Anthony. "And we should have comic opera again +with interest." + +"But you only look at it from a selfish point of view," said Susanna. +"Think of poor Sampaolo--under the old regime, an Island of the +Blessed." + +"Seriously, is there at Sampaolo, the faintest sentiment in favour of a +return to the old regime?" he asked. + +"Seriously, and more 's the pity, not the faintest," Susanna confessed. +"I believe I am the only legitimist in the island--save a few priests +and nuns, and they don't count. I am the entire legitimist party." + +She turned towards him, making a little bow. + +"Yet there is every manner of discontent with the present regime," she +said. "The taxes, the conscription, the difficulties put in the way of +commerce, the monstrous number of officials, and the corruption of them +one and all, are felt and hated by everyone. Under the old regime, for +example," she illustrated, "Vallanza was a free port,--now we have to +pay both a national duty and a municipal duty on exports as well as +imports; nothing was taxed but land, and that very lightly--now nearly +everything is taxed, even salt, even a working-man's tools, even a +peasant's necessary donkey, so that out of every lira earned the +government takes from forty to sixty centimes; the fisheries of +Sampaolo, which are very valuable, were reserved for the +Sampaolesi,--now they are open to all Italy, and Sampaolo, an island, +cannot compete with Ancona, on the railway. In Sampaolo to-day, if you +have any public business to transact, from taking out a dog license to +seeking justice in the law-courts, every official you have to deal +with, including the judges, expects his buonamano. If you post a +letter, it is an even chance whether the Post-Office young men won't +destroy the letter and steal the stamps; while, if you go to the +Post-Office to buy stamps, it is highly possible that they will +playfully sell you forged ones." + +She gave a bitter little laugh. + +"The present Prefect of Sampaolo," she continued her illustrations, +"formerly kept a disreputable public house, a sailors' tavern, at +Ancona. He is known to be a Camorrista; and though his salary is only +a few thousand lire, he lives with the ostentation of a parvenu +millionaire, and no one doubts where he gets his money. These evils +are felt by everyone. But the worst evil of all is the condition of +the Church. In the old days the Sampaolesi were noted for their piety; +now, even in modern irreligious Italy, you would seek far to unearth a +people so flagrantly irreligious. From high to low the men are +atheists; and the few men who are not, have to be very careful how they +show it. It is as much as a tradesman's trade is worth, as much as an +employe's place is worth, to go to Mass; the one will sit behind a +deserted counter, the other will learn that his services are no longer +needed. The present regime is liked by no one save the officials who +benefit by it; but it tickles the vanity of the Sampaolesi to call +themselves citizens of a Great Power; and so, though many are +republicans, many socialists, none are legitimists. They would prefer +any burden to the burden of insignificance; and under the reign of the +Valdeschi, though free, prosperous, and happy, Sampaolo was +insignificant." + +"You paint a very sad state of things," said Anthony. + +"Believe me," said Susanna, "my painting is pale beside the reality." + +"And, apparently, a hopeless state," he added. + +"Some day the Kingdom of Italy must end in a tremendous smash-up. +Afterwards, perhaps, there will be a readjustment. Our hope is in +that," said she. + +"Meanwhile, you make it clear, I am afraid," he argued, "that we should +gain only our labour for our pains in plotting a restoration." + +"We should have the excitement of plotting," laughingly argued she. + +"A plotter's best reward, like an artist's, you suggest, is the +pleasure he takes in his work. But now you are inciting me to look at +it again from the selfish point of view, for which a moment ago you +were upbraiding me," he reminded her. + +"_Do_ look at it from the selfish point of view," inconsistent and +unashamed, she urged. "Think of your lands, your houses, your palaces +and gardens, Castel San Guido, Isola Nobile, think of your pictures, +your jewels, the thousand precious heirlooms that are rightly yours, +think of your mere crude money. How can you bear the thought that +these are in the possession of a stranger--these, your inheritance, the +inheritance of nearly eight hundred years? Oh, if I were in your +place, the wrong of it would fill the universe for me. I could not +endure it." + +"One has no choice but to endure it," said he. "One benumbs resentment +with a fatalistic 'needs must.'" + +"One would do better to inflame resentment with a defiant 'where there +'s a will there 's a way,'" Susanna answered. + +"The way is not plain to see." + +"No--but we must discover the way. That"--she smiled--"shall be the +aim of our plotting." + +And again for some time they walked on without speaking. + +"If she could only guess how little my heart's desire is centred upon +the lands and houses of Sampaolo," thought Anthony, "how entirely it is +centred upon something much nearer home. I wonder what she would do if +I should tell her." + +And at that thought his heart winced with delight and terror. + +He looked sidewise at her. Her dark hair curled about her temples, and +drooped in a loose mass behind; her dark eyes shone; there was a warm +colour in her cheeks. Her head held high, her body defined itself in +lines of strength and beauty, as she walked by the cliff's edge, +resisting the wind, with the sea and the sky for background. He looked +at her, and wondered what would happen if he should tell her; and his +heart glowed with delight, and winced with delight and terror,--glowed +with delight in the supreme reality of her presence, winced with +delight and terror at the imagination of telling her. + +And then the suspended rain came down in a sudden pelting shower; and +Anthony put up his umbrella. To keep in its shelter, they had to walk +very close to each other, their arms touching sometimes. I daresay +they were both pretty wet when they reached Craford New Manor, but I +don't think either minded much. + +Miss Sandus, who met them in the hall, insisted that Susanna must go +upstairs and change; but to Anthony she said, "There 'll be tea in a +minute or two," and led the way to the drawing-room, the big, oblong, +sombre red-and-gold drawing-room, with its heavy furniture, its heavy +red damask hangings, its heavy gilded woodwork, its heavy bronzes and +paintings. + +Wet as he was, he followed, and sat down, with his conductress, before +the huge red-marble fireplace, in which a fire of logs was blazing--by +no means unwelcome on this not-uncharacteristic English summer's day. + + + + +XIII + +"Well, you 've had a good sousing--had you a good walk?" asked the +little brisk old woman, in her pleasant light old voice. + +"Yes--to Blye, or nearly," said Anthony. "The rain only caught us +towards the end. But what I stand in need of now is your sympathy and +counsel." + +She sat back in a deep easy chair, her pretty little hands folded in +her lap, her pretty little feet, in dainty slippers, high-heeled and +silver-buckled, resting on a footstool. It was a pretty as well as a +kind and clever face that smiled enquiringly up at him, from under her +soft abundance of brown hair. + +"What's the matter?" she asked. + +"Nothing much. I 'm merely in love," he answered. + +Miss Sandus sat forward. + +"In love? That's delightful. Whom with? With me? Is this a +declaration? Or a confidence?" + +She fixed him with her humorous bright old eyes. + +"It's both. Of course, I 'm in love with you. Everyone who knows you +is that," he predicated. "But also," he added, on a key of profound +melancholy, "if you will forgive my forcing the confidence upon you, +also with _her_." + +He glanced indicatively ceilingwards. + +"H'm," Miss Sandus considered, looking into the fire, "also with _her_." + +"Yes," said Anthony. + +"H'm," repeated Miss Sandus. "You go a bit fast. How long have you +known her?" + +"All my life. I never lived until I knew her," he averred. + +"It was inevitable that you should say that--men always say that," the +lady generalised. "I heard it for the first time fifty-five years ago." + +"Then, I expect, there must be some truth in it," was Anthony's +deduction. "Anyhow, I have known her long enough. One does n't need +_time_ in these affairs. One recognises a perfect thing--one +recognises one's affinity. One knows when one is hit. I 'm in love +with her. Give me your sympathy and counsel." + +"You have my sympathy. What counsel do you wish?" + +"What shall I do?" asked Anthony. "Drown myself? Take to drink?" + +"I should n't drown myself," said Miss Sandus. "Drowning is so wet and +chilly; and I 'm told it's frightfully unbecoming, into the bargain. +As for drink, I hear it's nothing like what it's cracked up to be." + +"I daresay it is n't," admitted Anthony, with a sigh. "I suppose +there's not the ghost of a chance for me?" he gloomed. + +"H'm," said Miss Sandus. + +"I suppose it would be madness on my part to speak to her?" he pursued. + +"That would depend a good deal, I should think, on the nature of what +you said," his counsellor suggested, smiling. + +"If I said point-blank I loved her--?" + +Miss Sandus looked hard at the fire, her brows drawn together, +pondering. Her brows were drawn together, but the _vis comica_ played +about her lips. + +"I think, if I were in your place, I should try it," she decided at +last. + +"_Would_ you?" said Anthony, surprised, encouraged. But, in a second, +despondency had closed round him again. "You see," he signified, "the +situation is uncommonly delicate--one 's at a double and twisted +disadvantage." + +"How so?" Miss Sandus asked, looking up. + +"She's established here for the summer. I, of all men, must n't be the +one to make Craford impossible for her." + +"I see," said Miss Sandus. "Yes, there's that to be thought of." + +"There 's such a deuced lot of things to be thought of," said he, +despairingly. + +"Let's hear the deuced lot," said the lady, with business-like +cheerfulness. + +"Well, to begin with," he brought out painfully, "there 's the fact +that she 's rich." + +"Yes, she's rich," conceded Miss Sandus. "Does that diminish her +attractions?" + +"You know what I mean," groaned Anthony, with no heart for trifling. + +"For the matter of that, are n't you rich yourself?" Miss Sandus +retorted. + +"Rich!" he cried. "I totter on the brink of destitution." + +"Oh?" she murmured. "I 'd imagined you were by way of being rather an +extensive land owner." + +"So I am," said he. "And my rather extensive lands, what with +shrinkages and mortgages, with wages, pensions, subscriptions, and +general expenses,--I doubt if they yield a net income of fifteen +hundred a year. And I 've not a stiver else in the world." + +"Poor, poor young man," she laughingly commiserated him. "And yet I +hardly think you 're poor enough to let the fact of her wealth weigh +with you. If a man has enough for himself, it does n't matter how much +more his wife may have, since he 'll not depend upon her for his +support. I should n't lie awake o' nights, bothering about the money +question." + +Anthony got up, and stood at the end of the fireplace, with his elbow +on the mantel. + +"You 're awfully good," he said, looking down at the gracious little +old figure in the easy chair. + +"I 'm an old woman," said she. "All old women love a lover. You renew +the romance of things for us. You transport us back, a century or so, +to our hot youth, when George the Third was king, and we were lovers +ourselves. _Et in Arcadia ego_--but I 've lost my Greek." + +"You 'll never lose your Pierian," said Anthony, bowing. + +He took her hand, bent over it, and touched it with his lips. + +"If flattery can make friends, you 'll not lack 'em," said she, with a +pretty, pleased old blush. + +"But I 've not yet emptied my sack," said he, relapsing into gloom. +"There's a further and perhaps a greater difficulty." + +"Let's hear the further difficulty," cheerily proposed Miss Sandus. +Then, as he appeared to hesitate, "Has it anything to do with her +former marriage?" + +"You divine my thoughts," he replied, in an outburst. "Yet," he more +lightly added, "you know, I don't in the least believe in her former +marriage. She seems so--well, if not exactly girlish, so young, so +immaculately fresh, it's impossible to believe in. None the less, of +course, it 's an irrevocable fact, and it's a complication. I must n't +intrude on sacred ground. If she still grieves . . ." + +A gesture conveyed the rest. + +"Look here," said Miss Sandus, abruptly. "I'm going to betray a trust. +Think what you will of me, I 'm going to violate a confidence. She +does n't grieve, she has never grieved. Your intuitions about her are +right to the letter. She was never married, except in name--it was +purely a marriage of convenience--the man was a complete nonentity. +Don't ask me the whys and the wherefores. But make what you will of +that which I 've been indiscreet enough to tell you." + +"I think you are an angel out of Heaven," cried Anthony, with ardour. +"If you could know the load you have lifted from my heart, the balm you +have poured into it." + +"If you have n't wealth," Miss Sandus went on, summing the issue up, +"you have a good position and--a _beau nom_. You have more than one +indeed, if all I hear be true. You 're both of the old religion, you +'re both at the mating age. In every way it would be a highly suitable +match. Wait for a good occasion--occasion's everything. Wait +for--what does the poet say?--for the time and the place and the loved +one all together, and tell her that you love her. And now--here comes +the tea." + +And with the tea came Susanna, in a wonderful rustling blue-grey +confection of the material that is known, I believe, as _voile_; and +immediately after Susanna, Adrian. + + + + +XIV + +Adrian was clearly in a state of excitement. His hair was ruffled, his +pink face showed a deeper flush, his lips were parted, his bosom heaved. + +He halted near the threshold, he threw up his hands, he rolled his +eyes, he nodded. It was patent that something had happened. + +"Oh, my dears! my dears!" he gasped. + +His dears attended, curious, expectant. But as he stood silent, and +merely cast intensely significant glances from one to the other, and +thence to the walls and ceiling, Anthony, constituting himself +spokesman for the company, asked, "Well--? What's the row?" + +"Oh, my dears!" Adrian repeated, and advanced a few steps further into +the room, his hands still raised. + +"What _is_ it?" besought Susanna, breathless. + +"Oh, my dearie dears!" he gasped. + +He sank upon a chair. + +"I must have a cup of tea before I can speak. Perhaps a cup of tea +will pull me together." + +Susanna hastily poured and brought him a cup of tea. + +"Ministering angel!" was his acknowledgment. He tasted his tea. "But +oh--unkind--you 've forgotten the sugar." He gazed helplessly at the +tea-table. + +Anthony brought him the sugar-bowl. + +"Are those cruffins?" he asked, eyeing a dish on the cake-stand. + +"They 're mumpers," said Miss Sandus, pushing the cake-stand towards +him. "But you 're keeping us on tenter-hooks." + +"I 'm _so_ sorry. It's beyond my control. I must eat a mumpet. +Perhaps then I 'll be able to tell you all about it." + +He ate his mumpet--with every sign of relish; he sipped his tea; his +audience waited. In the end he breathed a deep, long sigh. + +"I 've had an experience--I 've had the experience of my life," he said. + +"Yes--?" said they. + +"I could n't lose an instant--I had to run--to tell you of it. I felt +it would consume me if I could n't share it." + +Their faces proclaimed their eagerness to hear. + +"May I have another cup?" he asked Susanna. + +This time, however, he rose, and went to the table. + +"The world is so strange," he said. + +"Come! we 're waiting for the experience of your life," said Anthony. + +"You must n't hurry me--you must n't worry me," Adrian remonstrated. +"I 'm in a very over-wrought condition. You must let me approach it in +my own way." + +"I believe the flighty creature has forgotten it," said Anthony. + +"Flighty creature?" Adrian levelled eyes black with reproach upon him. +Then turning to the ladies: "That shows how he misunderstands me. Just +because I had a witty mother,--just because I 'm not a stolid, +phlegmatic ox of a John Bull,--just because I 'm sensitive and +impressionable,--he calls me flighty. But you know better, _don't_ +you? You, with all your fine feminine instincts and perceptions, you +know that I 'm really as steady and as serious as the pyramids of +Egypt. Even my very jokes have a moral purpose--and what I teach in +them, I learned in sorrow. Flighty!" He shot another black glance at +the offender, and held out his cup for a third filling. + +"Blessings be on the man who invented tea," he devoutly murmured. "On +Friday especially"--he appealed to Susanna--"_is n't_ it a boon? I +don't know how one could get through Friday without it. You poor dear +fortunate Protestants"--he directed his remark to Miss Sandus--"have no +conception how frequently Friday comes. I think there are seven +Fridays in the week." + +Susanna was softly laughing, where (in that wonderful, crisp, fresh, +close-fitting, blue-grey gown, with its frills and laces and +embroideries) she sat in the corner of a long, red-damask-covered sofa, +by the prettily decked tea-table. Anthony, standing near her, looking +down at her, was conscious of a great content in his heart, and of a +great craving. "How splendid she is. Was there ever such hair? Were +there ever such eyes, such lips? Was there ever such a frock? And +then that faint, faint, faintest perfume, like a remembrance of +violets!" I daresay something to this effect was vaguely singing +itself to his thoughts. + +"But the experience of your life? The experience of your life?" Miss +Sandus insisted. + +"He's clean forgotten it," Anthony assured her. + +"Forgotten it? Tush," Adrian flung back, with scorn. "But you 're all +so precipitate. One has to collect one's faculties. There are fifty +possible ways of telling a thing--one must select the most effective. +And then, if you come to that, life has so many experiences, and so +many different sorts of experience. Life, to the man with an open eye, +is just one sequence of many-coloured astonishments. I never could and +never shall understand how it is possible for people to be bored. What +do you say "--he looked towards the piano--"to my singing you a little +song?" + +"You 're inimitable--but you 're inimitably exasperating." Miss Sandus +gave him up, with a resigned toss of the head. + +"Do sing us a little song," Susanna begged. + +He set off, dancing, in the direction of the instrument. But midway +there he stopped, and half turned round, poising, as it were, in his +flight. + +"Grave or gay? Sacred or profane?" he asked from over his shoulder. + +"Anything--what you will," Susanna answered. + +"I 'll sing you a little Ave Maria," he decided. Whereupon, instead of +proceeding, he turned his back squarely upon the piano, and squarely +faced his hearers. + +"When a musician composes an Ave Maria," he instructed them, "what he +ought to try for is exactly what those nice old Fifteenth Century +painters in Italy tried for when they painted their Annunciations. He +should try to represent what one would have heard, if one had been +there, just as they tried to represent what one would have seen. Now, +how was it? What would one have heard? What did our Blessed Lady +herself hear? Look. It was the springtime, and it was the end of the +day. And she sat in her garden. And God sent His Angel to announce +the 'great thing' to her. But she must not be frightened. She, so +dear to God, the little maid of fifteen, all wonder and shyness and +innocence, she must not be frightened. She sat in her garden, among +her lilies. Birds were singing round her; the breeze was whispering +lightly in the palm-trees; near-by a brook was plashing; from the +village came the rumour of many voices. All the pleasant, familiar +sounds of nature and of life were in the air. She sat there, thinking +her white thoughts, dreaming her holy day-dreams. And, half as if it +were a day-dream, she saw an Angel come and kneel before her. But she +was not frightened--for it was like a day-dream--and the Angel's face +was so beautiful and so tender and so reverent, she could not have been +frightened, even if it had seemed wholly real. He knelt before her, +and his lips moved, but, as in a dream, silently. All the familiar +music of the world went on--the bird-songs, the whisper of the wind, +the babble of the brook, the rumour of the village. They all went +on--there was no pause, no hush, no change--nothing to startle +her--only, somehow, they seemed all to draw together, to become a +single sound. All the sounds of earth and heaven, the homely, familiar +sounds of earth, but the choiring of the stars too, all the sounds of +the universe, at that moment, as the Angel knelt before her, drew +together into a single sound. And 'Hail,' it said, 'hail Mary full of +grace!'" + +For a minute, after he had finished, Adrian stood still, and no one +spoke. Then he returned to the fireside, and sank back into his chair. + +"What a beautiful--what a divinely beautiful--idea," Susanna said at +last, with feeling. + +"Beautiful," emphatically chimed in Protestant Miss Sandus. + +"Stand still, true poet that you are,--I know you, let me try and name +you," laughed Anthony, from the hearth-rug. + +"Chrysostom--he should be named Chrysostom," said Miss Sandus. + +"The world is a garden of beautiful ideas," was Adrian's modest +acceptance of these tributes. "One only has to cull them. But +now"--he rose--"I must toddle home. Are you going my way?" he inquired +of Anthony. + +"What?" protested Miss Sandus. "You're leaving us, without telling the +experience of your life--the experience that you 'had to run' to tell +us!" + +"And without singing us your song," protested Susanna. + +Adrian wrung his hands. + +"Oh, cruel ladies!" he complained. "How can you be so unjust? I have +told you the experience of my life. And as for singing my song--" + +"He can always leave off singing when he hears a master talk," put in +Anthony. + +"As for singing my song," said Adrian, ignoring him, "I must go home +and try to write it." + + + + +XV + +And then the weather changed again. The clouds drifted away, the sun +came back, the sunshine was like gold that had been washed and +polished. The landscape smiled with a new radiance, gay as if it had +never gloomed. The grass was greener, the flowers were brighter, the +birds sang louder and clearer. The sea, with its shimmer and sheen, +was like blue silk; the sky was like blue velvet. The trees lifted up +their arms, greedy for the returned light and warmth, the sweeter air. + +Susanna, at noon-day, in her pine grove, by her brookside, was bending +down, peering intently into the transparent water. + +Anthony, seeking, found her there. + +"Books in the running brooks. I interrupt your reading?" he suggested, +as one ready, at a hint, to retire. + +"No," said she, looking up--giving, for a second, her eyes to his, her +dark, half-laughing eyes. "It is not a book--it is the genius of the +place." + +She pointed to where, at her feet, the hurrying stream rested an +instant, to take breath, in a deep, dusky little pool, overhung by a +tangle of eglantine. + +"See how big he is, and how old and grey and grim, and how motionless +and silent. It seems almost discourteous of him, almost contemptuous, +not to show any perturbation when one intrudes upon him, does n't it?" + +The genius of the place, floating in the still water, his fixed small +beady eyes just above the surface, was a big grey frog. + +"Books in the running brooks indeed, none the less," Susanna went on, +meditating. "Brooks--even artificial ones--are so mysterious, are n't +they? They are filled with so many mysterious living things--frogs and +tadpoles and newts and strange water-insects, nixies and pixies. +Undines and Sabrinas fair and water-babies; and such strange plants +grow in them; and who can guess the meaning of the tales they tell, in +that never-ceasing, purling tongue of theirs? . . . And Signor +Ranocchio? What do you suppose he is thinking of, as he floats there, +so still, so saturnine, so indifferent to us? He is plainly in a deep, +deep reverie. How wise he looks--a grey, wise old water-hermit, with +his head full of strange, unimaginable water-secrets, and strange, +ancient water-memories. Perhaps he is--what was his name?--the god of +streams himself, the old pagan god of streams, disguised as a frog for +some wicked old pagan-godish adventure. Perhaps that 's why he is n't +afraid of us--mere mortals. You 'd expect a mere frog to leap away or +plunge under, would n't you?" + +Again, for a second, she gave Anthony her eyes. They were filled with +pensiveness and laughter. + +In celebration of the sun's return, she wore a white frock (some filmy +crinkled stuff, crepe-de-chine perhaps), and carried a white sunshade, +a thing all frills and furbelows. This she opened, as, leaving the +shadow of the pines, she moved by the brook-side, down the lawn, where +the unimpeded sun shone hot, towards the pond. + +"The eighth wonder of the world--an olive-tree that bears roses," she +remarked. + +Her glance directed his to a gnarled old willow, growing by the pond. +Indeed, with the wryness of its branches, the grey-green of its leaves, +you might almost have mistaken it for an olive-tree. A rose-vine had +clambered up to the topmost top of it, and spread in all directions, so +that everywhere, vivid against the grey-green, hung red roses. + +"And now, if you will come, I 'll show you the ninth wonder of the +world," she promised. She led him down a long wide pathway, bordered +on each side by hortensias in full blossom, two swelling hedges of +fire, where purple dissolved into blue and crimson, blue into a hundred +green, mauve, and violet overtones and undertones of blue, and crimson +into every palest, vaguest, most elusive, and every intensest red the +broken sunbeam bleeds upon the spectrum. + +"But this," she said, "though you might well think it so, is not the +ninth wonder of the world." + +"I think the ninth wonder of the world, as well as the first and last, +is walking beside me," said Anthony, in silence, to the sky. + +The path ended in an arbour, roofed and walled with rose-vines; and +herein were garden-chairs and a table. + +"Shall we sit here a little?" proposed Susanna. + +She put down her sunshade, and they established themselves under the +roof of roses. On the table stood a Chinese vase, red and gold, with a +dragon-handled cover. + +"Occasion 's everything, beyond a doubt," thought Anthony. "But the +rub is to know an occasion when you see it. Is _this_ an occasion?" + +He looked at her, and his heart trembled, and held him back. + +"Oh, the fragrance of the roses," said Susanna. "How do they do it? A +pinch of sunshine, a drop or two of dew, a puff of air, a handful of +brown earth--and out of these they distil what seems as if it were the +very smell of heaven." + +But she spoke in tones noticeably hushed, as if fearing to be overheard. + +Anthony looked round. + +A moment ago there had not been a bird in sight (though, of course, the +day was thridded through and through with the notes of those who were +out of sight). But now, in the path before the arbour, all facing +towards it, there must have been a score of birds--three or four +sparrows, a pair of chaffinches, and then greenfinches, greenfinches, +greenfinches. They were all facing expectantly towards the arbour, +hopping towards it, hesitating, hopping on again, coming nearer, nearer. + +Susanna, moving softly, lifted the dragon-handled cover from the +Chinese vase. It was full of birdseed. + +"Ah, I see," said Anthony. "Pensioners. But I suppose you have +reflected that to give alms to the able-bodied is to pauperise them." + +"Hush," she whispered, scorning his economics. "Please make yourself +invisible, and be quiet." + +Then, taking a handful of seed, and leaning forward, softly, softly she +began to intone-- + + "Tu-ite, tu-ite, + Uccelli, fringuelli, + Passeri, verdonelli, + Venite, venite!" + +and so, da capo, over and over again. + +And the birds, hesitating, gaining confidence, holding back, hopping +on, came nearer, nearer. A few, the boldest, entered the arbour . . . +they all entered . . . they hesitated, hung back, hopped on. Now they +were at her feet; now three were in her lap; others were on the table. +On the table, in her lap, at her feet, she scattered seed. Then she +took a second handful, and softly, softly, to a sort of lullaby tune, + + "Perlino, Perlino, + Perlino Piumino, + Where is Perlino? + Come, Perlino," + +she sang, her open hand extended. + +A greenfinch new up to the table, flew down to her knee, flew up to her +shoulder, flew down to her hand, and, perching on her thumb, began to +feed. + +And she went on with her soft, soft intoning. + + "This is Perlino, + So green, oh, so green, oh. + He is the bravest heart, + The sweetest singer, of them all. + I 'm obliged to impart my information + In the form of a chant; + For if I were to speak it out, prose-wise, + They would be frightened, they would fly away. + But I hope you admire + My fine contempt for rhyme and rhythm. + Is this not the ninth wonder of the world? + Would you or could you have believed, + If you had n't seen it? + That these wild birds, + Not the sparrows only, + But the shy, shy finches, + Could become so tame, so fearless? + Oh, it took time--and patience. + One had to come every day, + At the same hour, + And sit very still, + And softly, softly, + Monotonously, monotonously, + Croon, croon, croon, + As I am crooning now. + At first one cast one's seed + At a distance-- + Then nearer, nearer, + Till at last-- + Well, you see the result." + + +Her eyes laughed, but she was very careful not to move. Anthony, +blotted against the leafy wall behind him, sat as still as a statue. +Her eyes laughed. "Oh, such eyes!" thought he. Her red lips, smiling, +took delicious curves. And the hand on which Perlino perched, with its +slender fingers, its soft modelling, its warm whiteness, was like a +thing carved of rose-marble and made alive. + +"And Perlino," she resumed her chant-- + + "Perlino Piumino + Is the bravest of them all. + And now that he has made an end + Of his handful of seed, + I hope he will be so good + As to favour us with a little music. + Sometimes he will, + And sometimes he just obstinately won't. + Tu-ite, tu-ite, tu-ite, + Andiamo, Perlino, tu-ite! + Canta, di grazia, canta." + + +And after some further persuasion,--you will suspect me of romancing, +but upon my word,--Perlino Piumino consented. Clinging to Susanna's +thumb, he threw back his head, opened his bill, and poured forth his +crystal song--a thin, bright, crystal rill, swift-flowing, winding in +delicate volutions. And mercy, how his green little bosom throbbed. + +"Is n't it incredible?" Susanna whispered. "It is wonderful to feel +him. His whole body is beating like a heart." + +And when his song was finished, she bent towards him, and--never, never +so softly--touched the top of his green head with her lips. + +"And, now--fly away, birdlings--back to your affairs," she said. +"Good-bye until to-morrow." + +She rose, and there was an instant whir of fluttering wings. + +"Shall we walk?" she said to Anthony. She shook her frock, to dust the +last grains of birdseed from it. "If we stay here, they will think +there is more to come. And they 've had quite sufficient for one day." + +She put up her sunshade, and they turned back into the alley of +hortensias. + +"You find me speechless," said Anthony. "Of course, it has n't really +happened. But how--how do you produce so strong an illusion of +reality? I could have sworn I saw a greenfinch feeding from your hand, +I could have sworn I saw him cling there, and heard him sing his song. +I could have sworn I saw you kiss him." + +Susanna, under her white sunshade, laughed, softly, victoriously. + +"Speaking with all moderation," he declared, "it is the most marvellous +performance I have ever witnessed. If it had been a sparrow--or a +pigeon--but--a greenfinch--!" + +"There are very few birds that can't be tamed," she said. "You 've +only got to familiarise them with your presence at a certain spot at a +certain hour, and keep very still, and be very, very gentle in your +movements, and croon to them, and bring them food. I have tamed wilder +birds than greenfinches, in Italy--I have tamed goldfinches, blackcaps, +and even an oriole. And if you have once tamed a bird, and made him +your friend, he never forgets you. Season after season, when he +returns from his migration, he recognises you, and takes up the +friendship where it was put down. Until at last"--her voice sank, and +she shook her head--"there comes a season when he returns no more." + +They had strolled beyond the hortensias, into a shady avenue of elms. +Round the trunk of one of these ran a circular bench. Susanna sat +down. Anthony stood before her. + +"I trust, at any rate," she said, whimsically smiling, "that the moral +of my little exhibition has not been lost upon you?" + +"A moral? Oh?" said he. "No. I had supposed it was beauty for +beauty's sake." + +"Ah, but beauty sometimes points a moral in spite of itself. The very +obvious moral of this is that where there 's a will there 's a way." + +She looked up, making her eyes grave; then smiled again. + +"We must resume our plotting. I think I have found the way by which +the Conte di Sampaolo can regain his inheritance." + +Anthony laughed. + +"There are exactly two ways by which he can do that," he said. "One is +to equip an army, and go to war with the King of Italy, and--a mere +detail--conquer him. The other is to procure a wishing-cap and wish +it. Which do you recommend?" + +"No," said Susanna. "There is a third and simpler way." + +She was tracing patterns on the ground with the point of her parasol. + +"There is the way of marriage." + +She completed a circle, and began to draw a star within it. + +"You should go to Sampaolo, and marry your cousin. So"--her eyes on +her drawing, she spoke slowly, with an effect supremely impersonal--"so +you would come to your own again; and so a house divided against +itself, an ancient noble house, would be reunited; and an ancient +historic line, broken for a little, would be made whole." + +She put the fifth point to her star. + +Anthony stood off, half laughing, and held up his hands, in admiring +protest. + +"Dear lady, what a programme!" was his laughing ejaculation. + +"I admit," said she, critically regarding the figure at her feet, "that +at first blush it may seem somewhat fantastic. But it is really worth +serious consideration. You are the heir to a great name, which has +been separated from the estates that are its appanage, and to a great +tradition, which has been interrupted. But the heir to such a name, to +such a tradition, is heir also to great duties, to great obligations. +He has no right to be passive, or to think only of himself. The +thirty-fourth Count of Sampaolo owes it to his thirty-three +predecessors--the descendant of San Guido owes it to San Guido--to +bestir himself, to do the very utmost in his power to revive and +maintain the tradition. He is a custodian, a trustee. He has no right +to sit down, idle and contented, to the life of a country gentleman in +England. He is the banner-bearer of his race. He has no right to +leave the banner folded in a dark closet. He must unfurl his banner, +and bear it bravely in the sight of the world. That is the +justification, that is the mission, of _noblesse_. A great nobleman +should not evade or hide his nobility--he should bear it nobly in the +sight of the world. That is the mission of the Conte di Sampaolo--that +is the work he was born to do. It seems to me that at present he is +pretty thoroughly neglecting his work." + +She shot a smile at him, then lowered her eyes again upon her encircled +star. + +"You preach a very eloquent sermon," said Anthony, "and in principle I +acknowledge its soundness. But in practice--there is just absolutely +nothing the Conte di Sampaolo can do." + +"He can go to Vallanza, and marry his cousin," reiterated she. "Thus +the name and the estates would be brought together again, and the +tradition would be renewed." + +She had slipped a ring from her finger, and was vaguely playing with it. + +Anthony only laughed. + +"Does n't my proposition deserve better than mere laughter?" said she. + +"I should laugh," said he, with secret meaning, "on the wrong side of +my mouth, if I thought you wished me to take it seriously." ("If I +thought she seriously wished me to marry another woman!" he breathed, +shuddering, to his soul.) + +"Why should n't I wish you to take it seriously?" she asked, studying +her ring. + +"The marriage of cousins is forbidden by Holy Church," said he. + +"She 's only your second or third cousin. The nearest Bishop would +give you a dispensation," answered Susanna, twirling her ring round in +the palm of her hand. + +"There would, of course, be no question of the lady rejecting me," he +laughed. + +"You would naturally endeavour to make yourself agreeable to her, and +to capture her affections," she retorted, slipping the ring back upon +its finger, and clasping her hands. "Besides, she could hardly be +indifferent to the circumstance that you have it in your power to +regularise her position. She calls herself the Countess of Sampaolo. +She could do so with a clear conscience if she were the wife of the +legitimate Count." + +"She can do so with a clear conscience as it is," said Anthony. "She +has the patent of the Italian King." + +"Pinchbeck to gold," said Susanna. "A title improvised yesterday--and +a title dating from 1104! The real thing, and a tawdry imitation. Go +to Sampaolo, make her acquaintance, fall in love with her, persuade her +to fall in love with you, marry her,--and there will be the grand old +House of Valdeschi itself again." + +Her eyes glowed. + +But Anthony only laughed. + +"You counsel procedures incompatible," he said. "If I am the custodian +of a tradition, which you would have me maintain, how better could I +play it false, than by marrying, of all women, the granddaughter, the +heiress and representative, of the man who upset it?" + +"You would heal a family feud, and blot out a wrong," said she, drawing +patterns again with her sunshade. "Magnanimity should be _part_ of +your tradition. You would not visit the sins of the fathers upon the +children? You don't hold your cousin personally responsible?" + +She looked up obliquely at him. + +"Personally," he answered, "my cousin may be the most innocent soul +alive. She is born to a ready-made situation, and accepts it. But it +is a situation which I, if I am to be loyal to my tradition, cannot +accept. It is the negation of my tradition. I am obliged to submit to +it, but I can't accept it. My cousin is the embodiment of the +anti-tradition. You say--marry her. That is like inviting the Pope to +ally himself with the Antipope." + +"No, no," contended Susanna, arresting her sunshade in the midst of an +intricate vermiculation. "For the Antipope must be in wilful personal +rebellion; while your cousin is what she is, quite independently of her +own will--perhaps in spite of it. Imagine me, for instance, in her +place--me," she smiled, "the sole legitimist in Sampaolo. What could I +do? I find myself in possession of stolen goods. I would, if I could, +restore them at once to their rightful owner. But I can't--because I +am only the tenant for life. I can't sell them, nor give them away, +nor even, dying, dispose of them by will. I am only the tenant for +life. After me, they must pass to the next heir. So, if I wish to +restore them to their rightful owner, there 's but a single means of +doing so open to me--I must induce the rightful owner to make me his +wife." + +She smiled again, mirthfully, but with conviction, with conclusiveness, +as who should say, "I have proved my point." + +"Ah," pronounced Anthony, with stress, though perhaps a trifle +ambiguously, "if it were you, it would be different." + +"In your cousin's case, to be sure," pursued Susanna, "there is one +other means. You happen to be, on the Valdeschi side, her nearest +kinsman, and therefore, until she marries and has children, you are her +heir presumptive. Well, if she were to retire into a convent, taking +vows of celibacy and poverty, then what they call the usufruct of her +properties could be settled upon her heir presumptive for her lifetime, +the properties themselves passing to him at her death." + +"We will wish the young lady no such dreary fate," laughed Anthony. +"Fortunately for her, she is not troubled by your scruples." + +"How do you know she is n't?" asked Susanna. + +"We can safely take it for granted," said he. "Besides, you have told +me so yourself." + +"_I_ have told you so--?" she puzzled. + +"You have told me that there is but one legitimist in Sampaolo. If my +cousin were troubled by your scruples, she would make a second. And of +the whole population of the island, can you suggest a less probable +second?" + +"They say that Queen Anne was at heart a Jacobite," Susanna reminded +him. "Your cousin is young. One could lay the case before her, one +could work upon her conscience. And, supposing her conscience to be +once roused, then, if you could n't be brought to offer her your hand, +she 'd have no choice but renunciation and the Cloister." + +"Let us hope, therefore, that her conscience may remain comfortably +asleep," said he. "For even to save her from the Cloister, I could not +offer her my hand." + +Susanna, leaning back against the rugged trunk of her elm, gazed down +the long shaded avenue, and appeared to muse. Here and there, the sun, +finding a way through the green cloud of leaves, a visible fillet of +light in the dim atmosphere, dappled the brown earth with rose. In her +white frock, her dark hair loose about her brow, a faint colour in her +cheeks, her dark eyes musing, musing but half smiling at the same time, +I think she looked very charming, very interesting, very warmly and +richly feminine, I think she looked very lovely, very lovable; and I +don't wonder that Anthony--as his eyes rested upon her, fed upon +her--felt something violent happen in his heart. + +"Occasion is everything--the occasion has come--the occasion has come," +a silent voice seemed to incite him. And as it were unseen hands +seemed to push him on. + +The blood rushed tumultuously to his head. + +"I 'm going to risk it, I 'm going to risk everything," he decreed, +suddenly, recklessly. + +"There are a thousand reasons why I could not offer her my hand," he +said. "One reason is that I am in love with another woman." + +His throat was dry, his voice sounded strained. His heart beat hard. +He had burned his first bridge. He kept his eyes on her. + +She continued to gaze down the avenue. I think she caught her breath, +though. + +"Oh--?" she said, after an instant, on a tone that tried in vain to be +a tone of conventional politeness. She had been perfectly aware, of +course, that it was bound to come. She had fancied herself perfectly +prepared to cope with it, when it should come. But she had not +expected it to come just yet. It took her off her guard. + +"Yes," said he; "and you know whom I am in love with." + +This time there could be no doubt that she caught her breath. She had +overestimated her power of self-command, her talent for dissembling. +She had known that it was bound to come; she had imagined that she +could meet it lightly, humorously, that she could parry it, and never +betray herself. And here she was, catching her breath, whilst her +heart trembled and sank and sang within her. She bit her lip, in +vexation; she closed her eyes, in ecstasy; she kept her face turned +down the avenue, in fear. + +Anthony's heart was leaping. A wild hope had kindled in it. + +"I am in love with _you_--with _you_," he cried, in a voice that shook. + +She did not speak, she did not look at him, but she caught her breath +audibly, a long tremulous breath. + +He knelt at her feet, he seized her hands. She did not withdraw them. + +"I love you, I love you. Don't keep your face turned from me. Look at +me. Answer me. I love you. Will you marry me?" + +He felt her hands tremble in his. Her surrender of them--was it not +fuel to the fire of his hope? He put his lips to them, he kissed them, +he covered them with kisses. They were warm, and sweet to smell, +faintly, terribly sweet to smell. + +At last she drew them away. She shrunk away herself, back along her +bench. She bit her lip, in chagrin at her weakness, her +self-indulgence. She knew that she was losing ground, precious, +indispensable, to that deep-laid, secret, cherished plot of hers. But +her heart sang and sang, but a joy such as she had never dreamed of +filled it. Oh, she had known that her heart would be filled with joy, +when he should say, "I love you"; but she had never dreamed of a joy +such as this. This was a joy the very elements of which were new to +her; different, not in degree only, but in kind, from any joy she had +experienced before. She could not so soon put it by, she could not yet +bid herself be stern. + +"Look at me. Answer me. I love you. Will you marry me?" he cried. + +But she _must_ bid herself be stern. "I must, I must," she thought. +She made a mighty effort. + +"No," she said, in a suffocated voice, painfully. + +"Oh, look at me," he pleaded. "Why do you keep your face turned away? +Why do you say no? I love you. Will you marry me? Say yes, say yes." + +But she did not look at him. + +"No. I can't. Don't ask me," she said. + +"Why can't you? I love you. I adore you. Why should n't I ask you?" + +The palest flicker of a smile passed over her face. + +"I want you to marry your cousin," she said. + +"Is that the only reason?" + +"Is n't that a sufficient reason?" + +Again there was the flicker of a smile. + +"For heaven's sake, look at me. Don't keep your face turned away. +Then you don't--you don't care for me--not an atom?" + +"I"--she could not deny herself one instant of weakness more, one +supreme instant; afterwards she would be stern in earnest, she would +draw back--"I never meant to let you know I did." + +And for the first time between two heart-beats her eyes met his, stayed +with his. + +For the time between two heart-beats, Time stood still, the world stood +still, Time and the world ceased to be. Her eyes stayed with his. +There was nothing else in all created space but her two eyes, her soft +and deep, dark and radiant eyes. Far, far within them shone a light. +Her soul came forth from its hiding place, and shining far, far within +her eyes, showed itself to his soul, yielded itself to his soul. + +"Then you do--you do," he cried. It was almost a wail. The universe +reeled round him. + +He had sprung to his feet. He threw himself on the bench beside her, +facing her. He seized her hands again. He tried again to get her eyes. + +"No, no, no," she said, freeing her hands, shrinking from him. "No. I +don't--I don't." + +"But you do. You said you did. You--you showed that you did." + +He waited, triumphant, anxious, breathless. + +"No, no, no. I did n't say it--I did n't mean it." + +"But you did mean it. Your eyes . . ." + +But when he remembered her eyes, speech deserted him. He could only +gasp and tingle. + +"No, no, no," she said. "I meant nothing. Please--please don't come +so near. Stand up--there" (her hand indicated where), "and we will +speak of it--reasonably." + +Her hand remained suspended, enjoining obedience. + +Anthony, perplexed, dashed a little, obeyed, and stood before her. + +"We must be reasonable," she said. "I meant nothing. If I seemed +moved, it was because--oh, because I was so taken by surprise, I +suppose." + +She was getting herself in hand. She looked at him quite fearlessly +now, with eyes that pretended to forget they had ever been complaisant. + +"The Count of Sampaolo," she argued calmly, "is not free to marry whom +he will. He has his inheritance to regain, his mission to fulfil. I +will never allow myself to be made an obstacle to that. He must marry +no one but his cousin. I will never stand between him and her--between +him and what is equally his interest and his duty." + +But Anthony, too, was getting himself in hand. + +"Look here," he said, with some peremptoriness. "You may just once for +all eliminate my cousin from your calculations. I beg you to +understand that even if you did n't exist, there could be no question +of my cousin. No earthly consideration could induce me to make any +sort of terms with that branch of my family--let alone a marriage. +So!" A wave of the hand dismissed his cousin for ever to Crack-limbo. +"But as you do exist, and as I happen to love you, and as I happen to +have discovered--what I could never wildly have dared to hope--that you +are not utterly indifferent to me, I may tell you that I intend to +marry _you--you--you_. You imperial, adorable woman! You!" + +Susanna hastily turned her eyes down the avenue. + +"In fact," Anthony added, with serene presumption, "I have the honour +to apprise you of our engagement." + +She could n't repress a nervous little laugh. Then she rose. + +"They 'll be expecting me at the house," she said, and moved in that +direction. + +"I 'm waiting for your congratulations," said he, walking beside her. + +She gave another little laugh. And neither spoke again until they had +reached the hall door, which he opened for her. + +"Well?" he asked. + +"Come back after luncheon," said she. "Come back at three o'clock--and +I will tell you something." + + + + +XVI + +"Own up--and name the day," said Miss Sandus, when she had heard +Susanna's story. "There 's nothing left for you to do, my dear, but to +make a clean breast of it, and name the happy day." + +They were in the billiard-room, after luncheon. Miss Sandus was +sipping coffee, while Susanna, cue in hand, more or less absently +knocked about the balls. So that their remarks were punctuated by an +erratic series of ivory _toc-tocs_. + +"I 'm afraid if I own up," she answered, "there won't be any happy day. +He swore that no earthly consideration could induce him to make any +sort of terms with my branch of the family. Those were his very words." + +_Toc_--she pocketed the red. + +"Fudge," pronounced Miss Sandus. "Capital words for eating. He 'll +gobble, he 'll bolt 'em. Give him the chance. It's astonishing how +becoming it is to you young women to play billiards, how it brings out +the grace of your blessed figures. Say, 'I, even I, am your cousin. +Do you still decline to marry her?'--and see what he 'll do. No, +no--you want to take it a little more to the right and lower down. +That's it." (_Toc-toc_--Susanna made a cannon.) "He 'll jump at you. +I know the man. There 's no possible question of it. So I must be +thinking of the gown I 'm to wear as bridesmaid." + +She laughed, and put down her cup. + +Susanna, trying for another cannon, fluked another pocket. + +"No," she said. "That would be to miss half the fun of the situation. +The thing must be more dramatic. Besides, I want it to happen at +Sampaolo. I want him to go to Sampaolo. And I want to tempt him and +test him. + + "'Not so, said she, but I will see + If there be any faith in man.'" + +she quoted (or misquoted?--I forget). "He shall go to Sampaolo and be +tempted. With his own eyes he shall behold the heritage of the +Valdeschi. Then he shall be approached by his cousin's friends,--by +the reluctant but obedient Commendatore Fregi, for example,--and sorely +tempted. I 've got rather a subtle little scheme. I 'll explain it to +you later--he 'll be arriving at any moment now. He shall leave for +Sampaolo to-morrow morning. You and I will leave the morning after, if +you please. Only, of course, he's to know nothing about that--he's to +suppose that we 're remaining here." + +She attempted a somewhat delicate stroke off the cushion, and achieved +it. + +"Good shot," approved Miss Sandus. "But you are forgetting Mr. Willes. +Mr. Willes will tell him." + +"No, I 've not forgotten Mr. Willes," said Susanna. "I should n't very +much mind letting Mr. Willes into my confidence. But I think on the +whole I 'll make him take Mr. Willes with him." + +"You 're nothing if not arbitrary," Miss Sandus laughed. + +"I come of a line of tyrants," said Susanna. "And, anyhow, what's the +good of possessing power, if you 're not to exercise and enjoy it?" + +The clock on the mantelpiece began to strike three. + +"Mr. Craford," announced a servant. + +Miss Sandus fled from the room by a French window. + +Susanna returned her cue to the rack. + + + + +XVII + +Anthony had passed, I imagine, the longest hour and a half that he had +ever passed, or will ever be likely to pass: the longest, the most +agitated, the most elated, the most impatient. + +Could he regard himself as accepted? Well, certainly, as the next +thing to it. And, in any case, she had confessed that she cared for +him. + +"I never meant to let you know I did." + +Oh, he heard it again and again. Again and again her eyes met his, as +they had met them at that consummate moment, discovering her soul to +him. Again and again he knelt before her, and kissed her hands, warm +and soft, and sweet with that faint perfume which caused cataclysms in +his heart. + +He went home, he went in to luncheon. Somehow he must wear out the +time till three o'clock. + +"Come back at three o'clock--and I will tell you something." + +What had she to tell him? What would he hear when he went back at +three o'clock? Here was a question for hope and fear to play about. + +Adrian prattled merrily over the luncheon table. I wonder how many of +his words Anthony took in. + +After luncheon he tramped about the park, counting the slow +minutes,--kissing her hands, looking into her eyes, racking his brain +with speculations as to what she might have to tell him, hoping, +fearing, and counting the long slow minutes. And his tug at Susanna's +doorbell coincided with the very first stroke of three from her +billiard-room clock. + +His throat was dry, his pulses pounded, his knees all but knocked +together under him, as he followed the manservant across the hall, into +her presence. + + + + +XVIII + +Susanna returned her cue to the rack. + +Anthony stood near the door, an incarnate question. + +"Well--?" he demanded, in a voice that was tense. + +"Come in," she amiably welcomed him. "Sit down." + +She pointed to a chair. She wore the same white frock that she had +worn before luncheon, only she had stuck a red rose in her belt. + +He did n't sit down, but he came forward, and stood by the fireplace. + +"What an age, what an eternity it has been," he profoundly sighed. "I +have grown grey waiting for this instant." + +She studied him, with amusement. + +"The grey is very skilfully concealed," she remarked. + +"The grey is in my soul," said he, with the accent of tragedy. +"Well--?" he again demanded. + +"Well what?" teased she, arching her eye-brows innocently. + +"Oh, come," he remonstrated. "Don't torture a defenceless animal. +Seal my fate, pronounce my doom. I love you--love you--love you. Will +you have me?" + +She stood silhouetted against a window, the light sifting and shining +through her hair. + +"I have a condition to make," she said. "You must promise to comply +with my condition--and then I can answer you." + +Her dark eyes smiled into his, quizzically, but perhaps with a kind of +tenderness too. + +He came nearer. + +"A condition? What's the condition?" + +"No--you must promise first to agree to it," she said. + +"A promise in the dark?" he objected. + +"Oh, if you can't trust me!" she cried, with a little shrug. + +"There's mischief in your eye," said he. "The man deserves what he +gets, who makes promises in the dark." + +"Then make the promise--and see whether you get what you deserve," she +laughed. + +"Mercy forbid that any man should get what he deserves," said he. "I +am a suppliant for grace, not justice." + +Susanna laughed again. She took her rose from her belt, and brushed +her face with it, touched it with her lips. + +"Do you care for roses?" she asked, with a glance of intellectual +curiosity, as one who spoke solely for the purpose of acquiring +knowledge. + +"I should care for that rose," said he, vehemently. + +She held it out to him, still laughing, but with a difference. + +He seized the rose--and suddenly, over-mastered by his impulse, +suddenly, violently, made towards her. + +But she drew away, extending her hands to protect herself. + +"I beg your pardon," he said, pulling himself up. "But you should make +a conscientious effort to be a trifle less adorable." + +He pressed her rose to his mouth, crushing it, breathing in its scent, +trying to possess himself of the touch her mouth had left upon it. + +She sank into the corner of a sofa, and leaned back among the cushions. + +"Well, do you promise?" she asked, smiling up at him. + +"Do you flatter yourself that you 're a trifle less adorable now?" +asked he, smiling down. + +"Do you promise?" she repeated, taking away her eyes. + +"I clean forget what it was you wished me to promise," said he. + +"You are to promise to comply with my condition. Do you?" + +"I suppose I must," he answered, with a gesture of submission. + +"But do you? You must say"--she made her voice sepulchral--"'I +solemnly do.'" + +She gave him her eyes again, held him with them. + +He was rigid for a minute, gazing fixedly at her. + +"I solemnly do," he said at last, relaxing. "What's the condition?" + +"The condition is an easy one--only a little journey to make." + +"A journey to make? Away from Craford?" + +He stood off, suspicious, prepared to be defiant. + +"Yes," said she, playing with the lace of one of her cushions. + +"Not for worlds," said he. "Anything else. But I won't leave Craford." + +"You have promised," said she. + +"Ah, but I did n't dream there would be any question of my leaving +Craford. There's a woman at Craford I 'm in love with. I won't leave +Craford." + +"You have solemnly promised," said she. + +"Hang my promise," gaily he outfaced her. + +"Promises are sacred." She looked serious. + +"Not promises extorted in the dark," contended he. + +"Give me back my rose," said she, putting forth her hand. + +"No," said he, pressing the rose anew to his face. + +"Yes," said she, her foolhardy hand awaiting it. + +For, instead of giving her back her rose, he threw himself upon her +hand, and had kissed it before she could catch it away. + +She bit her lip, frowning, smiling. + +"Then will you keep your promise?" she asked severely. + +"If you insist upon it, I suppose I 'll have to," he grudgingly +consented. "But a journey!" he sighed. "Ah, well. Where to?" + +Her eyes gleamed, maliciously. + +"To a very pleasant place," she said. "The journey is a pious +pilgrimage." + +"Craford, just now, is the only pleasant place on the face of the +earth," vowed he. "A pious pilgrimage? Where to?" + +He had, I think, some vague notion that she might mean a pilgrimage to +the Holy Well of St. Winefride in Wales; though, for that matter, why +not to the Holy Well of St. Govor in Kensington Gardens? + +"A pious pilgrimage to the home of your ancestors," said Susanna. "The +journey is a journey to the little, unknown, beautiful island of +Sampaolo." + +Her eyes gleamed, maliciously, exultantly. + +But Anthony fell back, aghast. + +"Sampaolo?" he cried. + +"Yes," said she, quietly. + +"Oh, I say!" He writhed, he groaned. "That is too much. Really!" + +"That is my condition," said Susanna. Her mouth was firm. + +"You don't mean it--you can't mean it." He frowned his incredulity. + +"I mean it literally," she persisted. "You must make a journey to +Sampaolo." + +"But what's the _sense_ of it?" he besought her. "Why on earth should +you _impose_ such a condition?" He frowned his incomprehension. + +"Because you have asked me to be your wife," she answered. + +He shook his head, mournfully, scornfully. + +"If ever an explanation darkened counsel!" mournfully he jeered. + +"You have asked me to be your wife. I reply that first you must make a +journey to Sampaolo. Is that not simple?" said Susanna. + +He was walking about the room. + +"Do you mean to say "--he came to a standstill--"that if I make a +journey to Sampaolo, you _will_ be my wife?" + +"I mean to say that I will never be your wife unless you do." + +"But if I do--?" + +She leaned back, smiling, among her cushions. + +"That will depend upon the result of your journey." + +He shook his head again. + +"I 'm utterly at sea," he professed. "I have never heard anything that +sounded so bewilderingly devoid of reason. Explain yourself. What is +it all about?" + +"Reflect for a moment," said she, assuming a tone argumentative. +"Consider the embarrassment of my position. You ask me to be your +wife. But if I consent, you give up your only chance of regaining your +Italian patrimony--do you not? But a man should at least _know_ what +he is giving up. _You_ should know what your patrimony consists of. +You should know, as the saying is, what you 'stand to lose.' Therefore +you must go to Sampaolo, and see it with your own eyes. Isola Nobile, +Castel San Guido, the Palazzo Rosso, Villa Formosa--you must see them +all, with their gardens and their pictures and their treasures. And +then you must ask yourself in cold blood, 'Is that woman I left at +Craford really worth it?'" + +She smiled. But, as he made to speak, her hand commanded silence. + +"No, no," she said. "You have not seen them yet, so you can't tell. +When you have seen them, you will very likely thank me for leaving you +free to-day. You will think, with a shudder, 'Good heavens, what a +narrow escape! What if she had taken me at my word?' Then you can +offer yourself to your cousin, and let us hope she 'll accept you." + +Again, as he made to speak, her hand silenced him. + +"But if," she went on, "if, by any chance, you should _not_ thank +me,--if, in cold blood, with your eyes open, you should decide that the +woman you left at Craford _is_ worth it,--why, then you can return to +her, and renew your suit. And she'll have the satisfaction of knowing +that _you_ know what's she costing you." + +Anthony stood over her, looked down upon her. + +"This is the most awful nonsense," he said, with a grave half-laugh. + +"It is my condition," said she. "You must start for Sampaolo to-morrow +morning." + +"You 'll never really send me on such a fool's errand," he protested. + +"You have promised," said she. + +"You won't hold me to the promise." + +"If I release you from it," she warned him, her eyes becoming +dangerous, "there must be no more talk of marriage between you and me." + +He flung away from her, and resumed his walk about the room. He gazed +distressfully into space, as if appealing to invisible arbiters. + +"This is too childish--and too cruel," he complained. "I 'm not an +idiot. I don't need an object-lesson. I am not utterly without +imagination. I can see Sampaolo with my mind's eye. And seeing it, I +decide in cold blood that not for forty million Sampaolos would I give +up the woman I adore. There--I 've made the journey, and come back. +Now I renew my suit. Will you have me?" + +He stood over her again. + +"There must be no more talk of having or not having between you and +me--till you have kept your promise," said Susanna, coldly avoiding his +gaze. + +Anthony clenched his fists, ground his teeth. + +"What folly--what obstinacy--what downright wanton capriciousness," in +anger he muttered. + +"And yet, two minutes ago, this man said he loved me," Susanna +murmured, meaningly, to the ceiling. + +"If I were n't unfortunate enough to love you, I should n't mind +your--your perfectly barbarous unkindness." + +He glared at her. But she met his glare with a smile that disarmed it. +And, in spite of himself, he smiled too. + +"Will you start to-morrow?" she asked, softly, coaxingly. + +"This is outrageous," he said. "How long do you expect me to stay?" + +"Oh, for that," she considered, "I shall be very moderate. A week will +do. A diligent sightseer should be able to see Sampaolo pretty +thoroughly in a week." + +"A week," he calculated, "and I suppose one must allow at least another +week for getting there and back. So you exile me for a fortnight?" + +His tone and his eyes pleaded with her. + +"A fortnight is not much," said she, lightly. + +"No," he gloomily acquiesced. "It is only fourteen lifetimes to a man +who happens to be in love." + +"Men are reputed to be stronger than women," she reproached him, with a +look. "If a mere woman can stand a fortnight----!" + +Anthony gasped--and sprang towards her. + +"No, no," she cried, shrinking away. + +"Do _you_ happen to be in love?" he said, restraining himself. + +She looked at him very kindly. + +"I will tell you that, when you come back--_if_ you come back," she +promised. + +"_If_ I come back!" he derided. Then, with eagerness, "You will write +to me? I may write to you?" he stipulated. + +"Oh, no--by no means. There must be no sort of communication between +us. You must give yourself every chance to forget me--and to think of +your cousin." + +"I won't go," said Anthony. + +He planted himself in a chair, facing her, and assumed the air of a +fixture. + +But Susanna rose. + +"Good-bye, then," she said, and held out her hand. + +"What do you mean?" said he. + +But he took her hand, and kept it. + +"All is over between us--if you won't go." + +But she left her hand in his. + +"You _will_ write to me?" + +He caressed the warm soft fingers. + +"No." + +"But I _may_ write to you?" + +He kissed the fragrant fingers. + +At last, slowly, gently, she drew her hand away. + +"Oh, if it will give you any satisfaction to write to me, I suppose you +may," she conceded. "But remember--you must n't expect your letters to +be answered." + +She went back to her place in the corner of the sofa. + +He left his chair, and stood over her again. + +"I love you," he said. + +She smiled and played with the lace of her cushion. + +"So you remarked before," she said. + +"I love you," said he, with fervour. + +"By the bye," she said, "I forgot to mention that you are to take Mr. +Willes with you." + +"Oh--?" puzzled Anthony. "Willes? Why?" + +"For several reasons," said Susanna. "But will one suffice?" + +"What's the one?" + +She looked up at him, and laughed. + +"Because I wish it." + +Anthony laughed too. + +"You are conscious of your power," he said. + +"Yes," she admitted. "So you will take Mr. Willes?" + +"You have said you wished it." + +And then, for a while, neither spoke, but I fancy their eyes carried on +the conversation. + + + + +XIX + +It was nearly time to dress for dinner when Anthony returned to Craford +Old Manor. + +Adrian, his collar loosened, his hair towzled, his head cocked +critically to one side, was in his business-room, seated at his piano, +playing over and over again a single phrase, and now and then making a +little alteration in it, which he would hurriedly jot down in a +manuscript music-book, laid open on a table at his elbow. + +"Are n't you going for a holiday this summer?" Anthony asked, with +languor, lounging in. + +"Hush-sh-sh!" said Adrian, intent upon his manuscript, waving an +admonitory hand. + +"It's time to dress," said Anthony. He lighted a cigarette. + +Adrian strummed through his phrase again, brows knitted, looking +intensely judicial. Then he swung round on his piano-stool. + +"Hey? What did you say?" he questioned, his blue eyes vague, his pink +face blank. + +"I merely asked whether you were n't going for a holiday this summer," +Anthony repeated, between two outputs of smoke. + +"And you interrupt a heaven-sent musician, when you see the fit's upon +him, merely to ask an irrelevant thing like that," Adrian reproved him. +"I was holding an assize, a gaol-delivery. That phrase was on trial +before me for its life. In art, sir, one should imitate the methods of +a hanging judge. Put every separate touch on trial for its life, and +deem it guilty till it can prove itself innocent. Yea, even though +these same touches be dear to you as her children to a mother. Such is +the high austerity of art. I thought you said it was time to dress." + +"So it is," said Anthony. "Are n't you going for a holiday this +summer?" + +Adrian closed his music-book, and got up. + +"Of course I am," he answered. + +"When?" said Anthony. + +"In September, as usual," said Adrian. + +"I was wondering," said Anthony, twiddling his cigarette, "whether you +would mind taking your holiday a little earlier than usual this +year--in August, for instance?" + +"Why?" asked Adrian, with caution. + +"It would suit me better, I could spare you better," Anthony said. + +Adrian eyed him suspiciously. + +"In August? We 're in August now, are n't we?" + +"I believe so," said Anthony. "Either August or late July. One could +find out from the almanac, I suppose. It would suit me very well if +you could take your holiday now--at once." + +Adrian's suspicion became acute. + +"What are you up to? What do you want to get rid of _me_ for?" + +Anthony smoked. + +"I don't want to get rid of you. On the contrary--I 'll go with you, +if you like." + +Adrian scrutinized him searchingly, suspicion reinforced by +astonishment. All at once his eyes flashed. + +"Aha!" he cried. "I see what you 've been at. You 've been trying to +philander with the Nobil Donna Susanna Torrebianca--and she 's sent you +about your business. Oh, _I 've_ seen how things were going." He +winked and nodded. + +"Nothing of the sort," said Anthony. "You might tell Wickersmith to +pack our things. We 'll take the eight-fifteen up to-morrow morning. +That will get us to Victoria in time for the eleven o'clock Continental +express." + +"Oh? We 're going abroad?" asked Adrian. + +"I suppose so. Where else is there to go?" said Anthony. + +"I could have told you beforehand," Adrian consoled him, "that you had +n't the ghost of a chance with her. You grim, glum, laconic sort of +men are n't at all the sort that would appeal to a rich, poetic, +southern nature like Madame Torrebianca's. She would be attracted by +an exuberant, expansive, warm, sunny sort of man,--a man genial and +fruity, like old wine,--sweet and tender and mellow, like ripe peaches. +If it were n't that I sternly discountenance the imperilling of +business interests by mixing them up with personal sentiment, I should +very probably have paid court to her myself. And now I expect you have +lost me a tenant. I expect she 'll not care to renew the lease." + +"Don't know, I 'm sure," said Anthony. "You might ask her. We 're +dining with her to-night. That would make a graceful dinner-table +topic." + +Adrian's blue eyes grew round. + +"We 're dining with her to-night?" + +That did n't at all fit his theory of the case. + +"At least I am," affirmed Anthony, dropping the end of his cigarette +into an ash-tray. "And she said I might bring you, if you 'd promise +to be good." + +"_The--deuce_!" ejaculated Adrian, in something between a whisper and a +whistle. "But--then--why--what--what under the sun are you going +abroad for?" + +"A mere whim--a sheer piece of perversity--a sleeveless errand," +Anthony answered. "So now we might set about sweeping and garnishing +ourselves," he suggested, moving towards the door. + +Susanna was very beautiful, I think, in a rose-coloured dinner-gown +(rose-coloured chiffon, with accessories of drooping old pale-yellowish +lace), a spray of scarlet geranium in her hair, pearls round her +throat, and, as you could now and then perceive, high-heeled scarlet +slippers on her feet. + +She was very beautiful, very pleasant and friendly; and if she seemed, +perhaps, a thought less merry, a thought more pensive, than her +wont--if sometimes, for a second or two, she seemed to lose herself, +while her eyes gazed far away, and her lips remained slightly parted--I +doubt if Anthony liked her any the less for this. + +But what he pined for was a minute alone with her; and that appeared to +be by no means forthcoming. After dinner they all went out upon the +terrace, where it was lighted by the open French windows of the +drawing-room, and reposed in wicker chairs, whilst they sipped their +coffee. He looked at her, and his heart grew big--with grief, with +resentment, with delight, with despair, with hope. "She cares for +me--she has said it, she has shown it. But then why does she send me +on this egregious wild-goose chase? She cares for me. But then why +does n't she arrange to give me a minute alone with her to-night?" + +In the end,--well, was it Adrian, or was it Miss Sandus, whom he had to +thank for their minute alone? + +"Why does nobody say, 'Dear kind Mr. Willes, do be nice, and sing us +something'?" Adrian plaintively inquired. + +Anthony grasped the skirts of happy chance. + +"Dear kind Mr. Willes, do be nice, and sing us something," he said at +once. + +"I 'll play your accompaniments," volunteered Miss Sandus. + +And she and the songster went into the drawing-room. + +"Thank heaven," said Anthony, under his breath, but fervently, gazing +hard at Susanna. + +She gave a little laugh. + +"What are you laughing at?" he asked. + +"At your sudden access of piety," said she. + +"At any rate," said he, "I owe no thanks to _you_. For all you cared, +apparently, we should have spent the whole of this last precious +evening surrounded by strangers." + + "Mamam, dites-moi ce qu'on sent + Quand on aime," + +came the voice of Adrian from within. + +"If you talk, we can't hear the music," said Susanna. + +"Bother the music," responded Anthony. + +"It was you who asked him to sing," she said. + +"Bother his singing. This is my last evening with you. Do you think a +woman has the right to be as gloriously beautiful as you are to-night? +Do you think it's fair to the feelings of a poor wretched man, who +adores her, and whom she, in mere wanton wickedness, is sending to the +uttermost ends of the earth?" + +Susanna had her fan of white feathers in her lap. She caressed it. + +"I want to ask you something," said Anthony. + +"What is it?" said she. + +"A piece of information, to help me on my journey. Will you give it +me?" + +"If I can, of course," said she, putting her fan on the table. + +"You promise?" said he. + +"If I have any information that can be of use to you, I 'll give it +with pleasure," she agreed. + +"Very good. That's a promise," said he. "Now then, for my question. +I love you. Do you love me?" + +He looked hard at her. + +She laughed, in acknowledgment that she had been fairly caught. Then +her eyes softened. + +"Yes," she said. + +But before he could move, she had sprung up, and disappeared through +one of the French windows, joining Miss Sandus and Adrian at the piano. + +In her flight, however, she forgot her fan. It lay where she had left +it on the table. + +Anthony picked it up, pressed it to his face. He closed his eyes, and +kept it pressed to his face. Its fragrance was more than a mere +fragrance--there was something of herself in it, something poignantly, +intimately personal. + +By and by he put the fan in his pocket, in the inside pocket of his +coat--feathers downwards, the better to conceal it. Then he too joined +the group at the piano. + + + + +XX + +In their sitting-room in the Hotel de Rome, at Vallanza, Anthony and +Adrian were waiting for their breakfast. It is evident, therefore, +that Susanna's will had prevailed, and a fool's errand was in process +of accomplishment. The fool, no doubt, to the last moment, had renewed +his protests, his pleadings, his refusals; but, at each fresh outburst, +coldly, firmly, the lady had reiterated her ultimatum, "Then all is +over between you and me." And in the end, very conscious of his folly, +very much incensed by her perversity, disgusted, dejected, and, as his +travelling-companion had occasion to observe, in the very devil of a +temper, he had left Victoria by the eleven o'clock Continental express. +"Never forget," Miss Sandus whispered in his ear, as he paid her his +adieux, "never forget that sound old adage--'journeys end in lovers +meeting.'" This was oracular, and he had no opportunity to press for +an interpretation; but it was clearly intended as of good omen. At the +same time, in another part of the room, Susanna was whispering to +Adrian. As Adrian never again expressed the slightest curiosity anent +the motive of their hegira, I am led to wonder whether Susanna had +admitted him to her confidence. She had intimated that she should n't +especially mind doing so; and it is certain that he, from that time +forth, now and then smiled at the sky with an eye that looked very +knowing. + +Those who have recently visited Sampaolo will remember the Hotel de +Rome as a small, new, spick-and-span establishment, built at the corner +of the Piazza San Guido and the Riva Vittorio Emmanuele, and presenting +none of that "local colour in the shape of dirt and discomfort" which +we are warned to expect in Italy, if we depart from the track beaten by +the tourist. I am told that the modern Italian commercial gentleman +(who is often a German, and not infrequently a Jew) has learned some of +the tourist's exactions. It is thanks to him, presumably, that even at +out-of-the-way Vallanza there exists a decent inn. + +Our friends' sitting-room was on the first floor, a corner room, having +two sets of windows. One set commanded the Piazza, with its grey old +church (the Cathedral of St. Paul and St. Guy), its detached campanile, +its big central fountain, and, occupying the entire eastern side, the +crumbling frescoed front of the Palazzo Rosso. The other set looked +across the Riva, and its double row of palms, out upon the bay, with +its anchored ships, its fishing-boats, its encircling olive-covered +hills, dotted high and low by villages and villas, and its embosomed +Islets, Isola Nobile, Isola Fratello, Isola Sorella, the whole wide +prospect glowing in the sun. + +The Piazza, which opens to the north, lay in cool blue shadow; and just +now a market was in progress there, a jumble-scene of merchandise, +animals, and humanity; men, women, and children, dogs and donkeys, +goats, calves, pigs, poultry; vegetables and fruit--quartered melons, +with green rind, black seeds, and rosy flesh, great golden pumpkins, +onions in festoons, figs in pyramids; boots, head-gear, and rough +shop-made clothing, for either sex; cheap jewellery also; and every +manner of requisite for the household, from pots and pans of wrought +copper, brass lamps, iron bedsteads and husk-filled bedding, to +portraits in brilliant oleograph of King and Queen and the inevitable +Garibaldi. The din was stupendous. Humanity hawked, chaffered, +haggled, laughed, vituperated. Donkeys brayed, calves mooed, dogs +barked, ducks quacked, pigs squealed. A dentist had set up his chair +near the fountain, and was brawling proffers of relief to the +tooth-distressed. Sometimes a beglamoured sufferer would allow himself +to be taken in hand; and therewith, above the general blare and blur of +noise, rose clear and lusty a series of shameless Latin howls. The +town-crier, in a cocked hat, wandered hither and thither, like a soul +in pain, feebly beating his drum, and droning out a nasal proclamation +to which, so far as was apparent, no one listened. The women, for the +most part, wore bright-coloured skirts,--striped green and red, or blue +and yellow,--and long black veils, covering the head, and falling below +the waist; the men, dark jerseys, corduroy trousers, red belts in lieu +of braces, and red fishers' caps with tassels that dangled over the +ear. Two such men, at this moment, passed up the Piazza arm-in-arm, +singing. I don't know what their song was, but they had good voices, +and while one of them carried the melody, the other sang a second. + +Anthony, morose and listless, Adrian, all agog with excitement, had +been looking down upon this spectacle for some minutes in silence. It +was their first glimpse of daylit Sampaolo. They had arrived from +Venice last night after dark. + +But now, as the men passed singing, Adrian was moved to utterance. + +"Italia, oh, Italia!" he exclaimed. "I thought I knew my Italy. I +thought I had visited my Italy every year or two, for more years than +you could shake a stick at. But this is too Italian to be true. This +is not Italy--this is Italian opera." + +Anthony gloomed. + +"It's an infernal bore, whatever it is," he declared. + +"Fie, fie," Adrian chid him. "Infernal? That is not at all a nice +word. Don't let me hear it a second time. How animated and southern +and picturesque that _arracheur-de-dents_ is, is n't he? What +distinction he confers upon the scene. Have you no teeth that need +attending to? I should love to see you operated on by a practitioner +like that, in the fresh air, under the azure canopy of heaven, in the +eye of the world, fearless and unashamed. The long, rather rusty +building opposite, with the pictures fading from its walls, is none +other than the Palazzo Rosso, the cradle of your race. It can be +visited between ten and four. I 've had a talk with our landlord's +daughter--such a pretty girl. Her name--what do you suppose her name +is? Her name is Pia. She has nice hair and eyes, and is a perfect +cornucopia of information.--Ah, at last!" he sighed, pressing his hand +to his heart, as the door opened, and the waiter appeared, bearing a +tray. + +Then, as the waiter set out the contents of his tray upon the table, +Adrian, bending forward, examined them with the devoutness, with the +intentness, of an impassioned connoisseur. + +"Grilled ham, gallantine of chicken _aux truffes_, mortadella, an +omelette _aux fines herbes_, coffee, hot milk, whipped cream, bread, +figs, apricots," he enumerated. "And if it had n't been for my talk +with the landlord's daughter, do you know what we should have had? We +should have had coffee and bread and _praeterea nihil_. That's what we +should have had," he pronounced tragically, shaking his head in +retrospective consternation at the thing escaped. "Oh, these +starveling Continental breakfasts! But I threw myself upon Pia's +clemency. I paid her compliments upon her hair, upon her toilet. I +called her Pia mia. I said that if I had only met her earlier in life, +I should have been a very different person. I appealed to the _woman_ +in her. I explained to her that my hollow-cheeked companion, with the +lack-lustre eye, was a star-crossed lover, and must be treated with +exceptional tenderness. I said that nothing mitigated the _tormento +d'amore_ like beginning the day with a sustaining meal. I said you +were a man of an unbounded stomach. I said you were subject to +paroxysms of the most violent rage, and if you did n't get the proper +variety and quantity of food, you 'd smash the furniture. I smiled +upon her with my bonniest, blithest eyne. I ogled her. I chucked her +under the chin. I did nothing of the sort. I was extremely dignified. +But I told her of a dream I had last night--oh, such a lovely +dream--and she was melted. What do you suppose I dreamed of? I +dreamed of plump, juicy English sausages." + +His face grew wistful, his voice sank. He piled his plate with ham and +omelette. + +"You 'd better write a song about it," fleered Anthony. "'The Homesick +Glutton's Dream.'" Then, making a face, "Why did you order coffee?" he +grumbled. "Why did n't you order tea?" + +"Tut, don't be peevish," said Adrian. "Sit up, and tie your +table-napkin round your neck, and try to be polite when the kind +gentleman speaks to you. I did order tea. But tea at Sampaolo is +regarded in the light of a pharmaceutical preparation. Pia said she +thought I might be able to procure some at the _farmacia_. This +omelette really is n't bad. You 'd better take some--before it +disappears in the darkness." + +But Anthony declined the omelette--and it disappeared in the darkness. + +"Come, cheer up, goodman Dull," Adrian exhorted him, selecting the +truffled portions from a plateful of gallantine. "'Men have died, and +worms have eaten them, but not for love.' Ginger is still hot in the +mouth, and there are more fish in the sea than have ever yet nibbled at +your bait and spurned it. Do you know why there are no mosquitoes at +Sampaolo, and no bandits? There are none--Pia gave me her word for it, +Pia mia gave me her pretty feminine word. But do you know why? Pia +told me why. The wind, Signore. The wind blows them away--away, away, +and far away, over the bright blue sea. Every afternoon we get a wind, +sweeping in from the north. Sometimes it is only a _venticello_, +sometimes a _temporale_, sometimes an _orogano terribile_, but it is +always sufficient to blow away the mosquitoes and the bandits. Pia +told me so. Sweet Pia." + +"Humph," said Anthony. + +"Humph, by all means," Adrian hastened to agree. "I have a sort of +humphy feeling myself--a sort of unsatisfied yearning, that is scarcely +akin to pain, and resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain. +I think it may be imputed to inadequate nourishment. I think I will +try some of that mortadella, if you 'll be so good as to pass it. +Thank you. And another cup of coffee, with plenty of whipped cream on +top, please. How cruel dairymaids must be, to whip such nice stuff as +cream. But they 're cruel only to be kind, are n't they?--cruel to the +cream, to be kind to us, the dear creatures. If you 'd give up smoking +and drinking, you 'd have a healthy appetite yourself. Come! Be +comforted. Cast off this green and yellow melancholy. Take me for +your exemplar. I too, when I first visited my ancestral home, I too +was filled with horror and resentment. I entered it screaming, as I am +credibly informed, kicking and screaming, protesting with all the +passion of latent genius, with all the force of a brand-new pair of +lungs. But I 've enjoyed it very well ever since. Ah, the strange +tale of Man. Conceived in sin, brought forth in pain, to live and +amuse himself in an impenetrable environment of mystery--in an +impenetrable fog. And never to see, of all things, his own face! To +see the faces of others, to see the telescopic stars and the +microscopic microbes, yet never to see his own face. And even the +reflection, the shadow of it, which he can see in a looking-glass, even +that he perforce sees _a rebours_. You can't deny it's rum. But if I +had a face as long as yours, I solemnly believe, I should deem it +likewise providential." + +"To think, to think," Anthony, long-faced, was brooding, "that she in +mere wilfulness has condemned me to a whole mortal week of this." + +"We lunch," said Adrian, "at one, though Pia suggested twelve, and dine +at seven, though Pia suggested six. At four we shall have a little +_goute_--_caffe con pasticceria_--to take the place of tea. And now, +if you can tear yourself from the pleasures of the table, let's be up +and doing. We 'll begin with the Cathedral, and if we look sharp, we +'ll be in time to hear a Mass. There are Masses every half hour till +ten. Then the Palazzo Rosso. After luncheon and a brief siesta, Isola +Nobile. And after our _caffe con pasticceria_, a donkey-ride in the +country." + + +When they had heard their Mass, they were approached by the Sacristan, +a little, shrunken, brown old man in a cassock, who offered to serve +them as a guide. The church was very dim and very silent. Here and +there a woman knelt at prayer; here and there a candle burned. The +Sacristan removed the frontal from the High Altar, to show them the +golden reliquary that enshrines the dust of San Guido, and unveiled the +three fine altar-pieces, attributed to Giacomo Fiorentino, "San Guido +Shipwrecked," "San Guide's Return," and "The Good Death of San Guido." +He showed them also, in its glass case, the Sword of the Golden Thorn, +reciting its history; and finally he conducted them to the crypt, +where, under masses of sculptured ner'-antico, emblazoned with their +armorials, some five-and-twenty generations of Valdeschi lie entombed. +What were Anthony's emotions? He must have had emotions. + +At the Palazzo Rosso they were invited to write their names and +nationality in the visitors' book; and then a silver-haired, +soft-voiced, gentle-mannered servitor in livery led them up the grand +marble staircase and through an endless suite of airy, stately +rooms--rooms with floors of polished concrete, displaying elaborate +patterns, with tapestried walls and frescoed ceilings, with sparse but +ancient and precious articles of furniture, chandeliers of Venetian +glass, Venetian mirrors, and innumerable paintings, many of them +portraits. + +"It's astonishing," said Adrian, "how, by some occult process of +selection, in spite of perpetual marriage with new blood, in spite of +the thousand vicissitudes of time and circumstance, in a given family a +particular feature will persist. There 's the Habsburg lip, for +instance. And here is the Valdeschi nose. From generation to +generation, from century to century, one can recognize in these dead +forefathers of yours the identical nose that is on your face to-day." + +It was quite true. Again and again you saw repeated the same +high-bridged, slenderly aquiline nose. + +"Sala del trono," announced their cicerone (only, he pronounced it _Sa' +do truno_). + +And there, sure enough, at the end of a vast chamber, was "the great +scarlet throne, with the gilded coronet topping the canopy above," just +as Susanna had described it. What were Anthony's emotions? + +But the white-haired serving-man (as Adrian noticed) from time to time +allowed his eyes to fix themselves studiously upon Anthony's face, and +appeared to fall into a muse. Now he stopped before a high +white-and-gold double-door. "The entrance to the private apartments," +he said, and placed his hand upon the fancifully-wrought ormolu +door-knob. + +"Are the public admitted to the private apartments," Anthony doubted, +holding back. + +"No, Signore," said the old man. "But I think, if the Signore will +pardon me, that the Signore's Excellency will be a connection of the +family." + +Anthony all but jumped. + +"Why on earth should you think that?" he wondered. + +"It's the persistent feature," said Adrian, in English, with a chuckle. +"The Signore's Excellency is betrayed by the Signore's Excellency's +beak." + +"If the Signore will pardon me, I observed that the Signore's name, +when he wrote in the visitors' book, was Crahforrdi of England," the +old man explained. "But the Crahforrdi of England are a house cognate +to ours. The consort of the Conte who was Conte when I had the honour +of entering the family, nearly sixty years ago, was a Crahforrdi of +England, a lordessa. Moreover it is in the Signore's face. If the +Signori will favour me, it will give me great pleasure to show them +what they will think is the Signore's own portrait." + +In size and shape the private apartments were simply a continuation of +the state apartments, but they were furnished in modern fashion, with a +great deal of luxury, and, in so far as the enveloping brown hollands +would permit one to opine, with a great deal of taste. "The family +occupy this palace during the cold months only. In summer they make a +villegglatura to Isola Nobile. Therefore you do not see these rooms at +their best," the old man apologized. In what he described as the +_gabine'o segre'o_ of the Countess, over the fireplace, hung the +full-length, life-size portrait of a gentleman, in the dress of +eighteen-forty-something--high stock, flowered waistcoat, close-fitting +buff trousers, and full-bottomed blue frock-coat, very tight above the +hips. + +"Count Antonio the Seventeenth, the last of our tyrants. The Signori +will be aware that we were tyrants of Sampaolo for many centuries," +said the old man, not without a touch of pride. Then, bowing to +Anthony, "One would think properly the portrait of your Excellency." + +Indeed, the face of the last of the tyrants and his grandson's face +were surprisingly alike. + +"Conte Antonio Decimose'mo was Conte when, as a lad, I had the honour +to join the family," the old servant went on. "It was he who had for +consort the Lordessa Crahforrdi of England. After his death, there was +the Revolution, by which we annexed to Sampaolo another island called +Sardinia. The Lordessa was taken prisoner in these rooms, with the +Conte-figlio, and banished from the country. Then the King of Sardinia +was elected tyrant of both islands, and the government was removed from +Vallanza to Turin. That was many years ago, fifty years ago. When the +Pope died, the government was again removed, and now it is at Rome." + +"Oh? Is the Pope dead?" Adrian questioned. + +"Che si, Signore--dupo lung' anni," the old man assured him. + +They strolled about the town for a little, before returning to the +hotel--through the narrow cobble-paved streets, with their alternations +of splendour and squalor, their palaces, churches, hovels, their dark +little shops, their neglected shrines, their vociferous population, +their heterogeneous smells--and along the Riva, with its waterside +bustle, its ships loading and unloading, and its unexampled view of bay +and mountains. + +"Do you see this stick?" asked Adrian, holding up his walking-stick. + +"What about it?" asked Anthony. + +"I 'm coming to that," said Adrian. "But first you must truthfully +answer a question. Which end of this stick would you prefer to be--the +bright silver handle or the earth-stained ferrule?" + +"Don't know," said Anthony, with an air of weariness. + +"Don't you?" marvelled Adrian. "How funny. Well, then, you must +understand that this stick is but an emblem--a thing's sign. Now for +the thing signified. Have you ever paused to moralize over the irony +that determines the fates of families? Take, for example, a family +that begins with a great man--a great soldier, a great saint, for +instance--and then for evermore thereafter produces none but +mediocrities. I hope you perceive the irony of that. But +contrariwise, take a family that goes on for centuries producing +mediocrities, and suddenly ends with the production of a genius. Take +my family, just for a case in point. Here I come of a chain of +progenitors reaching straight back to Adam; and of not one of them save +Adam and myself, has the world ever heard. And even Adam owes his +celebrity not in the least to his personal endowments, but solely to +the unique character of his position. The First Man could n't help +getting a certain reputation, would he, n'ould he. But from Adam to +Adrian--silence. Then sudden silvery music. And Adrian--mark the +predestination--Adrian is childless. He is the last link. With him +the chain, five thousand years long, stops. He is the sudden brilliant +flare-up of the fire before it goes out. Well, now, tell me--which end +of this stick would you prefer to be? The shining silver handle, or +the dull iron other end?" + +They were conveyed to Isola Nobile in one of those long slender +Sampaolese _vipere_--boats that are a good deal like gondolas, except +that they have no felze, and carry a short mast at the bow, with a sail +that is only spread when the wind is directly aft. I suppose the +palace at Isola Nobile is one of the most beautiful in the world, with +its four mellow-toned marble facades rising sheer out of the water, +with its long colonnades, its graceful moresque windows, and the +variety, profusion, and lace-like delicacy of its carved and incised +details. Here again they had to write their names in the visitors' +book, and again a servant (this time a young and rather taciturn +person) led them through countless vast and splendid rooms, far more +splendid than those at the Palazzo Rosso, rooms rich with porphyry, +alabaster, mosaics, gilded flourishes and arabesques of stucco, and +containing many treasures of painting and sculpture, some of which, I +believe, even the sceptical Morellists allow to be actually the +handiwork of the artists to whom they are ascribed. But so far from +there being any question of their visiting the private apartments at +Isola Nobile, their guide, at one point in their progress, sprang +forward and hurriedly closed a door that had stood open, and through +which they had caught a glimpse of a pleasantly furnished library. By +and by they were passed on to a gardener, who showed them the gardens +on Isola Fratello and Isola Sorella, with their camphor-trees and +cedars, their oranges, oleanders, magnolias, laurels, their terraces, +whence thousands of lizards whisked away at the approach of Man, their +fountains, grottoes, temples, their peacocks, flamingoes, and tame +ring-doves, and always, always, with that wonderful outlook upon the +bay and its girdle of sun-bathed hills. The gardener plucked many +flowers for them, so that they returned to Vallanza with armfuls of +roses, lilies, oleanders, and jessamine. + + +Later that afternoon, Adrian having gone alone for his donkey-ride in +the country (more power to the back of the donkey!), Anthony was seated +by the open window of his bedroom, in a state of deep depression. All +at once, between the two promontories that form the entrance to the +bay, the Capo del Papa and the Capo del Turco, appeared, heading for +Vallanza, a white steamer, clearly, from its size and lines, a yacht--a +very bright and gay object to look upon, as it gleamed in the sun and +crisped the blue waters. And all at once, his eye automatically +following it, Anthony experienced a perfectly inexplicable lightening +of the heart,--as if, indeed, the white yacht were bringing something +good to him. It was absurd, but he could not help it. Somehow, his +depression left him, and a feeling almost of joyousness took its place. + +"She said she loved me--she said she loved me," he remembered. "And at +the farthest," he reflected, "at the farthest I shall be with her again +in nine little days." + +He got out the fan that he had stolen, and pressed it to his face. He +got out his writing-materials, and wrote her a long, cheerful, +impassioned letter. + +His change of mood was all the more noteworthy, perhaps, because the +yacht chanced to be the _Fiorimondo_, bearing the Countess of Sampaolo +and her suite from Venice, whither it had proceeded two days before, +upon orders telegraphed from Paris. + + + + +XXI + +Adrian, coming in, saw Anthony's letter, superscribed and stamped, +lying on the table. + +"I 'm posting a lot of stuff of my own," he said. "Shall I post this +with it?" + +Had Susanna admitted him to her confidence? How otherwise could it +have befallen, as it did, that she received Anthony's letter, which was +of course addressed to Craford, at Isola Nobile no later than that very +evening? + +She read it, smiling. + +"Which of the many villas that overlook the bay and are visible from my +window, with their white walls and dark-green gardens,--which is +yours?" he questioned. "All day I have been wondering. That is the +single thing that really stirs me here, that really gives me a +_feeling_--its association with you. All day I have been hearing a +sonnet of Ronsard's--do you remember it?--_Voicy le bois_. But I wish +I knew which villa is your villa, which garden is your garden. Why did +n't I find out before I was driven from Paradise? I could easily find +out here by inquiring, I suppose. But your name is too sacred. I +can't profane it by speaking it aloud to people who might not bare +their heads at the sound of it." + +Susanna tittered. + +And on another page (the letter was eight pages long) he said:-- + +"It is all very beautiful, of course,--the way the town piles itself up +against the hillside, the pink and yellow and lilac _blondeur_ of the +houses, the olive gardens, the radiant sky overhead,--it is all very +picturesque and beautiful. But I am not hungry for beauty--at least, +for this beauty. If you were here with me,--ah, then indeed! But you +are not here, and I am hungry for Craford. There was a time when +Craford used to seem to me the tritest spot in Europe, and the thought +of Italy was luminous of everything romantic, of everything to be +desired. There was a time when nothing gave me such joy as to wake and +remember, 'I am in Italy--in Italy--in Italy!'--in Rome or Florence or +Venice, as the case might be. But the times have changed, have +changed. _You_ were in Italy in those days, and now you are at +Craford. Italy is dust and ashes. I hunger for Craford as the only +place in the world where life is life." + +And on still another page:-- + +"I can't deny that I got a certain emotion in the grey old Cathedral. +For so many generations one's people were baptized there, married +there, buried there. And then how many times must _you_ have +worshipped there, heard holy Mass there. They showed us the relics of +San Guido and the Spina d'Oro, of course, and--well, one is n't made of +wood. I tried to make up my mind in what part of the church you +usually knelt, which prie-dieu was your prie-dieu,--I 'm afraid without +any very notable success. But one felt something like a faint +afterglow of your presence, and it made one's heart beat. Again at the +Palazzo Rosso, under the eyes of all those motionless and silent, dead +and gone Valdeschi, in their armour, in their ruffs and puffs and +periwigs, one could n't be entirely wooden. The servant who showed us +about, an old man who said he had been in the family for I forget how +many hundred years, hailed me as a 'cognate,' having recognized the +name of Craford, and thereupon inducted us into the _appartamenti +segreti_, to exhibit a portrait of my grandsire. Wood itself, I dare +say, must have vibrated a little at that. In the throne-room I was +suddenly caught up and whisked away, back to a rainy afternoon at +Craford; and I walked beside you on the cliffs, and heard your voice, +and rejoiced in the sense of your nearness to me, and in your adorable +beauty, as you breasted the wind, with the sea and the sky for a +background. (Do you remember? Do you remember how keen and sweet the +air was, with the scent of the wild thyme? and how the sand-martins +circled round us?) As we passed through the long, bare, imposing rooms, +something like a shadow of you seemed to flit before us. Or if I +glanced out of one of the tall windows, it seemed as if you had just +passed under them, along the Riva or across the Piazza. As for Isola +Nobile, if I regret that it is n't mine, that is chiefly because I +should be glad to be in a position to offer so very lordly and lovely a +pleasure-house to _you_." + +Susanna laughed. + +Towards the end he wrote:-- + +"I look at the sea and I realize that it is continuous from here to +England, from here to Rowland Marshes; and it seems somehow to connect +us, to keep us in touch. Perhaps you, too, are looking at it at this +same moment. I fancy you walking on your terrace, and looking off upon +the grey-blue sea. It seems somehow to connect us. But there is no +grey in the blue of the sea here--it is blue, blue, unmitigated, almost +dazzling blue, save where in the sun it turns to quite dazzling white, +or in the deeper shadows takes on tints that are almost crimson, tints +of _lie-de-vin_. Oh, why are n't you here? If you were here, I think +a veil would fall from before my eyes, and I should see everything +differently. I could imagine myself _loving_ Sampaolo--if you were +here. In nine days--nine days! And to-morrow it will be only eight +days, and the day after to-morrow only seven. _Only_ do I say? I +count in that fashion to keep my courage up. Nine days! Why can't +those nine eternities be annihilated from the calendar? Why does n't +some kind person kill me, and then call me back to life in nine days? +Oh, it was cruel of you, cruel, cruel." + +Susanna looked out of her window, across the dark bay, to where the +electric lamps along the Riva threw wavering fronds of light upon the +water. She kissed her hand, and wafted the kiss (as nearly as the +darkness would let her guess) in the direction of the Piazza San Guido. +Then she went into the library, and hunted for a volume of Ronsard. + + + + +XXII + +There are two men, as they that know Sampaolo will not need to be +reminded, two young men, who, during the summer months, pervade the +island. In winter they go to Rome, or to Nice, or to England for the +hunting; but in summer they pervade Sampaolo, where they have a villa +just outside Vallanza, as well as the dark old palace of their family in +the town. + +The twin brothers, Franco and Baldo del Ponte--who that has once met them +can ever forget them? To begin with, they are giants--six-feet-four, and +stalwart in proportion. Then they are handsome giants, with good, +strong, regular features, close-cropped brown hair that tends to curl, +and hearty open-air complexions. Then they are jolly, pleasant-tempered, +simple-minded and clean-minded giants. Then they are indefatigable +giants--indefatigable in the pursuit of open-air amusements: now in their +sailing-boats, now in their motor-cars, or on horse-back, or driving +their four-in-hands. And finally, being Italians, they are Anglophile +giants;--like so many of the Italian aristocracy, they are more English +than the English. They are rigorously English in their dress, for +instance; they have all their clothes from London, and these invariably +of the latest mode. They give English names to their sailing-boats--the +_Mermaid_, the _Seagull_. They employ none but Englishmen in their +stables, which are of English design, with English fittings. They have +English dogs,--fox-terriers, bull-terriers, collies,--also with English +names, Toby, Jack, Spark, Snap, and so forth. They speak English with +only the remotest trace of foreignness--were they not educated at Eton, +and at Trinity College, Cambridge? And they would fain Anglicise, not +merely the uniform of the Italian police, but the Italian constitution. +"What Italy needs," they will assure you, looking wondrous wise, "is a +House of Peers." Their Italian friends laugh at them a good deal; but I +suspect that under the laughter there is a certain admiration, if not +even (for, as Italian fortunes go, theirs is an immense one) a certain +envy. + +Is all this apropos of boots, you wonder? No, for behold-- + +After breakfast, on the following morning, Adrian was alone, enjoying a +meditative digestion, in the sitting-room at the Hotel de Rome, when he +saw come bowling along the Riva, turn rattling into the Piazza, and draw +up at the inn door, a very English-looking dog-cart, driven by a huge +young man in tweeds, with an apparent replica of himself beside him, and +an English-looking groom behind. The two huge young men descended; he +who had driven said something inaudible to the groom; and the groom, +touching his hat, answered: "Yes, my lord." + +"So," thought Adrian, "we are not the only Britons in this island. I +wonder who my lord is." + +And then, nothing if not consequent, he began to sing, softly to himself-- + + "Lord of thy presence, and no land besi-i-ide . . ." + +And he was still softly carolling that refrain, when the door of the +sitting-room was opened. + +"Marchese del Ponte, Marchese Baldo del Ponte," announced the waiter, +with sympathetic exhilaration, flourishing his inseparable napkin. + +The two huge young men entered. The room seemed all at once to contract, +and become half its former size. + +"Ah, Count," said one of them, advancing, and getting hold of Adrian's +hand. "How do you do? I am the Marchese del Ponte; this is my brother, +the Marchese Baldo. Welcome to Sampaolo. We are your connections, you +know. Our ancestors have intermarried any time these thousand years." + +Adrian's rosy face was wreathed in his most amiable smiles. + +"How do you do? I 'm very glad to see you. Won't you take chairs?" he +responded, and hospitably pushed chairs forward. "But I 'm afraid," he +added, shaking his head, still smiling, "I 'm afraid I 'm not a count." + +"Ah, yes," said Baldo, "we know you don't use your title." + +"You 're a count all right, whether you use your title or not," said +Franco. "Noblesse is in the bone. You can't get rid of it." + +"Your great-grandmother was a Ponte," said Baldo, "and our own +grandmother was a Valdeschi, your grandfather's cousin." + +"Really?" said Adrian, pleasantly. "But I 'm afraid," he explained to +Franco, "that there is n't any noblesse in _my_ bones. I 'm afraid I 'm +just a plain commoner." + +"Oh, you refer to the Act of Proscription--I understand," said Franco. +"But that was utterly invalid--a mere piece of political stage-play. The +Italian government had no more power to proscribe your title than it +would have to proscribe an English peerage,--no jurisdiction. It could +create a new Count of Sampaolo, which it did; but it could n't abolish +the dignity of the existing Count--a dignity that was ancient centuries +before the Italian government was dreamed of. You 're a count all right." + +"I see," said Adrian. "And are you, then," he inferred, with sprightly +interest, "agin the government?" + +The familiar formula appeared to tickle the two young Anglophiles +inordinately. They greeted it with deep-chested laughter. + +"We 're not exactly _agin_ the government," Baldo answered, "but we +believe in remodelling it. What Italy needs"--he looked a very Solon; +and his brother nodded concurrence in his opinion---"is a House of Lords." + +"I see--I see," said Adrian. + +"We want you to come and stay with us," said Franco. "We 've a villa +half a mile up the Riva. You 'd be more comfortable there than here, and +it would give us the greatest pleasure to have you." + +"The greatest possible pleasure," cordially echoed Baldo. + +"You 're exceedingly good," said Adrian. "And I should be most happy. +But I 'm afraid--" + +"Not another word," protested Franco. "You 'll come. That' s settled." + +"That's settled," echoed Baldo. + +"We 'll send down for your traps this afternoon," said Franco. "Have you +a man with you? No? Then we 'll send Grimes. He 'll pack for you, and +bring up your traps. But we hope to carry you off with us now--in time +for luncheon." + +"I don't know how to thank you," said Adrian. "But I 'm afraid--I hate +to destroy an illusion, yet in honesty I must--I 'm afraid I 'm not the +person you take me for. I 'm afraid there's a misapprehension. I--" + +"Oh, we 'll respect your incog all right, if that's what's troubling +you," promised Baldo. "You shall be Mr. Anthony Craford." + +"Craford _of_ Craford," Franco corrected him. + +"But there it is," said Adrian. "Now see how I 'm forced to disappoint +you. I 'm awfully sorry, but I 'm _not_ Mr. Anthony Craford--no, nor +Craford _of_ Craford, either." + +"What?" puzzled Franco. + +"Not Craford?" puzzled Baldo. + +"No," said Adrian, sadly. "I 'm awfully sorry, but my name is Willes." + +"Willes?" said Franco. "But it was Craford in the visitors' book at the +Palazzo Rosso. That's how we knew you were here." + +"My brother is the Hereditary Constable of the Palace," said Baldo. "It +is now merely an honorary office. But the visitors' book is brought to +him whenever there have been any visitors." + +"And we inquired for Craford downstairs," supplemented Franco. "And they +said you were at home, and showed us up." + +"I 'm awfully sorry," repeated Adrian. "But Craford and I are as +distinct as night and morning. Craford has gone out for a solitary walk. +My name is Willes. Craford and I are travelling together." + +"Oh, I see," cried Franco; and slapping his thigh, "Ho, ho, ho," he +laughed. + +"Ho, ho, ho," laughed Baldo. "We were jolly well sold." + +"We--ho, ho--we got the wrong sow by the ear," laughed Franco. + +"We put the saddle on the wrong horse--ho, ho," laughed Baldo. + +"We 're delighted to make your acquaintance, all the same," said Franco. + +"And we hold you to your promise--you 're to come and stay with us--you +and Craford both," said Baldo. + +"Yes--there 's no getting out of that. We count upon you," said Franco. + +"So far as I 'm concerned, I should be charmed," said Adrian. "But I +can't speak for Craford. He 's a bit run down and out of sorts. I 'm +not sure whether he 'll feel that he 's in a proper state for paying +visits. But here he comes." + +He inclined his head towards a window, through which Anthony could be +seen crossing the Piazza. + +"By Jove!" exclaimed Franco. "I should have known him for a Valdeschi +anywhere. He 's exactly like a portrait of his grandfather in the +Palazzo Rosso." + +"By Jove, so he is," exclaimed Baldo. + +And, to Adrian's surprise, when the introductions were accomplished, and +the invitation was repeated to him, Anthony at once accepted. + +"I 've given orders for my four-in-hand to come round here and pick us +up," said Franco. "Shall we all go for a spin, and get an appetite for +luncheon?" + +"In the afternoon, if there 's a breeze, I propose a sail," said Baldo. +"I 've just got a new boat out from England, schooner-rigged, the +_Spindrift_. I 've not yet really had a fair chance to try her." + +"Do you go in for tennis?" asked Franco. "We 've got a court at the +villa." + +"I don't know whether you care for swimming," said Baldo. "You get a +fairly decent dive-off from the landing-stage at the end of our garden. +The water here is pooty good. My brother and I generally go for a swim +before dinner." + +"Ah, here 's Tom with the four-in-hand," said Franco. And then, with a +readiness for self-effacement that was surely less British than the +language in which it found expression, "Would you care to take the +ribbons, Count?" he asked. And when Anthony had declined, "Would you, +Willes?" he proceeded. + +"Not just at the start, thanks," said Adrian. "I should like to watch +'em step a bit first." + +The hypocrite. As if he would have known what to do with the ribbons, +had they been given to him. + +So Franco took them himself, while Baldo blew the horn. + +"Have you visited Castel San Guido yet?" Franco questioned. "Shall we +make that our objective?" + +They drove up and up, round and round the winding road that leads to +Castel San Guido, where it clings to the almost vertical mountainside. +For the greater part the road was bordered by olive orchards, but +sometimes there were vineyards, sometimes groves of walnut-trees, clumps +of stone-pines, or fields of yellowing maize, and everywhere there were +oleanders growing wild, and always there was the view. + +Castel San Guido is very like a hundred other mediaeval castles, a grim +old fortress, with walls of I forget what prodigious thickness, with +round towers pierced by sinister-looking meutrieres, and crowned by +battlements, with bare stone courts, stone halls, cold and dimly lighted, +and a dismantled stone chapel. But I dare say the descendant of San +Guido (not being made of wood) had his emotions. And the view was +magnificent--Vallanza below, its red roofs burning in the sun, the purple +bay, the olive-mantled hills, with a haze of gold-dust and pearl-dust +brooding over them, and white-walled villages shining in twenty +improbable situations, with their dark cypresses and slender campanili. + +They had toiled up slowly, but they came spinning back at a tremendous +pace, down the steep gradients, round the perilous curves, while Franco, +his jaws shut tight, his brows drawn together, gave all his attention to +his horses, Baldo merrily wound his horn, Anthony smoked cigarettes, and +Adrian, for dear life, with his heart in his mouth, held hard to the +seat-rail at his side. I think he pushed a very genuine _ouf_, when, +without accident, they had regained the level ground. + + +The Villa del Ponte is a long grey rectangular building, as severe in +outward aspect as a barrack or a prison, in a garden that stretches right +away to the sea-wall, a garden full of palms, oranges, tall, feathery +eucalyptus-trees, and lizards, perfectly Italian. But no sooner do you +pass the portal of the house, than you leave Italy, as on a magic-carpet, +and find yourself in the seventh circle of England, amid English +furniture, English books, English periodicals, daily, weekly, monthly, +(the _Pink 'un_ perhaps the most conspicuous), and between walls +embellished by English sporting-pictures and the masks and brushes of +English foxes. "We hunt a good bit, you know," said Franco. "We've a +little box in Northamptonshire, and hunt with the Pytchley. We both have +the button." One was n't in the least surprised when an English voice, +proceeding from the smuggest of smooth-shaven English countenances, +informed my lord that luncheon was served. + +After luncheon they sailed in the _Spindrift_. After that, (to Adrian's +delight, I hope) they had tea, with plenty of buttered toast. Then they +played tennis. Then they went for a breathless whirl along the Riva in a +motor-car. Then they swam. And after dinner they played billiards, +while Franco and Baldo smoked short pipes, and sipped whiskey and +soda--but a half-pennyworth of whiskey, as Adrian noticed, to an +intolerable deal of soda. Blood will tell, and theirs, in spite of +everything, was abstemious Italian blood. + + + + +XXIII + +"Now, Commendatore," said Susanna, making her face grave, "listen, and +you shall hear"--but then her gravity broke down--"of the midnight ride +of Paul Revere," she concluded, laughing. + +She raised her eyes to his, aglow with that tender, appealing, mocking, +defiant smile of hers. He, poor man, smiled too, though not very +happily, I fear--nay, even with a kind of suspicious bewilderment, as +one who sniffs brewing mischief, but knows not of what particular +variety it will be. They were seated in the shade and the coolness of +a long open colonnade at Isola Nobile, while, all round them, the +August morning, like a thing alive, pulsated with warmth and light, and +the dancing waves of the bay lapped musically against the walls below. +The Commendatore was clad in stiffly-starched white duck, and held a +white yachting-cap in his hand. Susanna wore a costume of some cool +gauzy tissue, pearl-grey, with white ruffles that looked as impalpable +as froth. + +"Listen," she said, "and you shall hear of the midday quest of +Commendatore Fregi. I will tell you step by step what steps you are to +take. My cousin is staying with the Ponte brothers at their villa. +Well,--first step of all,--you are to call upon him." + +"No," said the Commendatore, jerking his head, his baldish old head +with its fringe of iron-grey curls. + +"Yes," said Susanna, resolutely compressing her lips. + +"No," said he. "It is not etiquette. The new-comer pays the first +call." + +"That is Italian etiquette," said she. "But my cousin is an +Englishman." + +"_Nun fa nien'e_. He is in Italy. He must conform to the customs of +the country," insisted Commendatore Fregi, in the dialect of Sampaolo, +twirling his fierce old moustaches, glaring with his mild old eyes. + +"No," said Susanna, softly, firmly; "we must stretch a point in his +favour. He is English. We will adopt the custom of _his_ country. So +you will call upon him. I wish it." + +"Ph-h-h," puffed the Commendatore, fanning himself with his cap. +"Well--?" he questioned. + +Susanna, in her diaphanous light-coloured frock, leaned back, smiling. +The Commendatore fanned himself rapidly with his cap, and waited for +her instructions. + +"You call upon him, you introduce yourself as an old friend of the +family. 'As a boy, I knew your grandfather, your grandmother, and I +was a playfellow of your father's.'" + +She threw back her head, pouted out her lips, and achieved a very +admirable counterfeit of the Commendatore's manner. + +"You ask the usual questions, pay the usual compliments. 'Can I have +the pleasure of serving you in anyway? I beg leave to place myself at +your disposal. You must not fail to command me'--and patati and +patata." + +"You are an outrageous little ape," said the Commendatore, grinning in +spite of himself. "You would mimic the Devil to his face." + +"No," said Susanna. "I only mimic people when I am fond of them." + +And again she lifted her eyes to his, where they melted in her tender, +teasing smile. + +"Ph-h-h," puffed the Commendatore, agitating his cap. + +"And then," pursued Susanna, "having paid the usual compliments, you +rise to go." + +"Ah--_bene_," said the Commendatore, and his lean old yellow face +looked a good deal relieved. + +"Yes," said she. "But then, having risen to go, then, like the wily +and supple diplomat you are, you come to the real business of your +visit." + +"Oh?" said the Commendatore. + +He sat forward, on the edge of his chair, and frowned. He had thought +his troubles were over, and now it appeared that they had not yet begun. + +"Yes," said Susanna. "Having risen to go, you pause, you hesitate, and +then suddenly you take your courage in both hands. 'Count,' you say, +'I wish to speak to you about your cousin.' And thereupon, frankly, +confidentially, you proceed to lay before him the difficulties of your +position. 'I was your cousin's guardian; I am still her nearest +friend; I occupy the place of a parent towards her, and feel myself +responsible for her. And one of my chief concerns, one of my first +duties, is, of course, to see that she makes a good marriage. She is a +great heiress--she would be the natural prey of fortune-hunters. I +must protect her, I must direct her. With one hand I must keep away +undesirable suitors, with the other hand I must catch a desirable one. +But now observe my perplexities. Your cousin is peculiar. She is not +in the least like the typical submissive young Italian girl. She is +excessively self-willed, capricious, fantastic, unreasonable----'" + +"Bravo," put in the Commendatore, clapping his bony old hands. "I can +say all that with a clear conscience." He twirled his moustaches again. + +"Do you think I would ask you to say anything you could n't say with a +clear conscience?" Susanna demanded, with a glance of reproach. "So, +with a clear conscience, you go on: 'Your cousin is fantastic, +unreasonable, sentimental, romantic, extravagant. And--to come to the +point--she has got it into her unreasonable and romantic little head +that she has no right to the position which she occupies. She has +studied the history of her family, and she has got it into her perverse +little head that by the changes which took place in 1850 a very great +injustice was perpetrated. She has persuaded herself, in short, that +the properties here at Sampaolo, which are technically and legally +hers, are rightfully and morally _yours_; and, to tell you the whole +truth, since my guardianship expired, a few months ago, I have had hard +work to restrain her from taking measures to relinquish those +properties in your favour.' No--don't interrupt," she forbade him, +when the Commendatore made as if to speak. + +A sound of guttural impatience died in the old man's throat. He fanned +himself nervously, while Susanna, smiling, resumed the lesson. + +"'But,' you declare with energy, 'I _have_ restrained her, and I shall +continue to restrain her. She could only make the properties over to +you by becoming a nun and taking vows of perpetual poverty. I will +fight to my dying gasp to prevent her from doing that. However'--and +now you change your note, and speak as one anxious to conciliate and +convince--'however, it has occurred to me that there is a simple course +by which the whole awkward situation could be solved--by which your +cousin's scruples could be set at rest, and you yourself put in +possession of your ancestral estates. My dear Count, your cousin is a +charming girl, and it is my chief concern and duty to arrange a +suitable marriage for her. Let me have the very great satisfaction of +arranging a marriage between her and you.'" + +Susanna leaned back, and laughed. But the Commendatore frowned at her +with genuine anger. + +"_Macche_!" he cried. "What fool's talk is this? What farce are you +preparing?" + +"No farce," said Susanna, gently. "Only a wedding--at which you shall +give the bride away. And now--the launch is waiting. The sooner you +are off, the sooner you 'll return." + +"Never," said the Commendatore. "I would sell myself to be chopped +into sausage-meat, before I would become a party to any such carnival +tricks." + +"Carnival tricks? Do you call marriage a carnival trick?" Susanna +wondered. "Or do you wish me to live and die an old maid? Is it or is +it not your duty to arrange a suitable match for me?" + +"It is not my duty to arrange a match for you with a foreigner whom I +have n't the honour of knowing," he retorted. + +"Well, then," urged Susanna, "go to my cousin and make him the +proposition I have suggested. And if he says yes,--if he consents to +marry me,--I give you my most solemn promise that not for any +consideration in the world will I accept him." + +"What?" questioned the Commendatore, blinking at her. + +"If he says yes, I 'll say no. If he says no, he says no. So it is +no, either way," she pointed out. "And meanwhile--the launch is +waiting." + +"If he says no!" scoffed the Commendatore. "Is the man born who will +say no to a bag of gold?" + +"That's exactly what you have now an opportunity of discovering," she +replied. "But if he says yes, I give you my solemn promise, it will be +the end of him, so far as I 'm concerned." + +The Commendatore rubbed the back of his neck. + +"I never heard such a gallimaufry of headless and tailless nonsense," +he declared. + +"Think of that poor long-suffering launch," said Susanna. "You are +still keeping it waiting." + +"It may wait till the sea dries up, for all of me," said the +Commendatore, settling himself in his seat. "Do you take me for +Pulcinella? I will not begin at my time of life to play carnival +tricks." + +"Ah, well, after all," said Susanna, "it does n't really matter very +much." + +And apparently she abandoned her intention. But after a pause she +added, rather as if speaking to herself, "I must send for Father +Angelo, I suppose." + +"_What_?" snapped out the Commendatore, sitting up. + +"Yes," said Susanna, dreamily, "Father Angelo. _He_ won't refuse to do +what I ask him to." + +"Bah," said the Commendatore. "A priest--a monk--a shaveling--a +bare-toes." + +"A very good, kind, holy man," said Susanna. "And as my cousin is a +faithful Catholic, I think on all accounts Father Angelo will serve my +purpose best." + +"Peuh--a Jesuit," said the Commendatore, elevating his nose. + +"He is n't a Jesuit--he is a Capuchin," said Susanna. + +"They are all Jesuits," said the Commendatore, with a sweeping gesture. +"A brown-back--a funeral-follower--a prayer-monger," he growled, +brushing his immense moustaches upwards, to emphasize his scorn. + +"Hush," Susanna remonstrated, lifting her hand. "You must n't rail +against religion." + +"I do not rail against religion," answered the Commendatore. "Taken in +moderation, religion is an excellent thing--for women. Did I not see +that you were religiously brought up? But when it comes to these +priests, these Jesuits,--when it comes to that Father Angelo,--I would +have them all hung up and smoke-dried, to make bacon of. Garrh!" he +snorted, tossing his head. + +"Yes, I know," murmured Susanna. "You were always jealous of Father +Angelo." + +"I? Jealous of that gnawer of fish-bones? It is probable," sniffed +the Commendatore. + +He rose from his chair, and stood before her, very slim and erect, his +chin thrust forward, so that the tendons of his long thin neck showed +like wires. + +"But I am an old ass. I can deny you nothing. I go to your cousin," +he consented. + +"You are an old dear," said Susanna. "I knew you would go." + +Her eyes were brimming with mirth, with triumph, with fondness. She +rose too, and gently patted his stiffly-starched white duck sleeve. + + +After he was gone, she crossed one of the light marble bridges, and +walked in the garden on Isola Sorella, where it was shaded by a row of +ilexes. Blackcaps (those tireless ubiquitous minstrels) were singing +wildly overhead; ring-doves kept up their monotonous coo-cooing. +Beyond, in the sun, butterflies flitted among the flowers, cockchafers +heavily droned and blundered, a white peacock strutted, and at the +water's edge two long-legged, wry-necked flamingoes stood motionless, +like sentinels. At the other side of the ilexes stretched a bit of +bright green lawn, with a fountain plashing in the middle, from whose +spray the sun struck sparks of iridescent fire; and then, terrace upon +terrace, the garden rose to a summit, where there was a belvedere. + +I don't know how many times Susanna strolled backwards and forwards, I +don't know how many times she looked at her watch. Here and there +semi-circular marble benches were placed. Sometimes she would sit down +and rest for a little; but she was soon up again, walking, walking, +looking at her watch. At last she left the shade, crossed the lawn, +ascended the terraces, between orange and lemon-trees with their +undergrowth of jessamine, and entered the belvedere, having by this +progress created a panic indescribable in the community of lizards. + +From the belvedere she could command the whole sunlit surface of the +bay, here blue, here silver, here deepening to violet, paling to green, +here dimly, obscurely rose. A fleet of fishing-boats, their coloured +sails decorated with stripes and geometric patterns, or even now and +then with a representation of the owner's patron-saint, was putting out +to sea in single file, between the Capo del Turco and the Capo del +Papa. But Susanna concentrated her attention upon a part of the shore, +perhaps half a mile distant, and half a mile to the east of Vallanza, +where the grey-green of the prevailing olives was broken by the +dark-green of a garden. The garden ran out into the bay a little, +forming a point. Susanna waited and watched, watched and waited, till, +by-and-by, from behind the point, a boat appeared, a launch, and came +swiftly bobbing over the waves towards Isola Nobile. She must have +kept very still during this vigil, for now, when she turned to leave +the belvedere, she saw that at least a hundred lizards had come forth +from their hiding-places, and were staring at her with their twinkling +little pin-heads of eyes. But even as she saw them--zrrrp!--a flash, a +rustle, and there was not a lizard anywhere in sight. + +She went back to the colonnade. + + +"My dear," said Commendatore Fregi, "your cousin is an extremely fine +fellow, and upon my word I am sorry that my mission to him has failed. +I could not hope to find you a better husband." + +Whatever the Commendatore's emotion might be, it generally impelled him +to do something to his moustaches. Now he pulled them straight out at +either side. + +"Your mission has failed?" asked Susanna. "How do you mean?" + +"He cannot marry you," said the Commendatore, with a shake of the head, +a shrug of the shoulders. "He is engaged to a lady in England." + +"Ah--I see," said Susanna. + +"He is very good-looking," said the Commendatore. "He is his +grandfather come back to life." + +"Is he indeed?" said Susanna. + +"Yes," affirmed the Commendatore. "He dresses well. He has a good +manner. He is very quiet." + +"Englishmen are apt to be quiet," said Susanna. + +"He speaks Italian as well as I do," went on the Commendatore. "But he +cannot speak Sampaolese." + +"He could easily learn Sampaolese," said Susanna. + +"Yes," said the Commendatore. "When I repeated that humbug about your +becoming a nun and resigning the properties to him, he held up his +hands in horror. 'She must not think of such a thing,' he cried. +'Tell the young lady that I could never conceivably accept such a +sacrifice. I understand her scruples, and they do her great honour. +But she and I and all of us must accept the situation as we find it. +She must not think of becoming a nun.' You see, he has good sense as +well as good feeling. That is what I have always told you myself--we +must accept the situation as we find it. There's no use trying to open +up the past." + +"H'm," said Susanna, on a key of doubt. + +"And then, with my heart in the business, for I had seen that he was of +the right stuff, then I proposed a marriage," said the Commendatore. +"I put it to him as strongly as I could. I painted the advantages in +vivid colours. But it was no good. He cannot marry you. He is +already betrothed." + +"So you said," Susanna reminded him. "To a lady in England, I think?" + +"Yes," assented the Commendatore. "It is a pity on our account that he +will not throw her over. But it is to his credit. Let me tell you it +is not every man in his position who would stick at the point of +honour. Consider the alternative. He throws over his Englishwoman, +and he becomes master not only of one of the noblest estates in Europe, +but of an estate which must have for him the incalculable additional +value of being his patrimony." Never chary of gesture, the speaker was +at this point lavish of it. + +"May I be permitted," said Susanna, raising her eyebrows, "to admire +the light-hearted way in which you leave _me_ out of the saga?" + +"You?" puzzled the Commendatore. "Out of the--what? What is a saga?" + +"A Scandinavian legend," Susanna instructed him. "Now see how you +leave me out of your Scandinavian legend. 'Consider the alternative,' +said you. 'He throws over his Englishwoman, and he becomes--' Well, +_you_ said, 'Master of a noble estate.' But a really gallant person +might have said, 'Husband of a perfectly entrancing Italian woman.'" + +She pulled a little face. + +"Ha," laughed the Commendatore, briefly. "You must have your joke." +And his hand instinctively made for his moustaches. "Well, I am sorry. +I can never hope to find you a better husband." + +"You need never try," said Susanna. "He will do." + +"What?" said the Commendatore. + +"He will do," said she. "We'll have a grand wedding in the Cathedral. +The Bishop shall officiate, in his very best cope and mitre, and you, +with your grandest flourish, shall give the bride away." + +The Commendatore shrugged his shoulders, and gazed for commiseration at +the sky. + +"You are incomprehensible," he said. "Haven't I spent an hour telling +you he is affianced to a lady in England?" + +"No," said Susanna; "only something like ten minutes." + +"Brrr," said the Commendatore, contemptuous of the quibble. + +"And anyhow, I shall marry him," said Susanna. "You have made me quite +fall in love with him, by your glowing description--and I rather liked +him before. The lady in England is neither here nor there. We 'll be +married in the Cathedral, where so many generations of our ancestors +have been married. His friend Mr. Willes shall be best man; and the +Pontes shall pontificate in their most British manner, with +wedding-favours sent out from London. And so the ancient legitimate +line of the Valdeschi shall be restored." + +"You are mad," said the Commendatore, simply. + +"And you shall offer us a wedding-breakfast at the Villa Fregi," she +pursued. "We 'll have all sorts of nice things to eat and drink, and +you shall propose the health of the bride, and make a magnificent +speech. And I shall wear my coronet--which I have never yet worn--for +then I shall be the Countess of Sampaolo with a clear right to the +title. And now I 'll tell you a secret. Would you like me to tell you +a secret?" she inquired. + +"I can tell _you_ a secret that will soon be a matter of public +notoriety," said the Commendatore. "And that is that you 've clean +gone out of your senses." + +"The lady he is engaged to in England," said Susanna, "guess who she +is. I give it to you in a million." + +"How the devil can I guess who she is?" said the Commendatore. + +"Well, then, listen," said Susanna. "You must n't faint, or explode, +or anything--but the lady he's engaged to in England is your old +friend--that bold adventuress, that knightess errant--the widow +Torrebianca." + +"_Domeniddio_!" gasped the Commendatore, falling back in his chair. + +And I half think he would have pulled his moustaches out by their roots +if Susanna had n't interceded with him to spare them. + +"Don't--don't," she pleaded. "You won't have any left." + +"_Domeniddio_!" he gasped three separate times, on three separate notes. + +"If you're surprised," said Susanna, "think how much more surprised he +will be." + +"_Do-men-id-dio_!" said the Commendatore, in a whisper. + +And then a servant came to announce that luncheon was ready. + + + + +XXIV + +That morning Anthony had received a letter from Miss Sandus. It was +dated and postmarked Craford, where, indeed, (although Miss Sandus was +now at Isola Nobile), it had been written. It had been written at +Susanna's request, almost under her dictation. Then she had given it +to a confidential servant, with orders that it should be committed to +the post three days after her departure. + +"I sometimes forget, my dear," Miss Sandus had improved the occasion to +remark, "that you are not English; but the Italian in you comes out in +your unconquerable passion for intrigue." + +The initial and principal paragraph of the letter ran as follows:-- + +"Do you remember once upon a time complaining to me of your lady-love +that she was rich? and setting up her wealth as an obstacle to your +happy wooing?--and how I pooh-poohed the notion? Well, now, it would +appear, that obstacle is by way of being removed. You will have +learned in your copy-book days that Fortune is a mighty uncertain +goddess. And I am writing by Susanna's desire to let you know that +circumstances have quite suddenly arisen which make it seem likely that +she may be in some danger, if not actually on the point, of losing +nearly everything that she possesses. I don't altogether clearly +understand the matter, but it springs from some complication in her +family, and a question whether a rather distant relative has n't a +better claim than her own upon the properties she has been enjoying. +She wishes me to tell you this, because, as she says, 'It may make some +difference in his plans.' I am well aware, of course, as I have +assured her, that it will make none--unless, indeed, it may intensify +your impatience for an early wedding-day. But she insists upon my +writing; and when she insists, I notice that no one ever for very long +resists. What is that mysterious virtue, which some people have in +abundance, (but most of us so abundantly lack), by which one is +compelled, if they say _go_, to go, if they say _come_, to come? There +is a question for you to meditate, as you walk by the shores of the +Adriatic, under 'the golden leaves of the olives.' I wonder whether +you will recollect from what poet that is quoted--'the golden leaves of +the olives.' Well, they _are_ golden in certain lights." + +I dare say Anthony was still digesting his letter from Miss Sandus, +when it was followed by the somewhat startling visit of Commendatore +Fregi; and perhaps he was still under the impression of that, when, in +the afternoon, he was summoned from a game of tennis, to receive the +communication which I transcribe below, from the Contessa di Sampaolo. +It was brought to him by a Capuchin friar, a soft-spoken, aged man, +with a long milk-white beard, who said he would wait for an answer. + +The Pontes, their tennis thus interrupted, strolled off towards the +stables, leading Adrian with them,--an Adrian consumed, I fancy, by +curiosity to know what business a Capuchin friar might have to transact +with his friend. "Of course it is something to do with the plots and +plans of my lady," he reflected; "but exactly _what_? If people take +you into their confidence, they ought to take you into the entirety of +it, and keep you _au courant_ as the theme develops." + +Anthony paused for an instant to admire his correspondent's strong, +clear-flowing, determined hand; and then, in that stiff-jointed, formal +Tuscan of the schools, which no human being was ever heard to speak, +but educated Italians will persist in writing, he read:-- + +"Illustrissimo Signore e caro Cugino"--Nay, better translate:-- + +"Most Illustrious Sir and dear Cousin: From my earliest childhood I +have always felt that the Revolution of 1850 was accompanied by great +injustices, and particularly that, without reference to the political +changes, there should have been no transfer of the hereditaments of our +family from the legal heir, your Excellency's father, then a minor, to +his uncle, my grandfather. At the age of twelve I made a vow, before +the shrine of our Sainted Progenitor, that if ever the power to do so +should be mine, I would set this injustice right. + +"By the testament of my father, however, I was left under the control +of a guardian until I was twenty-two, which age I attained in April +last. Since April I have been constantly in the intention of restoring +to the head of my family the properties that are rightly his. But many +impeding circumstances, besides the dissuasions of friends whose age +and wisdom I was concerned to regard, have detained me until now, when, +learning that your Excellency is sojourning in the island, I feel that +I must no longer postpone an act of due reparation. + +"As I am but the life-tenant of these estates, and as your Excellency, +being my nearest male kinsman, is legally my heir-apparent, (though +morally always the head of our house), I can, I am informed, make the +estates over to you by entering a Religious Order, and taking vows of +celibacy for life. The small fortune which I have inherited from my +mother will provide me with the dowry necessary to this step. + +"Most Illustrious Sir and dear Cousin, it would give me great pleasure +to make the acquaintance of your Excellency, and to do homage to the +Chief of the House of San Guido, before my retirement from the world. +The good Father Angelo, who bears this letter, who has my full +confidence and approves of my purpose, will bring me your Excellency's +answer, to say if and when you will honour me with your presence at +Isola Nobile. + +"I beg leave to subscribe myself. Most Illustrious Sir and dear +Cousin, with sentiments of distinguished respect and affection, of your +Lordship's Excellency the good cousin, + +"S. del Valdeschi della Spina, + Contessa di Sampaolo." + +"Al Illmo. Signore, S. E. il Conte di Sampaolo, + Alla Villa del Ponte, Vallanza." + + +Anthony, his cousin's letter held at arm's length, turned to the +white-bearded Capuchin, where he stood in his brown habit, patiently +waiting, with his clasped hands covered by his sleeves. + +"My dear Father," he said, speaking quickly, his face white, his eyes +troubled, "the Countess tells me that you have her full confidence and +approve her purpose. But do you _know_ what purpose she has intimated +here?" + +"Yes," said Father Angelo, calmly, bowing his head. + +"But then," Anthony hurried on, his excitement unconcealed, "it is +impossible you should approve it--it is impossible any one should +approve it. She must be stopped. The thing she proposes to do is out +of all reason. I cannot allow it. Her friends must not allow it. Her +friends must prevent it." + +"The thing she proposes to do is an act of simple justice," said the +Father, in his soft voice. + +Anthony waved his arms, intolerantly. + +"Simple justice--or simple madness," he said, "it is a thing that must +not even be discussed. She is twenty-two years old--she is a +child--she is irresponsible--she does n't, she can't, know what she is +doing. She proposes to impoverish herself, to condemn herself to a +convent for life, and, so far as one can see, without the slightest +vocation. Her friends must restrain her." + +"She is not a person easily restrained, when she has made up her mind," +said the Father, quietly. + +"At all events," said Anthony, "she will be restrained in spite of +herself, if the fact is impressed upon her that the sacrifice she +contemplates making on my behalf is one that I will not accept--that no +man could accept. She can't make her properties over to me if I refuse +to accept them." + +"No, I suppose she cannot," said Father Angelo. His hand came forth +from his sleeve, to stroke his beard, thoughtfully. "But the +properties are in all right and justice yours. Why should you not +accept them? You are the legitimate Conte di Sampaolo. You are +entitled to your own." + +"My dear Father!" Anthony cried out, almost writhing. "It is a matter, +I tell you, that I cannot even discuss. Accept them! And allow an +inexperienced young girl, who can't possibly understand the +consequences of her action, on a quixotic impulse, to beggar herself +for me, to give up everything, to retire from the world and die by slow +inches in a convent! The thing is too monstrous. A man could never +hold up his head again." + +"It would be well," said the Father, slowly, "if you were to tell her +this in person. You had better see her, and tell her it in person." + +"When can I see her?" Anthony asked, impetuous. + +"When you will. She much desires to see you," the Father answered. + +"The sooner, the better," said Anthony. "The sooner she definitely and +permanently dismisses this folly from her mind, the better for every +one concerned." + +"Possibly you could go with me now?" the Father suggested. "Her +launch, which brought me here, attends at the end of the garden." + +"Certainly I will go with you now," said Anthony. "Wait while I put on +a coat." + +He ran back to the tennis-court, caught up his coat, and donned it. +Then, all heated and in flannels as he was, he accompanied Father +Angelo to the launch. + + + + +XXV + +Susanna, Miss Sandus, a white peacock, and six ring-doves were taking +refreshments in the garden, in the shade of an oleander-tree. There +were cakes, figs, and lemonade, grains of dried maize, and plenty of +good succulent hemp-seed. The ring-doves liked the hemp-seed and the +maize, but the white peacock seemed to prefer sponge-cake soaked in +lemonade. + +"I know a literary man who once taught a peacock to eat sponge-cake +soaked in absinthe," Miss Sandus remarked, on a key of reminiscence. + +"Really? An unprincipled French literary man, I suppose?" was +Susanna's natural inference. + +"No, that's the funny part of it," said Miss Sandus. "He is an eminent +and highly respectable English literary man, and the father of a family +into the bargain. I dare n't give his name, lest he might have the law +of me." + +"He ought to have been ashamed of himself," Susanna said. "What became +of the poor peacock? Did it descend to a drunkard's grave?" + +"That's a long story," said Miss Sandus. "When you 're married and +come to stay with me in Kensington, I 'll ask the literary man to +dinner. Perhaps he 'll give you his account of the affair. Ah, here +'s your ambassador returned," she exclaimed all at once, as Father +Angelo, his beads swinging beside him, appeared advancing down the +pathway. + +"Well, Father----?" Susanna questioned, looking at him with eyes that +were dark and anxious. + +"Your cousin is a very headstrong person," said Father Angelo. "He +refuses to accept your offer. He swept it aside like a whirlwind." + +"Ah,--who told you he would?" crowed Miss Sandus. + +"He is here to speak with you in person. He is waiting in the loggia," +said Father Angelo. + +Susanna leaned back in her chair. She had turned very pale. + +"I think I am going to faint," she said. + +"For mercy's sake, _don't_," Miss Sandus implored her, starting. + +"I won't," Susanna promised, drawing a deep breath. "But you will +admit I have some provocation. Must I--must I see him?" + +"_Must_ you?" cried Miss Sandus. "Are n't you _dying_ to see him?" + +"Yes," Susanna confessed, with a flutter of laughter. "I 'm dying to +see him. But I 'm so _afraid_." + +"I 'll disappear," said Miss Sandus, rising. "Then the good Father can +bring him to you." + +"Oh, don't--don't leave me," Susanna begged, stretching out her hand. + +"My dear!" laughed Miss Sandus, and she tripped off towards the Palace. + +"Well, Father," Susanna said, after a pause, "will you show him the +way?" + + +The loggia, as Father Angelo called it, where he had left Anthony, +while he went to announce his arrival, was the same long open colonnade +in which, that morning, Susanna had had her conference with +Commendatore Fregi. It was arranged as a sort of out-of-doors +living-room. There were rugs on the marble pavement, and chairs and +tables; and on the tables, besides vases with flowers, and other +things, there were a good many books. + +Absently, mechanically, (as one will when one is waiting in a strange +place where books are within reach), Anthony picked a book up. It was +an old, small book, in tree-calf, stamped, in the midst of much +elaborate gold tooling, with the Valdeschi arms and coronet. +Half-consciously examining it, he became aware presently that it was a +volume of the poems of Ronsard. And then somehow it fell open, at a +page that was marked by the insertion of an empty envelope. + +The envelope caught Anthony's eye, and held it; and that was scarcely +to be wondered at, for, in his own unmistakable handwriting, it was +addressed to Madame Torrebianca, at the New Manor, Craford, England, +and its upper corner bore an uncancelled twenty-five centime Italian +postage-stamp. + +On the page the envelope marked was printed the sonnet, "Voicy le Bois." + +What happened at this moment in Anthony's head and heart? Many things +must have become rather violently and painfully clear to him; many +things must have changed their aspect, and adjusted themselves in new +combinations. Many things that had seemed trifling or meaningless must +have assumed significance and importance. No doubt he was shaken by +many tumultuous thoughts and feelings. But outwardly he appeared +almost unmoved. He returned the book to the table, and began to walk +backwards and forwards, his head bowed a little, as one considering. +Sometimes he would give a brief low laugh. Sometimes he would look up, +frown, and vaguely shake his fist. Once, shaking his fist, he +muttered, "Oh, that Adrian!" And once, with a delighted chuckle, "By +Jove, how awfully she 'll be dished!" + +Then Father Angelo came back. + +"The Countess is in the garden. May I show you the way?" he said. + +But when they had reached the marble bridge that connects the garden +with the Palace, "I think it will be best if you see her alone," the +Father said. "Cross this bridge, and keep straight up the path beyond, +and you will come to her." + +"Thank you, Father," said Anthony, and crossed the bridge. + + +He crossed the marble bridge, and kept straight up the path beyond. +And there, at the end of the path, in the shade of an oleander-tree, +with her back towards him, stood a young woman--a young woman in a +pearl-grey frock, and a garden-hat, beneath which one could see that +her hair was dark. Young women's backs, however, in this world, to the +undiscerning eyes of men, are apt to present no immediately +recognizable characteristic features; and so if it had n't been for +Ronsard, I don't know what would have happened. + +It was very still in the garden. The birds were taking their afternoon +siesta. The breeze faintly lisped in the tree-tops. Even the +sunshine, as if it were not always still, seemed stiller than its wont. + +"Oh, what--what--what will he think, what will he say, what will he do, +when I turn round, and he sees who I am?" The question repeated and +repeated itself in Susanna's mind, rhythmically, to the tremulous +beating of her heart, as she heard Anthony's footsteps coming near. + +He walked quickly, but a few paces short of where she stood he halted, +and for a breathing-space or two there was silence. + +Then at last, in English, in his smoothest, his most detached, his most +languid manner, but with an overtone of exultancy that could not be +subdued, he said-- + +"These ingenuous attempts at mystification are immensely entertaining; +but are there to be many more of them, before you can permit our little +comedy to reach its happy denouement?" + +"Good heavens!" thought Susanna, wildly. + +She did n't turn round, but presently her shoulders began to shake. +She could n't help it. The discomfiture was hers; she had been +"awfully dished" indeed. But her shoulders shook and shook with silent +laughter. + +In the end, of course, she turned. + +In her dark eyes disappointment, satisfaction, amazement, and amusement +shone together. + +"How in the world did you find out?" she asked. "How _could_ you have +found out? When did you find out? How long have you known? And if +you knew, why did you pretend not to know?" + +But Anthony, at the sight of her face, forgot everything. + +"Oh, never mind," he cried, and advanced upon her with swift strides. + +By-and-by, "Let me look at your right hand," said Susanna. "I want to +see whether you have the Valdeschi pit." + +"The Valdeschi what?" said Anthony. + +"The Valdeschi pit," said she. + +"What is that?" he asked. + +"The Valdeschi pit!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that you, the +head of the family, don't know?" + +"What is it?" he asked. + +"Every true-born son or daughter of San Guido," she explained, "bears +in the palm of the hand a little pit or dint, which is the survival in +his descendants of the scar made by the thorn in the hand of San Guido +himself. See--I have it." + +She held out her hand. + +Anthony took it, bent ever it, kissed it, studied it. + +"It is a delicious hand--but I see no pit," he said. + +"_There_," said she, placing the tip of her finger upon a tiny +concavity in the rose-white flesh. + +"That?" laughed Anthony. "That is nothing but a pretty little dimple." + +"Oh, no," said she, seriously. "That is the mark of the Valdeschi. I +'m sure you have it too--we all have it. Let me see." + +She took his lean brown hand, and examined it carefully, eagerly. + +"There! I was sure!" she cried. + +She pointed to where, in a position corresponding to that of the "mark +of the Valdeschi" in her own hand, there was an indentation that looked +like a half-obliterated scar. + +Presently, in the direction of the Palace, a bell began to ring, rather +a deep-toned bell, like a church-bell. + +Susanna rose. + +"When you were here the other day as a mere visitor," she said, "I +suppose they did n't show you the chapel, did they?" + +"No," said Anthony. + +"They don't show it to mere visitors," she went on. "But come with me +now, and you shall see it. Father Angelo is going to give Benediction. +That is what the bell is ringing for." + +She led the way towards the Palace. As they were crossing the bridge, +"Look," she said, and pointed to a flagstaff that sprang from the +highest pinnacle of the building. A flag was being hoisted there; and +now it fluttered forth and flew in the breeze, a red flag with a design +in gold upon it. + +"The flag of the Count of Sampaolo: gules, a spine or," said Susanna. +"Of course you know why they are flying it now?" + +"No--?" wondered Anthony. + +"Because the Count of Sampaolo is at home," she said. + +Then they went in to Benediction. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lady Paramount, by Henry Harland + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LADY PARAMOUNT *** + +***** This file should be named 19861.txt or 19861.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/8/6/19861/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +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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