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diff --git a/39145.txt b/39145.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1d2c05b --- /dev/null +++ b/39145.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11845 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Devourers, by Annie Vivanti Chartres + +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 Devourers + +Author: Annie Vivanti Chartres + +Release Date: March 14, 2012 [EBook #39145] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEVOURERS *** + + + + +Produced by Valentina, Sue Fleming, Carlo Traverso and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + + The Devourers + + + By + + A. Vivanti Chartres + + + G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + NEW YORK AND LONDON + The Knickerbocker Press + 1910 + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY + A. VIVANTI CHARTRES. + + + + TO MY WONDERCHILD + + VIVIEN + + TO READ WHEN SHE HAS WONDERCHILDREN OF HER OWN + + + + +PREFACE + + +There was a man, and he had a canary. He said, "What a dear little +canary! I wish it were an eagle." God said to him: "If you give your +heart to it to feed on, it will become an eagle." So the man gave his +heart to it to feed on. And it became an eagle, and plucked his eyes +out. + +There was a woman, and she had a kitten. She said: "What a dear little +kitten! I wish it were a tiger." God said to her: "If you give your +life's blood to it to drink, it will become a tiger." So the woman gave +her life's blood to it to drink. And it became a tiger, and tore her to +pieces. + +There was a man and a woman, and they had a child. They said: "What a +dear little child! We wish it were a genius."... + + + + +BOOK I + + + + +I + + +The baby opened its eyes and said: "I am hungry." + +Nothing moved in the silent, shadowy room, and the baby repeated its +brief inarticulate cry. There were hurrying footsteps; light arms raised +it, and a laughing voice soothed it with senseless, sweet-sounding +words. Then its cheek was laid on a cool young breast, and all was tepid +tenderness and mild delight. Soon, on the wave of a light-swinging +breath, it drooped into sleep again. + + * * * * * + +Edith Avory had hurried home across the meadow from the children's party +at the vicarage, her pendant plaits flying, her straw hat aslant, and +now she entered the dining-room of the Grey House fluttered and +breathless. + +"Have they come?" she asked of Florence, who was laying the cloth for +tea. + +"Yes, dear," answered the maid. + +"Where are they? Where is the baby?" and, without waiting for an answer, +the child ran out of the room and helter-skeltered upstairs. + +In front of the nursery she stopped. It was her own room, but through +the closed door she had heard a weak, shrill cry that plucked at her +heart. Slowly she opened the door, then paused on the threshold, +startled and disappointed. + +Near the window, gazing out across the verdant Hertfordshire fields, sat +a large, square-faced woman in pink print, and on her lap, face +downward, wrapped in flannel, lay a baby. The nurse was slapping it on +the back with quick, regular pats. Edith saw the soles of two little red +feet, and at the other end a small, oblong head, covered with soft black +hair. + +"Oh dear!" said Edith. "Is _that_ the baby?" + +"Please shut the door, miss," said the nurse. + +"I thought babies had yellow hair, with long muslin dresses and blue +bows," faltered Edith. + +The square-faced nurse did not answer, but continued pat--pat--pat with +her large hand on the small round back. + +Edith stepped a little nearer. "Why do you do that?" she asked. + +The woman looked the little girl up and down before she answered. Then +she said, "Wind," and went on patting. + +Edith wondered what that meant. Did it refer to the weather? or was it, +perhaps, a slangy servant's way of saying, "Leave me alone" or "Hold +your tongue"? + +"Has the baby's mother come too?" she asked. + +"Yes," said the nurse; "and when you go out, will you please shut the +door behind you?" + +Edith did so. + +She heard voices in her mother's room, and looked in. Sitting near her +mother on the sofa was a girl dressed in black, with black hair, like +the baby's. She was crying bitterly into a small black-edged +handkerchief. + +"Oh, Edith dear," said her mother, "that's right! Come here. This is +your sister Valeria. Kiss her, and tell her not to cry." + +"But where is the baby's mother?" said Edith, glad to gain time before +kissing the wet, unknown face. + +The girl in mourning lifted her eyes, dark and swimming, from the +handkerchief. "It is me," she said, with a swift, shining smile, and one +of her tears rolled into a dimple and stopped there. "What a dear little +girl for my baby to play with!" she added, and kissed Edith on both +cheeks. + +"That size baby cannot play," said Edith, drying her face with the back +of her hand. "And the woman was hitting it!" + +"Hitting it!" cried the girl in black, jumping up. + +"Hitting it!" cried Edith's mother. + +And they both hurried out. + +Edith, left alone, looked round the familiar room. On her mother's bed +lay a little flannel blanket like the one the baby was wearing, and a +baby's cap, and some knitted socks, and a rubber rattle. On a chair was +a black jacket and a hat trimmed with crape and dull black cherries. +Edith squeezed one of the cherries, which broke stickily. Then she went +to the looking-glass and tried the hat on. Her long small face looked +back at her gravely under the caliginous head-dress, as she shook her +head from side to side, to make it totter and tilt. "When I am a widow I +shall wear a thing like this," she said to herself, and then dropped it +from her head upon the chair. She quickly squeezed another cherry, and +went out to look at the baby. + +It was in the nursery in its grandmother's arms, being danced up and +down; its fist was in its mouth, and its large eyes stared at nothing. +Its mother, the girl in black, was on her knees before it, clapping her +hands and saying: "Cara! Cara! Cara! Bella! Bella! Bella!" Wilson, the +nurse, with her back to them, was emptying Edith's chest of drawers, and +putting all Edith's things neatly folded upon the table, ready to be +taken to a little room upstairs that was henceforth to be hers. For the +baby needed Edith's room. + +The little girl soon tired of looking, and went down to the garden. +Passing the verandah, she could hear the gardener laughing and talking +with Florence. He was saying: + +"Now, of course, Miss Edith's nose is quite put out of joint." + +Florence said: "I'm afraid so, poor lamb!" + +Edith ran to the shrubbery, and put her hand to her nose. It did not +hurt her; it felt much the same as usual. Still, she was anxious and +vaguely disturbed. "I must tell the Brown boy," she said, and went to +the kitchen-garden to look for him. + +There he was, on his knees, patting mould round the strawberry-plants; a +good deal of earth was on his face and in his rusty hair. + +"Good-evening," said Edith, stopping near him, with her hands behind +her. + +"Hullo!" said the gardener's boy, looking up. + +"They've come," said Edith. + +"Have they?" and Jim Brown sat back on his heels and cleaned his fingers +on his trousers. + +"The baby is black," said Edith. + +"Sakes alive!" said Jim, opening large light eyes that seemed to have +dropped into his face by mistake. + +"It has got black hair," continued Edith, "and a red face." + +"Oh, Miss Edith, you are a goose!" said the Brown boy. "That's all +right. I thought you meant it was all black, because of its mother being +a foreigner." + +Edith shook her head. "It's not all right. Babies should have golden +hair." + +"What is the mother like?" asked Jim. + +"She's black, too; and the nurse is horrid. And what is the matter with +my nose?" + +"Eh?" said Jim Brown. + +"Yes. Look at my nose. What's wrong with it?" + +The Brown boy looked at it. Then he looked closer. Little by little an +expression of horror came over his face. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "Oh my! +Just think of it!" + +"What? What is it?" cried Edith. "It was all right just now." And as the +boy kept staring at her nose with growing amazement, she screamed: "Tell +me what it is! Tell me, or I'll hit you!" + +Then the Brown boy got up and danced round her in a frenzy of horror at +what was the matter with her nose; so she took a small stone and threw +it at him. Whereupon he went back to his strawberry-plants, and declined +to speak to her any more. + +When he saw her walking forlornly away with her hand to her nose, and +her two plaits dangling despondently behind, he felt sorry, and called +her back. + +"I was only larking, Miss Edith. Your nose is all right." So she was +comforted, and sat down on the grass to talk to him. + +"Valeria speaks Italian to the baby, and they have come to stay always," +she said. "The baby is going to have my room, and I am going to be +upstairs near Florence. We are all going to dress in black, because of +my brother Tom having died. And mamma has been crying about it for the +last four days. And that baby is my niece." + +"Your brother, Master Tom, was the favourite with them all, wasn't he?" +said Jim. + +"Oh, yes," said Edith. "There were so many of us that, of course, the +middle ones were liked best." + +"I don't quite see that," said Jim. + +"Oh, well," explained Edith, "I suppose they were tired of the old ones, +and did not want the new ones, so that's why. Anyhow," she added, "it +doesn't matter. They're all dead now." + +Then she helped him with the strawberry-plants until it was time for +tea. + +Her grandfather came to call her in--a tall, stately figure, shuffling +slowly down the gravel path. Edith ran to meet him, and put her warm +fingers into his cool, shrivelled hand. Together they walked towards the +house. + +"Have you seen them, grandpapa?" she asked, curvetting round him, as he +proceeded at gentle pace across the lawn. + +"Seen whom, my dear?" asked the old gentleman. + +"Valeria and the baby." + +"What baby?" said the grandfather, stopping to rest and listen. + +"Why, Tom's baby, grandpapa," said Edith. "You know--the baby of Tom who +is dead. It has come to stay here with its mother and nurse. Her name is +Wilson." + +"Dear me!" said the grandfather, and walked on a few steps. + +Then he paused again. "So Tom is dead." + +"Oh, you knew that long ago. I told you so." + +"So you did," said the old gentleman. He took off his skullcap, and +passed his hand over his soft white hair. "Which Tom is that--my son Tom +or his son Tom?" + +"Both Toms," said Edith. "They're both dead. One died four days ago, and +the other died six years ago, and you oughtn't to mix them up like that. +One was my papa and your son, and the other was his son and the baby's +papa. Now don't forget that again." + +"No, my dear," said the grandfather. Then, after a while: "And you say +his name is Wilson?" + +"Whose name?" exclaimed Edith. + +"Why, my dear, how should I know?" said the grandfather. + +Then Edith laughed, and the old gentleman laughed with her. + +"Never mind," said Edith. "Come in and see the baby--your son Tom's +son's baby." + +"Your son's Tom's sons," murmured the grandfather, stopping again to +think. "Tom's sons your son's Tom's sons ... Where do I put in the +baby?" + +Edith awoke in the middle of the night, listening and alert. "What is +that?" she said, sitting up in bed. + +Florence's voice came from the adjoining room: "Go to sleep, my lamb. +It's only the baby." + +"Why does it scream like that?" + +"It must have got turned round like," explained Florence sleepily. + +"Then why don't they turn it straight again?" asked Edith. + +"Oh, Miss Edith," replied Florence impatiently, "do go to sleep. When a +baby gets 'turned round,' it means that it sleeps all day and screams +all night." + +And so it did. + + + + +II + + +A gentle blue February was slipping out when March tore in with +screaming winds and rushing rains. He pushed the diffident greenness +back, and went whistling rudely across the lands. The chilly drenched +season stood still. One morning Spring peeped round the corner and +dropped a crocus or two and a primrose or two. She whisked off again, +with the wind after her, but looked in later between two showers. And +suddenly, one day, there she was, enthroned and garlanded. +Frost-spangles melted at her feet, and the larks rose. + +Valeria borrowed Edith's garden-hat, tied it under her chin with a black +ribbon, and went out into the young sunshine across the fields. Around +her was the gloss of recent green, pushing upwards to the immature blue +of the sky. And Tom, her husband, was dead. + +Tom lay in the dark, away from it all, under it all, in the distant +little cemetery of Nervi, where the sea that he loved shone and danced +within a stone's-throw of his folded hands. + +Tom's folded hands! That was all she could see of him when she closed +her eyes and tried to recall him. She could not remember his face. Try +as she would, shutting her eyes with concentrated will, the well-known +features wavered and slipped away; and nothing remained before her but +those dull white hands as she had seen them last--terrible, +unapproachable hands! + +Were those the hands Tom was so particular about and rather vain of--the +hands she had patted and laid her cheek against? Were those +hands--fixed, cessated, all-relinquishing--the hands that had painted +the Italian landscapes she loved, and the other pictures she hated, +because in them all stood Carlotta of Trastevere, rippling-haired, bare, +and deliberate? Were those the hands that had rowed her and Uncle +Giacomo in the little boat _Luisa_ on the Lake Maggiore?--the hands that +had grasped hers suddenly at the Madonna del Monte the day she had put +on her light blue dress, with the sailor collar and scarlet tie? She +seemed to hear him say, with his droll English accent: "Volete essere +sposina mia?" And she had laughed and answered him in the only two +English words she knew, and which he himself had taught her across the +table d'hote: "Please! Thank you!" Then they had both laughed, until Zio +Giacomo had said that the Madonna would punish them. + +The Madonna had punished them. She had struck him down in his +twenty-sixth year, a few months after they were married, shattering his +youth like a bubble of glass. Valeria had heard him, day after day, +night after night, coughing his life away in little hard coughs and +clearings of his throat; then in racking paroxysms that left him +breathless and spent; then in a loose, easy cough that he scarcely +noticed. They had gone from Florence, where it was too windy, to Nervi, +where it was too hot; from Nice, where it was too noisy, to Airolo, +where it was too dull; then, with a rush of hope, with hurried packing +of coats and shawls, of paintbrushes and colours, of skates and +snowshoes, they had journeyed up to Davos. And there the sun shone, and +the baby was born; and Tom Avory went skating and bob-sleighing, and +gained six pounds in eight weeks. + +Then one day an American woman, whose son was dying, said to Valeria: +"It is bad for your baby to stay up here. Send her away, or when she is +fifteen she will start coughing too." + +"Send her away!" Yes, the baby must be sent away. The deadly swarm of +germs from all the stricken lungs seemed to Valeria to envelope her and +her child like a cloud--the cloud of death. She could feel it, see it, +taste it. The smell of it was on her pillow at night; the sheets and +blankets exhaled it; her food was impregnated with it. She herself was +full-grown, and strong and sound; but her baby--her fragile, rose-bud +baby--was Tom's child, too! All Tom's brothers and sisters, except one +little girl called Edith, who was in England, had died in their +adolescence--one in Bournemouth; one in Torquay; one in Cannes; one, +Tom's favourite sister, Sally, in Nervi--all fleeing from the death they +carried within them. Now Davos had saved Tom. But the baby must be sent +away. + +They consulted three doctors. One said there was no hurry; another said +there was no danger; the third said there was no knowing. + +Valeria and Tom determined that they would not take risks. One snowy day +they travelled down to Landquart. There Tom was to leave them and return +to Davos. But the baby was crying, and Valeria was crying; so Tom jumped +into the train after them, and said he would see them as far as Zuerich, +where Uncle Giacomo would be waiting to take them to Italy. + +"Then you will be all right, helpless ones," he said, putting his arm +round them both, as the little train carried them down towards the +mists. And he gave his baby-girl a finger to clutch. + +But Tom never reached Zuerich. What reached Zuerich was stern and awful, +with limp, falling limbs and blood-stained mouth. The baby cried, and +Valeria cried, and crowds and officials gathered round them. But Tom +could help his helpless ones no more. + +His will was found in his breast-pocket. "Sposina mia, with all my +worldly goods I thee endow. Take our baby to England. Bury me in Nervi, +near Sally. I have been very happy.--TOM." + +These things Valeria Avory remembered as she walked in the soft English +sunshine, crying under Edith's garden-hat. When she reached a little +bridge across an angry stream, she leaned over the parapet to look at +the water, and the borrowed hat fell off and floated away. + +Valeria ran down the bank after it, but it was in midstream, resting +lightly against a protruding stone. She threw sticks and pebbles at it, +and it moved off and sailed on, with one black ribbon, like a thin arm, +stretched behind it. Valeria ran along the sloping bank, sliding on +slippery grass and wet stones; and the hat quivered and curtseyed away +buoyantly on the miniature waves. When the stream elbowed off towards +the wood, the hat bobbed along with it, and so did Valeria. As she and +the stream and the hat turned the corner, she heard an exclamation of +surprise, and, raising her flushed face, she saw a young man, in grey +tweeds, fishing on the other side of the water. + +The young man said: "Hang it all! Good-bye, trout!" And Valeria said: +"Can you catch my hat?" + +He caught it with great difficulty, holding it with the thick end of his +rod, and flattering it towards him with patient man[oe]uvres. + +"My trout!" he murmured. "I had been after that fat fellow for three +days." Then he dragged the large splashing hat out of the water and held +it up. "Here's your hat." It had never been a beautiful hat; it was a +dreary-looking thing that Edith had had much wear out of. It had not the +appearance of a hat worth fishing three days for. + +"Oh, thank you so much! How shall I reach it?" said Valeria, extending a +small muddy hand from her side of the stream. + +"I suppose I must bring it across," said the young man, still holding +the dripping adornment at arm's length. + +"Oh no!" said Valeria. "Throw it." + +The young man laughed, and said: "Don't try to catch! It will give you a +cold." He flung the hat across, and it fell flat and sodden at Valeria's +feet. + +"Oh dear!" she said, picking it up, with puckered brows, while the black +tulle ruffles fell from it, soft and soaking. "What shall I do with it +now? I can't put it on. And I don't think I can carry it, walking along +these slippery banks." + +"Well, throw it back again," said the young man, "and I'll carry it for +you." + +So she threw the heavy melancholy thing at him, and they walked along, +with the water between them, smiling at each other. On the bridge they +met, and shook hands. + +"I am sorry about your fishes," she said. + +"My fishes?" He laughed. "Oh, never mind them. I am sorry about your +hat." Then, noting the damp ringlets on her forehead and the dimple in +her cheek, he added: "What will you put on when you come to-morrow?" + +"To-morrow?" she asked, raising simple eyes. + +"Yes; will you?" he said, blushing a little, for he was very young. "At +this time"--he looked at his watch--"about eleven o'clock?" + +Valeria blushed, too--a sudden crimson flush that left her face white +and waxen. "Is it eleven o'clock?" she exclaimed. "Are you sure?" + +"Yes; what is the matter?" + +"The baby!" gasped Valeria. "I had forgotten the baby!" And she turned +and ran down the bridge and across the fields, her black gown flying, +the wet hat flapping at her side. + +She reached home breathless. The nurse was on the verandah, waiting. "Am +I late, Wilson?" she panted. + +"Yes, madam," said the nurse, with tight and acid lips. + +"How is baby?" gasped Valeria. + +"The baby," said the woman, gazing at her, sphinx-like and severe, "is +hungry." + + + + +III + + +The young man went to fish in the little stream every day, but he only +caught his fat trout. The dimpled girl in mourning did not come again. +His holiday was ended, and he returned to his rooms in London, but he +left a love-letter for Valeria on the bank, pinned to the crumpled black +ruffle that had fallen off her hat, and with a stone on it to keep it +down. + +Valeria found the love-letter. She had stayed indoors a week, repenting. +Then Spring and her youth joined hands, and drew her out of doors and +across the fields again. She went, blushing and faltering, with a bunch +of violets pinned at her belt. No one saw her but a tail-flicking, +windy-haired pony in a meadow, who frisked suddenly after her and made +her shiver. + +Close to the stream her eye caught the tattered black ruffle and the +note pinned to it. The young man wrote that his name was Frederick +Allen; that he was reading for the Bar and writing for newspapers. He +said that she had haunting eyes, and that they would probably never meet +again. He wondered whether she had found the baby, and where she had +forgotten it, and what baby it was. And she _might_ have turned round +just once to wave him farewell! He hoped she would not be displeased if +he said that he loved her, and would never forget her. Would she tell +him her name? Only her name! Please, please! He was hers in utter +devotion, FREDERICK. + +Valeria went back in a dream and looked up the word "haunting" in her +English-Italian Dictionary. She did not remember his eyes: they were +blue, she thought, or perhaps brown. But his face was clear and +sunburnt, and his smooth-parted hair was bright when he took off his hat +on the bridge. + +She thought she would simply return his letter. Then she decided that +she would add a few words of rebuke. Finally one rainy day, when +everybody had seemed cross, and Edith had answered rudely, and the baby +had screamed for Wilson who was not there, Valeria, with qualms and +twinges, took a sheet of paper and wrote her name on it. The paper had a +black border. Valeria suddenly fell on her knees and kissed the black +border, and prayed that Tom might forgive her. Then she burned it, and +went to her baby, who was quarrelling with everything and trying to kill +an India-rubber sheep. + +Yet one day in April--an April swooning with soft suggestions, urging +its own evanescence and the fleeting sweetness of life--Mr. Frederick +Allen, in his London lodgings, received two letters instead of one. +Hannah, the pert maid who brought them to his room, lingered while he +opened them. In the first was a cheque for six guineas from a +periodical; in the other was a visiting-card: + + VALERIA NINA AVORY. + +"Who the dickens...?" he said, turning the card over. "Here!" and he +threw it across to Hannah. "Here's a French modiste, or something, if +you want falals!" + +Then, as he had received six guineas when he had only expected four, he +shut up his law-book, pinched Hannah's cheek _en passant_, and went out +for a day up the river with the man next door. + +The card was thrown into the coal-box, and the kitchen-maid burnt it. +And that is all. + + * * * * * + +April brought the baby a tooth. + +May brought it another tooth, and gave a wave to its hair. June took +away its bibs, and gave it a smile with a dimple copied from Valeria's. +July brought it short lace frocks and a word or two. August stood it +upright and exultant, with its back to the wall; and September sent it +tottering and trilling into its mother's arms. + +Its name was Giovanna Desiderata Felicita. + +"I cannot remember that," said the grandfather. "Call him Tom." + +"But, grandpapa, it is a girl," said Edith. + +"I know, my dear. You have told me so before," said the old gentleman +testily. He had become very irritable since there had been so much noise +in the house. + +"Well, what girl's name can you remember?" asked Mrs. Avory, patting her +old father's hand, and frowning at her daughter, Edith. + +"None--none at all," said the old man. + +"Come now, come now, dear!" said Mrs. Avory. "Can you remember Annie, or +Mary?" + +"No, I cannot," said her father. + +Then Edith suggested "Jane," and Valeria "Camilla." And Florence, who +was laying the cloth, said: "Try him with 'Nellie' or 'Katy.'" But the +old gentleman peevishly refused to remember any of those names. + +And for months he called the baby Tom. + + * * * * * + +One day at dinner he said: "Where is Nancy?" + +Mrs. Avory and Edith glanced at each other, and Valeria looked up in +surprise. + +"Where is Nancy?" repeated the grandfather impatiently. + +Mrs. Avory coughed. Then she laid her hand gently on his sleeve. "Nancy +is in heaven," she said softly. + +_"What!"_ cried the old gentleman, throwing down his table-napkin and +glaring round the table. + +"Your dear little daughter Nancy died many, many years ago," said Mrs. +Avory. + +The old gentleman rose. "It is not true!" he said with shaking voice. +"She was here this morning. I saw her." Then his lips trembled, and he +began to cry. + +Valeria suddenly started up and ran from the room. In a moment she was +back again, with her baby in its pink nightdress, kicking and crowing in +her arms. + +"Here's Nancy!" she said, with a little break in her voice. + +"Why, of course!" cried Edith, clapping her hands. "Don't cry, +grandpapa. Here's Nancy." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Avory. "See, father dear, here's Nancy!" + +The old man looked up, and his dim blue eyes met and held the sparkling +eyes of the child. Long and deeply he looked into the limpid depths that +returned his unwavering gaze. + +"Yes, here's Nancy," said the old man. + +So the baby was Nancy ever after. + + + + +IV + + +When Nancy had three candles round her birthday-cake, and was pulling +crackers with her eyes shut, and her mother's hands pressed tightly over +her ears, Edith put her elbows on the table, and said: + +"What is Nancy going to be?" + +"Good," answered Nancy quickly--"veddy good. Another cwacker." + +So she got another cracker, and Edith repeated her question. + +Mrs. Avory said: "What do you mean?" + +"Well," said Edith, whose two plaits had melted into one, with a large +black bow fastened irrelevantly to the wrong end of it, "you don't want +her to be just a girl, do you?" + +Valeria blushed, and said: "I have often thought I should like her to be +a genius." + +Edith nodded approval, and Mrs. Avory looked dubiously at the little +figure, now discreetly dragging the tablecloth down in an attempt to +reach the crackers. Nancy noted the soft look, and sidled round to her +grandmother. + +"Hold my ears," she said, "and give me a cwacker." + +Mrs. Avory patted the small head, and smoothed out the blue ribbon that +tied up the tuft of black curls. + +"Why do you want me to hold your ears?" + +"Because I am afwaid of the cwackers." + +"Then why do you want the crackers?" + +"Because I like them." + +"But why do you like them?" + +"Because I am afwaid of them!" and Nancy smiled bewitchingly. + +Everybody found this an astonishingly profound reply, and the question +of Nancy's genius recurred constantly in the conversation. + +Edith said: "Of course, it will be painting. Her father, poor dear Tom, +was such a wonderful landscape-painter. And I believe he did some +splendid figures, too." + +Mrs. Avory concurred; but Valeria shook her head and changed colour. +"Oh, I hope not!" she said, instant tears gathering in her eyes. + +Mrs. Avory looked hurt. "Why not, Valeria?" she said. + +"Oh, the smell," sobbed Valeria; "and the models ... and I could not +bear it. Oh, my Tom--my dear Tom!" And she sobbed convulsively, with her +head on Mrs. Avory's shoulder, and with Edith's arm round her. + +Nancy screamed loud, and had to be taken away to the nursery, where +Fraeulein Mueller, the German successor of Wilson, shook her. + +"Could it not be music?" said Valeria, after a while, drying her eyes +dejectedly. "My mother was a great musician; she played the harp, and +composed lovely songs. When she died, and I went to live in Milan with +Uncle Giacomo, I used to play all Chopin's mazurkas and impromptus to +him, although he said he hated music if anyone else played.... And, +then, when I married ..."--Valeria's sobs burst forth again--"dear +Tom ... said ..." + +Edith intervened quickly. "I certainly think it ought to be music;" and +she kissed Valeria's hot face. "The kiddy sings 'Onward, Christian +Soldiers,' and 'Schlaf, Kindchen' in perfect tune. Fraeulein was telling +me so, and said how remarkable it was." + +So Nancy was sent for again, and was brought in by Fraeulein, who had a +scratch on her cheek. + +Nancy was told to sing, "Schlaf, Kindchen, schlaf, da draussen steht ein +Schaf," and she did so with very bad grace and not much voice. But loud +and servile applause from everyone, including Fraeulein, gratified her, +and she volunteered her entire repertoire, comprising "There'll be +razors a-flyin' in the air," which she had learned incidentally from the +attractive and supercilious gardener's boy, Jim Brown. + +So it was decided that Nancy should be a great musician, and a piano +with a small keyboard was obtained for her at once. A number of books on +theory and harmony were bought, and Edith said Valeria was to read them +carefully, and to teach Nancy without letting her notice it. But Nancy +noticed it. And at last she used to cry and stamp her feet as soon as +she saw her mother come into the room. + +Fraeulein, with much diplomacy, and according to a German book on +education, taught her her notes and her alphabet at the same time; but +the result was confusion. Nancy insisted on spelling words at the piano, +and could find no "o" for dog, and no "t" for cat, and no anything; +while the Italian Valeria added obscurity and bewilderment by calling +"d" _re_, and "g" _sol_, and "b" _c_. Nancy became sour and suspicious. +In everything that was said to her she scented a trap for the conveying +of musical knowledge, and she trusted no one, and would speak to no one +but Jim Brown and the grandfather. + +At last she lit upon a device that afflicted and horrified her +tormentors. One day, when her mother was drawing little men, that turned +out to be semibreves, Nancy, speechless with anger, put her hand to her +soft hair, and dragged out a handful of it. Valeria gave a cry; she +opened the little fist, and saw the soft black fluff lying there. + +"Oh, baby, baby! how could you!" she cried. "What a dreadful thing! How +can you grieve your poor mother so!" + +That ended the musical education. Every time that a note lifted its +black head over Nancy's horizon, up went her hand, and she pulled out a +tuft of her hair. Then she opened her fist and showed it. Books on +harmony were put away; the piano was locked. No more Beethoven or +Schumann was sung to her in the guise of lullabies by Fraeulein at night; +but her old friend, "Baby Bunting," returned, and accompanied her, as of +old, when she sailed down the stream of sleep, afloat on the darkness. + + "Bye, Baby Bunting, + Father's gone a-hunting, + To shoot a rabbit for its skin, + To wrap little Baby Bunting in." + + * * * * * + +... Nancy sat on the grass, nursing her doll, and watching three small +rampant feathers on Fraeulein Mueller's hat, nodding, like little plumes +on a hearse, in time with something she was reading. + +"What are you reading?" asked Nancy. + +Fraeulein Mueller went on nodding, and read aloud: "'Shine out, little +het, sunning over with gurls.'" + +_"What?"_ said Nancy. + +"'Shine out, little het, sunning over with gurls,'" repeated Fraeulein +Mueller. + +"What does mean 'sunning over with girls'?" cried Nancy, frowning. + +"Gurls, gurls--hair-gurls!" explained Fraeulein. + +"_Curls!_ Are you sure it is curls?" said Nancy, dropping her doll in +the grass, and folding her hands. "Read it again. Slowly." + +"'Shine out, little het,'" repeated Fraeulein. And Nancy said it after +her. "'Shine out, little head, shine out, little head ... sunning over +with curls.'" + +Then she said to her governess: "Say that over and over and over again, +until I tell you not to;" and she shut her eyes. + +"Aber warum?" asked Fraeulein Mueller. + +Nancy did not open her eyes nor answer. + +"Komische Kleine," said Fraeulein; and added, in order to practise her +English, "Comic small!" Then she did as she was told. + +That night Nancy quarrelled with "Baby Bunting." She sat up in bed with +flushed cheeks and small, tight fists, and said to Fraeulein Mueller: "Do +not tell me that any more." + +Fraeulein, who had been droning on in the dusk over her knitting, and +thinking that at this hour in Duesseldorf her sister and mother were +eating _belegte Broedchen_, looked up in surprise. + +"What it is, mein Liebchen?" + +"Do not tell me any more about that rabbit. I cannot hear about him any +more. You keep on--you keep on till I am ill." + +Fraeulein Mueller was much troubled in suggesting other songs. She tried +one or two with scant success. + +Nancy sat up again. "All those silly words tease me. Sing without saying +them." + +So Fraeulein hummed uncertain tunes with her lips closed, and she was +just drifting into Beethoven, when Nancy sat up once more: + +"Oh, don't do that!" she said. "Say words without those silly noises. +Say pretty words until I go to sleep." + +So Fraeulein, after she had tried all the words she could think of, took +Lenau's poems from her own bookshelf, and read Nancy to sleep. On the +following evenings she read the "Waldlieder," and then "Mischka," until +it was finished. Then she started Uhland; and after Uhland, Koerner, and +Freiligrath, and Lessing. + +Who knows what Nancy heard? Who knows what visions and fancies she took +with her to her dreams? In the little sleep-boat where Baby Bunting used +to be with her, now sat a row of German poets, long of hair, wild of +eye, fulgent of epithet. Night after night, for months and years, little +Nancy drifted off to her slumber with lyric and lay, with ode and epic, +lulled by cadenced rhythm and resonant rhyme. On one of these nights the +poets cast a spell over her. They rowed her little boat out so far that +it never quite touched shore again. + +And Nancy never quite awoke from her dreams. + + + + +V + + +In Milan the cross-grained old architect, Giacomo Tirindelli, Valeria's +"Zio Giacomo," stout of figure and short of leg, got up in the middle of +the night and went to his son Antonio's room. + +The room was empty. He had expected this, but he was none the less +incensed. He went to the window and threw the shutters open. Milan +slept. Silent and deserted, Via Principe Amedeo lay at his feet. Every +alternate lamp already extinguished showed that it was past twelve +o'clock; and a dreary cat wandered across the road, making the street +emptier for its presence. + +Zio Giacomo closed the window, and walked angrily up and down his son's +room. On the walls, on the mantelpiece, on the desk, were +photographs--Nunziata Villari as Theodora, in stiff regal robes; +Nunziata Villari as Cleopatra, clad in jewels; Nunziata Villari as +Marguerite Gautier, in her nightdress, or so it appeared to Zio +Giacomo's angry eyes; Villari as Norah; Villari as Sappho; Villari as +Francesca. Then, in a corner, in an old frame, the portrait of a little +girl: _"My Cousin Valeria, twelve years old."_ Zio Giacomo stopped with +a short angry sigh before the picture of his favourite niece, whom he +had hoped one day to call his daughter. "Foolish girl," he grumbled, "to +marry that idiotic Englishman instead of my stupid, disobedient son----" +Then another profile of Nunziata Villari caught his eye, and then again +Nunziata Villari, all hair and smile.... Zio Giacomo had time to learn +the strange, strong face by heart before he heard the street-door fall +to, and his son's footsteps on the stairs. + +Antonio, who from the street had seen the light in his room, entered +with a cheerful smile. "Well, father," he said, "why are you not +asleep?" He received the inevitable counter-question with a little Latin +gesture of both hands (the gesture that Theodora specially liked!). +"Well, father dear, I am twenty-three, and you are--you are not;" and he +patted his father's small shoulder and laughed (his best laugh--the +laugh that Cleopatra could not resist). + +"Jeune homme qui veille, vieillard qui dort, sont tous deux pres de la +mort," quoted his father, in deep stern tones. + +"Eh! father mine, if life is to be short, let it be pleasant," said +Antonio, lighting a cigarette. + +Giacomo sat very straight; his dressing-gown was tight, and his feet +were chilly. His good-looking, good-tempered son irritated him. + +"Are you not ashamed?" he said, pointing a dramatic forefinger at the +row of portraits. "She is an old woman of fifty!" + +"Thirty-eight," said Antonio, seating himself in the armchair. + +"An actress! a masquerading mountebank, whom every porter with a franc +in his pocket can see when he will; a creature whose husband has run +away from her to the ends of the earth----" + +"To South America," interpolated Antonio. + +--"With the cook." And Zio Giacomo snorted with indignation. + +"I am afraid her cooking _is_ bad," said Antonio; and he blew rings of +smoke and puckered up his young red mouth in the way that made Phaedra +flutter and droop her passion-shaded lids. + +"I have enough of it," said his father, "and we leave for England +to-morrow." + +"For England? To-morrow?" Antonio started up. "You don't mean it! You +can't mean it, father! Why to England?" + +"I telegraphed yesterday to Hertfordshire. I told your cousin Valeria we +should come to see them; and she has answered that she is delighted, and +her mother is delighted, and everybody is delighted." Zio Giacomo nodded +a stubborn head. "We shall stay in England three months, six months, +until you have recovered from your folly." + +"Ah! because of Cousin Valeria. I see!" and Antonio laughed. "Oh, +father, father! you dear old dreamer! Are you at the old dream again? It +cannot be, believe me; it was a foolish idea of yours years ago. Valeria +was all eyes for her Englishman then, and is probably all tears for him +now. Stay here and be comfortable, father!" + +But his father would not stay there, and he would not be comfortable. He +went away shaking his head, and losing his slipper on the way, and +dropping candle-grease all over the carpet in stooping to pick it up. A +sore and angry Zio Giacomo got into bed, and tried to read the _Secolo_, +and listened to hear if the street-door banged again. + +It banged again. + +One o'clock struck as Antonio turned down Via Monte Napoleone, and when +he rang the bell at No. 36, the _portinaio_ kept him waiting ten +minutes. Then Marietta, the maid, kept him waiting fifteen minutes on +the landing before she opened the door; and then the Signora kept him +waiting fifteen eternities until she appeared, white-faced and +frightened, draped in white satin, with her hair bundled up anyhow--or +nearly anyhow--on the top of her head. + +Antonio took both her hands and kissed them, and pressed them to his +eyes, and told her he was leaving to-morrow--no, to-day--to-day! In a +few hours! For ever! For England! And what would she do? She would be +false! She would betray him! She was infamous! He knew it! And would she +die with him now? + +She gave the little Tosca scream, and turned from him with the second +act "Dame aux Camelias" shiver, and stepped back like Fedora, and +finally flung herself, like Francesca, upon his breast. Then she +whispered five words to him, and sent him home. + +She called Marietta, who loosened her hair again, and plaited it, and +put away what was not wanted, and gave her the lanoline; and she greased +her face and went to bed like Nunziata Villari, aged thirty-eight. + +But Antonio went through the nocturnal streets, repeating the five +words: "London. In May. Twelve performances." And this was March. + +Enough! He would live through it somehow. "Aber fragt mich nur nicht +wie," he said to himself, for he knew enough German to quote Heine's +"Buch der Lieder," and he had read "Die Jungfrau von Orleans" in the +original, in order to discuss it with La Villari. + +La Villari liked to discuss her roles with him. She also practised her +attitudes and tried her gestures on him without his knowing it. He +always responded, as a violin that one holds in one's hand thrills and +responds when another violin is played. When she was studying Giovanna +d'Arco, he felt that he was le Chevalier Bayard, and he dreamed of an +heroic life and an epic death. When she was preparing herself for the +role of Clelia, and practising the attitudes of that famous adventuress, +he became a sceptic and a _noceur_, and gave Zio Giacomo qualms for +three weeks by keeping late hours and gambling all night at the +Patriottica. When she took up the role of Messalina, and for purposes of +practice assumed Messalina attitudes and expounded Messalina views, he +drifted into a period of extreme demoralization, and became perverted +and blasphemous. But during the six weeks in which she arrayed her mind +in the candid lines of La Samaritana, he became once more spiritual and +pure: he gave up the Patriottica and the Cafe Biffi, and went to early +Mass every morning. + +"You funny boy!" said Villari to him one day. "You will do foolish +things in your life. Why don't you work?" + +"I don't know," said Antonio. "I am in the wrong set, I suppose. And, +besides, there is no time. After a canter on the Bastioni in the +morning, it is lunch-time; and after luncheon one reads or goes out; and +then it is visiting-time--the Marchesa Adda expects one every Monday, +and the Della Rocca every Tuesday, and somebody else every Wednesday.... +Then it is dinner-time and theatre-time and bed-time. And there you +are!" + +"It is a pity," said La Villari, kindly maternal, forgetting to be +Messalina, or Giovanna, or anyone else. "You have no character. You are +nice; you are good to look at; you are not stupid. But your nose is, as +one would say, a nose of putty--yes, of putty! And anyone can twist it +here and there. Take care! You will suffer much, or you will make other +people suffer. Noses of putty," she added thoughtfully, "are fountains +of grief." + +Zio Giacomo was one whose nose was not of putty. Much as he hated +journeys, many as were the things that he always lost on them, sorely as +his presence was needed in his office, where the drawings for a new town +hall were lying in expectant heaps on his desk, he had made up his mind +to start for England, and start they should. He packed off his +motherless daughter, the tall and flippant Clarissa, to a convent school +in Paris, bade good-bye to his sister Carlotta and to his niece Adele, +and scrambled wrathfully into the train for Chiasso, followed by the +unruffled Antonio. + +Antonio seemed to enjoy the trip; and soon Zio Giacomo found himself +wondering why they had taken it. Was the tale that his niece Adele had +told him about Antonio's infatuation for the actress all foolish +nonsense? Adele was always exaggerating. + +Zio Giacomo watched his son with growing anger. Antonio was cheerful and +debonair. Antonio slept when his father was awake; Antonio ate when his +father was sick. By the time they reached Dover Giacomo, who knew no +word of English but _rosbif_ and the _Times_, was utterly broken. But +Antonio twisted up his young moustache, and ran his fingers through his +tight black curls, and made long eyes at the English girls, who smiled, +and then passed hurriedly, pretending they had not seen him. + + + + +VI + + +At Charing Cross to meet them were Valeria and Edith--both charming, +small-waisted, and self-conscious. Valeria flung herself with Latin +demonstrativeness into her old uncle's arms, while Edith tried not to be +ashamed of the noise the Italian new-comers made and of the attention +they attracted. When, later, they were all four in the train on their +way to Wareside, she gave herself up entirely to the rapture of watching +Uncle Giacomo's gestures and Cousin Antonio's eyes. Cousin Antonio, whom +Valeria addressed as Nino, spoke to her in what he called +"banana-English," and was so amusing that she laughed until she coughed, +and coughed until she cried; and then they all said they would not laugh +any more. And altogether it was a delightful journey. + +When they alighted at the peaceful country station, there was Mrs. Avory +and little Nancy and the grandfather awaiting them; and there were more +greetings and more noise. And when the carriage reached the Grey House, +Fraeulein stood at the door step, all blushes and confusion, with a +little talcum-powder sketchily distributed over her face, and her +newly-refreshed Italian vocabulary issuing jerkily from her. + +They were a very cheerful party at tea; everybody spoke at once, even +the old grandfather, who kept on inquiring, "Who are they--who are +they?"--addressing himself chiefly to Zio Giacomo--at intervals during +the entire afternoon. Towards evening Nancy became excited and +unmanageable, and Mrs. Avory went to bed with a headache. But Fraeulein +entertained Zio Giacomo, and Nino sat at the piano and sang Neapolitan +songs to Valeria and Edith, who listened, sitting on one stool, with +arms interlaced. + +Then followed days of tennis and croquet, of picnics and teas with the +Vicar's pretty daughters and the Squire's awkward sons. Mrs. Avory had +only brief glimpses of Valeria and Edith darting indoors and out again; +running up to their rooms to change their skirts; calling through the +house for their racquets. Zio Giacomo walked about the garden, giving +advice to Fraeulein about the cultivation of tomatoes, and wondering why +English people never ate macaroni. + +"Nor _Knodel_," said Fraeulein. + +"Nor _risotto_," said Zio Giacomo. + +"Nor _Leberwurst_," said Fraeulein. + +"Nor _cappelletti al sugo_," said Zio Giacomo. + +"It is so as with the etucation," said Fraeulein. "The etucation is again +already quite wrong; not only the eating and the cooking of the +foot...." And so they rambled along. And Zio Giacomo was homesick. + +Suddenly Valeria was homesick too. It began on the first day of the +tennis tournament--a resplendent light-blue day. Nino said that the sky +matched Edith's dress and also her eyes, which reminded him of Lake +Como. Their partnership was very successful; Edith, airy and swift, +darted and flashed across the court, playing almost impossible balls. In +the evening, as she lay back in the rocking-chair, pale and sweet, with +her shimmering hair about her, Nino called her a tired butterfly, and +sang "La Farfalla" to her. Valeria was miserable. She said it was +homesickness. She felt that she was homesick for the sun of Italy and +the language of Italy; homesick for people with loud voices and easy +gesticulations and excitable temperaments; homesick for people with dark +eyes and dark hair. + +On the second day of the tournament, at tea on the Vicar's lawn, she +became still more homesick. Her partner was offering her +cress-sandwiches, and telling her that it was very warm for April, and +that last year in April it had been much colder. Meanwhile, she could +see Nino at the other side of the lawn tuning a guitar that had been +brought to him; he was laughing and playing chords on it with his +teaspoon. Edith and two other girls stood near him; their three fair +heads shone in the sunlight. Suddenly Valeria felt as if she could not +breathe in England any more. She said to herself that it must be the +well-bred voices, the conversation about the weather, the trimness, the +tidiness, the tea, the tennis, that were insufferable to her chagrined +heart. Meanwhile her dark eyes rested upon Nino and upon the three +blonde heads, inclined towards him, and glistening in different sheens +of gold. She felt hot tears pricking her eyes. + +That evening in her room, as they were preparing for bed, Edith talked +to her sister-in-law through the open door. "What fun everything is, +Val, isn't it?" she said, shaking out her light locks, and brushing them +until they crackled and flew, and stood out like pale fire round her +face. "Life is a delightful institution!" + +As no answer came from Valeria's room, Edith looked in. Valeria was +lying on her bed, still in her pink evening dress, with her face hidden +in the pillow. + +"Why? What has happened, dear?" asked Edith, bending over the dark bowed +head. + +"Oh, I hate everything!" murmured Valeria. "That horrid tennis, and +those horrid girls, always laughing, always laughing, always laughing." + +Edith sat down beside her. "But we laughed, too--at least, I know _I_ +did! And as for Nino, he laughed all the time." + +"That is it," cried Valeria, sitting up, tearful and indignant. "In +Italy Nino never laughed. In Italy we do not laugh for nothing, just to +show our teeth and pretend we are vivacious." + +Edith was astonished. She sat for a long while looking at Valeria's +disconsolate figure, and thinking matters over. Quite suddenly she bent +down and kissed Valeria, and said: "Don't cry." So Valeria, who had left +off crying, began to cry again. And still more she cried when she raised +her head and saw Edith's shower of scintillant hair, and the two little +Lakes of Como brimming over with limpid tears. They kissed each other, +and called themselves silly and goose-like; and then they laughed and +kissed each other again, and went to bed. + +Valeria fell asleep. + +But Edith lay thinking in the dark. + +She got up quite early, and took little Nancy primrosing in the woods; +so Nino and Valeria went to the tennis tournament alone. A fat, torpid +girl took Edith's place, and Valeria laughed all the morning. + +Edith and Nancy came in from the woods late for luncheon. When they +appeared, Nino looked up at Edith in surprise. Mrs. Avory said: "Edith, +my dear, what have you done? You look a sight!" + +"Do I?" said Edith. "Why, this is the famous North-German coiffure +Fraeulein has made me." + +Valeria's face had flushed. "You ought not to have let her drag your +hair back so tight," she said. And Mrs. Avory added: "I thought you had +given that ugly brown dress away long ago." + +Then Nancy spoke of the primroses and Nino of the tennis; and Edith kept +and adopted the North-German coiffure. She dropped out of the tournament +because it gave her a pain in her shoulders, and she went for long walks +with Nancy. + +Nancy was good company. Edith grew to look forward to the walks and to +the warm clasp of Nancy's little hand in hers, and the sound of Nancy's +treble voice beside her. Nancy asked few questions. She preferred not to +know what things were. She had never liked fireworks after she had seen +them in the day-time packed in a box. What! they were not baby stars? +All Fraeulein's definitions of things and of phenomena were painful to +her mind as to her ear. But the seventeen years of Edith and the eight +springtimes of the child kept step harmoniously. Nancy's dawning spirit, +urged by a presaging flame, pressed forward to its morning; while +Edith's early day, chilled by an unseen blight, turned back, and stopped +before its noon. Her springtide faded before its flowering. + +Thus the two girl-souls met, and their love bloomed upwards in concord +like two flames. + +On Easter Sunday Fraeulein entered late for luncheon, and Nancy did not +come at all. Fraeulein apologized for her: "Nancy is in the summer-house +writing a poetry. She says she will not have any lunch." + +Mrs. Avory laughed, and Nino said: "What is the poetry about?" + +"I think," replied Fraeulein, shaking out her table-napkin, and tucking +it carefully into her collar, "it is about her broken doll and her dead +canary." + +"Is the canary dead?" exclaimed Valeria. "Why did you not tell me?" + +"She shall have a new doll," said Mrs. Avory, "at once." + +"But it isn't--she hasn't--they are not!" explained Fraeulein, much +confused. "Only she says she cannot write a poetry about things that are +not broken and dead." + +The old grandfather, who now rarely spoke, raised his head, and said +mournfully, "Broken and dead--broken and dead," and went on repeating +the words all through lunch, until he was coaxed and scolded into +silence. + +There was much excitement over Nancy's poem that afternoon. It was read +aloud by Edith, and then by Valeria, and then by Fraeulein, and then +again by Edith. Valeria improvised a translation of it into Italian for +Zio Giacomo and Nino; and then it was read aloud once more by Edith. +Everybody laughed and wept; and then Valeria kissed everybody. Nancy was +a genius! They had always known it. Zio Giacomo said that it was in his +brother's family; whereupon Mrs. Avory said, "Indeed?" and raised her +eyebrows and felt hurt. But how--said Valeria--had it come into Nancy's +head to write a poem? And what if she were never to be able to write +another? Such things had happened. Could she try again and write +something else? Just now! Oh, anything!... Saying how she wrote this +poem, for instance! + +So little Nancy, all flushed and wild and charming, extemporized in +Fraeulein's note-book: + + "This morning in the orchard + I chased the fluttering birds: + The winging, singing things I caught-- + Were words! + + "This morning in the garden + Where the red creeper climbs, + The vagrant, fragrant things I plucked-- + Were rhymes! + + "This morning in the...." + +Nancy looked up and bit her lip. "This morning--in the what?" + +"In the garden," suggested Valeria. + +"I have already said that," frowned Nancy. + +Zio Giacomo suggested "kitchen," and was told to keep quiet. Edith said +"woodlands," and that was adopted. Then Nancy found out that she wanted +something quite different, and could they give her a rhyme for "verse"? + +"Curse," said Nino. + +"Disburse," said Fraeulein. + +"Oh, that is not poetic, but rather the reverse!" cried Nancy. + +"Terse," said Edith. + +"Purse," said Nino. + +"Hearse," said the old grandfather gloomily. + +Nancy laughed. "We go from bad to worse," she exclaimed, dimpling and +blushing. "Wait a minute." + + "And if I cage the birdlings...." + +"What birdlings?" said Fraeulein. + +"Why, the words that I caught in the orchard," said Nancy hurriedly. + +Everybody looked vague. "Why do you want to cage them?" asked Fraeulein, +who had a tidy mind. + +"Because," said Nancy excitedly, making her reasons while she spoke, +"words must not be allowed to fly about anyhow as they like--they must +be caught, and shut in lines; they must be caged by the--by the----" + +"The rhythm," suggested Edith. + +"What is that?" said Nancy. + +"The measure, the time, as in music." + +"Yes, that's it!" said Nancy. + + "And if the flowers I nurse...." + +"The flowers are the rhymes, of course," explained Nancy, flourishing +her pencil triumphantly. + + "And if the flowers I nurse, + The rambling, scrambling things I write-- + Are verse!" + +"Beautiful! wonderful!" cried everybody; and Uncle Giacomo and Nino +clapped their hands a long time, as if they were at the theatre. + +When they left off, Mrs. Avory said: "I do not quite like those last +lines. They are not clear. But, of course, they are quite good enough +for poetry!" she added. And everyone agreed. Mrs. Avory said she thought +they ought to have somebody, some poet, down from London at once to +teach the child seriously. And Fraeulein went into long details about +publishers in Berlin, and how careful one must be if one prints a volume +of poems not to let them cheat you. + +From that day onward the spirit of Nancy's inspiration ruled the house. +Everybody was silent when she came into the room, lest her ideas should +be disturbed; meals must wait until Nancy had finished thinking. When +Nancy frowned and passed her hand across her forehead in a little quick +gesture she often used, Edith would quietly shut the windows and the +doors, so that nothing should disturb the little poetess, and no +butterfly-thought of hers should fly away. Valeria hovered round, +usually followed by Nino; and Fraeulein, in the library, read long +chapters of Dante to Zio Giacomo, whether he slept or not, in order, as +she put it in her diary: "(_a_) To practise my Italian; (_b_) to keep in +the house the atmosphere of the Spirit of Poetry." + +But the grandfather, who could not understand the silence and the +irregular meals, thought that somebody had died, and wandered drearily +about, opening doors to see if he could find out who it was. And he +frequently made Mrs. Avory turn sick and chilly by asking her suddenly, +when she sat at her work, "Who is dead in the house?" + + + + +VII + + +Meanwhile Nunziata Villari in Milan was flustering the maid Marietta +over the packing of her trunks, and getting ready to leave for her +twelve performances in England. + +Nino had written to her twice a day during the first week of his +absence; every two days during the second week; only once in the third +week; and in this, the fourth week, not at all. "Some stupid English +girl has turned his nose of putty from me," mused La Villari, and +scolded Marietta for what she had packed, and for what she had not +packed, and for how she had packed it. But La Villari was mistaken. No +stupid English girl had turned Nino's nose of putty from her. Edith, who +might have done so had she willed, had chosen to stab his nascent +passion with the hairpins that fixed the North-German coiffure at its +most unbecoming angle half-way up her head. She had left him to himself, +and gone off primrosing with Nancy, whose love--the blind, far-seeing +love of a child--depended not on a tendril of hair, or the tint of a +cheek, or the glance of an eye. + +Nino, standing alone, looking vaguely round for adoration, met Valeria's +deep eyes fixed on him; and, suddenly remembering that this little +cousin of his had been destined to his arms since both their childhood, +he let his heart respond to her timid call. As she bent her head over a +letter to her cousin Adele, Nino watched her with narrowing eyes. Had +Fate not sent Tom Avory, the tall and leisurely Englishman, bronzed and +fair, sauntering into her life and his years ago, painting pictures, +quoting poets, rowing her and Zio Giacomo about the lake, this dark, +graceful head, thought Nino would have found its resting-place against +his own breast; the little dimpled hand, the slender shoulders--all +would belong to him. Had he not always loved her? He asked himself the +question in all sincerity, quite forgetting his brief and violent fancy +for Cousin Adele, and his longer and more violent passion for Nunziata +Villari. True, he would never have noticed Adele had she not sighed at +him first. And he would certainly never have loved La Villari had she +not looked at him first. But now--Adele was nowhere; and La Villari was +in Milan packing her trunks; and here was Valeria, with her dark head +and her dimples. + +"Valerietta!" he said; and she raised her eyes. "It is May-day. Come out +into the fields." + +So Valeria put away her letter, and went to look for her hat. As she +passed the schoolroom she heard voices, and peeped in. There was her +little Nancy, pen in hand, wild-eyed and happy, and Edith bending over +her, reading half-aloud what the inspired child-poet had just written. + +"I am going into the fields with Nino," said Valeria. "Edith dear, won't +you come, too?" + +"Oh no! It is too windy," said her sister-in-law. "The wind takes my +breath away and makes me cough. Besides, Nancy could not spare me." + +"No!" said Nancy, laying her pink cheek against Edith's arm and smiling, +"I could not spare her!" + +Valeria laughed, and blew a kiss to them both. Then she ran upstairs for +her hat, and went out across the fields with Nino. + +Adjoining the schoolroom was the drawing-room where Mrs. Avory and the +grandfather were sitting together in silence. "Sally's cough is worse," +said the grandfather suddenly. + +(The Fates were spinning. _"Here is a black thread,"_ said One. _"Weave +it in,"_ said the Other. And the Third sharpened her scissors.) + +"Sally's cough is worse," said the grandfather again. + +Mrs. Avory looked up from her crocheting. "Hush, father dear!" she said. + +"I said Sally's cough is worse," repeated the old man. "I hear it every +night." + +"No, dear; no, dear," said Mrs. Avory. "Not poor Sally. Sally has been +at rest many years. Perhaps you mean Edith. She has a little cold." + +"I know Sally's cough," said the old man. + +Mrs. Avory put her work down and folded her hands. A slow, icy shiver +crept over her and enveloped her like a wet sheet. + +"Sally is my favourite grandchild," continued her father, shaking his +white head. "Poor little Sally--poor little Sally!" + +Mrs. Avory sat still. Terror, heavy and cold, crawled like a snake into +her heart. "Edith! It is Edith!" she said. + +_"It is Sally!"_ cried the old man, rising to his feet. "I remember +Sally's cough, and in the night I hear it." + +There was a moment's silence. Then in the schoolroom Edith coughed. The +grandfather came close to his daughter. "There," he whispered, "that is +Sally. And you told me she was dead." + +Mrs. Avory rose tremblingly to her feet. In her eyes was the vision of +her tragic children, all torn to death by the shuddering and insidious +Ill that crouched in their breasts and clutched at their throats, and +sprang upon them and strangled them when they reached the threshold of +their youth. And now Edith, too? Edith, her last-born! + +She raised her eyes of Madre Dolorosa to her father's face. Then she +fell fainting before him, her grey head at his feet. + + * * * * * + +Out in the fields, that were alight with daisies, Nino took Valeria's +hand and drew her arm through his. "Little cousin," he said, "do you +remember how I loved you when you were twelve years old, and scorned +me?" + +"Yes," laughed Valeria; "and how I loved you when you were sixteen, and +had forgotten me." + +"But, again," said Nino, "how I loved you when you were eighteen, and +refused me." + +Valeria looked at him with timorous eyes. "And now I am twenty-seven and +a half, and you are only twenty-three." + +"True," said Nino. "How young you are! The woman I love is thirty-eight +years old." + +Valeria's face paled; then it flushed rose-pink, and she laughed. +"Thirty-eight! Nearly forty? I don't believe it!" All her pretty teeth +shone, and the dimple dipped in her cheek. + +"I hardly believe it myself," said Nino, laughing. + +"Perhaps it is not true, after all." + +Did Zio Giacomo in the library hear with his astral ear his son's +gratifying assertion? Fraeulein certainly thought that she saw him smile +in his sleep, while through her careful lips "Conte Ukolino," in the +thirty-third canto of the "Inferno," gnawed noisomely at the +Archbishop's ravaged skull. + +"Are you sure that she is not seventeen?" asked Valeria, biting a blade +of grass, and glancing up sideways at her cousin's face. + +Nino stopped. "'She?' Who? Why? Who is seventeen?" he asked. + +"Edith," breathed Valeria. + +Nino shook his head. "No, not Edith, poor little thing!" Then he bent +forward and kissed Valeria decisively and authoritatively long before +she expected it. + +"Why did you call Edith a poor little thing?" asked Valeria, when she +had forgiven him, and been kissed again. + +Nino looked grave, and tapped his chest with his finger. _"E tisica!"_ +he said. + +Valeria started back, and dragged her hands from his. "Tisica!" Her +heart stopped beating, and then galloped off like a bolting horse. +"Tisica!" In the terrible half-forgotten word the memory of Tom and the +tragic past flamed up again. Yes; Edith had a cough. But everybody in +England coughed. Edith--Edith, with her fair hair and pink cheeks! It +was not true! It could not be true. Sweet, darling Edith, with the +hideous North-German coiffure that she had made for Valeria's sake! +Edith, little Nancy's best friend! Ah, _Nancy!_... Valeria's thought, +like some maddened quarry, darted off in another direction. Nancy! +Nancy! She was with Edith now! She was always with Edith, laughing, +talking, bending over the same book, kissing her good-night and +good-morning. + +"I must go back," said Valeria suddenly, with a face grown pinched and +small. Nino held her tight. + +"What is it, love of mine?" he said. + +"The baby!" gasped Valeria, with a sob. Nancy was the baby again. The +baby that had to be taken away from danger--from Tom first, and now from +Edith. It was the baby for whom she had run across these fields one +morning years ago, tripping and stumbling in her haste, leaving what +perhaps was love behind her, lest the baby should be hungry, lest the +baby should cry. And now again she ran, tripping and stumbling in her +haste, leaving what perhaps was love behind her. Nancy must be saved. +What if it were too late! What if Nancy had already breathed the blight? +If Nancy, too, were soon to begin to cough ... to cough, and clear her +throat, and perspire in the night, and have her temperature taken twice +a day, and then one day--one day her eyes frightened, her fists +clenched, and her mouth full of blood.... Valeria held her hands to her +cheeks, crying aloud, as she tottered and ran across the flowering +fields. + +When she reached the garden there was Nancy, standing on the swing, +alone--swinging and singing, with her curls all ablow. + +"Fraeulein came out and called Edith away," said the child, with a little +pout. "She said I was not to come. Perhaps somebody has arrived. Could +it be the poet from London?" + +"Not yet, dear," said Valeria, voiceless, and with hammering heart. She +embraced the little black legs standing on the swing, and laid her +throbbing temple against the child's pinafore. "Ave Maria, Mater Dei, +Ora pro nobis," she murmured. + +"Go out of the way, mother dear, and see how high I swing," said Nancy. +Valeria stepped aside; then she saw Fraeulein's face appear at the +drawing-room window and Fraeulein's hand beckoning to her to come in. + +"I must go indoors for a moment. Don't swing too high, darling," cried +Valeria, and hurried into the house. + +When she entered the drawing-room her heart stood still. Mrs. Avory was +on the sofa, with grey lips and trembling hands. Fraeulein stood by her, +holding smelling-salts and a saucer of vinegar; while Edith, kneeling +beside her, was crying: "Mother darling! mother darling! are you +better?" In a corner stood the grandfather and Zio Giacomo, looking +bewildered and alarmed. + +"What has happened?" cried Valeria. + +"She fainted," whispered Edith, with a sob, as she kissed and chafed the +cold hands. Then her mother's arm went round her neck, and her mother's +tears rained on her. + +"Edith, my little girl, my own little girl!" she cried. + +Valeria wept with her, and Edith wept too, little knowing the reason of +her mother's tears. + +... Out in the garden Nancy was alone, swinging and singing, with her +curls all ablow, when the German poet's spell came over her. + + "Die linden Luefte sind erwacht, + Sie saeuseln und wehen Tag und Nacht, + Sie kommen von allen Enden...." + +The poets murmured it in her ear. Through the darkening trees beyond the +lawn she could see a gilt line where the sunset struck its light in the +sky. + + "Die Welt wird schoener mit jeden Tag, + Man weiss nicht was noch werden mag, + Das Bluehen will nicht enden!" + +Nancy slipped from the swing. The poets were whispering and urging. Had +not Fraeulein in yesterday's lessons taught her the wonderful fact that +the world was a round star, swinging in the blue, with other stars +above it and below it? If one walked to the edge of the world, just to +where it curves downward into roundness, and if one bent +forward--holding to a tree, perhaps, so as not to fall--surely one would +be able to look down into the sky and see the stars circling beneath +one's feet! Nancy felt that she must go to the edge of the world and +look down. The edge of the world! She could see it! It was behind the +trees beyond Millpond Farm, where the sun had dipped down and left the +horizon ablaze. So Nancy went out of her garden to go to the edge of the +world. + +When Mrs. Avory had been tenderly helped to a seat in the garden, and +had had a footstool and a pillow, and some eau de Cologne, Edith said: + +"Where is Nancy?" + +"Where is Nancy?" said Valeria. + +Fraeulein called through the garden and through the house. Then Valeria +called through the house and through the garden, and Edith ran upstairs, +and through all the rooms and into the attics, and down again into the +garden and to the summer-house and the shrubbery. Nino came in, and was +sent to the village to see if Nancy was there. But Nancy was not there, +nor had anyone seen her. Zio Giacomo and the stable-boy set out in one +direction, and Jim Brown in another. Nino went across the fields towards +the station--you could hear his call and his whistle for miles--and +Florence went out and past the chapel along the road to Fern Glen. +Valeria, wringing her hands, ran out after Florence, telling Edith to +stay in, and mind and take care of Mrs. Avory and the grandfather. + +But Edith put on her hat, and said to Mrs. Avory: "I shall be back +directly. Stay here quite quietly, mother dear, and mind you get +Fraeulein to look after you and grandfather." + +But her mother would not let her go alone. No, no; she would go, too! So +they both started out towards Baker's End, telling Fraeulein to mind and +stay indoors, and look after grandfather. + +But Fraeulein, who had recently read "Misunderstood," was suddenly seized +by a horrible thought regarding the water-lilies on Castlebury Pond, and +she went out quickly, just stopping to tell the cook to prepare dinner +and to mind and look after the grandfather. But the cook ran across to +Smith's Farm, and the scullery-maid went with her. + +The grandfather remained alone in the silent house. + +(The Fates were spinning. _"Here is a black thread. Weave it in."_) + +The grandfather was alone in the silent house. He called his daughter; +he called Valeria, and Edith, and Nancy. Then he remembered that Nancy +was lost. He called Sally; he called Tom; he rang the bells. Nobody +came; nobody answered. Then again he remembered that Nancy was lost, and +that everyone had gone to look for her. He opened the front-door and +walked down the avenue; he opened the gate and looked up and down the +deserted road. Then he stepped out and turned to the left, away from the +village, and went towards the cross-roads at Heather's Farm; but before +he reached them he crossed the field to the left, and went past +Wakeley's Ditch towards the heath. + +The sun had dropped out of sight, and night, soft-footed and grey, was +stealing like a cat across the meadows; and Jim Brown had found Nancy on +Three Cedars Hill when the old grandfather left the heath and turned +his slow footsteps into the dark and silent fields. He saw something +waving and moving against the sky. + +"That is Nancy," he said, and called her. But it was a +threshing-machine, covered with black cloths that moved in the wind. And +the grandfather hurried a little when he passed it. He said aloud: "I am +eighty-seven years old." He felt that nothing would hurt him that knew +this, and the threshing-machine let him pass, and did not follow with +its waving rags, as he had feared. Then some sheep penned in a fold +startled him, running towards him with soft hoofs, bleating and standing +still suddenly, with black faces turned towards him. As he tottered on +something started up and ran away from him, and then it ran after him +and darted past him. He was chilled with fear. + +"I am eighty-seven years old. It is not right that I should be alone in +the night," he said; and he began to cry whiningly like a little child. +But nobody heard him, and he was afraid of the noises he made. + +He turned to go home, and passed the shrouded machine again, and then in +a field to the right he saw someone standing and moving. + +"Have you seen Nancy?" he cried. "Hullo! Good-evening! Is Nancy there?" + +The figure in the field beckoned to him, and he went stumbling in the +ruts. When he got near, he said: "I am eighty-seven years old." + +The figure waved both arms, greatly impressed; and the grandfather sat +down on the ground, for he was tired. + +Nancy had reached home, and the lights were lit and voices rang through +the house; but the grandfather sat on the hill-side in the dark, and +talked to the scarecrow. + +"When you go home, sir, I shall go with you," said the grandfather, and +the scarecrow made no objection. "You will tell me when you are +ready to go." + +But as the figure waved to him to wait, the grandfather tried not to be +cross. "All right, all right," he said. "I am in no hurry." But it was +very cold. + +Suddenly across the hill, with long light steps, came Tom, and Tom's son +Tom; and all his dead grandchildren came down the hill with long, light +steps and sat around him. And the darker it grew the closer they sat. +Sally, who was the favourite, laid her head against his arm, and he +could touch her cool face with his hand. + +He asked if they had seen Nancy, but they had not; and he asked Sally +how her cough was. But they all laughed softly, and did not answer. The +threshing-machine passed, waving its wings, and his dead children sat +with him through the night. Before dawn they rose up and left him, +crossing the hill again with light, long steps. + +But the scarecrow stayed with him till he slept. + +(_"Cut the thread,"_ said Fate.) + + + + +VIII + + +A fortnight after the funeral Nino twisted up his moustache and went to +London. His father had made no objection; indeed, Zio Giacomo himself +found everything exaggeratedly doleful, and Valeria, in her black dress, +going about the house with the expression of a hunted cat, annoyed him +exceedingly. She was always jumping up in the midst of any +conversation, and running out to look for Nancy. + +What if Fraeulein happened to be busy with Mrs. Avory or with the +servants? said her uncle angrily. Surely there was Edith always with the +child, petting her and spoiling her. Valeria need not worry so! But +Valeria worried. She paid no attention to Zio Giacomo, never even gave +him the promised _minestrone freddo_ on his birthday, and Nino might +have ceased to exist so far as she was concerned. She seemed to be +always looking at Nancy or looking at Edith. When the two sat happily +together, reading or talking, she would call Nancy with a rough strained +voice, hurriedly sending the child on some useless errand, or keeping +her by her side and making long foolish talk with her. Edith sometimes +looked up in surprise when Valeria called the child away from her so +suddenly and so sternly; but seeing Valeria's pale and anxious face, +then glancing over to Nino, who usually looked bored and absent-minded, +Edith thought of lovers' quarrels, and asked no questions. + +But there was no lovers' quarrel between Nino and Valeria. In Valeria's +terror-stricken heart maternal love had pushed all else aside, and only +one thought possessed her--the thought of keeping Nancy out of danger, +out of reach of Edith's light breath, out of reach of Edith's tender +kisses; while Nino, seeing her with little Nancy on her lap or at her +side all day, gradually grew to look upon her in the light of Valeria +the mother, and lost sight of her as Valeria the betrothed. A child on +its mother's breast forbids and restrains passion. + +One evening he took up a paper and improved his English by reading the +news. The news interested him. It was on the following day that he +twisted up his moustache and went to London. He had dinner at Pagani's. +There he met Carlo Fioretti, an old fellow-student of his at Pavia, who +was dining with a golden-haired Englishwoman at a table near to his. +They invited him to drink coffee and _pousse-cafe_ with them, and +Fioretti told Nino that he was doctor to the Italian colony in London, +and getting on splendidly. And would he join them at the comedy later +on? Nino was sorry--he was really desolated!--but he could not. He was +going to the Garrick. + +"Oh," cried the fair lady, "to be sure! La Villari is playing there +to-night, isn't she? Wonderful creature!" Then she shook an arch +forefinger at Fioretti. "Why did you not think of taking me to hear +her?" + +Fioretti promised to take her the next day, and the day after, and every +day, and for ever! Then Nino took his leave with much bowing and +hand-kissing, and Fioretti accompanied him as far as the door. + +"Who is she?" said Nino. + +"A lady of title," said Fioretti. "Divorced." + +_"Deliziosa,"_ said Nino. + +_"Milionaria,"_ said Fioretti. And having quickly shaken hands with +Nino, he hurried back to her. + + * * * * * + +The seven mourning women in Cossa's tragedy were already chanting their +woes when Nino entered the theatre and took his seat in the fourth row +of the stalls. His heart opened to the swing and cadence of the Italian +words, to the loud sweetness of the Italian voices, to the graceful +violence of the Italian gestures. His Latin blood thrilled in +understanding and response. + +Suddenly Villari was on the stage, and no one else existed. Fervid and +lovely, keen and lithe, soon she held in her small, hot hands the hearts +of the cool English audience, tightening their nerves, swaying and +drawing them into paths of unaccustomed passion. Nino sat still with +quick heart-beats, wondering if she would see him. + +He remembered the first time that her eyes had met his at the Manzoni in +Milan four years ago. She was playing Sappho. He was with his cousin +Adele and Aunt Carlotta in one of the front rows, and they were laughing +at the vehemence of the love-scene in the second act, when suddenly he +saw that Villari was looking at him. Yes, at him! She gazed at him long +and deliberately, while Jean was sobbing at her feet, and she said +Daudet's famous words, "Toi tu ne marchais pas encore, que moi deja je +roulais dans les bras des hommes," with her deep and steadfast eyes +fixed on Nino's face. She had said the words in French in the midst of +the Italian play, for she was whimsical and wilful, and did as she +pleased. Then she had turned away, and gone on with her part without +noticing him any more. Cousin Adele had been acid and sarcastic all the +evening. The next day--how well he remembered it all!--he had sent +Villari flowers, as she intended that he should, and a week after that +he had sent her a bracelet, having sold Aunt Carlotta and Adele's piano +during their absence in order to do so. + +Now she was before him once more, fervid and lovely, keen and lithe, and +Nino sat motionless, with quick heart-beats, wondering if she would see +him. + +Suddenly she looked straight at him, with long and deliberate gaze--so +long, indeed, that he thought everyone must notice it, and he could +hardly breathe for the violence of his rushing veins. When the curtain +fell he sent his card to her dressing-room, but she did not receive him, +nor did she do so at the end of the play. The next day he sent her +flowers, as she had intended that he should, but when he called at her +hotel she was out. He sat through nine of her twelve performances, and +still she would not see him, for she was thirty-eight and wily, and knew +men's hearts. She also knew her own, and had more than once thought that +she detected symptoms of what she called a _grande passion_, a +_toquade_, for this curly-headed, vehement young Nino with the light +laugh and the violent eyes. Nunziata Villari dreaded her grand passions. +She knew of old how disastrous they were, how unbecoming to her +complexion, how ruinous to her affairs, how gnawing during their +process, how painful at their end. And she especially dreaded a grand +passion for Nino, remembering that he was one who had a nose of putty, +and would probably be a fountain of grief. So night after night Nino sat +in his stall and watched her, and counted the days that remained before +she would go away again. Every night she was different--she was Sappho +and Magdalen; she was Norah and Fedora; she was Phaedra and Desdemona. +Every night she was before him, laughing or weeping, loving or hating, +dying delicate deaths. She was terrible and sweet, fierce and alluring; +she embraced and she killed; she was resplendent Purity, she was +emblazoned Sin; she was _das Ewig Weibliche_, the immortal mistress of +all lovers, the ever-desiring and the ever-desired. + +When, after her tenth performance, he was allowed to see her in her +dressing-room, he could not speak. Without a word of greeting, without +responding to her smile, he dropped into a chair and hid his face in his +hands, to the great amusement of Marietta the maid. + +But Nunziata Villari was not amused. She suddenly realized that she had +been acting for this Nino every night, that especially for him she had +sobbed and raved, she had laughed and languished; and as she saw him +sitting there with his face in his hands, she felt in her heart the +intermittent throb that she recognized and dreaded. It was the _grande +passion;_ it was the _toquade._ "Ca y est!" she said. "Now I am in love +again." + +And she was. + + + + +IX + + +In Wareside Fraeulein still read Dante to the unwitting Uncle Giacomo. +The apple-blossoms fluttered and the sun shone. Butterflies, like +blow-away flowers, flitted past Edith as she lay on a couch in the +sunshine, too lazy to move, and too peaceful to read; while little Nancy +ruffled up her hair and puckered her brow, frightened and gladdened at +once by the luxuriance of words and ideas that sang in her brain, that +romped out in lines and paired off in rhymes, like children dancing. + +And the two mothers sat in the shade and watched. + +When Edith called Nancy, and the child ran to her, Valeria's lips +tightened, and soon she would call the little girl to her side and keep +her. Then Mrs. Avory's face grew hard, and her heart was bitter with +grief. She would rise quickly and go to Edith, trying to divert her +thoughts by some futile question about her crochet, or a book, or the +colour of the sky. Edith would answer, wondering a little, and shut her +eyes, too lazy to think. + +Over their children's heads the two mothers' glances met, hostile and +hard, each shielding her own, each defending and each accusing. + +"Edith is ill," said Valeria's eyes. "Nancy must not be near her." + +"Edith is ill," said Mrs. Avory's eyes, "but she must not know it." + +"Nancy must not be endangered." + +"Edith must not be hurt." + +"Mother," pipes up Nancy's treble voice suddenly, "do you think May is a +girl?" + +"Who is May, dear?" + +"Why, the month of May. Do you think it is a girl with roses in her +arms, dancing across the lands, and touching the hedges into flower?" + +"Yes, dear; I think so." + +"Or do you think it is a boy, with curls falling over his eyes, wilful +and naughty, who drags the little leaves out from the trees, and tosses +the birds across the sky, whirling and piping?" + +"Yes, I think so, dear." + +"Oh, mother, you are not listening!" cries Nancy, and scampers off, +improvising as she goes: + + "Says May: 'I am a girl! + May is short for Margaret, + Margaret or Daisy. + The petals of a jessamine + No boy's hand could unfurl!' + Says May: 'I am a girl.' + + "Says May: 'I am a boy! + May is short for...'" + +"For what?" thinks Nancy, frowning impatiently at the word that will not +come. Then she skips gaily on across the grass: + + "Says May: 'I am a boy! + May is short for Marmaduke, + As all the world should know! + I taught the birds their trills and shakes, + No girl could whistle so!' + + "So May the girl, and May the boy, they quarrel all day long; + While the flowers stop their budding, and the birds forget their + song. + And God says: 'Now, to punish you, I'll hang out the new moon + And take and bundle both of you into the month of June.'" + +"Of course, May is _not_ short for Marmaduke," muses Nancy, "but that +cannot be helped." + +... On her couch on the lawn Edith opened her eyes and said: "Nancy? +Where is Nancy?" + +Valeria sprang up. "Is there anything you want, Edith dear?" + +"No; I should like Nancy. I love to see her, and I am too lazy to run +after her." + +"I will call her," said Valeria. + +At this unexpected reply Mrs. Avory raised eyes shining with gratitude +to her daughter-in-law's face. + +Valeria found her little girl declaiming verses to the trees in the +orchard. She knelt down on the grass to fasten the small button-shoe, +and said, without raising her face: "Nancy, you are to go to Edith; but, +Nancy, _you are not to kiss her_." + +"Oh, mother! has she been naughty?" + +"No." Valeria remained on her knees, and put her arm round the child. +"Edith is ill," she said slowly. + +"Then I will kiss her double," cried Nancy, flushing. + +"Nancy, Nancy, try to understand," said Valeria. "Edith is ill, as your +father was, and he died; and as her sisters were, and they died. And if +you kiss her, you may get ill, too, and die. And every time you kiss +her--oh, Nancy, Nancy, child of mine, it is a sword struck into your +mother's heart!" + +There was a long pause. "And if I refuse to kiss her, will that not be a +sword struck into her heart?" asked Nancy. + +"Yes," said Valeria. + +"And if a sword is in Edith's heart, there will be a sword in +grandmother's heart, too?" + +"Yes," said Valeria. + +A long pause; then Nancy said: "There is a sword for every heart.... I +could make a beautiful poetry about that." Her eyes were large, and saw +nothing--not her mother, not Edith who was ill--but the bleeding heart +of the world, sword-struck and gigantic, and in her ears the lines began +to swing and flow. + +"Mother of God, help us!" sighed Valeria, shaking her head. "Go to +Edith." + +Nancy went; and she kissed Edith, because she had forgotten all that her +mother had said. + +Presently Zio Giacomo came out to them with an open letter in his hand. +It was a letter from Nino, and Zio Giacomo's wrath knew no bounds. He +called Nino a perfidious traitor and a foolish viper, and an imbecile +and the son of an imbecile. He called Valeria a blundering and insensate +one, who might have stopped Nino, and kept Nino, and married Nino, and +made him behave himself; and Nino was an angel, and no husband would +ever be such an angel as Nino would have been as a husband to Valeria. +And now the triple extract of insensate imbecility had gone off with an +actress, a perfidious, senile snake, who had followed him to England, +and it was all Valeria's fault, and Fraeulein's fault. Yes, Fraeulein was +an absurd, moon-struck, German creature, who had turned him, Zio +Giacomo, into a preposterous, doddering idiot by reading preposterous, +senseless, twaddling Dante's "Inferno" to him all day long. + +Fraeulein wept, and Valeria wept; but that did not help Zio Giacomo. Nor +did it bring back Nino from San Remo, where he was strolling under +palm-trees with La Villari; and La Villari was smiling and sighing and +melting in the throes of her new _toquade_. + + + + +X + + +Nino, before leaving London, had borrowed some money from Fioretti, who +had borrowed it from the lady of title; then he had written to Nunziata +Villari's impresario, and cancelled all her engagements; then he wrote +to his father, and said he was sorry, and to Valeria, and said he was a +miserable hound. After that he started for the Riviera with Nunziata, +who was meek and docile and lovely in her incredible hats and +unverisimilar gowns. + +They were happy in San Remo; but as May was ended, and the weather was +hot, Nino suggested spending June in Switzerland; so they went to +Lucerne and up to Buergenstock. + +The large hotel was already filled with English-speaking people, and the +striking Italian couple was much looked at and discussed. At luncheon +their table was set next to a family of Americans--father, mother, and +three lovely daughters with no manners. The three girls shook their +curls, and laughed in their handkerchiefs, and made inaudible remarks to +each other about the new arrivals. In the evening they all three +appeared in rose-silk dresses, low-necked and tight-waisted--even the +youngest, who looked scarcely fourteen. They carried three Teddy-bears +to table with them, and were noisy and giggling and ill-mannered; but +their beauty was indescribable. The two eldest wore their red-gold curls +pinned on the top of their heads with immense black bows, whereas the +youngest had her flowing hair parted in the middle, and it fell like a +sheet of gilt water to her waist. + +Nino, who sat facing them, twisted up his moustache, and forgot to offer +sweets to Nunziata; and Nunziata laughed and talked, and was charming, +biting her red lips until they were scarlet, and turning her rings round +and round on her delicate fingers. + +Then she said--oh, quite casually!--that she had received a letter from +Count Jerace that afternoon. Count Jerace? The name of the handsome +Neapolitan _viveur_ always grated upon Nino, and he became angry, and +made many stinging remarks; whereupon Nunziata, still sweet and patient, +biting her red lips until they were scarlet, and turning her rings round +and round on her delicate fingers, said that Jerace thought of coming to +Buergenstock towards the end of the week. + +Nino pushed his plate aside, and said he would leave the place +to-morrow. Then Nunziata laughed and said: "So will I!" and Nino called +her an angel, and finished his dinner peacefully. + +They left the next day. + +They went to Engelberg. In Engelberg there were golf-links and +tennis-courts, and English girls in shirt-waists and sailor +hats--laughing girls, blushing girls, twittering girls. Engelberg was +full of them. Nunziata soon got a letter to say that the Count was +thinking of coming to Engelberg, and Nino took her on to Interlaken. + +But all Switzerland was a-flower with girlhood. Everybody in the world +seemed to be seventeen or eighteen years old. Nunziata would say +nervously a hundred times a day: + +"What a lovely girl!" + +And Nino would ask: "What girl?" + +"Why, the girl that just passed us." + +Nino had not seen her. + +"But you must have seen her," insisted Nunziata. + +No; Nino had not seen anybody. He never did. But Nunziata saw everyone. +Every uptilted profile, every golden head, every flower-like figure, +every curve of every young cheek, struck thorns and splinters into her +hurting heart. She wore her incredible gowns and her unverisimilar hats, +but they seemed strange and out of place in Switzerland; and the +brief-skirted, tennis-playing girls, passing in twos and threes in the +cruel June sunshine, with their arms round each other's waists, would +turn and look after her and smile. + +Soon Nunziata felt that what had been a caprice for four years, while +she had had her roles and her audiences, her impresarios and her +critics, her adorers and her enemies to distract her, was a caprice no +longer. What had been merely a _toquade_, to laugh at and to talk about, +was no more a _toquade_. The fire had flamed up, and was a +conflagration; it was, indeed, _la grande passion_. And Nino was alone +in her world. Nino was not Nino to her any more. He was youth itself, he +was love, he was life, he was all that she had had in the fulness of her +past, all that would soon slip from her for ever. And her heart grew +bitter, as does the heart of every woman who is older than the man she +loves. Her thirty-eight years were to her as a wound of shame. +Sometimes, when he looked at her, she would bend forward and put her +hands over his eyes. "Don't look at me! don't look at me!" And when he +laughed and drew her hands aside, she murmured: "Your eyes are my +enemies. I dread them." For she knew that his eyes would gaze upon and +desire all the beauty and the youngness of the world. + +Late one afternoon they sat on their balcony, while an Italian orchestra +in the gardens beneath them played some Sicilian music that they loved. + +Nunziata spoke her thought. "Are you not tiring of me, Nino? Oh, Nino! +are you sure you are not tiring of me yet?" + +"Yet?" exclaimed Nino. "I shall never tire of you--never!" + +"Ils faisaient d'eternels serments!..." murmured Nunziata, with a bitter +smile. + +Nino grasped her white helpless hands. "Why will you not be happy?" he +said; for he knew her heart. + +"I do not know," said Nunziata. + +"You are unhappy. I feel it--I feel it all through the day, even when +you laugh," said Nino. "Would you be happier without me?" + +"Neither with you nor without you can I live," said Nunziata. + +The orchestra was playing Lola's song, and her soul was filled with the +hunger of the unattainable and the thirst of death; then, as it was +late, she got up with a little sigh, and having powdered her face and +patted her hair, and said a little prayer to the Madonna, she slipped +her arm through his, and they went down to dinner together. + +"I promise I shall not be so foolish again!" she said. "It is absurd; it +is morbid!" + +But after dinner a girl from Budapest was asked if she would dance. The +girl laughed and hesitated; then she vanished for a few minutes, during +which time Nunziata turned faint and sick. The girl reappeared, +barefooted and lightly draped; then she danced. She danced like the +incarnation of spring, and she looked like a blossom blown from the +almond-tree. And Nunziata was morbid again. + +Nino was in despair. He looked gloomy, and sighed, and quoted Verlaine: + + "Mourons ensemble, voulez-vous?" + +She laughed a little broken laugh, and quoted the succeeding line: + + "Oh! la folle idee!" + +And she did not quite mean her laugh, as he did not quite mean his sigh. + +Thus the two lovers toyed lightly with thoughts of the grave, while far +away, at the Grey House, Death had uncovered his face, and was knocking +at the door. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Avory had awakened one morning to find the last of her daughters +pale, with blood-stained lips, fighting for breath. A doctor, summoned +in haste, had said: "Davos!" A knighted specialist from London had +repeated: "Davos!" + +In less than a week the house was dismantled, the trunks packed, the +servants dismissed. Fraeulein, all tears, had migrated into an American +family staying in the neighbourhood; Valeria, pale and trembling, and +little Nancy, sobbing, and clinging to Edith's neck, had said "Good-bye, +good-bye!" and had left for Italy with Uncle Giacomo. The tragic mother +and daughter turned their steps to the mountains alone. + + + + +XI + + +Davos glistened clear and keen-cut in the winter sunshine, and Edith lay +on the southern terrace of the Belvedere, with a rug tucked round her +and a parasol over her head. She was happy. Her mother had just brought +her a letter from Nancy. Her little niece Nancy, waiting in +Italy--waiting just for a short time until Edith should be quite well +again--wrote a letter of love and longing, and told Edith to get well +quickly. Life without Edith, she wrote, was a horrid nightmare. Italy +without Edith was a green splash and a name on the map, but did not +really exist at all. Aunt Carlotta and Cousin Adele were very kind +people with loud voices, but she did not understand them, and did not +want to understand them. All she wanted was to be with Edith again. She +had written two poems in Italian, which her mother said were better than +anything she had ever written before. And good-bye--and oh! let Edith +get well quickly, and let them be together in England again. There was a +tender postscript from Valeria telling her to be good and get well +quickly. + +Yes, yes; Edith felt that she would get well quickly. Her temperature +was up, and the slight prickle of fever in her blood gave her a +sensation of eagerness, almost of hurry, as if she were hastening +through illness to health, and she felt gladly and intensely alive. She +pressed little Nancy's letter to her lips, and lay back in her chair. + +Hers was the last but one of a long row of couches on the southern +terrace of the Belvedere. On either side of her were other reclining +figures. Next to her on the right was a Russian girl, a few years older +than herself, with a pinched and hectic face. On her left was Fritz +Klasen, a German, twenty-four years old, ruddy and broad-shouldered. His +blue eyes were open when Edith turned her face towards him. + +"How do you like Davos?" he said. + +Edith answered: "Very much," and the young man nodded and smiled. + +The Russian girl opened her black eyes and looked at Edith. "Have you +just come up?" she asked. + +Edith said: "Yes; we arrived three days ago. How long have you been +here?" + +"Four years," said the girl, and shut her eyes again. + +Edith turned her head to the young German, and exchanged with him a +pitying glance. + +"And you?" she asked him. + +"I have been here eight months. I am quite well. I am going home in +May." + +The Russian opened her dark eyes again, but did not speak. + +"Are you going to the dance to-night?" said the young man after a while. + +"A dance? Where?" asked Edith. + +"Here, in the hotel--in the big ball-room. We have a dance here every +Wednesday, and the Grand Hotel has one every Saturday. Great fun." And +he cleared his throat and hummed "La Valse Bleue." + +Edith went into the ball-room that evening, and although she did not +dance, she enjoyed herself very much. Mrs. Avory repeatedly asked her if +she was tired. "No, mother--no." There was a wild feverish excitement +all round her that she felt and shared without understanding it--the +excitement of the _danse macabre_. + +Fritz Klasen came to where she sat, and, striking his heels together, +introduced himself to her and to her mother. + +"I had no idea Davos was so gay," said Mrs. Avory, raising her light +gentle eyes to the young man's face. + +"Gayest place in the world," he said. "No time to mope." + +A girl in strawberry silk came rushing to him. "Lancers," she said, and +took his arm. They went off hurriedly, sliding like children on the +polished floor. + +"He does not look ill," said Mrs. Avory. + +"Nor does she," said Edith. + +"No one does." And the mother gazed at the laughing, dancing crowd, and +wondered if they all had within them the gnawing horror that she knew +was shut in her daughter's fragile breast. + +"Have you noticed," she said, "that nobody coughs?" + +"It is true," said Edith. "Nobody coughs." + +After a short silence Mrs. Avory said: "Probably most of them are here +for the winter sports." + +For a long time she believed this. Young faces with pink cheeks and +vivid eyes, and laughter, much laughter, surrounded her. There were +balls and concerts, routs and bazaars, and everywhere the vivid eyes, +and the pink cheeks, and the laughter. The only strange thing that Mrs. +Avory noticed about her new friends was that when she said good-night to +them, and shook hands with them, their hands were strange to the touch, +and gave her a little shock. + +They were not like the hands of other people that one clasps and thinks +not of. "Good-night," to one. "What a hot hand!" she would think. +"Good-night," to another. "What a cold, moist hand!" Hands of fire, and +hands of ice; arid hands, that felt brittle to the touch; humid hands, +which made her palms creep; weak, wet hands, from which her own +recoiled. Each told their tragic tale. But the faces laughed, and the +feet danced, and nobody coughed. + +Edith soon stopped coughing, too. The doctor had forbidden it. She +coughed in the night, when no one except her mother heard. The months +swung past, promising and not fulfilling, but promising again, and Edith +went to her fate submissive, with light tread. + +One thing only tore at her soul--the longing to see Nancy. Nancy, Nancy, +Nancy! She would say the name to herself a hundred times a day, and +close her eyes to try and picture the little face, and the tuft of black +curls on the top of the buoyant head. Her feverish hands felt vacant and +aching for the touch of the soft, warm fingers she had held. Mrs. Avory +comforted her. In the spring, or at latest in the summer, Edith should +see Nancy again. Edith would be quite well in a month or two if she ate +many raw eggs and was brave. + +So Edith ate raw eggs and was brave. + + * * * * * + +Spring climbed up the five thousand feet and reached Davos at the end of +May. Fritz Klasen was leaving. He was going back to Leipzig. + +"Good-bye, good-bye." + +He walked round the verandah at the resting-hour, shaking hands with +everyone, saying, "Gute Besserung," and "Auf wiedersehen in +Deutschland," to two or three Germans. + +When he reached the Russian girl she was asleep. But Edith said: +"Good-bye; I am so glad--I am so glad for you!" + +When he had passed she saw that the Russian girl's eyes were open, and +fixed on her. + +"Did you speak?" said Edith. + +"No," said the Russian in her strange, empty voice; "I thought." + +Edith smiled. "What did you think?" + +"I thought, why do you lie?" + +Edith sat up, flushing, and her breath went a little shorter. "What?" +she said. + +Rosalia Antonowa kept her deep eyes on Edith's face. + +"You said you were glad that he was going. Perhaps you meant it," she +said. "You are here so short a time; but in a year, in two years, or +four years, your lips will not be able to say that, and your heart will +turn sick when another goes away, and you know that you will never +go--never." Her bistre lids closed. + +Edith tried to find something comforting to say to her. + +"Davos is so beautiful, one ought not to mind. Surely you must love all +this blue and white loveliness--the mountains, and the snow, and the +sun." + +"Oh, the mountains!" murmured Rosalia, with clenched teeth. "The +mountains, weighing on my breast, and the snow freezing and choking me, +and the sun blazing and blinding me. Oh!"--she raised her thin fist to +the towering immensity round her--"oh, this unspeakable, this monstrous +prison of death!" + +Just then a Belgian girl passed, with pale lips and a tiny waist. She +stopped to ask Antonowa how she was. + +"Ill," said the Russian curtly. + +When the girl had passed she spoke again to Edith. "And you will know +what they mean when they ask you how you are. It is not the '_comment ca +va_?' of the rest of the world. No; here they mean it. They want to +know. 'How are you? Are you better? Are you getting better more quickly +than I am? Surely you are worse than I am! What! no haemorrhage for a +month? No temperature? That is good.' And then you see the hatred +looking out of their eyes." + +"Oh, I don't think so," said Edith. + +The Russian kept silent for a while; then she said: "Klasen will come +back again. He is not cured. The doctor told him not to go. He will soon +come back again." + +He came back four months later. Edith was pained to see how grey and +dull his face looked. Now he would have to stay two or three years more. +But he said he did not mind; he was happy. + +He had been married a month, and his wife was with him. He introduced +his girl-wife to Edith and to Mrs. Avory on the day following his +arrival. She was a gentle blonde of nineteen, a blue-blooded flower of +German aristocracy, who had married Klasen against her parents' will. + +"I shall cure him," she said. + +The summer was magnificent. She went out a great deal for long walks and +steep climbs, and she sang at all parties and concerts, for she had a +lovely young voice, all trills and runs like a lark's. She would sit on +the verandah at resting-time beside her husband, and near Edith, for he +had his old place again, and then after a while she would kiss his +forehead and run off to pay calls, or to practise, or to drive down to +Klosters. + +Klasen's bright blue eyes would follow her. The Russian from her couch +looked at him and read his thoughts. She read: "I married that I might +not be alone--alone with my ill and my terror in the night and in the +day--but I am still alone. When my wife is with me, and I cough, she +says: 'Poor darling!' When in the night I choke and perspire, she turns +in her sleep, and says: 'Poor darling!' and goes to sleep again. And I +am alone with my ill and my terror." + +The Russian girl thought that Klasen's blue eyes burned with something +that was not all love. + +After a time the girl-wife practised less, and paid fewer calls. She +said she had lost weight, and one day with her husband she went to see +the doctor. + +Yes, there was something--oh, very slight, very slight!--at the apex of +the left lung. So a couch was brought out for her on the terrace near +her husband, and she rested in the afternoons with a rug tucked round +her and a parasol over her head. + +Fritz held the little hand with the new wedding-ring still bright upon +it. When she coughed he said: "Poor darling!" And he was no more alone. +In the day-time they laughed, and were very cheerful; in the night +Fritz slept better; but his wife lay awake, and thought of her sister +and her two little brothers safely at home with her father and mother in +Berlin. + +Sometimes holiday-makers and sport-lovers came up to Davos for a +fortnight or a month, especially in the winter. Mrs. Avory noticed that +they laughed much less than the invalids did. When they hurried through +the lounge with their skates and skis, Klasen would say: + +"See how they overdo things. They wear themselves out skiing, skating, +curling, bobsleighing. Yes," he would add, nodding to his wife and to +Edith, "almost everyone who comes here as a sportsman returns here as an +invalid." + +His little laugh made Edith shiver. Sometimes the girl-wife would bend +forward. "See, Fritz; two more have arrived to-day!" + +"Do you think they are tourists?" + +"Oh no, no; they are ill." And in the young eyes that gazed upon the +new-comers was no sorrow. + + * * * * * + +The months and the years swung round, and Edith passed along them with +light and ever lighter tread. And still and always the longing for Nancy +tore at her heart with poisoned teeth. Every hour of her day was bitter +with longing for the sound of the childish voice, the touch of the soft, +warm hand. She sometimes thought: "If I were dying, Valeria would let +Nancy come here to say good-bye." Then again she thought: + +"If Nancy came I should recover. I cannot eat enough now to get strong +because I am so often near to crying; but if Nancy were here I should +not cry. I should eat much more; I should not feel so sad; I should go +out for walks with her. I know I should recover...." + +But Nancy was in Italy in the house of Aunt Carlotta and Cousin Adele, +and Edith's letters were not given to her, lest the paper over which +Edith had bent should carry poison in its love-laden pages. + +Nancy now spoke Italian and wrote Italian poems. She went out for walks +with Adele, and Adele held the soft, warm hand and heard the sweet +treble voice. Adele kept the house quiet and the meals waiting when +Nancy was writing; and when Nancy frowned and passed her hand across her +forehead with the little quick gesture she often used, Adele laughed her +loud Milanese laugh that drove all the butterfly-thoughts away. Adele +tidied Nancy's things and threw away the dried primroses Edith had +picked with her in the Hertfordshire woods, and gave the string of blue +beads Edith had put round Nancy's neck the day she left for Davos to the +hall-porter's child, and she tore up all the poems Nancy had written in +England, because they were old things that nobody could understand. + +Thus, as the months and the years swung round, Edith went from Nancy's +memory. Softly, slowly, with light tread, the girl-figure passed from +her recollection and was gone; for children and poets are forgetful and +selfish, and a child who is a poet is doubly selfish, and doubly +forgetful. + + * * * * * + +When Nancy was fifteen, Zardo, the Milan publisher, accepted her first +book--"A Cycle of Lyrics." By the post that brought the first proofs to +the little poet came also a letter, black-edged, from Switzerland, for +her mother. + +"Mother, mother!" cried Nancy, drawing the printed pages from the large +envelope, and shaking them out before her, "Look, the proofs, the +proofs! This is my book, my own book!" + +And she lifted all the rough sheets to her face and kissed them. + +But Valeria had opened the black-edged letter, and was gazing at it, +pale, with tears in her eyes. + +"Nancy," she said, "Edith is dead." + +"Oh, mother dear!" exclaimed Nancy, "I am so sorry!" And she bent over +her mother and kissed her. Then she went back to her proofs and turned +over the first page. + +"She died on Thursday morning," sobbed Valeria. "And oh, Nancy, she +loved you so!" + +But Nancy had not heard. Before her lay her first printed poem. The +narrow verses on the wide white sheet looked to her like a slender +pathway. + +And along this pathway went Nancy with starry matutinal eyes, beyond the +reach of love and the call of Death, leading her dreams far out past the +brief arch of Fame, into the shining plains of Immortality. + + + + +XII + + +So Valeria had her wish. Her child was a genius, and a genius recognized +and glorified as only Latin countries glorify and recognize their own. +Nancy stepped from the twilight of the nursery into the blinding uproar +of celebrity, and her young feet walked dizzily on the heights. She was +interviewed and quoted, imitated and translated, envied and adored. She +had as many enemies as a Cabinet Minister, and as many inamorati as a +_premiere danseuse_. + +To the Signora Carlotta's tidy apartment in Corso Venezia came all the +poets of Italy. They sat round Nancy and read their verses to her, and +the criticisms of their verses, and their answers to the criticisms. +There were tempestuous poets with pointed beards, and successful poets +with turned-up moustaches; there were lonely, unprinted poets, and +careless, unwashed poets; there was also a poet who stole an umbrella +and an overcoat from the hall. Aunt Carlotta said it was the Futurist, +but Adele felt sure it was the Singer of the Verb of Magnificent +Sterility, the one with the red and evil eyes. + +Soon came a letter from Rome bearing the arms of the royal house. Her +Majesty the Queen desired to hear Giovanna Desiderata read her poems at +the Quirinal at half-past four o'clock of next Friday afternoon. + +The house was in a flutter. Everywhere and at all hours, in the +intervals of packing trunks, Aunt Carlotta, Adele, Valeria, and Nancy +practised deep curtseying and kissing of hand, and wondered if they had +to say "Your Majesty" every time they spoke, or only casually once or +twice. They started for Rome at once. A gorgeous dress and plumed hat +was bought for Nancy, a white veil was tied for the first time over her +childish face, and in very tight white gloves, holding the small volume +of her poems, she went with trembling heart--accompanied by Valeria, +Carlotta, and Adele in large feather boas--to the Quirinal. + +A gentle-voiced, simply-gowned lady-in-waiting received them, and smiled +a little as she explained that only Nancy was expected and could be +received. Nancy was then told to remove her veil and her right-hand +glove. Carlotta, Valeria, and Adele embraced her as if she were leaving +them for a week, and made the sign of the cross on her forehead; then +the lady-in-waiting conducted her through a succession of yellow rooms, +of blue rooms, of red rooms, into the white and gold room where the +Queen awaited her. + +More gentle-voiced and more simply gowned than her lady-in-waiting, the +Queen, standing beside a table laden with flowers, moved to meet the +little figure in the huge plumed hat. Nancy forgot the practised curtsey +and the rehearsed salute. She clasped and held the gracious hand +extended to her, and suddenly, as the awed, childish eyes filled with +tears, the Queen bent forward and kissed her.... + +It was late and almost dark when Nancy returned, dream-like, with pale +lips, to her mother, her aunt, and her cousin, who were having a nervous +meal of sandwiches and wines with a gentleman in uniform standing +beside them, and two powdered footmen waiting on them. They all three +hurriedly put on their boas as soon as Nancy appeared, and they left, +escorted and bowed out by the gentleman in uniform. "Probably the Duke +of Aosta," said Aunt Carlotta vaguely. Another powdered footman +conducted them to the royal automobile in which they returned to the +hotel. + +Nancy was disappointing in her description of everything. She sat in the +dusky carriage with her eyes shut, holding her mother's hand. She could +not tell Aunt Carlotta what she had eaten. Tea? Yes, tea. And cakes? +Yes, cakes. But what kind of cakes, and what else? She did not remember. +And she could not tell Adele how the Queen was dressed. In white? No, +not in white. Was it silk? She did not know. What rings did the Queen +wear, and what brooch? Nancy could not remember. And had she said "Your +Majesty" to her, or "Signora"? Nancy did not know. Neither, she thought. +Then her mother asked timidly: "Did she like your poems?" And Nancy +tightened the clasp on her mother's hand and said, "Yes." + +Carlotta and Adele were convinced that Nancy had made a fiasco of the +visit and of the reading. She had blundered over the greeting, and had +forgotten to say "Maesta." But they talked to everybody in the hotel +about their afternoon at the Quirinal, and pretended not to be surprised +when the hall-porter brought to them at the luncheon-table a packet +containing three pictures of the Queen with her signature, one for each; +and for Nancy a jewel-case, with crown and monogram, containing a brooch +of blue enamel with the royal initial in diamonds. + +Nancy bought a diary, and wrote on the first page the date and a +name--the name of a flower, the name of the Queen. + + * * * * * + +They returned to Milan in a dream. A crowd of friends awaited them at +the station, foremost among them Zio Giacomo, shorter of breath and +quicker of temper than ever, and beside him the returned prodigal, Nino, +who had never been seen and seldom been heard of for the past eight +years. Adele turned crimson, and Valeria turned white as the +well-remembered dark eyes smiled at them from the handsome, sunburnt +face; and Nino turned up his moustache and helped them to alight from +the train, and kissed them all loudly on both cheeks. Nancy did not +remember him at all. She looked at him gravely while he rapidly +described to her a pink pinafore she used to wear in England eight years +ago, and a Punch-and-Judy show, stage-managed by a Fraeulein Something or +other, and a dimple just like her mother's that she then possessed. +Immediately the dimple reappeared, dipping sweetly in the young curved +cheek, and Valeria smiled with tears in her eyes and kissed Nancy. Then +Nino kissed Valeria and kissed Nancy, and then he kissed Adele, too, who +was acidly looking on. At last Zio Giacomo, growing very impatient, +hurried them off the crowded platform and into cabs and carriages. They +drove home, Nino crushing in at the last moment with Valeria, Carlotta, +and Nancy. He did not ask about the Queen, nor did he tell them anything +about his own long absence; but he quoted Baudelaire and Mallarme to +them all the way home in a low resonant voice broken by the jolts of the +carriage. He did not quote Nancy's poems. "They are sacrosanct," he +said. "My lips are unworthy." Then he drifted into Richepin: + + "Voici mon sang et ma chair, + Bois et mange!" + +he said, looking straight before him at Valeria. And Valeria turned pale +again, uselessly, hopelessly; for the eyes that looked at her did not +see her. + +Zio Giacomo and Nino stayed with them to dinner, and two of the poets, a +successful one and an unwashed one, came later in the evening. + +"What do you think of D'Annunzio?" asked Nino of Nancy, when the poets +had stopped a moment to take breath. + +"I have not read him. I have read nobody and nothing," said Nancy. + +"That is right," cried Marvasi, the unwashed, nodding his rusty head and +clapping his dusty fingers. "Read nothing, and retain your originality." + +"Read everything," cried Cesare Raffaelli, "and cultivate form." + +During the discussion that followed, the din of the two poets' voices +built a wall of solitude round Nino and Nancy. + +"How old are you?" asked Nino, looking at her mild forehead, where the +dark eyebrows lay over her light grey eyes like quiet wings. + +"Sixteen," said Nancy; and the dimple dipped. + +Nino did not return her smile. "Sixteen!" he said. And because his eyes +were used to the line of a fading cheek and the bitterness of a tired +mouth, his heart fell, love-struck and conquered, before Nancy's cool +and innocent youth. It was inevitable. + +"Sixteen!" he repeated, looking at her, grave and wondering. "Is anybody +in the world sixteen?" + +And it was not the inspired author of the poems over which half Italy +raved, but the little girl with the wing-like eyebrows, that his wonder +went to; and it was the chilly little hand of the maiden, not the pulse +of the poet, that shook his heart loose from those other white, +well-remembered hands, where the blue veins, soft and slightly turgid, +marked the slower course of the blood--those sad blue veins which moved +his pity and strangled his desire. + +"May I call you by your right name?" he asked. "'Nancy' seems +so--geographical." + +Nancy laughed. "Call me as you will." + +"_Desiderata_" he said slowly, and the colour left his face as he +pronounced it. + +That evening Nancy wrote on the second page of her diary the date, and a +name; then she scratched the name out again, and the Queen remained in +the book alone. + +Every morning since the visit to the Quirinal Nancy's chocolate and her +letters were brought in to her at eight o'clock by Adele herself, who +regarded it now as an office of honour to wait on the little Sappho of +Italy. She came in, in dressing-gown and slippers, with her long black +hair in a plait, and placed the dainty tray by Nancy's bed; then she +opened the shutters and came back to sit beside Nancy, and open her +correspondence for her. Nancy the while, like a lazy princess, sipped +her chocolate, with her little finger in the air. Newspaper cuttings +about Nancy were read first; requests for autographs were carefully put +aside for Adele to answer. Adele said that she could write Nancy's +autograph more like Nancy than Nancy herself. Then poems and +love-letters were read and commented upon with peals of laughter--and +business letters were put aside and not read at all. + +So many people came and spoke to Nancy of what she had written that she +had no time to write anything new. But her brain was stimulated by all +the modernists and symbolists and futurists who recited their works to +her; and in the long lamp-lit evenings, while Aunt Carlotta was playing +briscola with Zio Giacomo, Nino read Carducci's "Odi Barbare" to the +three listening women--Valeria, Adele, and Nancy--who sat in their large +armchairs with drooping lids and folded hands, like a triptichi of the +seasons of love. + +Valeria always sat a little apart in the shadow, and if anyone spoke to +her she replied softly and smiled wanly. Valeria's dimple had slipped +into a little line on her cheek. Valeria herself was not Valeria any +more. She was Nancy's mother. She had moved back into the shadow, where +mothers sit with kind eyes that no one gazes into, and sweet mouths that +no one kisses, and white hands that bless and renunciate. The baby had +pushed her there. Gently, inexorably, with the first outstretching of +the tiny fist, with the first soft pressure of the pink fragile fingers +against the maternal breast, the child had pushed the mother from her +place in the sunlight--gently, inexorably, out of love, out of joy, out +of life--into the shadow where mothers sit with eyes whose tears no one +kisses away, with heart-beats that no one counts. Nancy sooner than +others had taken her own high place in the sun; for if most children are +like robin redbreasts, slayers of their old, Genius, the devourer, is +like an eagle that springs full-fledged, with careless, devastating +wings, from the nest of a dove. + + * * * * * + +"Nancy," cried Adele, bursting into her cousin's room one afternoon, +"here is an Englishman to see you. Come quickly. I cannot understand a +word he says." + +"Oh, send mother to him," said Nancy. "I have forgotten all my English. +Besides, I must read this noxious Gabriele to the end." + +"Your mother has gone out. Do come!" And Adele gave Nancy's hair a +little pull on each side and a pat on the top, and hurried her to the +drawing-room, where the Englishman was waiting. He rose, a +stern-looking, clean-shaven man, with friendly eyes in a hard face. + +Nancy put out her hand and said: "Buon giorno." + +He answered: "How do you do? My Italian is very poor. May I speak +English?" + +Nancy dimpled. "You may speak it, but I may not understand it," she +said. + +But she understood him. He had written a critical essay on her book, +with prose translations of some of the lyrics, and wished to close the +article with an _apercu_ of her literary aims and intentions. What work +was she doing at present! What message----? + +"Nothing," said Nancy, with a little helpless Latin gesture of her +hands. "I am doing nothing." + +"_Peccato!_" said the Englishman. And he added: "I mean your Italian +word in both senses--a pity and a sin." + +Nancy nodded, and looked wistful. + +"Why are you not working?" asked her visitor severely. + +Nancy repeated the little helpless gesture. "I don't know," she said; +then she smiled. "In Italy we talk so much. We say all the beautiful +things we might write. That is why Italian literature is so poor, and +Italian cafes so interesting. As for our thoughts, when we have said +them they are gone--blown away like the fluff of the dandelions I used +to tell the time by when I was a little girl in England." + +That childish reminiscence brought her very near to him, and he told her +about his mother and his younger sister, who lived in Kent, in an +old-fashioned house in the midst of a great garden. + +"You make me homesick for England," said Nancy. + +Mr. Kingsley looked pleased. "Do you remember England?" he asked. + +"No," said Nancy; "I am always homesick for things that I have +forgotten, or for things that I never have known." And she smiled, but +in her eyes wavered the nostalgic loneliness of the dreamer's soul. + +The Englishman cleared his throat, and said in a practical voice: "I +hope that you will work very hard, and do great things." + + * * * * * + +She tried to. She got up early the next morning, and wrote in her diary, +"_Incipit vita nova!_" and she made an elaborate time-table for every +hour of the day; then she made a list of the things she intended to +write--subjects and ideas that had stirred in her mind for months past, +but had been scattered by distracting visits, dispersed in futile +conversations. She felt impatient and happy and eager. On the large +white sheet of paper which lay before her, like a wonderful unexplored +country full of resplendent possibilities, she traced with reverent +forefinger the sign of the cross. + +Some one knocked at the door. It was Clarissa della Rocca, Nino's +married sister, tall, trim, and sleek in magnificent clothes. + +"_Mes amours!_" she exclaimed, embracing Nancy, and pressing her long +chin quickly against Nancy's cheek. "Do put on your hat and come for a +drive with me. Aldo has come from America. He is downstairs in the +stanhope. He is trying my husband's new sorrels, and so, of course, I +insisted on going with him. Now I am frightened, and I have nobody to +scream to and to catch hold of." + +"Catch hold of Aldo, whoever he may be," said Nancy, laughing. + +"He is my brother-in-law. But I can't," said Clarissa, waving +explanatory mauve-gloved hands; "he is driving. Besides, he is horribly +cross. Have you never seen him? He is Carlo's youngest brother. Do come. +He will be much nicer if you are there." + +"But he does not know me," said Nancy, still with her pen in her hand. + +"That's why. He is always nice to people he does not know. Come quickly, +_ma cherie_. He is _ravissant_. He has been to America on a wild and +lonely ranch in Texas. He speaks English and German, and he sings like +an angel. Make yourself beautiful, _mon chou aime_." + +Nancy slipped into a long coat, and pinned a large hat on her head +without looking in the glass. + +Clarissa watched her from out of her long careful eyelids, and said: +"Mon Dieu!" Then she asked suddenly: "How young are you?" + +"Nearly seventeen," said Nancy, looking for her gloves. + +"What luck!" sighed Clarissa. "And you are sure you won't mind if I +pinch you? I must! The near horse rears." + +Then they ran downstairs together, where Aldo della Rocca sat, holding +the two impatient sorrels in with shortened reins. He was flicking at +their ears and making them plunge with curved, angry necks and frothing +mouths. He was certainly _ravissant_. His profile, as Nancy saw it +against the blue June sky, was like Praxiteles' Hermes. His glossy hair +gleamed blue-black as he raised his hat with a sweeping gesture that +made Nancy smile. Then they were seated behind him, and the puissant +horses shot off down the Corso and towards the Bastioni at a magnificent +pace. Clarissa shrieked a little now and then when she remembered to, +but Aldo did not seem to hear her, so she soon desisted. + +"Is he not seraphically beautiful?" she said to Nancy, pointing an +ecstatic forefinger at her brother-in-law's slim back. "I often say to +Carlo: 'Why, why did I meet you first, and not your Apolline brother?'" + +Nancy smiled. "But surely he is rather young." + +"He is twenty-four, you little stinging-nettle," said Clarissa; "and he +has been so much petted and adored by all the women of Naples that he +might be a thousand." + +"How horrid!" said Nancy, looking disdainfully at the unwitting back +before her, at the shining black hair above the high white collar, and +at the irreproachable hat sitting correctly on the top of it all. + +"Oh yes, he is horrid," said Clarissa; "but how visually delectable!" + +Aldo della Rocca turned his profile towards them. "I shall take you +along the Monza road," he said. + +"Oh," cried Clarissa, "such an ugly old road, where no one will see us." + +"I am driving the horses out to-day," said her brother-in-law, "not your +Paris frocks." And he turned away again, and took the road towards +Monza at a spanking gait. + +"Il est si spirituel!" laughed Clarissa, who bubbled over into French at +the slightest provocation. The straight, white, dusty road, bordered +with poplars, stretched its narrowing line before them, and the sorrels +went like the wind. Suddenly, as they were nearing the first +ugly-looking houses of Sesto, the driver checked suddenly, and the +ladies bent forward to see why. A hundred paces before them, struggling +and swaying, now on the side-walk, now almost in the middle of the road, +were two women and a man. Some children standing near a door shrieked, +but the struggling, scuffling group uttered no sound. Nancy stood up. +The man, whose hat had fallen in the road--one could see his dishevelled +hair and red face--had wrenched one arm loose from the clutch of the +women, and with a quick gesture drew from his pocket something that the +sun glanced on. + +"He has a knife or a pistol!" gasped Nancy. + +The struggling women had seen it, too, and now they shrieked, clutching +and grappling with him, and screaming for help. + +Nancy thrust her small, strong hands forward. "I can hold the horses," +she said, and seized the reins from Della Rocca's fingers. + +He turned and looked at her in surprise. "Why, what----?" And he +stopped. + +She read the doubt in his face, and read it wrong. + +"I can--I can!" she cried. "Go quickly! We shall be all right!" + +He twisted his mouth in curious fashion; then he jumped from his seat, +and ran in light leaps across the road. The man was holding the +revolver high out of the women's reach, while they clung to him and held +him frantically, convulsively, crying: "Help! Madonna! Help!" + +Della Rocca reached him in an instant, and wrenched the short revolver +away. With a quick gesture he opened the barrel and shook the cartridges +out upon the ground. He tossed the weapon to one of a dozen men who had +now come hurrying out of a neighbouring wine-shop, and, running lightly +across the dusty road, he was back at the side of the carriage in an +instant. He glanced up at Nancy, and raised his hat again with the +exaggerated sweep that had caused her to smile before. + +"Pardon me for keeping you waiting," he said. + +"Ah, _quel poseur!_" cried Clarissa, who had sat with her eyes shut, +holding her ears during the excitement. + +Della Rocca smiled, and, jumping into his place, took the reins from +Nancy's strained and trembling hands. She dropped back in her seat +feeling faint and excited. The horses plunged and started forward again. + +"What courage!" said Clarissa, taking Nancy's fingers in her own. + +"Yes," said Nancy, looking with approval at the straight, slim shoulders +and the black hair and the irreproachable hat. "I like a brave man." + +Clarissa gave one of her little Parisian shrieks. + +"_Ouiche!_ it is not Aldo--it is you who are brave! Aldo is as cautious +as a hare, but, being a preposterous _poseur_, he would not miss an +effect for worlds!" And Clarissa flourished an imaginary hat in the +Della Rocca style. + +Nancy laughed, and believed not a word about the hare. + +When they left her at her door she answered his sweeping salutation with +a serious little nod; she ran up the stairs hurriedly, and into her +room. On her writing-table lay an unopened letter from Nino; he wrote to +her every morning and called on her every afternoon. + +Nancy did not glance at it. She ran out on to the balcony. But the +stanhope had already turned out of sight. + +Nancy stepped back into her room and slowly drew off her gloves. For +some unexplained reason she was glad that her wrists still ached, and +that her fingers were bruised by the dragging of the hard, stiff reins. + +From the open balcony the wind blew into the room, and scattered the +papers on her writing-table. It blew away Nino's letter; it blew away +the elaborate time-table she had drawn up and the lists of the work she +was to do; it blew away the large white sheet of paper--the fair sheet +full of resplendent possibilities--on which she had traced with reverent +finger the sign of the cross. + + + + +XIII + + +When the Englishman called again to bring her a copy of the +_Fortnightly_ with the article on "An Italian Lyrist," he found that she +had not worked at all; she looked as sweet and helpless and idle as +ever, and the room was full of visitors. He was introduced to her +mother, whom he found gentle and subdued, and to the vigorous, +loud-voiced Aunt Carlotta, and to all the poets. + +"I am afraid, mother dear," said Nancy, leaning her billowy head against +her mother's arm and looking up at her new friend with May-morning eyes, +"that Mr. Kingsley will think I have no character." + +"You have a complexion," interposed Aunt Carlotta. "That is enough for a +girl." + +Valeria laughed. "It is true. Italian girls must not have characters +until they marry. Then their husbands make it for them, according to +their own tastes." + +Mr. Kingsley smiled down at Nancy. "Why should I think you have no +character?" + +"Because you told me to work. And I promised; and I have not," said +Nancy. + +"Have you done nothing at all since I saw you?" he asked. + +Nancy shook her head. + +"And have you no thoughts, no ideas that urge for expression?" + +"Oh yes!" said Nancy, waving eloquent, impatient fingers. "Ideas +and thoughts grow and bloom and blow in my mind like flowers in a +garden. Then all these people come and talk to me.... Alas," she sighed, +looking round the murmuring, laughing room, "in the evening my garden is +barren, for I have cut all my flowers and given them away." + +The Englishman forgot that he was English, and said what he thought: + +"I wish I could carry you off, and lock you up for a year, with nothing +but books and a table and an inkstand," he said. + +"I wish you could," laughed Nancy, clasping eager hands. "I should love +it. Not a soul would be allowed to speak to me. And I should have my +meals passed in through the window." + +The Englishman laughed the sudden laugh of one who laughs seldom. "And I +should walk up and down outside with a gun." + +Nancy looked at him, and a quick, shy thought, like a bird darting into +an open window, entered her mind for an instant. Surely it would be good +to have this strong, kind sentinel between herself and the world; to +feel the light firmness of his touch on her shoulder keeping her to her +work--to the work she loved, and yet was willing to neglect at the call +of every passing voice. This stern, fair countenance would face the +world for her; these strong shoulders would carry her burdens; these +candid eyes would look into her soul and keep it clear and bright. + +Then the bird-thought flew out of the window of her mind, for the door +opened and love and destiny came in. It was Aldo della Rocca, more than +ever visually delectable. + +With him came his sister-in-law Clarissa, and Nino. Nino looked +depressed and dreary; La Villari was writing to him; his conscience was +harassing him; Aldo della Rocca's self-confident beauty irritated him. + +"What, Nino! Here again?" said Nancy, with a laugh. "You said last night +that henceforward you would never come to see us more than twice a +week." + +"That's right," said Nino. "Yesterday was the last visit of last week, +and this is the first visit of this week. Besides, Della Rocca told me +he was coming, so I felt that I had to come too. Of course, I did all I +could to shake him off, but he is as persistent and adhesive as one of +his compatriot cab-drivers in Santa Lucia. So that is why I could not +come alone." + +"How confusing!" said Nancy, turning to greet Della Rocca. + +Della Rocca smiled; and his smile was sudden and brilliant, as if a row +of lights had been lit at the back of his eyes. + +He bent over Nancy's proffered hand. "Signora--your slave!" he said in +ceremonious Southern fashion. + +Clarissa's high voice rang out. "He has been reading your poems day and +night, Nancy. And he has put them to music. Glorious! Quite a la Richard +Strauss or Tosti or Hugo Wolff! He must sing them to you." + +Then she sailed round, greeting the poets, many of whom she knew. The +Englishman was introduced as the Signor Kingsley, and Clarissa asked him +many questions about London, and did not wait to hear what he answered, +but went off with Adele and Aunt Carlotta to a French lecture on +"Napoleon et les Femmes." The poets, as soon as they had had vermouth +and biscottini di Novara, also went away. + +Then Della Rocca seated himself at the piano, and, preluding softly, +strayed from harmony to harmony into the songs he had composed for +Nancy. He played with his head bent forward and his soft hair falling +darkly over half his face, making him look like a younger brother of +Velasquez's Christ. He had the musical talent of a Neapolitan street-boy +and the voice of an angel who had studied singing in Germany. Nancy felt +happy tears welling into her eyes, and Della Rocca's clear-cut, +down-curving profile wavered before her gaze. + +The Signor Kingsley sat silent in his corner near the window. Valeria +was in the shadow with some quiet work in her hand, and Nino, who was +sulky and bored, smoked cigarette after cigarette and yawned. + +Nancy bent forward with clasped hands, listening to her own words, the +lovelier for their garb of music as children are more lovely when +clothed in shimmering robes and crowned with roses. She had sent her +thoughts out into the world, in their innocent and passionate +immaturity, bare and wild. And, behold, he brought them back to her +veiled in silver minor keys, borne on palanquins of rhythmic harmonies, +regal, measured, stately, like the young sisters of a queen. + +Mr. Kingsley's mouth tightened as he watched the back of the singer's +black head nodding to the music, and listened to the soft tenor voice +rolling over the "r's" and broadening on the mellow "a's" of the tender +Italian words. He felt his own good English baritone contracting in his +throat, and he wondered what made "these Latin idiots" sing as they did. +Then he glanced at Nancy, who had closed her eyes, and at Nino, who was +in the rocking-chair staring at the ceiling; and suddenly he felt that +he must take his leave. He rose at the end of the cycle of songs, and +Nancy turned to him with vague eyes to say good-bye. His kind clear gaze +rested on her face. + +"Do not cut all your flowers," he said. + +Nancy shook her head. "No, no!" she said. "I won't. I really won't." + +"Remember that your masterpiece is before you, and the little poems are +done with. Lock your doors. Shut out the world, and start on a new work +to-morrow." + +Nancy said, "Yes, yes, I will." Then an absent look stole over her light +eyes. "Ah! _der Musikant!_" she cried, turning to Della Rocca, who was +singing in German, and pronouncing as if it were Genovese. "I remember +that. Is it not Eichendorff?" + +"'Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts,'" said Della Rocca. + +"Oh, do you really speak German? I love people who speak German," cried +Nancy, on whom the German poet's spell still rested. + +"I learned it at Goettingen," said Della Rocca, with his illuminating +smile. + +"Ach, de Stadt die am schoensten ist wenn man sie mit dem Ruecken +ansieht," quoted Nancy, laughing. + +Della Rocca laughed too, although he did not understand what she had +said; then he turned to the piano again. + +Nancy felt happy and inclined to kindness. "Do not go yet," she said to +Mr. Kingsley. "Sit down and talk to me." + +But Mr. Kingsley knew better. Della Rocca's melting notes were drawing +the girl's thoughts away again, and he could notice the little shiver +creep round her face, leaving it slightly paler, as the silver tenor +voice took a high A in falsetto and held it long and pianissimo. + +"I will come again some day, if I may," he said. "But I almost hope that +I shall find your doors locked." + +Again the bird-thought came fluttering into the window of Nancy's mind, +as the Englishman's strong hand closed firm and warm round hers. + +Then the door was shut on Mr. Paul Kingsley, and the thought flew away +and was gone. + +"Who is that conceited fool of an Englishman?" said Nino, who felt cross +and liked to show it. + +Nancy flushed. "Please don't speak like that about Englishmen. My father +was English." Then she added, with a little toss of her head: "And he +was not a bit of a conceited fool." + +"I never said he was," said Nino. + +"Oh!" gasped Nancy, "you did!" + +"I said nothing of the kind," declared Nino. "Your father was a good and +noble man." + +"You know I was not talking of my father," said Nancy. + +"No more was I," said Nino. + +Nancy turned to Della Rocca, who was preluding carelessly with smooth +fingers and all his smiles alight. + +"Nino always cavils and confuses until one does not know what one is +talking about!" + +Della Rocca nodded. "That is just what his celebrated friend, Nunziata +Villari, said about him when I saw her in Naples. By the way, Nino,"--he +ran up a quick scale of fourths and let them fall in a minor arpeggio +like tumbling water--"they say La Villari tried to commit suicide last +month. Locked herself up with a brazier of coke, like a love-sick +grisette. Did you hear about it?" + +"No," said Nino, "I did not." Then he looked long, mildly, fixedly at +Della Rocca, who after a moment got up and said good-bye. + +When he had left, Nancy said to Nino: "Who is La Villari? And why did +she try to kill herself? La Villari! I thought that was an actress who +had died a hundred years ago." + +Nino took her hand. "You don't know anything, Nancy," he said. "You +don't even know that you are a vulture and a shark." + +Nancy laughed. "Yes, but who is La Villari?" + +"She is someone you have devoured," said Nino. + +And, remembering the brazier of coke, he left for Naples by the next +train; for, though he had a nose of putty, he had a heart of gold. + + + + +XIV + + +During the long, dreary journey in an empty carriage of the slow train +Nino fought his battles and chastened his soul. He set his conscience on +the empty seat before him and looked it in the face. The desires of his +heart sat near him, and took his part. His conscience had a dirty face +that irritated him; his desires were fair as lilies and had high treble +voices that spoke loud. His conscience said nothing, only sat there +showing its dirty face and irritating him. + +By the time Bologna was reached the lilies had it all their own way. +After all he was young--well, comparatively young; thirty-one is young +for a man--and he had his life before him, while Nunziata--well, she had +lived her life. And she had had eight years of his: the eight best +years, for after all at thirty-one a man is not young--well, not so +young. His conscience was staring at him, so he changed argument. +Nunziata did not really love him any more, she had told him so a hundred +times during the last two years; it was a burden, a chain of misery to +them both. She had herself begged him to leave her after one of those +well-remembered, never-ending scenes that were always occurring since +she had finally abandoned the theatre for his sake. + +She had said: "Go! I implore you to go! I cannot live like this any +longer! For my sake, go!" So it was really in order to please her that +he had gone. + +The face of his conscience opposite him was looking dirtier than ever. +But the treble voices of his desires rang shrill: "He must not forget +his duties to himself and to others. He had a duty to his father, who +longed to have him near him, settled happily and normally; he had a duty +to Valeria, who----" Here he quickly changed argument again. "He had a +duty to Nancy, to little, innocent, wonderful Nancy, who understood +nothing of the world; she must be saved from designing knaves, from +struggling _litterateurs_ and poets who would like to marry her and use +her vogue in order to scramble up to a reputation, from the professional +_beau jeune homme_ like Aldo, who would break her heart.... It really +was his duty----" The train slowed, shivered, and stopped. He was glad +to get out, and rush to a hurried supper in the buffet, because the ugly +face opposite him was more than he could stand. + +All through the night in the slow train to Rome he fought his battles +and chastened his soul, and the little ugly face said not a word, but +looked at him. + +When day dawned he had broken the lilies, and they lay, whiter than +before, at his feet. And the face of his conscience was clean. When Rome +was reached, where he had three hours to wait for the Naples express, he +hurried into the telegraph-office and sent a message to Nunziata: + +"Arriving this evening at nine. Forgive. Yours for ever, NINO." + +Then, just as he was getting into the hotel omnibus, he learned that a +special excursion train was leaving for Naples at once. He could arrive +four hours sooner. He hastened back into the station, caught the train, +and was already approaching Naples when La Villari received his +telegram. + +La Villari had just begun her luncheon, and the _spaghetti al burro e +formaggio_ lay in a goodly heap of pale gold on her plate. She had just +put her fork into them and begun to turn it round and round, when Teresa +came in excitedly. + +"A telegram, Illustrissima," she said. + +La Villari opened the telegram. "Misericordia!" she said. "He is coming +back." + +Teresa cleaned her hands on her apron. What? The Signorino? He was +returning? + +"Yes, to-night. At nine o'clock," sighed La Villari. + +Well, let the Illustrissima not allow the spaghetti to get cold. And +Teresa sighed also, as she left the room and hustled the telegraph-boy +off without giving him a tip. + +They had been so happy without the Signorino. They had had such quiet, +comfortable meals. The Illustrissima had had no nerves, no convulsions, +but a good appetite and a pleasant temper. Now it would all begin again: +the excitements, the tempers of the Illustrissima; the dinner left to +get cold while the Illustrissima and the Signorino quarrelled; the +rushings out of the Signorino; the tears of the Illustrissima; the +telephone messages; the visitors and relations to argue with and console +the Illustrissima; then the returnings of the Signorino; and supper for +everybody in the middle of the night. It was not a life. + +Teresa brought in the auburn cutlet a la Milanese. There! already it was +beginning. The Illustrissima had not eaten the spaghetti! + +"Do not bother me with the spaghetti," said the Illustrissima, who +already had the nerves. "Let us think about this evening." + +"Yes," said Teresa. "Shall we have vol-au-vent that His Excellency +likes?" + +"Oh, do not bother me with vol-au-vent!" cried the Illustrissima. "Do +you not understand that he must not find us like this?" + +"Vossignoria will put on the blue crepe-de-chine gown," said Teresa; +"and I will order the coiffeuse for six o'clock." + +Yes, yes; but that was not sufficient. Nino must not find her sitting +there waiting for him, as if she had no one in the world but him. + +"Go away, Teresa, go away! I must think," she said. And Teresa went to +her kitchen grumbling. + +La Villari's views of life and her manner of dealing with situations +were according to Sardou, Dumas, or D'Annunzio. Nino must either find +her supine in a darkened room, with etiolated cheeks and blue shadows +under her spent eyes; or then, after his arrival, she must enter, coming +from some brilliant banquet, rose-crowned and laughing. She sees him! +She vacillates. Her jewelled hand clutches at her heart. "_Nino!_"--and +he is at her feet.... Then he makes her a scene of jealousy. Where has +she been? With whom? Where was she when his telegram arrived? Who sends +her all these flowers? Pah! He throws them out of the window--and all is +as it should be. + +As it happened, there were no flowers in the room. So La Villari rang +the bell and told Teresa to order fifty francs worth of white roses and +tuberoses from the florist, to be brought as soon as possible, and the +hair-dresser for six o'clock, and the brougham for seven. + +"And, Teresa!..." + +Teresa turned back with a dreary face. + +"Remember that it was you who opened the telegram. I was out. I am +always out. With many people, you understand." + +Yes, Teresa understood. And with callous back and shuffling shoes she +went away to order the flowers, and the brougham, and the hair-dresser. + +La Villari unpinned her hair, put the greater part of it neatly on the +dressing-table in readiness for the coiffeuse, rubbed a little lanoline +round her eyes, and settled herself with Matilde Serao's "Indomani" to +one more peaceful afternoon. + +Love was not peaceful, it was agitating and uncomfortable; and keeping +up the pretence of being twenty-eight when one is forty-five is a labour +and a toil. Of course, she adored Nino; the mere thought of his ever +tiring of her, or leaving her, brought visions of despair and vengeance, +of vitriol and dagger to her mind. But oh! how she envied those placid +women who surrender their youth submissively, and slip serenely into +gentle middle-age as a ship glides into quiet waters. With her, because +her lover was young, she must grasp and grapple with the engulfing +years. She must clutch at her youth as a child clutches a wild bird +fluttering to escape. Alas! when the child opens its fingers the +prisoner is dead. Better let it fly when it will. + +So thought Nunziata Villari. The feathers and the wings still lay in her +hand, but youth, the bird, was dead. + +She took up the book, and stifled thought under the blanket of Matilde +Serao's warm prose. + +The excursion train ran into Naples at five o'clock, just as a florist +in the Strada Caracciolo was threading a wire into the green throat of +the last white rose for the Illustrissima. Fifty francs worth of roses +in Naples in the month of June are enough to consummate the perfumed +death in Freiligrath's "Blumenrache," and then enough to cover the +maiden's coffin from wider to narrowest end. It took two men to carry +them, tied in huge bunches, along the Strada Caracciolo to the Palazzo +Imparato. + +Nino from his cab saw two men bearing white flowers far ahead of him, +and wondered vaguely for whom they might be. + +Then he thought of Nunziata's face as he had last seen it--pallid, with +a tortured smile, as she said good-bye. But now he would see her smile +again, that pretty tilted smile that was still young.... + +(The men with the flowers had turned a corner. Nino's cab turned it, +too, and there were the men again, marching before him.) + +He had been a brute and a hound, but he would atone. He would do the +right thing. Nunziata should not be left in tears again, nor again be +driven to the little brazier of coke, like a love-sick grisette.... + +(The men with the white flowers were alongside. Now they were left +behind.) + +And now the carriage stopped at the door of the Palazzo Imparato. The +driver handed the luggage down, and a waiting lazzarone grabbed and +shouldered it. While Nino was paying the fare the men with the flowers +came up, and Nino turned to glance at them as they passed. _But they did +not pass._ They turned into the Palazzo Imparato and vanished in the +shadow of the gateway. + +Nino's heart leaped up, and stood still. The lazzarone, watching him, +saw tragedy in his face, and was satisfied that the tip would be a large +one; for the lazzarone knew that despair is as generous as happiness. + +Nino ran, blind with his terrors, up the wide flights of stairs. On +Nunziata's landing the men with the flowers stood waiting. + +Teresa opened the door, and saw behind the roses Nino's wild, white +face. + +"The Signorino! Santa Vergine!" + +In an instantaneous vision she thought of the Illustrissima, unpowdered, +unprepared, reading Matilde Serao, her tresses lying on the +dressing-room table. The servant's stupefied, stricken face confirmed +Nino's fears. He stumbled forward, and, dropping into a seat in the +hall, covered his face with his hands. + +The Illustrissima, who had heard the noise, opened the drawing-room +door. At a glance she saw it all, and quietly closed the door again. + +When, an instant later, Nino rushed in, the room was darkened, the +shutters closed; Nunziata lay on the couch with etiolated face, a soft +shimmering scarf was wound becomingly round her head, but no blue +shadows were under her eyes, for there had been no time to make them. + +Then all began over again; for although she was peaceful and comfortable +when Nino was away, as soon as he was present she felt that all things +depended upon his love, and that his absence would end her life. Tighter +and tighter she grasped the little dead bird in her white, ringed hands, +and louder and louder she told her tired heart that youth was living and +singing still. + +Nino was kind and considerate. He also wrote letters to the Italian +Consulates in Rio and Buenos Ayres, asking them to make sure that +Eduardo Villari was really dead--as his cook, who had returned with a +good deal of money and had married a baron, declared he was. + +If the thought of Nancy knocked with light fingers at Nino's heart, he +never opened the door. + + + + +XV + + +Clarissa in her villa on Lake Maggiore was bored, so she wrote to Nancy +to come and stay with her. + +"I am weary of my sweet blue lake and of my sour blue husband. Come and +stay with me a month. You shall have a large room at the top of the +house, with a huge table and an inkstand large enough to drown in, and +before you the view that inspired Manzoni. Come and write your +masterpiece." + +By the same post she sent a note to her brother-in-law: + +"Aldo, _mon joli_, do come. Carlo is insufferable. He growls all day and +snores all night. Why did I marry him? This is the fourth time I invite +you this year, and you never come. Last year it was different. + + "Yours, + "CLARISSA. + +"P.S.--The little _poetessa_ is going to stay here for a month." + +He arrived next day. After greetings, he asked: "Where is Sappho, the +violet-haired?" Clarissa explained that Nancy had not arrived, and he +sulked and played the piano all the evening, while Carlo on the sofa +snored. Clarissa looked from one to the other, uncertain which of the +two was insulting her most. + +Nancy arrived the following day. She had brought her notebooks with her +and a broken ivory pen that she always wrote with; she was full of the +masterpiece. She was going to work immediately. + +Driving up from the landing-place to the Villa Solitudine she told her +plans to Clarissa, who nodded and smiled as she whipped up the fat cob. +She was going to write a book--_The Book!_--a great, noble piece of +work, not a little volume of flyaway poems that one reads and forgets in +a day. She was going to think of and dream of The Book; to live for The +Book; to breathe and walk for it, to eat and sleep for it. In Milan, +with people always round her, talking and distracting, it was +impossible; but here in the large bare room at the top of the +house----How sweet and dear of Clarissa to think of it! Never, never +could Nancy thank her enough.... Clarissa nodded and smiled, and the fat +cob turned into the chestnut drive of Villa Solitudine. + +Down the steps, with a couple of dogs barking and leaping at his heels, +came Aldo to meet them, clad in Neapolitan fashion in white flannels and +scarlet sash. His uncovered head gleamed darkly in the sun. + +"Behold Endymion awakened!" said Clarissa, laughing, to Nancy. +"Charmides, Adonais, Narcissus! The gods have cast upon him all the +beauty of the world!" As Nancy did not answer, Clarissa turned to look +at her. "Oh, what a stern face, _ma cherie!_ You are quite white. What +are you thinking of?" + +"The Book," said Nancy; and she felt as if it were a child of hers that +was to die unborn. + +"You shall write it, _mon ange!_ Aldo shall not disturb you." And she +threw the reins to the little stiff groom; then, daintily raising her +fluffy skirts, she alighted in Aldo's uplifted arms. Nancy put her foot +on the step, but Aldo raised her lightly and lifted her down. His red, +smiling mouth was close to her face. She thanked him, and he kissed her +hand with the ceremonious Southern salute, "Signora, I am your slave." + +Nancy went to her room--the large, bare room with the beautiful +view--and stayed there all the afternoon. She put her notes in order; +she placed the large sheets of paper before her; and she dipped the +broken ivory pen into the huge inkstand. Then she sat and looked out of +the window. She could hear the dogs barking in the garden and Clarissa's +trilling laugh. On the sweet blue lake a tiny sail, like a pocket +handkerchief, dipped and curtseyed away, and through the open windows of +the drawing-room Aldo could be heard playing a Valse Triste. Nancy +dipped the pen into the inkstand again--and looked at the view. + +Now she heard the music wander off in modulating chords which resolved +themselves into the rippling accompaniment of Hugo Wolff's "Musikant." + + "Wenn wir zwei zusammen waeren + Wuerd' das Singen mir vergeh'n." + +She could hear the soft tenor voice, and felt it drawing at her heart. +She closed the window and sat down again. She dipped the ivory pen into +the inkstand, and wrote at the top of the white sheet, "Villa +Solitudine," and the date. Under it, as she had not thought of a title +yet, she wrote in large letters: + + "THE BOOK." + +Then she jumped up and ran downstairs. + +At sunset they went out in a sailing-boat. Clarissa held the rudder, and +Aldo stood in easy attitudes of beauty at the sail. The glow of the west +was on his pure young face, and the wind of the _tramontana_ raised his +waved hair and blew it lightly across his forehead. He was silent, +satisfied to know that the two women could see him, and that the +red-gold sky was a good background for his profile. Clarissa talked and +laughed, twittered and purred; but Aldo never spoke. And it was his +silence that enraptured Nancy. + + "Ed io che intesi cio che non dicevi, + M'innamorai di te perche tacevi." + +Stecchetti's words sang in her brain with new meaning, and in the days +that followed the two smooth lines were always in her mind. + +Aldo knew little, but he knew the value of silence. He knew the lure of +the _hortus conclusus_--the Closed Garden into which one has not +stepped. Nancy stood outside its gates and dreamed of its unseen roses, +of fountains and shadowy paths and water-lilied lakes. For Aldo was a +closed garden. + +Aldo also knew the value of his eyes--deep, passion-lit eyes, that +looked, Clarissa said, as if he had rubbed the lids with burnt cork to +darken them. When he raised them suddenly, and looked straight at Nancy, +she felt a little shock of pleasure that took her breath away. Little by +little, day by day, those eyes drew Nancy's spirit to their depths--she +leaned over them as over an abyss. In them she sunk and drowned her +soul.... Then, when from his eyes her own passionate purity gazed back +at her, she thought she saw his soul and not her own. + +The Book cried in her now and then, but she stifled its voice and +whispered: "Wait!" + +And The Book waited. + +One day in the garden Aldo spoke to Clarissa. She was in the hammock +pretending to read. + +"Clarissa, I am twenty-five years old." + +"Vlan! ca y est!" said Clarissa, dropping her book. Then she drew a deep +breath, and her nostrils turned a little pale; but the superposed roses +of her cheeks bloomed on, independent of her ebbing blood and sickening +heart. + +"I am penniless," continued Aldo, picking a piece of grass and chewing +it; "and Carlo has given me to understand that he can exist without me +if he tries very hard." + +Clarissa sat up. "When? What did he say? Does he ... has he ... did he +mean anything?" + +Aldo shook his comely head. "Carlo never means anything. But I shall +have to go back to--to the Texas ranch, or marry." + +The Texas ranch was a romantic invention of Clarissa's, the only +foundation for which was a three weeks' holiday which Aldo had once +spent in the city of New York. + +Clarissa bit her red, narrow lips. "Yes," she said. + +During the long pause that followed Aldo picked another piece of grass +and chewed it. + +"I suppose," said Clarissa, looking at him sideways through her long +lids, "you will marry some affectionate old thing with money." + +"No. I know them," said Aldo. "They demand the affection, and keep the +money." + +After a pause, in which he felt Clarissa's angry eyes on his face, he +said: "I am going to marry the little Sappho." + +Clarissa laughed suddenly and loud. "You do that for your pleasure! +_Farceur, va!_" Aldo lifted his perfect eyebrows and did not reply. "She +has nothing, not a little black sou!" And Clarissa stuck her long +pointed thumbnail behind her long pointed teeth and jerked it forward. + +"Oh! I dare say she has something," said Aldo, pretending to yawn +carelessly. "Besides, she is a genius, and can earn what she will." + +"You are the perfect Neapolitan pig," said Clarissa, and closed her +eyes. + +The perfect Neapolitan pig rose with an offended air and left her. He +strolled into the house and took his hat and stick, then he strolled out +again and through the garden into the hot street and down to the +landing-place. A boat was leaving for Intra, so he went on board, and at +Intra took the train for Milan. He dined at Biffi's, feeling happy. + +"They will be miserable," he said. "That will teach them." Then he went +to his furnished rooms on the Corso, and slept well. + +In Villa Solitudine they were miserable, and it taught them. + +It taught Nancy that the Closed Garden she had had a glimpse of for so +brief an hour was the only garden in the world that she ever wanted to +enter; and that all the words Aldo had not said were the only words she +ever wanted to hear; that perfect goodness and unwavering strength must +lie behind his portentous beauty, white and immovable like marble lions +at a palace gate. + +It taught Clarissa that one must accept the inevitable--that half a loaf +was better than no bread, and that a married Aldo was better than no +Aldo at all. It made her look at Nancy with closer eyes, and say to +herself that she was a little creature one would easily tire of, in +spite of--or because of--her intellectuality. Aldo was not a closed +garden for Clarissa; she knew the feeble flowers that bowed behind its +gates. + +A hot, dreary week passed with no news from Aldo. Then Clarissa +telegraphed to him at Milan. She said she had told Carlo about their +conversation regarding his wish to marry Nancy, and Carlo approved. +Would he come back? + +Yes; Aldo would come back. He waited another day or two, and at the +close of a sultry afternoon he sauntered in, just as he had sauntered +out, across the sleepy, bee-droning lawns of the Villa Solitudine. He +stopped at the entrance of the summer-house, where Nancy sat reading a +letter--a long letter. Already two of the blue sheets had fallen at her +side. Before her on the table was the inkstand and the ivory pen and The +Book. As his shadow passed the threshold she looked up; she drew a +quick breath, and her face turned milky white, with a pallor that +gripped at Aldo's nerves. + +Once more, and for the last time, he bent his head over her hand. +"Signora, I am your slave," he said. But as he raised his eyes she knew +that he had said: "Nancy, I am your master." + +"Who writes to you?" he asked. + +She drooped submissive lashes, and the colour ran into her cheeks. "Mr. +Kingsley, the English friend," she said. "Do you remember him?" + +Aldo took her hand and with it the letter in his own. + +"What does he want?" + +Her dimples fluttered. "He wants me to be good," she said, laughing, +with wistful eyes. "And to write." + +Aldo pressed the little fist with the crumpled blue letter in it to his +lips. "Well, write," he said. "Write at once." + +He took the ivory pen and dipped it in the ink and put it in her hand; +then he pulled the sheet of white paper which was to be The Book before +her. + +"Write: 'Dear Englishman, I am going to marry Aldo della Rocca. He +adores me.'" + +And Nancy, with her hair almost touching the paper, wrote: "Dear +Englishman, I am going to marry Aldo della Rocca. I adore him." + +The Englishman never got the letter. But he heard of it afterwards; and +his English fists closed tight. + + + + +XVI + + +Nancy walked among asphodels and morning glory; and her soul was plunged +in happiness and her eyes were washed with light. + +The Book waited. + +They went out in the little boat at sunset. Aldo stood at the sail, and +the red sky was a background for his profile. + +"Oh," sighed Nancy, looking at him and clasping puerile hands, "your +beauty _aches_ me!" + +Aldo quite understood it, and was pleased. + +They went for long walks to Premeno and San Salvatore; as Clarissa +refused to accompany them, Carlo chaperoned them, blandly bored. + +Soon Valeria arrived. Nancy went down to meet her at the landing-place, +looking ethereal and pink as a spray of apple-blossom. Valeria kissed +her with hot tears. "Oh! my baby, my baby!" she said, and wished that +the seventeen years were a dream, and that her child's small head were +still safely nestling at her breast. In Nancy's young love she lived the +days of her own betrothal over again, and Tom arose in her memory and +was with her day and night. On this same silky blue lake Tom had so +often rowed her with Zio Giacomo, in a little boat called _Luisa_. She +tearfully begged Nancy and Aldo to come with her and see if they could +not find that very self-same boat. + +They found, indeed, three _Luisas_, but Valeria could not recognize +them; still, all three of the boatmen declared that they remembered her +perfectly, and got the expected tip. + +"Of course," said Valeria, deeply moved, "it cannot have been all three +of them." + +And Aldo said: "You should not have given them anything. They were none +of them more than twenty-five years old." Whereupon Valeria sighed +deeply. + +Then it was decided that they should go in reverent pilgrimage to the +Madonna del Monte, where Nancy's father had asked Nancy's mother to +marry him. The road was lined with beggars: shouting cripples, +exhibiting sores and stumps. + +"Some of these are very old," sighed Valeria. "I am sure they were here +that day, and must have seen me." + +"I shall give a franc to every one of them," said Nancy, taking out her +small fat purse, as the first one-armed mendicant held out his greasy +hat. + +"My dear Nancy, what nonsense!" said Aldo. "There are about a hundred of +them!" + +"Well?" and Nancy raised clear, questioning eyes to his. + +"Oh, _I_ don't mind," said Aldo, with a little Neapolitan shrug. + +Valeria looked at the handsome figure and impeccable profile of her +future son-in-law, as he strolled beside them up the steep wide road. +Her heart was heavy with recollections. Up this road she had walked in +her blue dress and scarlet tie with Tom beside her--Tom, broad and +careless in his slouchy brown suit, who had given the beggars all his +coppers and silver, just as Tom's daughter was doing to-day. Again she +looked at Aldo's slim, straight shoulders and sighed. "I wish it had +been an Englishman!" she thought. Then, as her memory took her to +England, she saw someone else. "Or, then, poor dear Nino." And she +sighed again; but not altogether for Nancy's sake. + +She wrote to Nino that evening, and, almost without knowing it, began +her letter, "Poor dear Nino!" + +Nino was out interviewing Consuls about the presumably deceased Eduardo +Villari when the letter arrived. So Nunziata opened the letter. + +In it Valeria told Nino that Nancy, "our little Nancy," was betrothed +to Aldo della Rocca, and could Nino not do anything to prevent it? And +why, oh why, had his sister Clarissa invited them both to stay at the +Villa Solitudine, so that, as Fraeulein Mueller or was it Heine?--used to +say, "Wie koennte es anders sein," for how could anyone see Nancy in the +resplendency of her seventeen Aprils and not fall in love with her? And +oh, she was so sorry for poor, dear Nino, for she knew the secret of his +heart. And how true it was what he had said about Nancy's eyes being so +pure that they seemed never to have gazed at aught but the sky; and she +understood him and his sufferings, for had she not herself suffered +dreadfully through him, years ago--but never mind, that was nothing. And +it had never been dear, dear Nino's fault at all; it was her own foolish +fault and Fate.... And she hoped Nino did not think that she had really +suffered, for she had not, and now she never, never thought of it any +more! And if he came quickly he might still be in time; and oh, she knew +he must be heart-broken, but he was not to mind, because it could not be +helped. And she was ever his unhappy Valeria. + +Nunziata read the rambling letter three times before she understood it. +The letter opened her eyes. + +When her eyes were open Nunziata saw well. She saw the chain of desire +stretching out ring on ring: from Valeria's heart to Nino; from Nino's +heart to Nancy; from Nancy's heart to Aldo, as in a children's game; and +Love passing down from one to the other, stopping before each with gift +of passion, of pain, of joy. She saw that her years placed her behind +Valeria--far back, far back, out of the game; and she knew that Love had +passed her, and would not stop before her any more. Then she remembered +that she had had her gifts; that Love had heaped roses at her feet, and +that she had moved through passions as through a field of flowers. + +Nunziata decided that she would play the game. + +She went with her newly-opened eyes to her room and threw the shutters +back. She looked at her tired pink face in the glass, at her crimson +lips and complicated hair. She went on her knees beside her bed and said +three _Paters_ and three Aves. Then she opened her reluctant hands and +gave her dead youth back to God. + +She washed her face with warm water and soap, and unpinned her elaborate +curls. She wound her own soft hair round her head, and put on a plain +black gown. Then, looking, although she did not think so, twenty years +younger and twenty times sweeter than she did before, she went +downstairs to wait for Nino. + + * * * * * + +That same evening she sent him back to his father. His luggage was +packed and the brougham was waiting for him at the door, and still he +declared he would not go. He would not leave her. Her face was whiter +than any _poudre de lys_ could ever make it as she kissed his forehead, +and blessed it with the sign of the cross, and told him that he must +indeed go, and not return again. + +At last, before his stubborn refusal, she took the weapon that hurt her +most, and used it to pierce her own heart. "Think of Nancy!" she said. +"You may still be in time to prevent her from marrying an adventurer." + +Nino looked into the pale, kind face, from which every trace of +triviality had been washed by the warm water and the tears. And, being a +man, he did not wait, and refuse, and then catch a later train; but with +candid cruelty he said: "You are right. You are an angel. May the saints +bless you!" + +... She stood on the balcony and watched the carriage drive away into +the night; it turned up Corso Umberto and was gone. With it the lights +went out in Nunziata Villari's life. + +Youth, love, hope, desire--Fate blew all the candles out, and left her +in the dark. + + + + +XVII + + +Aldo's curved red lips under his very young moustache opened to words as +well as to kisses under Nancy's impelling, eager love. During the long +hours they spent together she spoke and he must answer. His splendid, +silent eyes urged her to quick questionings, and his kisses did not +still the thirst of her soul for his soul. Little by little she pushed +back the gates of the Closed Garden; gently, day by day, she ventured a +step farther adown the mysterious paths. Where are the arbours of roses? +Where the fountains and the deep, water-lilied lakes? She tiptoed down +the narrow paths that Clarissa and many others had trodden before her, +and when she had come to the end she said: "I am mistaken. I have not +entered the Garden yet." + +They were to be married almost at once. Aldo was impatient, and Nancy +was in love; and The Book was waiting. So Valeria left for Milan to +prepare the trousseau, and Nancy must follow a week later. On the eve of +her journey Clarissa went up to say good-night to Nancy in her room--the +large, bare room in which the masterpiece had not been written. Nancy's +trunks were packed. The ivory pen and The Book were put away. The large +inkstand stood alone on the large table. + +Nancy was leaning out of the window looking at the stars. Clarissa came +and stood behind her and looked up into the cobalt depths. + +"I hate the stars," said Nancy; "I am afraid of them." + +"Why?" said Clarissa, to whom a star was a star. + +"Oh, I want to be sure that somewhere they leave off," said Nancy. "It +terrifies me to think of fabulous nothingness behind unending space, of +perpetual neverness beyond unceasing time. I should like a wall built +round the universe, a wall that would shut me safely in, away from the +terrible infinity." + +Clarissa laughed. "Perhaps when you are married you will feel less +little and lonely." + +"Perhaps," said Nancy. And she added: "Aldo must be the wall." + +"Oh, my dear," said Clarissa, "Don't try to make poor Aldo anything that +he isn't. He is sweet; he is lovely; he is full of talent. But he is no +more a wall than this is." And she waved her filmy gossamer scarf that +blew lightly in the air. + +That evening Carlo said to his wife: "I feel like a brute, letting that +good-for-nothing brother of mine marry the nice little girl. He will +make her miserable." + +"Not at all," said Clarissa, putting out the candle with her book, a +thing Carlo could not bear. "She will write poems on his profile and be +perfectly happy, until she gets tired of him for not being something +that he isn't." + +"Oh, well," growled Carlo. "I suppose you know her best. Women are +cackling cats." + +"Mixed metaphor," murmured Clarissa, and went to sleep comfortably, +feeling that Carlo was a wall. + + * * * * * + +Nancy was married in Rome. All the poets of Italy came with poems, and +Nino brought a necklet of pearls. From the Quirinal came a pendant, with +a picture of a boy's face set in diamonds. + +After the wedding-breakfast all the guests left, passing to their +carriages down the red carpet that stretched from the door to the edge +of the pavement. Then Nancy, in her mouse-grey travelling-gown, kissed +Valeria, and wept and said good-bye. And kissed Nino, and wept and said +good-bye. And she went with her husband down the red carpet to the +carriage. Carlo and Clarissa, Aunt Carlotta and Adele followed to the +station, where there were great crowds waiting to see them off. + +Valeria and Nino remained alone in the desolate room. Valeria's face was +hidden in her hands. She was looking down the days of the future, and +saw them lonely, dark and desolate. Nino gazed through tear-blurred eyes +at the bowed figure before him, and his thoughts went back through the +years. Bending forward, he took her hand and kissed it. She smiled +wanly. + +"What are you thinking of?" she said. + +"I was thinking of Nancy, and of the past," said Nino. "Of her father, +poor Tom, who died so suddenly----" + +"It was to save Nancy," said Valeria. + +"And of the old grandfather who died alone on the hill-side----" + +"We had to find Nancy," said Valeria. + +"And of little Edith and her poor mother, forsaken in their darkest hour +by those they loved----" + +"But it was to safeguard Nancy," said Valeria. + +Hearing her words, he realized the puissance of all-conquering, maternal +love. Nothing mattered but Nancy, though Nancy herself, with gentle, +unconscious hands, had taken all things from her. Had not he himself, +the lover of Valeria's girlhood, turned from her, heart-stricken for +Nancy? + +There was a pause. + +"And I am thinking of you, Valeria, over whose heart I have +trampled,..." said Nino, with a break in his voice. + +"You could not help it. You loved Nancy," said Valeria. "And now"--her +pitying eyes filled with tears--"your hope is shipwrecked and your heart +broken, too." + +Nino did not answer. He turned away and gazed out of the window. He was +thinking of Nancy, so mild and sweet-voiced, with eyes like blue +hyacinths under the dark drift of her hair. And once more he realized +how Nancy in her dove-like innocence had absorbed and submerged the +existence of those around her. Her sweet helplessness itself had wrecked +and shattered, had devastated and destroyed. The lives of all those who +loved her had gone to nourish the clear flame of her genius, the white +fire of her youth. + +Nino gazed down at the red wedding-carpet that stretched its scarlet +line to the pavement's edge like a narrow path of blood. + +"Behold," he said, "the trail of the dear devourer--the course of the +dove of prey!" + + * * * * * + +As the train glided out of the station, and shook and ran, and the +cheers and the waving handkerchiefs were left behind, Nancy raised her +eyes, tender and tear-lit, to Aldo's face. Her white wedded hand was to +open the gates of the Closed Garden. + +Now the bowers of roses, and the fountains, and the water-lilied lakes! + + + + +XVIII + + +They had chosen to go to Paris, because Aldo said he had had enough of +landscapes to last him a lifetime. Also Clarissa had remarked to Nancy: +"If you want to have a clear vision of life, and a well-balanced brain, +always be properly dressed. And you cannot be dressed at all unless you +are dressed by Paquin." + +"But I have my work to think about," said Nancy. "I do not mind much +about clothes." + +"Very well," said Clarissa, "if you want to be a dowdy genius and +quarrel with your husband before you have been married two months, go +your own way, and wear coats and skirts." + +So they went to Paris, and soon Paquin's gibble-gabbling demoiselles +were busy sewing cloudy blues and faint mauves to save Nancy from +quarrelling with Aldo two months afterwards. + +At Aldo's suggestion they took rooms in a small hotel in Rue Lafayette, +for, as he said, they were not millionaires, and one could use one's +money better than in spending it at grand hotels. Nancy said he was +quite right, and wondered at his wisdom. Indeed, he knew many things. He +knew the prices of everything one ate, and he pounced on the waiters as +soon as there was any attempt at overcharging, or if they +absent-mindedly reckoned in the date written at the top of the bill in a +line with the francs. + +Nancy rather dreaded that moment in the brilliant restaurant when Aldo +opened and inspected the neatly-folded bill, while the solemn-nosed +waiter looked down sarcastically at his smooth, well-brushed head. +Nancy noticed that, whenever they entered a place, everyone ran to meet +them, opening doors for them with obsequious bows, showing them places +with flourish of arm and of table-napkin. Aldo's hat was taken from him +with reverential hand, and her cloak was carried tenderly from her. But +when, after settling the bill, they got up to go, nobody seemed to pay +much attention to them. Aldo had to fetch his own hat and look for the +cloak, and even to open the heavy glass doors himself, for the small boy +would be absent, or looking another way and making faces at the +head-waiter. Cabs also had a way of being all smiles and hat-touchings +and little jokes when they were hailed, and all sullenness and loud +monologue when they were dismissed. + +"They think that because we are on our honeymoon we must be fools. Money +is money," said Aldo. + +He had learnt the phrase from his grandfather, who had kept a shop in +Via Caracciolo. The grandfather's wife--who in her radiant girlhood in +Piedigrotta had sat for English and German painters--had said: "Yes; but +education is education," and had sent her three sons to school in Modena +and Milan. The eldest son, who was the father of Carlo and Aldo, had +then learnt to say: "A gentleman is a gentleman." And on the strength of +this he would have nothing more to do with his shopkeeping parents in +Naples. When he died Carlo, who was twenty, went and hunted up the old +people. They did not need him, and were afraid of him, and called him +"Eccellenza." But Aldo, who was thirteen, and unverisimilarly beautiful, +they called "l'Amorino"; they petted and spoiled him, and let him count +the money in the till. And he liked them and their shop. And he learnt +that money was money. The phrase always struck Nancy mute. Aldo, +strolling beside her along the boulevard, continued: "It is people like +Carlo that spoil things. Carlo is a perfect idiot with his money." + +"Oh, but he is very kind," said Nancy; and Aldo wondered whether she +knew that Carlo was paying all their expenses--made out with fanciful +additions by Aldo--and had promised to do so for a year after their +marriage. + +"After that, not one penny. Never as long as I live," Carlo had said to +his young brother a week before the wedding. "So hustle and do something +useful." + +But Aldo did not intend to hustle. Rude, unaesthetic word! A man with his +physique could not hustle. Carlo lacked all sense of the fitness of +things. Clarissa said so, too. But on this occasion Aldo did not consult +Clarissa, because she had once said: "I understand adoring a man, but I +do not understand paying his debts." + +Nancy soon found that Aldo's knowledge extended further than accounts +and prices. He knew places in Paris, and he knew people--such places and +such people as she had never heard of, read of, or dreamt of. He always +said to Nancy: "Now you shall see things that will make you laugh." But +Nancy laughed little, then less; until one day she could not laugh at +all. She felt as if she would never laugh any more. Everything was +horrible, everything made her shrink and weep. + +"It is life, my dear," said Aldo, with his habitual little gesture of +both hands outwards and upwards. "How can you write books if you do not +know what is life?" + +Oh, but she did not want to know what is life. She could write books +without knowing. And oh, she wished that Aldo did not know either. And +let them go away quickly, and forget, and never, never remember it any +more. + +So Aldo, who was not unkind, and who had not found the enlightening of +Nancy as amusing as he had expected, called for the hotel bill, said it +was preposterous, got the proprietor to deduct twelve per cent., and +then told him they were leaving the next day. + +The next day they left. They went to the Villa Solitudine, which +Clarissa and Carlo were not using, and for which it was arranged that +Aldo should pay rent to Clarissa. Clarissa let him off the rent; and +Carlo, not knowing, paid it back to him. So that, on the whole, it was +not an unprofitable arrangement for Aldo. + +Nancy tried to forget what life was, and smiled and blossomed in tenuous +sunrise beauty. And because of all she knew, and was trying to forget, +and because she wore trailing Parisian gowns and large, plumed hats, +Aldo burned with volcanic meridional love for her. + +The Book waited. + +One evening, when Aldo was at the piano, improvising music and words on +Nancy's loveliness, and she sat on a stool beside him, she asked +suddenly: "When shall we begin to work?" + +"Oh, never!" said Aldo, putting his right arm round her neck without +interrupting the chords he was playing with his left hand. + +Nancy laughed, and laid her head against his arm. + +"Oh, but we must, Aldo. I want to write my book. It is to be a great +book." + +Aldo nodded, and went on playing. + +"And you, Aldo. You cannot pass your life saying that you adore me." + +"Oh yes, I can," said Aldo. + +Nancy laughed softly and kissed his sleeve. Then suddenly a strange +feeling came over her--a feeling of loneliness and fear. She felt as if +she were alone in the world, and small and helpless, with no one to take +care of her. She felt as if Aldo were younger and weaker and more +helpless than she. And the terror of the Infinite fell upon her soul. +Aldo was singing softly, meltingly, with his head bent forward and his +dark hair falling over his face. Suddenly Nancy thought that it would be +good to be safely locked in a large light room with nothing but books +and an inkstand, and someone walking up and down outside with a gun. + +"The wall!" she said to herself as the Englishman's light eyes and +stalwart figure came before her mind. Then she said: "Work shall be my +wall." And she went to her room and unpacked her ivory pen. + + + + +XIX + + +Four months before the year of Carlo's bounty was up, Aldo made up his +mind that he must hustle after all. They had settled in Milan; then +nothing had happened. Carlo would never change his mind. Valeria had +shown him her banking account, and proved to him that there was nothing +Nancy could have beyond her skimpy forty thousand francs; Lady +Sainsborough, the elderly English person in Naples who had taken such a +fancy to him, had not answered his last two letters, and had probably +altered her will; so there was nothing to do or to hope for. He must +hustle. + +He did so. He wrote a third letter to Lady Sainsborough. Then he decided +to ask Carlo to make room for him in his silk mills, which Carlo refused +to do. + +Then he looked up Nancy's publishers, and asked them if they would +advance a substantial sum on the unwritten book, which they also refused +to do. So having done all he could, he decided not to hustle any more, +but to let events take their course. + +Nancy did not help him at all. She was selfishly engrossed in her book, +and sat in her room all day, with hair pinned tightly back and wild and +lucent eyes. Whenever he came into the room she put up her hand without +turning round--a gesture he could not bear--and went on with her +writing. If he disregarded the gesture, she looked up at him with those +wild, light eyes, and he felt hurried, and forgot what he wanted to say. +So he muddled along with her forty thousand francs, and read the papers, +played the piano, and went out to the Caffe Biffi every evening until it +was time to go to the Patriottica for a game of billiards. + +There he frequently saw Nino sitting glumly with the corners of his +mouth turned down; and they turned down further when Aldo came in, so +that Aldo positively hated the sight of him. Besides, Carlo, who had +refused to do anything for Aldo, had actually taken Nino into +partnership; and, just to irritate and show off, Nino was working +vulgarly, like a nigger, twelve or fourteen hours a day. The gratified +Carlo was to be seen with Nino in the evenings walking through the +Galleria arm-in-arm with him as if they were brothers, with that absurd +Zio Giacomo trotting alongside, grinning like an old hen, while he, +Aldo, Carlo's own brother, had to mooch about alone, smoking cheap +cigarettes, or else to run alongside of Giacomo like an outsider, and +listen for the thousandth time to the recital of the prodigal Nino's +reform and rehabilitation. + +He went to Clarissa and complained; but she was unsympathetic. She +rubbed her left-hand nails against her right-hand palm and looked out of +the window. He had expected her to pass a white, jewelled hand lightly +over his bowed head and say, "_Povero bello!_ Poor beauteous one!" as +she had sometimes done a year or so ago; but when he bowed his head she +continued rubbing the nails of her left hand against her right-hand palm +and looking out of the window. + +He felt that a great deal depended upon her friendship, and it was +almost out of a sense of duty to Nancy that he grasped her hand and +kissed it in his best and softest manner. "Oh, don't be a snail, Aldo," +said Clarissa, taking her hand away. Then she looked down at him and +shook her head: "I _am_ thankful I married Carlo." + +This was untrue, of course, said Aldo to himself; but, added to the +other things, it rankled. When he left her he understood that Clarissa +considered him as much Nancy's property as the pair of antique silver +candle-sticks she had given to Nancy for a wedding-present, and that +never would she take them back or light the candles in them again. + +Nancy had written one-third of The Book. It was a great book--a book the +world would speak of. Like the portent of Jeanne of Orleans, a vision +had fallen upon her young, white heart and set it aflame. She felt +genius like an eagle beating great wings against her temples. +Inspiration, nebulous and wan, stretched thin arms to her, and young +ideas went shouting through her brain. Then the phrase, like a +black-and-white flower, rolled back its thundering petals, and the +masterpiece was born. + + + + +XX + + +Aldo was not allowed to play the piano any more, because it disturbed +Nancy's thoughts. He also stayed at home to see anyone who called, so +that Nancy should not be interrupted. He himself brought her meals into +her room when she did not wish to break her train of thought by going to +table, and when the loud-footed, cheerful servant annoyed and distracted +her. + +A reverential hush was on the house. + +The Rome publisher, Servetti, heard of The Book, and came to Milan to +ask if he could have it. Zardo, the publisher of the "Cycle of Lyrics," +who had omitted to pay for the last two editions of that distinguished +and fortunate volume, sent, unasked, an unverisimilarly large cheque; +and suggested for her new work a special _edition de luxe_. Nancy +replied to no one, heeded no one. The Book held her soul. + +It was a winter evening, and the lamps were lit, when Nancy wrote at the +summit of a candid page, "Chapter XVII." She wrote the heading +carefully, reverentially, painting over the Roman numbers with loving +pen. This was the culminating chapter of The Book. It had been worked up +to in steep and audacious ascent, and after it and from it the story +would flow down in rushing, inevitable stream to its portentous close. +But this chapter was the climax and the crown. + +Nancy passed a quick hand across her forehead and pushed back her +ruffled hair. Then she looked across at Aldo. He was sitting at the +opposite side of the table with some sheets of music-paper before him. +The shine of the lamp fell blandly on his narrow head. He looked +dejected and dull. + +"What is it, Aldo?" she asked, stretching her hand affectionately across +the table to him. In the joy and the overflowing ease of inspiration she +felt kind and compassionate. + +"Oh, nothing," sighed Aldo. "I was thinking of writing a symphony; but I +cannot do anything without trying it at the piano. And that disturbs +you. Never mind! Don't worry about me." + +"Oh, but I do worry," said Nancy, getting up and going round to his +side. She bent over him with her arm on his shoulder. Before him on the +sheet was half a line of breves and semibreves, which Nancy remembered +from her childhood as little men getting over stiles. + +"You know," said Aldo, with his pen going over and over the face of one +of the little men and making it blacker and larger than the others, +"Ricordi is publishing those songs of mine; but I believe it is only +because they have your words. So I thought I would try a symphony which +will be all my own. But I ought to be able to try it at the piano." + +"I know, dear," said Nancy, smoothing his soft, thick hair. "I know I am +a horrid, selfish thing, upsetting everything and everybody. But never +mind!" And she glanced across to the large "Chapter XVII" at the top of +the fair sheet, and the wet ink of the "XVII" glistened and beckoned to +her upside down at the other side of the table. "Wait till I have +finished my book. Then you shall do all you want; and we shall go and +pass blue days in the country and be as happy as sandboys, and"--she +added for him--"as rich as Cr[oe]sus." + +He raised his dark eyes to her, and she thought that he looked like +Murillo's Saint Sebastian. + +"Your writing has swallowed up all your love for me," he said. + +"Oh no!" said Nancy, and she caressed the beautiful brow. "It is you, +your presence, your beauty, that inspires me and helps me to write." + +Aldo sighed. "I suppose I am a nonentity. And I must be grateful if the +fact of my having a straight nose has helped you to write your book." + +Nancy felt conscience-stricken. "Don't be bitter, dear heart," she said. +"I must be selfish! If I do not sit there and write, I feel as if I had +a maniac shut up in my brain, beating and shrieking to get out. And oh, +Aldo, when I do write, coolly and quickly and smoothly, I feel like a +mountain-spring gushing out my life in glad, scintillant waters." + +Aldo drew her face down and kissed her. "Nothing shall interfere with +your book," he said. + +"No, nothing," said Nancy--"nothing!" + +As she spoke a strange, quivering sensation passed over her, a quick +throb shook her heart, and the roots of her hair prickled. Then it was +past and gone. She stepped back to her place at the table and stood +looking down at Chapter XVII. The wet ink still glistened on it. She was +waiting.... She knew she was waiting for that strange throb to clutch at +her heart again. She looked across at Aldo. He was thoughtfully painting +the face of another semibreve and making it large and black. She sat +down and dipped the ivory pen into the gaping mouth of the inkstand. + +Ah, _again!_ the throb! the throb! like a soft hand striking at her +heart. And now a flutter as of an imprisoned bird! + +"Aldo! Aldo!" she cried, falling forward with her face hidden on her +arm. And her waving hair trailed over Chapter XVII, and blurred the +waiting page. + + + + +XXI + + +NANCY stirred, sighed, and awoke. + + +In the room adjoining, Valeria was sobbing in Zio Giacomo's arms, and +Aunt Carlotta was kissing Adele, and Aldo was shaking hands with +everybody. + +Nancy could hear the whispering voices through the half-open door, and +they pleased her. Then another sound fell on her ear, like the ticking +of a slow clock--click, click, a gentle, peaceful, regular noise that +soothed her. She turned her head and looked. It was the cradle. The +Sister sat near it, dozing, with one elbow on the back of the chair and +her hand supporting her head; the other hand was on the edge of the +cradle. With gentle mechanical gesture, in her half sleep, she rocked it +to and fro. Nancy smiled to herself, and the gentle clicking noise +lulled her near to sleep again. + +She felt utterly at peace--utterly happy. The waiting was over; the fear +was over. Life opened wider portals over wider, shining lands. All +longings were stilled; all empty places filled. Then with a soft tremor +of joy she remembered her book. It was waiting for her where she had +left it that evening when futurity had pulsed within her heart. The +masterpiece that was to live called softly and the folded wings of the +eagle stirred. + + * * * * * + +In the gently-rocking twilight of the cradle the baby opened its eyes +and said: "I am hungry." + + + + +BOOK II + + + + +I + + +When eighteen thousand of the forty thousand francs were gone, Aldo +said: "I must do something." And when eighteen thousand of the forty +thousand francs were left, he said: "Something must be done." Carlo had +washed his hands of him; all that Lady Sainsborough had sent him was her +portrait, one "taken on the lawn with Fido," and another, "starting for +my morning ride with Baron Cucciniello." "Flighty old lunatic!" said +Aldo, throwing the pictures into the fire and digging at them with the +poker. Then he called Nancy and told her how matters stood. + +Nancy did not seem to realize that it made much difference. She crawled +under the table and hid behind the green table-cloth. "Peek-a-boo!" The +baby crawled after her and pulled her hair. + +"Well, what are we going to do?" said Aldo. + +"As soon as the baby can walk," replied Nancy, looking up at him from +under the table, "I shall start my work again. As long as it is such a +teeny, weeny, helpless lamb"--and she kissed the small, soft head on +which the hair grew in yellow tufts here and there--"its mother is not +going to be such a horrid (kiss), naughty (kiss), ugly (kiss) tigress +(kiss, kiss) as to leave a poor little forlorn (kiss)----" + +Aldo left the room, and nobody under the table noticed that he had +gone. + +He went to Zio Giacomo, who for Nancy's sake took him into his office to +make architectural drawings and plans at a salary of two hundred francs +a month. + +At the end of the third week Aldo looked round the room where four other +men were drawing plans, and observed them meditatively. Two were sallow +and thin, one was sallow and fat, and one was red and fat. The sallow, +thin ones had little hair, the sallow, fat one had no hair; the red, fat +one wore glasses. They had all been here drawing plans for four, six, +and twelve years at salaries between two hundred and six hundred and +fifty francs a month. + +Aldo made a calculation on his blotting-paper. Say he stayed five years. +He would get 200 francs a month for the first two years = 4,800 francs; +300, or say 350, for the next two years = 8,400 francs; 400, or perhaps +450, for the following year = 5,400 francs. Total: 18,600 francs. + +Eighteen thousand six hundred francs! So that, supposing he spent +nothing, but went on living on what remained of Nancy's _dot_ for five +years (which was out of the question, of course, as it was not enough), +at the end of five years he would find himself exactly where he was +to-day, and just five years older. Probably thin and sallow; or fat and +sallow; or red and fat, with glasses. It was preposterous. It was out of +the question. Here he was to-day, with the eighteen thousand francs and +the five years still before him. + +He took his hat and walked out of the office. + +He wrote to Zio Giacomo, who said he was an addlepated and clot-headed +imbecile. Aldo explained the situation mathematically to Valeria and +Nancy, who looked vague, and said that it seemed true. + +"Eighteen thousand francs," said Aldo, "cleverly used, might set us on +our feet. Now, what shall we do with it?" + +Valeria folded gentle hands; and Nancy said: "Peek-a-boo." So the baby, +at Aide's request, was sent out for a walk with the sour-faced thing +chosen by Aunt Carlotta to be its nurse. + +"You could go into partnership with someone," said Nancy sweetly, with +her head on one side, to show that she took an interest. + +Valeria nodded, and said: "Mines are a good thing." + +Aldo was silent. "Eighteen thousand francs," he said thoughtfully. "It +is not much." Then he said: "Of course, one could buy a shop." + +In his deep, dreaming eyes passed the vision of his grandfather's nice +little _negozio_ in the Strada Caracciolo at Naples, with its strings of +coral hanging row on row; tortoise-shell combs and brushes with silver +initials; brooches of lava and of mosaic, that were sold for a franc +each; shells of polished mother-of-pearl; pictures of Vesuvius by night, +reproduced on convex glass; and booklets of photographs, that English +people would always come to look at. He could see his grandfather now, +stepping in front of the counter with a booklet of views in his hand, +and shaking it out suddenly, br-r-r ... in front of his English +customers. Also he could see his grandfather tying up neat little +parcels, giving change, bowing and smiling with still handsome eye and +gleaming smile, and accompanying people to the door, waving an +obsequious and yet benevolent hand. Aldo would have liked a little shop +in Naples, and easy-going, trustful English customers who would not +haggle and bargain, but pass friendly remarks about the weather, and +pay their good money. Ah, the good little money coming in that one can +count every evening, and put away, and look at, and count again; not +this vague, distant "salary," that one does not see, or count, or have, +with no surprises and no possibilities. + +But Valeria was speaking. "A shop! My dear Aldo! What a dreadful idea! +How can you say such a thing?" + +And Nancy, who thought he was joking, said, with all her dimples alight: +"That's right, Aldo. We shall have a toy-shop--five hundred rattles for +the baby, eight hundred rubber dolls for the baby, ten thousand woolly +sheep and cows that squeak when you squeeze them. Let us have a +toy-shop, there's a dear boy." She jumped up and kissed his straight, +narrow parting on the top of his shining black head. "And if all the +toys are broken by the baby, and have the paint licked off, and the +woolliness pulled out," she added, with her cheek against his, "I shall +give away an autograph poem with each of the damaged beasts, and charge +two francs extra." + +The allusion to the autograph poem made Aldo realize that it was +impossible that his wife, the celebrated author, could keep a shop, so +he sighed, and said: "I have a good mind to try Monte Carlo. I have +never been there, but my friend Delmonte once gave me a system." + +"Why doesn't he play it himself?" said Nancy. "He looks as if he needed +it." + +"He has played it," said Aldo; "but he is a man lacking the strength of +character that one needs to play a system. A system is a thing one has +to stick to and go through with, no matter how one may be tempted to do +something else. This is really a rather wonderful system." + +And Aldo took out a pencil and a note-book, and showed the system to +Valeria and Nancy. + +"You see, N. is black and R. is red." Then he made rows of little dots +irregularly under each initial. "You see, I win on all this." + +"Do you?" said Nancy and Valeria, bending over the table with heads +close together. + +"Yes; I win on the intermittences." + +"What are they?" + +"Oh, never mind what they are," said Aldo. "And I win on all the twos, +and the threes, and the fives." + +"And the fours," said Nancy, who did not understand what he was saying, +but wanted to show an interest. + +"No, I don't win on the fours," said Aldo. "I lose on the fours. But I +win on the fives and sixes, and everything else. And, of course, fours +come seldom." + +"Of course," echoed Nancy and Valeria, looking vacantly at the little +dots under the N. and the R. + +"I could make the game cheaper," said Aldo thoughtfully, "by waiting, +and letting the intermittences pass, and only starting my play on the +twos." + +"Perhaps that would be a good plan," said Nancy, with vacant eyes. + +"But," said Valeria, "I thought you won on the intermittences." + +"I do," said Aldo, frowning, "if they _are_ intermittences. But +supposing they are fours?" + +This closed the door on all comprehension so far as Nancy was concerned. +But Valeria, who had been to Monte Carlo for four days on her +wedding-tour, said decisively: "Then I think I should wait and see. If +they _are_ fours, then play only on the fives and sixes." + +"There is something in that," said Aldo, rubbing his chin. "But I must +try it. Now you just say 'black' or 'red' at random, as it comes into +your head." + +Nancy and Valeria said "black" and "red" at random, and Aldo staked +imaginary five-franc pieces, and doubled them, and played the system. +After about fifteen minutes he had won nearly two thousand francs. + +So it was decided that he should quietly go to Monte Carlo and try the +system, starting as soon as possible. + +"Do not speak about it to anyone," he said. "Delmonte made a special +point of that. If too many people knew of a thing like this, it would +spoil everything." + +So no one was told, but they set about making preparations for Aldo's +departure. + +"I shall not stay more than a month at a time," said Aldo. "One must be +careful not to arouse suspicions that one is playing a winning game." + +"Of course," said Valeria. + +And Nancy said: "Is it not rather mean to go there when you know that +you _must_ win?" + +Aldo explained that the administration was not a person, and added that +the few thousand francs that he needed every year would never be missed +by such a wealthy company. + +Then Nancy said: "I know Monte Carlo is a dreadful place. Full of horrid +women. I hope--oh dear----!" + +Aldo kissed her troubled brow. "Dear little girl, I am going there to +make money, and nothing else will interest me." + +"I know that," said Nancy, with a little laugh and a little sigh. "But +the nasty creatures are sure to look at you." + +"That cannot be helped," said Aldo, raising superior eyebrows. + +Nancy kissed him and laughed. "Such a funny boy!" she said. "I believe +your Closed Garden, your _hortus conclusus_, is nothing but a potato +patch! But I like to sit in it all the same." + + + + +II + + +May brought the baby a tooth. June brought it another tooth and a golden +shine for its hair. August brought it a word or two; September stood it, +upright and exultant, with its back to the wall; and October sent it +tottering and trilling into its mother's arms. + +Its names were Lilien Astrid Rosalynd Anne-Marie. + +"Now baby can walk," said Valeria to her daughter, "you ought to take up +your work again." + +"Indeed I must," said Nancy, lifting the baby to her lap. "Have you seen +her bracelets?" And she held the chubby wrist out to Valeria, showing +three little lines dinting the tender flesh. "Three little bracelets for +luck." And Nancy kissed the small, fat wrist, and bit it softly. + +"Where has your manuscript been put?" said Valeria. + +"Oh, somewhere upstairs," said Nancy, pretending to eat the baby's arm. +"Good, good! Veddy nice! Mother, this baby tastes of grass, and +cowslips, and violets. Taste!" And she held the baby's arm out to +Valeria. + +"Tace," said the baby. So the grandmother tasted and found it very +nice. Then she had to taste the other arm, and then a small piece of +cheek. Then the baby stuck out her foot in its white leather shoe, but +grandmamma would not taste it, and called it nasty-nasty. And the other +foot was held up and called nasty-nasty. But the baby said "Tace!" and +the corners of her mouth drooped. So grandmamma tasted the shoe and +found it very nice, and then the other shoe, and it was very nice. And +then Nancy had to taste everything all over again. + +Thus the days passed busily, bringing much to do. + +Aldo wrote that "the system" was incomparable. His only fear was that +the administration might notice it. He now played with double stakes. A +few days later he wrote again. There was a flaw in the system. But never +mind. He had found another one, a much better one. He had bought it for +a hundred francs from a man who had been shut out of the Casino because +the administration was afraid of his system. Of course, he had promised +to give the man a handsome present before he left. He had won eight +hundred francs in ten minutes with the new system last night. Of course, +he had to be very careful, because the flaw of the other system had been +disastrous. + +A third letter came. After winning steadily for four days, he had had +the most incredible _guigne_: a run of twenty-four on black when he was +doubling on red. But he would stick to the system; it was the only way. +People that pottered round and skipped about from one thing to another +were bound to lose. Love to all. + +Then came a postcard. "Have discovered that all previous "s's" were +wrong. Have made friends with a 'cr,' who will put things all right +again." + +Valeria and Nancy puzzled over the "cr." The "s's" of course meant +"systems," but what could a "cr" be? Valeria felt anxious, and sent a +messenger for Nino. Nino left Carlo's office at once, and hurried to Via +Senato, where, since Aldo's departure, Valeria was staying with Nancy +and the baby. All three were on the balcony, and waved hands to him as +he crossed the Ponte Sant' Andrea, and hurried across the Boschetti to +No. 12. + +"How do you do, Valeria?" and he kissed her cheek. "How do you do, +Nancy?" and he kissed her hand. "How do you do, Anne-Marie?" and he +kissed the baby on the top of the head. "What is the matter? What has +Aldo done?" + +"Oh!" exclaimed Nancy. "How could you guess that it was about Aldo?" + +Nino smiled. + +Valeria held the postcard out for him to see, and covering everything +but the last line, said: "What does 'cr' mean?" + +Nino looked, and said: "Where does he write from?" + +Nancy and Valeria exchanged glances, and decided that they could trust +Nino. He would not use the system or give it to other people. Besides, +the system had a flaw. + +"Monte Carlo," they said in unison. + +Nino made a mouth as if to whistle, and did not whistle. The baby +sitting on the rug watched him and wished he would do it again. + +"I suppose 'cr' is croupier," said Nino. Then there was silence. After a +while Nino said: "How much did he take with him?" + +"Everything," said Valeria. + +Then Nino made the mouth again, and the baby was pleased. + +"You had better go and fetch him. Quick!" said Nino, looking at Nancy. + +"Oh!" gasped Nancy, "must I? Is it bad?" + +"Quite bad," said Nino. "He has probably lost half of your forty +thousand francs already." + +"He only had eighteen," said Nancy, with a twinkle in her grey eye. + +"That's better," said Nino. "But go and fetch him all the same." + +Nancy was greatly excited and rather pleased. The baby should see the +Mediterranean. Valeria, "grandmamma," must come too, of course. + +"No, dear," said Valeria, "I cannot. I have promised Aunt Carlotta to +help her with her reception to-morrow evening. But I will take you part +of the way--as far as Alessandria or Genoa." + +"But I am sure Nino could come," said Nancy, looking up at him +interrogatively. + +"Yes," said Nino, and then quickly said no, he was sorry, he could not +possibly leave Carlo's office. Besides, she would manage Aldo better +without him. + +The next morning he went to the station to see them off. Valeria had +Anne-Marie in her arms, and Nancy walked beside them, looking like the +baby's elder sister. They had no luggage but a small valise, for Valeria +was returning to Milan in the afternoon, and Nancy was sure that she +would come back with Aldo the day after to-morrow. + +Nino found comfortable places for them, and then stepped down and stood +in front of the window, looking up with that vacant half-smile that +everyone has who, having said good-bye, stands waiting for the train to +start. Nancy was looking down at him with sweet eyes. There was +something blue in her hat that made her eyes look bluer. Behind her the +baby, held up by Valeria, was waving a short arm up and down as the +spirit of Valeria's hand moved it. The bell rang, the whistle blew, and +as the train passed him slowly, Nino suddenly jumped on to the step at +the end of the carriage, turned the stiff handle, and went in. "I will +come as far as Valeria does," he said. He was greeted with delight, but +the baby continued irrelevantly to wave good-bye to him for a long time. +They passed Alessandria and Genoa, and went on to Savona. The baby +looked at the Mediterranean, and Nancy looked at the baby, and Nino +looked at Nancy, and Valeria looked at them all, and loved them all +with an aching maternal love. At Savona Valeria and Nino got out. +They had half an hour to wait for the return train that would take them +back to Milan. + +They stood on the platform in front of the carriage window, and looked +up at Nancy with that vacant half-smile that people have when they have +said good-bye.... Nancy leaned out of the window and looked down +tenderly at her mother's upturned face, and then at Nino, and then at +her mother again. The baby stood on the seat beside her, waving its +short arm up and down, with yellow curls falling over its eyes. + +_"In vettura!"_ called the guard. + +"We shall be back the day after to-morrow," said Nancy for the fourth +time; "or perhaps to-morrow." + +"Perhaps to-mollow," echoed the baby, who always repeated what other +people said. Nino went close to the window, and put up his hand to touch +the baby's. + +"You don't know what 'to-morrow' means," he said. Anne-Marie let him +take her hand. He felt the small, warm fist closed in his. "When is +to-morrow, Anne-Marie?" + +"To-mollow is ... to-mollow is when I am to have evlything," explained +Anne-Marie. + +"That sounds like a long time away," said Nancy, laughing. + +"Yes, indeed," said Valeria. + +"Yeth, indeed," echoed the baby. + +_"Pronti, partenza?"_ said the guard. + +"Good-bye, Nancy! Good-bye, baby!" The bell sounded and the whistle +blew. + +"Good-bye, mother dear." The train moved slightly and Nancy waved her +hand. + +"Good-bye, Nancy! Good-bye, baby! Good-bye, my two darlings!" + +The train was moving swiftly away. + +"Perhaps to-morrow," cried Nancy, waving again. Then she drew back, lest +a spark should fly into the baby's eyes. + +Valeria stood like a statue looking after them. "Good-bye, Nancy! +Good-bye, baby!" + +They were gone. + +And to-morrow was a long time away. + + + + +III + + +When the leisurely Riviera train drew into the station at Monte Carlo, +Nancy looked out of the window to see Aldo, to whom she had telegraphed. +He was not there. A group of laughing women in light gowns, two +Englishmen with their hands in their pockets, and a German +honeymoon-couple were on the platform. No one else. A handsome, indolent +porter helped Nancy and the baby to descend, and, taking their valise, +walked out in front of them, and handed it to the omnibus-driver of the +Hotel de Paris. + +"Non, non," said Nancy. "J'attends mon mari." + +"Ah!" said the porter; "elle attend son mari." Then he and the +omnibus-driver grinned, and spat, and looked at her. + +"Donnez-moi ma valise," said Nancy. + +"Donnez-lui sa valise," said the porter. + +"J'vas la lui donner," said the omnibus-driver, climbing slowly up the +little ladder, and taking the valise down again. + +"Voila la valise." And he put it on the ground. Nancy told the porter to +take it. The omnibus-driver looked astonished. "Quoi? Et moi donc? Pas +de pourboire?" And the porter spat and grinned, and said to Nancy: "Faut +lui donner son pourboire." + +So Nancy gave the omnibus-driver fifty centimes, and told the porter to +take the valise to the Hotel des Colonies. He shouldered the small +portmanteau, and stepped briskly and lightly up the flight of steps that +leads to the Place du Casino. Nancy followed, with Anne-Marie holding on +to her skirts. An old woman sitting with her basket at the foot of the +stairs offered them oranges. Nancy said, "Non, merci," and hurried on. +But Anne-Marie wanted one. She was tired and hungry, and began to cry. +So Nancy stopped and bought an orange. Then she lifted Anne-Marie in her +arms, and hurried up the steps after the porter. At the top of the +winding flight Nancy looked round. It was a light June evening. Where +the sky was palest the new moon looked like a little gilt slit in the +sky, letting the light of heaven show through. + +The street was deserted. The porter had vanished. Anne-Marie began to +cry because she wanted her orange peeled, and Nancy, after hurrying +forward a few steps, stopped, lifted the child on to the low wall, sat +down beside her, and peeled the orange. Nancy was convinced that her +portmanteau was gone for ever, but nothing seemed to matter much, so +long as Anne-Marie did not cry. She looked at the light sky, the +palm-trees, and the smooth pearl-grey sea. She wondered where the Hotel +des Colonies was, and whether Aldo had not received the telegram. The +legends of Monte Carlo murders and suicides traversed her mind for an +instant. Then Anne-Marie, who had never sat on a wall eating oranges, +lifted her face, smudged with tears and juice, and said: "Nice! Nice +evelything. I like." So Nancy liked too. + +They found the Hotel des Colonies after many wanderings, and there was +the porter with the valise waiting for them. Did Monsieur della Rocca +live here? Yes. Had he received a telegram? No; here was the telegram +waiting for monsieur. Did they know where was monsieur? + +"Eh! you will find him at the Casino," said the stout proprietress. + +Nancy asked to be shown to her husband's room, but as it turned out to +be a very small _mansarde_ at the top of the house, Nancy took another +room, and there Anne-Marie went to bed under the mosquito-netting, and +was asleep at once. Nancy went downstairs. The salon was dark. Madame la +Proprietaire sat in the garden with an old lady and a little fat boy. + +"If you want to go to the Casino," she said, "I will look after the +little angel upstairs!" + +But Nancy said: "Oh no, thank you." + +Then the old lady said: "Allez donc! Allez donc! Vous savez bien les +hommes!... Ca pourrait ne pas rentrer." Then she added: "I have been +here twelve years. This, my little grandson, was born here. You can go, +tranquillement. The petit ange will be all right." + +Nancy went upstairs for her hat. Anne-Marie was asleep and never +stirred. So Nancy went through the little garden again with hesitant +feet, and turned her face to the Casino. The streets were almost empty. +She was in her dark travelling-dress, and nobody noticed her. As she +passed the Hotel de Paris she saw the people dining at the tables with +the little red lights lit. In the square round the flower-beds other +people sat in twos and threes; and over the way, in the Cafe de Paris, +the Tziganes in red coats were playing "Sous la Feuillee." + +Nancy suddenly felt frightened and sad. What was she doing here, all +alone, at night in this unknown place, and little Anne-Marie sleeping in +that large bed all alone in a strange hotel? She felt as if she were in +a dream, and hurried on, dizzy and scared. A man, passing, said: +"Bonsoir, mademoiselle;" and Nancy ran on with a beating heart, up the +steps and into the brilliantly lighted atrium. Two men in scarlet and +white livery stopped her, and asked what she wanted; then they showed +her into an open room on the left, where men that looked like judges and +lawyers sat in two rows behind desks waiting for her. + +She stepped uncertainly up to one of them--he was bald with a pointed +beard--and said: "Pardon ... I am looking for Monsieur della Rocca." + +"Ah, indeed," said the man with the beard. "I have not the pleasure of +his acquaintance." And a fair man sitting near him smiled. + +"Have you no idea where I can find him?" said Nancy, blushing until +tears came to her eyes. + +"What is he? What does he do?" asked the fair man. + +"He--he came here three weeks ago. He--has a system," stammered Nancy. +"I telegraphed, but he did not receive my telegram. And the lady of the +hotel said I should find him here." + +A few people who had entered and stood about were listening with amused +faces. + +"Ha, ha! You say monsieur has a system?" said the man with a beard in a +loud voice. And he nodded significantly to someone opposite him whom +Nancy could not see. She felt that by mentioning the system she had +ruined her husband's chances for ever. But nothing seemed to matter +except to find him, and not to be alone any more. + +"At what hotel are you staying, mademoiselle?" asked the fair man. + +"Hotel des Colonies," said Nancy, in a trembling voice. + +"And your name, mademoiselle?" + +"Giovanna Desiderata Felicita della Rocca," said Nancy. And the whole +row of men smiled, while the one before whom she stood wrote her name in +a large book. + +"Your profession?" + +Nancy had read "Alice in Wonderland" when she was a child, and now she +knew that she was asleep. Otherwise, why should she be telling these +people that she wrote poems? + +She told them so. And they pinched their noses and pulled their +moustaches, because they were laughing--they were _pouffant de +rire_--and they did not want to show it. + +"And ... she did nothing else but write poems? Nothing else at all?" + +"No, nothing." And as the man with the beard seemed suddenly to be +staring her through and through, she added nervously: "Except ... I have +begun a book ... a novel. But it is not finished." + +The fair man suddenly handed her a little piece of blue cardboard, and +requested her to write her name on it. She said, "Why?" and the man made +a gesture with his hand that meant, "It has nothing to do with me. Do +not do so if you do not wish." + +All the others smiled and bent their heads down, and pretended to write. + +Nancy looked round her with the expression of a hunted rabbit. A man was +coming in, sauntering along with his hand in his pocket. He was English, +Nancy saw at a glance. He reminded her a little of Mr. Kingsley. Tom +Avory's daughter went straight towards the new-comer, and said: + +"You are English?" + +"I am," said the Englishman. + +"Will you please help me? My father was English," said Nancy, with a +little break in her voice. "They ... they want me to write my name. +Shall I do it?" + +The Englishman smiled slightly under his straight-clipped, light +moustache. "Do you want to go into the gaming-rooms?" + +"Yes," said Nancy. + +"Well, write your name, then," he said, and walked back to the desk +beside her. "You will see me do it too," he added, smiling, as he gave +up a card and got another one in return, on the back of which he wrote +"Frederick Allen." + +All the employes were quite serious again, and seemed to have forgotten +Nancy's existence. She signed her card, and entered the atrium at the +Englishman's side. + +"I am looking for my husband," she explained, and told him the story of +the system, and the telegram, and the hotel. "I feel as if I had been +telling all this over and over and over again, like the history of the +wolf." She smiled, and the dimple dipped sweetly in her left cheek. She +was flushed, and her dark hair had twisted itself into little damp +ringlets on her forehead. Mr. Allen looked at her curiously. + +"I am sure I have seen you before," he said. But he could not remember +where. Nancy said she thought not. + +"Oh, I am sure of it," said Mr. Allen. "I remember your smile." + +But the smile he remembered had belonged to Valeria, when she stood on a +little bridge in Hertfordshire, and took from his hands a garden hat +that had fallen into the water. + +They went through the rooms, and the chink, chink, of the money, and the +heavy perfume, made Nancy dizzy and bewildered. Aldo was nowhere to be +seen. They went from table to table--the season was ended, and one could +see each player at a glance--then into the _trente-et-quarante_ rooms, +which were hushed and darkened; then through the "buffet," and out into +the atrium again. + +Nancy looked up at her companion, and tears gathered in her eyes. "I +cannot imagine where he is! You do not think--you do not think----" And +in her wide, frightened eyes passed the vision of Aldo, lifeless under +a palm-tree in the gardens, his divine eyes broken, his soft hair +clotted with blood. + +"I think he is all right enough," said the Englishman. "We can look in +the Cafe de Paris." + +They left the atrium and went down the steps and out into the square +again. The "Valse Bleue" was swaying its hackneyed sweetness across the +dusk. Nancy started--surely that was Aldo! There, coming out of the Cafe +de Paris, with a fat woman in white walking beside him. That was Aldo! +Nancy hurried on, then stopped. The Englishman stood still beside her, +and stared discreetly at the trees on his right-hand side. Aldo and the +woman had sauntered off to the left, and now sat down on a bench facing +the Credit Lyonnais. + +"Will you wait a minute?" said Nancy. And she ran off towards the bench, +while Mr. Allen waited and gazed into the trees. + +Yes, it was Aldo. She heard him laugh. Who could that fat woman be? She +hurried on, and stopped a few paces from them. + +Aldo, turning round, saw her. He was motionless with astonishment for +one moment. Then he bent forward, and said a word or two to his +companion. She nodded, and he rose and came quickly forward to Nancy. + +"What is it?" he said. "What are you doing here?" + +"Oh, Aldo!" she said, tears of relief filling her eyes. "At last! I have +looked for you everywhere." + +"What is it?" repeated Aldo, in an impatient whisper. "Not--not +Anne-Marie? She is all right?" + +"Oh yes, dear," said Nancy, drying her eyes. "Poor little sweet thing! +She is fast asleep at the hotel. Come along! Come and thank an English +gentleman who----" She was about to slip her arm through his when he +drew back. + +"Don't!" he said. "Go back to the hotel at once! I shall be there in +five minutes. You don't want to spoil everything, do you?" + +"Spoil what?" said Nancy. + +"Everything," said Aldo. "Our prospects, our future, everything." + +"Why? How? What do you mean?" Nancy looked across at the broad figure in +white sitting on the bench; she had turned round, and seemed to be +looking at Nancy through a _lorgnon_. Nancy could discern a large face +and golden hair under a white straw hat. "Who is that?" + +"Oh, she's all right," said Aldo. "I have no time to explain now. Go +home, and do as I tell you. If you don't," he added, as he saw indignant +protest rising to Nancy's lips, "you and the child will have to bear the +consequences. Remember what I tell you----you and the child." + +Then he raised his hat, and went back to the bench where the woman was +awaiting him. Nancy, paralyzed with astonishment, saw him sit down, saw +his plausible back and explanatory gestures, while the woman still +looked at her through her long-handled _lorgnon_. + +She walked slowly back in stupefaction. The Englishman stood where she +had left him, at the foot of the Casino steps, facing the trees. He had +lit a cigarette. He turned, when she was near him, and threw the +cigarette away. He said: + +"Are you coming into the rooms again?" + +"No," said Nancy. + +"Shall I see you to your hotel?" + +"No," said Nancy; and stood there, dull and ashamed. + +"Well," said the Englishman, putting out his hand in a brisk, +matter-of-fact way, "good-night." He shook her chilly hand. Then he +ventured consolation. "All the same a hundred years hence," he said, and +turned quickly into the Casino. + +He did not stay. He came out a moment afterwards, and followed the +dreary little figure in its grey travelling dress that went slowly up +the street, and round to the right. When he had seen her safely enter +the garden of the hotel he turned back. + +"Poor little girl!" he said. "I wonder where I met her before?" + +Aldo entered the hotel half an hour later, and went to Nancy's room, +armed with soothing and diplomatic explanations. But Nancy was on her +knees by Anne-Marie's bed, with her face buried in the mosquito-netting, +and did not move when he entered. + +"Why, Nancy, what's the matter?" + +"Don't wake her, please," said Nancy. + +"But I wanted to tell you----" + +"Hush!" said Nancy, with her finger on her lips and her eyes on +Anne-Marie. + +"Then come to my room. I want to speak to you," said Aldo. + +"No," said Nancy. + +"Well," said Aldo, "I think I ought to explain----" + +"Hush!" said Nancy again. Then she sat on a chair near the child's bed, +and put her face down again in the mosquito-netting. + +Aldo stood about the room for a time. He called her name twice, but she +did not answer. Then he went upstairs to his little room feeling +injured. + + + + +IV + + +Early next morning Aldo went out to buy a doll for Anne-Marie. He got it +at the Condamine, where things are cheaper. It went to his heart to +spend seven francs fifty centimes--a _mise_ and a half--but the cheaper +ones were really too hideous to buy peace with. For one mad moment he +thought of buying a doll with real eyelashes that cost twenty-eight +francs. But considerations of economy were stronger than his fears, and +he took the one for seven francs fifty, whose painted eyelashes remained +irrelevantly at the top of the eyelids even when they were closed. + +Anne-Marie was delighted. + +Nancy was a pale and chilly statue. Aldo sent Anne-Marie and the +Condamine doll to play in the garden, while he in the _salon de lecture_ +explained. + +The systems were rank and rotten. All of them. Rank--and--rotten. +Grimaux, the croupier, had told him so. There was only one way of +winning, and that was---- + +"I know all that," said Nancy. "Who was that woman?" + +Aldo raised reproachful, nocturnal eyes to her face. She looked smaller +than usual, but very stern. + +"Nancy," he said. "Tesoro mio! My treasure!..." + +But Nancy ignored the eyes and the outstretched hand. "Who is she?" + +"She is nobody--absolutely nobody! An old thing with a yellow wig. Her +name is Doyle. How can you go on like that, my love?" + +But Nancy could go on, and did. "She is English?" + +"No, no; American. A weird old thing from the prairies." And Aldo +laughed loudly, but alone. + +"Well?" said Nancy, with tight lips, when Aldo had quite finished +laughing. + +"Well, Grimaux, who has been here sixteen years, said to me: 'The +mistake everyone makes is to double on their losses. When you lose----'" + +Aldo's slim hands waved, his shoulders shrugged, his long eyes turned +upward. Nancy watched him, cold and detached. "He looks like the +oyster-sellers of Santa Lucia!" she said to herself. "How could I ever +think him beautiful?" Then she saw Anne-Marie in the garden kissing the +Condamine doll, and she forgave him. + +"When you lose," Aldo was saying, "you run after your losses--you +double, you treble, you go on, _et voila! la debacle_--whereas when you +win you go carefully, staking little stakes, satisfied with a louis at a +time, and when you have won one hundred francs, out you go, saying: +'That is enough for to-day!' Now that is wrong, quite wrong. What you +ought to do is to follow up your wins, so that when the streak of luck +_does_ come--" + +"I have heard quite enough about that," said Nancy. "Tell me the rest." + +"Well," said Aldo sulkily, "I wish you would not jump at a fellow. The +rest is merely this: The good old prairie-chicken"--he went off into +another peal of laughter, and left off again when he had finished--"she +was--she was just promising to put up the money when you came along. And +you know what women are. They--they hate families," said Aldo. + +Nancy raised her eyes to his face without moving. + +"I do not know why you look at me like that," said Aldo sulkily. + +Nancy got up. "There is a train at one o'clock," she said; "we will take +it." + +She went upstairs; Aldo went out into the garden and played with +Anne-Marie and the Condamine doll. + +At twelve Nancy looked out of the window. She called Anne-Marie, who +came unwillingly, dragging the doll upstairs, and followed by Aldo. + +"We are ready," said Nancy, tying the white ribbons of a floppy straw +hat under Anne-Marie's chin. Anne-Marie sat on the bed kicking her feet +in their tan travelling-boots up and down. Aldo sat near the table, and +drummed on it with his fingers. + +"Who is going to pay the hotel bill?" he said. + +Nancy looked up. "Have you no money?" + +"I have eighty-two francs and forty centimes," said Aldo. + +"Where is the rest?" + +"Gone." + +Nancy sat down on the bed near Anne-Marie. There was a long silence. + +Aldo fidgeted, and said: "I told you the systems were all wrong." + +Nancy did not answer. She was thinking. She understood nothing about +money, but she knew what this meant. How were they to go back to Milan? +How were they to live? With her mother? Her mother had had to scrape and +be careful since the forty thousand francs had been given to Aldo. She +had brought smaller boxes of chocolate to Anne-Marie. She took no cabs, +and was wearing a last year's cloak of Aunt Carlotta's. Aunt Carlotta +herself was always grumbling that when she wanted to spend five francs +she turned them over three times, and then put them into her purse +again, and that Adele could not find a husband because her dot was +small, and men asked for nothing but money nowadays. There was Zio +Giacomo, dear, grumpy old man. But he had all Nino's old debts to pay, +and everybody was always borrowing from him. Distant relations and seedy +old friends visited and wrote to him periodically; and Zio Giacomo was +enraged, and always vowed that this would be the last time.... The only +wealthy person connected with the family was Aldo's brother, Carlo. But +Nancy knew that Aldo had exhausted all from that source. What would +happen? What were they going to do? She looked at Aldo, who sat in the +arm-chair, with his head thrown back and his eyes on the ceiling. He +knew she had likened him to San Sebastian, and now to move her pity as +much as possible he assumed the expression of the adolescent saint +pierced with arrows. + +Nancy turned her eyes from him. The sight of him irritated her beyond +endurance. She looked at Anne-Marie, sitting good and happy beside her, +playing with the doll. She bent and kissed the child's cool pink cheek. + +Aldo sat up, and said: "I had better go." + +"Where to?" said Nancy. + +"To the Casino, of course," said Aldo. "I promised to be there at +twelve-thirty." + +"To meet that woman?" + +"Yes," said Aldo sulkily. + +"Oh!" gasped Nancy, and her hands clasped in deepest shame for him. +"What blood is in your veins?" + +It was the blood of many generations of Neapolitan lazzaroni--beautiful, +lazy animals, content to lie stretched in the sun--crossed and altered +by the blood of the economical shopkeeping grandfather, who sold corals +and views of Vesuvius in the Via Caracciolo. + +Aldo felt that it was time to hold his own. "It is easy enough for you +to talk," he said. "But what else can I do?" + +Anne-Marie lifted the Condamine doll to her mother. "Kiss," she said. +Then she stretched it out towards her father. "Kiss," she said. Aldo +jumped up, and fell on his knees before them both. He kissed the doll, +and he kissed Anne-Marie's little coat, and Nancy's knees, and then he +put his head on Anne-Marie's lap and wept. Anne-Marie screamed and +cried, and Nancy kissed them both, and comforted them. + +"Never mind--never mind! It will all come right. Don't cry, Aldo! It is +dreadful! I cannot bear to see you cry." + +Aldo sobbed, and said he ought to go and shoot himself. And after Nancy +had forgiven, and comforted, and encouraged him, he raised his reddened +eyes and blurred face. "Well, then, shall I go?" he said. + +Nancy turned white. It was hopeless. He did not understand. He was what +he was, and did not know that one could be anything else. + +"No," she said. And he sat down and sighed, and looked out of the +window. + +Nancy went to the stout proprietress and asked for the bill. While it +was being made out, the kindly woman said: "Are you leaving to-day, +madame?" + +Nancy blushed, and said: "I do not know until I have seen the bill." + +The proprietress, who had heard the noise upstairs--for Aldo cried loud +like a child--and was slightly anxious in regard to her money, said: +"Has monsieur already had the _viatique_?" Nancy did not understand. +"The _viatique_ of the Casino. If monsieur has played and lost, the +administration will give him something back. Let him go and ask for it. +And," she added, glancing at the brooch at Nancy's neck, "if perhaps +madame should wish to know it, the Mont de Piete is not far--just past +the Credit Lyonnais." + +The bill was one hundred and twenty-three francs. Nancy told Aldo about +the _viatique_, and he said, with a hang-dog air, he would go and ask +for it. + +"How much do you think it will be?" asked Nancy. + +"I don't know," said Aldo, who felt that he must be glum. + +"Two or three thousand francs?" + +"I suppose so," said Aldo. + +"You will accept nothing from that woman. You promise!" + +"I promise," said Aldo, laying flabby fingers in her earnest, +outstretched hand. + +So he went, and when he was out of sight of the hotel he hurried. + +Nancy packed his trunk for him, and felt pity and half remorse as she +folded his limp, well-known clothes, his helpless coats and defenceless +waistcoats, and put them away. He had no character. It was not his +fault. She ought not to have allowed him to come here. He was not a +wall; Clarissa had told her so long ago. He was weak, and limp, and +foolish. Well, Nancy would be the wall. Already she knew what to do. Say +the Casino gave them back three or four thousand francs. They would go +back to Milan, give up the home in Via Senato, and take a cheaper +apartment in the Quartieri Nuovi. She would write. She would work again. +Ah! at the thought of her work her blood quickened. The baby should stay +with Valeria, because it was impossible to do any serious work with +Anne-Marie tugging at one's skirts and at one's heart-strings. She +would go and see the baby every evening after she had written five or +six hours. Aldo would return to Zio Giacomo's office. Good old Zio +Giacomo would be glad to take him back for Valeria's and Nancy's sake, +and they would live quietly and modestly. Aldo should superintend the +household expenses, and squabble over the bills with the servant--he +loved to do that; and by the time the three, or four, or five thousand +francs that the Casino had given them were finished The Book would be +out. "The Cycle of Lyrics" had brought her in twenty thousand francs, +and it was only a slender volume of verse. This book would make a great +stir in Italy--she knew it--and it would be translated into all +languages. She wished she had the manuscript here. She felt that she +could start it again at once. + +She closed her eyes and remembered. All the people she had created, +bound together by the scarlet thread of the conception, rushed out from +the neglected pages, and entered her heart again. She felt like +Browning's lion; you could see by her eye, wide and steady, she was +leagues in the desert already.... + +Suddenly Anne-Marie, who had been playing like a little lamb of gold on +the balcony, gave a scream: the doll had gone. The doll had fallen over +the balcony. It was gone! It was dead! Nancy looked over the ledge. Yes, +there lay the Condamine doll on the gravel-path in the garden. And it +was dead. Half of its face had jumped away and lay some distance off. + +Aldo, entering the garden at that moment, saw it, and picked it up. Then +he looked up at the balcony, and saw Nancy's troubled face and the +distracted countenance of his little daughter. + +He waved his hand, and went out again, taking the dead doll with him. He +hailed a carriage, and told the driver to drive quickly to the +Condamine. He bought the doll with the real eyelashes for twenty-two +francs--he made them knock off six francs--and returned with clatter of +horses and cracking of whip to the hotel. + +When Anne-Marie saw the doll, and when Nancy saw Anne-Marie's face, Aldo +knew he was forgiven and reinstated. + +"What have they given you back at the Casino?" asked Nancy. + +"I don't know. I am to go again in two hours," said Aldo. "Let us have +luncheon." + +They had an excellent luncheon, for, confronted with a desperate +situation in which the economizing of fifty centimes meant nothing, the +ancestral shopkeeper in Aldo's veins bowed, and left room for the +lazzarone, who ate his spaghetti to-day, and troubled not about the +morrow. + +"If they give you five or six thousand francs, I suppose we must not +complain. We cannot expect to get back the entire eighteen thousand," +said Nancy. + +"No," said Aldo, with downcast eyelids. He knew something about +_viatiques_, but he would not let this knowledge spoil their lunch. +After all, the luncheon cost twelve francs. It must not be wasted. + +"Did you see her?" asked Nancy, tying a table-napkin round the doll's +neck at Anne-Marie's request. + +"Whom?" said Aldo, with his mouth full. + +"The--the prairie-chicken," said Nancy, to make him feel that he was +quite forgiven. + +"Oh yes; I saw her," said Aldo. + +Nancy put down her knife and fork, and felt faint. "Well?" + +Aldo cleared his throat, took a sip of wine, and said, "She is an old +beast." + +There was a pause, then he continued: "I made a clean breast of it. I +told her who you were, and about Anne-Marie; and when I had finished she +called me a--a--oh, some vulgar American name, and off she walked." + +Nancy reached across the table and patted his hand. "That's right, +Aldo." + +"I told you," he said, nodding his head, "that that kind of woman cannot +stand the idea of a fellow having a family." + +"Perhaps," suggested Nancy, dimpling, "she could not stand the idea of +the way the fellow treated his family." + +"Well, never mind," said Aldo. "She's done with." + +But she wasn't. + +At four o'clock Aldo, Nancy, Anne-Marie, and the doll went out, and down +to the square in front of the Casino. Nancy and the child sat on a bench +facing the Casino, and Aldo went in to get the _viatique_. He came out a +few minutes later looking flushed and angry. + +"The _canailles_! The thieves! The robbers!" + +"What is it?" said Nancy. + +"They have given me one hundred and fifty francs!" and he held out the +three fifty-franc notes contemptuously. + +"A hundred--and--fifty francs!" gasped Nancy. + +"Nancy, there is only one thing to do," said Aldo. "Go in and play them. +Plank them down on a number, and if they go, let them go, and be done +with." + +"Do it," said Nancy, for nothing mattered. + +"I can't," said Aldo. "I can't go in--not until this miserable dole is +paid back. You must go. They will let you in. Go on." + +Nancy rose, flushed and trembling. "What do I do? How do I play it?" + +"Oh, anyhow. It makes no difference," said Aldo, with his face in his +hands, suddenly realizing that they three possessed in the world one +hundred and ninety francs, and a debt of one hundred and twenty-three. +He turned to the child. + +"Say a number, Anne-Marie! Any old number!" + +Anne-Marie did not understand. + +"You know your numbers, darling," said Nancy, "that grandmamma taught +you." + +"Oh, yeth," said Anne-Marie. "One, two, three, four." + +"Stop. All right," said Aldo. "Nancy, go in and play--at any table you +like--the _quatre premiers_ and _quatre en plein_. That gives you zero, +too. Go ahead! _Les quatre premiers_ and _quatre en plein_. Remember. +Tell the croupier to do it for you." + +Nancy went straight in, and to the left, where the men sat who had +laughed at her the night before. They recognized her, and gave her a +card at once. + +She went into the rooms. Chink, chink; chink, chink. She went to the +table on the left. A red-haired croupier sat at the end of the table +nearest her, and she went to him, and gave him one of the fifty-franc +notes. + +"Les quatre premiers et quatre en plein," she said. + +But it was too late. "Rien ne va plus," said the man in the centre. +"Trente-deux, noir, pair et passe." + +The croupier handed her back the note. "You're lucky," he said. "You +would have lost." She repeated her phrase, and he put the note on the +top of his rake and passed it across the table. "Quatre premiers," he +said, and the man in the middle placed it. + +"Et quoi encore?" said the croupier, looking at Nancy. + +"Quatre premiers et quatre en plein," repeated Nancy, mechanically. + +"Combien a l'en plein?" said the man, holding out his hand. + +Nancy gave him the second fifty-franc note, and he passed it up on his +rake. "Quatre en plein." + +"Quatre en plein. Tout va aux billets," said the man in the centre; and +the ball whizzed round. Nancy's heart was thumping; it shook her; it +beat like a drum. The little ball dropped, ran along awhile, stopped, +clattered and clicked, and fell into a compartment. + +"Trois." + +Everybody looked at Nancy as she was paid, and she collected the gold +and silver with clumsy hands. "Encore," she said, giving the croupier +the remaining bill and some louis. + +"Quoi?" said the croupier. + +"Encore la meme chose." The ball was running round. + +"Mais ca y est," said the croupier, for the fifty-franc note that had +won still lay at the corner of the top line. + +"Mais non, mais non," said Nancy, who was very much confused, "premier +quatre"--the man placed the note on the other note still lying +there--"et quatre en plein." But for this last it was too late. + +"Rien ne va plus. Zero!" + +"Voila! ca y est!" said the croupier, returning the gold to her, and +waiting with the rake on the table for the eight hundred francs to be +paid. + +What is the secret of luck? How shall it be forced? How explained? +Whatever Nancy did, she won. Wherever her money lay there the ball +went. When she thought she had enough--her hands were full, her place at +the table was piled up with louis and silver and notes--and she was +withdrawing her remaining stake and the gold paid on it with clumsy +rake, she moved it away from the numbers, and left it on "pair" while +she put down the rake. A minute was lost while a woman said something to +her, and before she could take the money up the ball had fallen. "Vingt. +Pair et passe." It was doubled. + +When she at last tremblingly collected it all in her hands, and put gold +and notes as best she could into her pocket, she rose, and could hardly +see. Her cheeks were flaming. She passed out of the rooms, into the +atrium, and down the steps. Aldo sat on the bench with his elbows on his +knees and his head in his hands and the doll in his arms. Anne-Marie was +running up and down in front of him. + +"Aldo," said Nancy, and sat down weakly at his side. + +"Gone?" asked Aldo, raising a miserable face. + +"No!" Nancy had a little hysterical laugh. She piled the money into his +hands, then into her lap, while he counted it quickly, deftly. People +passing looked at them, and smiled. + +"Seven thousand eight hundred francs," said Aldo, very pale. + +"Oh, but there is more;" and Nancy dived into her pocket again. There +was over fourteen thousand francs. + +"Come into the Cafe de Paris," said Aldo. + +They drank coffee and _creme de menthe_, and Anne-Marie had strawberry +ice and cakes. The band played "Sous la Feuillee." + +"Oh what a lovely world it is!" said Nancy, with a little sob. "Oh, +what a glorious place! I love it all! I love everybody!" + +"I love evlybody," said Anne-Marie, taking a third cake with careful +choice. Aldo and Nancy laughed. + +The Englishman passed, and Nancy called him. She introduced him to Aldo, +and Aldo thanked him for being kind to Nancy the evening before. Nancy +told him about the fourteen thousand francs she had won, and they all +laughed, and the band played, and the sun shone and went down. + +"The best train for Italy," said Mr. Allen suddenly, "is at six-twenty. +You have just an hour. It's a splendid train. You get to Milan at +eleven." + +Aldo looked at Nancy, and Nancy looked at the sky. It was light and +tender, and the air was still. The Tsiganes were playing "Violets," and +in the distance lay the sea. + +"We must take that train," said Aldo, getting up and rapping his saucer +for the waiter. + +"Oh no!" said Nancy. "Please not! Let us stay here and be happy." + +"Stay here and be happy," said Anne-Marie, with a bewitching smile. + +They stayed. + + + + +V + + +Aldo repaid the _viatique_ and went into the gambling-rooms with Nancy. +The proprietress of the hotel got them a _bonne_ from Vintimille, who +walked up and down in the gardens with Anne-Marie, and carried the doll. +She cost nothing--only fifty francs a month! They arranged to take +_pension_ at the hotel. That also cost nothing--twelve francs a day +each. They took drives that cost nothing--sixteen francs to La Turbie, +twenty francs to Cap Martin. Nothing cost anything. Ten minutes at the +tables, and Nancy had won enough to pay everything for a month. + +She sent a cloak to her mother, which Valeria vowed was much too +beautiful to wear. She sent presents to Aunt Carlotta and Zio Giacomo, +to Adele and to Nino, to Carlo and to Clarissa. And she remembered a man +with no legs, who sat in a little cart on the Corso in Milan, and she +sent her mother one hundred francs to give him. Anne-Marie was dressed +in a white corded silk coat, and a white-plumed hat. The _bonne_ had a +large Scotch bow with streamers. + +This lasted ten days. On the eleventh day it was ended. Nancy played +gaily, and lost. She played carefully, and lost. She played tremblingly, +and lost. She played recklessly, and lost. Aldo, who did not trust his +own luck, followed her from table to table, saying: "Be careful!... +Don't!... Do!... Why did you? Why didn't you? I told you so!" And at +each table _la guigne_ was waiting for them, pushing Nancy's hand in the +wrong direction, whispering the wrong numbers in her ear. Ten times they +made up their minds to stop, and ten times they decided to try just once +more. "We have about nine thousand francs left. With that we are paupers +for the rest of our lives. With luck we might recoup." + +This lasted two days. On the third day they had one thousand and eighty +francs left. "Play the eighty," said Aldo, "and we will keep the +thousand." They lost the eighty, and then four hundred francs more. +"What is the good of six hundred francs," said Aldo, and they played +on. + +Their last two louis Aldo threw on a _transversale_. They won. "Let us +leave it all on," said Aldo. They won again. + +"Shall we risk it again?" said Nancy, with flushed cheeks and galloping +heart. + +Aldo's lips were dry and pale; he could not speak. He nodded. And a +third time they won. The croupier flattened the notes out on the table +and knocked the little pile of gold lightly over with his rake. He +counted, and paid five times the already quintupled stake. + +Aldo bent forward and picked up a rake to draw in his winnings. A man +sitting near the centre of the table put out his hand, and took the +piled-up notes and gold. + +"Ah, _pardon_!" cried Aldo, striking the rake down on the notes and +holding them; "that is mine." + +"Pardon! pardon! pardon!" said the man, laying his hand firmly on the +notes. "C'est ma mise a moi! Voila deja trois coups que je l'y +laisse----" + +Aldo was incoherent with excitement, and Nancy joined in, very pale. "It +is ours, monsieur." + +"Ah, mais c'est par trop fort," cried the other, who was French, and had +a loud voice. He pushed Aldo's rake aside, and took the money. + +Aldo appealed to the croupiers, and to the people near him, and to the +people opposite him. They shrugged their shoulders and raised their +eyebrows. They had not seen, they did not know. + +"Faites vos jeux, messieurs," said the croupier. + +The ball whizzed; the game went on. Aldo, burning with rage, and Nancy +pale and dazed, left the table. + +"Oh, Aldo! Let us go away. This is a horrible place. Let us go away." + +Aldo did not answer. + +They went out into the sunshine. Laughing women lifting light dresses +and showing their high heels came hurrying across the square. The warm +air was heavy with the scent of flowers. They turned into the gardens, +and before them was the dancing sea; and Anne-Marie, looking like an +Altezza Serenissima, tripped up and down in her white corded silk coat, +her brief curls bobbing under her white-plumed hat. + +Behind her walked the Vintimille servant with the Scotch silk bow on her +head, and carried the doll with the real eyelashes. + + + + +VI + + + * * * * * + + NEW YORK. + +MOTHER DEAR, + +I shall send you this letter when nothing that I have written in it is +true any more. If we ever live through and out of it, you shall know; if +not--but, of course, we shall. We must. One cannot die of poverty, can +one? One does not really, actually suffer real hunger, does one, mother +dear? "Zu Grunde gehen!" The sombre old German words keep rumbling in my +head like far-away thunder. "Zu Grunde gehen!" + +I do not suppose one really does go "_zu Grunde_." But when one has +forty-five dollars in the world, and a funny little bird with its beak +open expecting to be fed--and fed on chocolates and bonbons when it +wants them--one becomes demoralized and frightened, and pretends to +think that one might really starve. + +Do not think it unkind that I did not come to Milan to kiss you and say +good-bye. I had not the heart to do so. Aldo, too, said we could not +afford it, and, indeed, our combined _viatiques_ and our jewellery only +just enabled us to come here. + +We landed three days ago. Yesterday morning I sent you a postcard: +"Arrived happily." Happily! Oh, mother dear, I think there must be a +second higher and happier heaven for those who are brave enough to tell +untruths of this kind. Enough; we landed, Anne-Marie looking like a +spoilt princess; I with my Monte Carlo hat and coat, and high-heeled, +impertinent shoes; and Aldo, a pallid Antinous, with forty-five dollars +in his pocket-book. + +Then came the Via Crucis of looking for rooms. Mother, did I ever stay +at the Hotel Nazionale in Rome, and descend languidly the red-carpeted +stairs to the royal automobile that was to drive me to the Quirinal? Did +I ever sit at home in Uncle Giacomo's large arm-chair and listen +benignly to moon-struck poets reading their songs? Did I ever with +languid fingers ring bells for servants, and order what I wanted? + + "Cio avvenne forse ai tempi + D'Omero e di Valmichi----" + +That was another Nancy. This Nancy trudged for hours through straight +and terrible streets called avenues, with a dismal husband and a tired +baby at her side. Third Avenue, Fourth Avenue, then quickly across Fifth +Avenue, which had nothing to do with us, and again across to Sixth +Avenue ... and everywhere dirty shops, screaming children, jostling +girls, rude men, trains rushing overhead, street-cars screeching and +clanging. Then, at last, Seventh Avenue, where there were streets full +of quiet, squalid boarding-houses, fewer screaming children, fewer dirty +shops, and no trains. We went into a cheap, clean-looking place that a +porter had told us of. A woman opened. She looked at my hat and coat, +and at my shoes, and said: "What do you want?" "A room----" began Aldo. +She shut the door without answering. At the next house a woman in a +dirty silk dressing-gown opened the door. "Yes, they had rooms. Eight +dollars a day. Meals a dollar." In the next house they took no children. +In the next, no foreigners. Our expensive clothes in their cheap street +made them suspicious. Aldo's handsome face made them suspicious. His +Italian accent frightened them. And Anne-Marie cried every time a new +face appeared at a new door. + +At last Aldo said: "I will go to the Italian consul. You wait here in a +baker's shop." The consulate was at the other end of New York, and was +closed when Aldo got there. When he returned, harassed and haggard, I +had made friends with the baker's wife. She was German. I told her our +History of the Wolf--that I was a poetess, and had met the Queen, and +all about Monte Carlo. I don't think she believed or understood much, +but she was sorry for me; and Anne-Marie, hearing us talk German, +suddenly started piping: "Schlaf, Kindchen, schlaf!" The woman caught +her up in her arms, and said: "Ach, du suesses! How does she come to know +that?" And she took us all to 28th Street to the house of her sister, +who gave us this room. It is clean, and the woman is kind. + +And now, what? + +I have bought myself a frightful pepper-and-salt coloured dress, and a +black straw hat. I look like a "deserving poor." And Anne-Marie is +wearing a dark blue woolly horror belonging to the woman's daughter. +She must wear it, or Frau Schmidl would be offended. Frau Schmidl is the +only friend we have in America. + +For the ranch is a myth of Aldo's. He never was on a ranch in his life. +He met a Frenchman once with weak lungs, who had been in Texas, and who +gave him all the romantic details that he used to recount to us. Do you +remember, mother? On Lake Maggiore? He talked vaguely, and not much, it +is true, of those bucking bronchoes he used to ride across the sweeping +Western prairies, feeling the wind in his hair.... When I reproach him +for his fables, he tells me that it was our fault. We insisted upon the +details. We would hear all about it! He says Clarissa started the ranch +legend, because she thought it sounded well. Then she left him to keep +it up as best he could. Poor Aldo! He hates us in these clothes. And he +hates the German things Frau Schmidl gives us to eat. He has gone to the +Italian Consul for the third time to see if he can find some +correspondence to do. I could give lessons, but it seems that there are +many more people who want to give lessons than there are who want to +take them. And then--there is Anne-Marie, who has to be taken care of. +Anne-Marie! Frau Schmidl loves her because of her name. She says it is +echt deutsch! She is a stout, fair woman, who speaks English strangely. +When she enters the room, she says, nodding and laughing, "Now, and what +makes the Anne-Marie?" + +The Anne-Marie likes the sound of the language, and imitates her. I +dread to think what English the Anne-Marie will learn. + + * * * * * + +Aldo has found nothing to do. The Americans will have nothing to do with +an Italian, and Italians will have still less to do with an Italian. We +have eight dollars left. + + * * * * * + +If I write to you for money you will send it. And then? A few weeks +hence we shall be where we are now. We must fight our battles alone. + + * * * * * + +We have nothing left. + +Mr. Schmidl says he will let us keep the room--"for another week or +two," he added gruffly; but his wife is not to feed us. "At least--not +all of you," he added still more gruffly. "Only you--and the +Anne-Marie." He is a poor man. He is quite right. But what about Aldo? + + * * * * * + +We have sold the Monte Carlo clothes for twelve dollars. We feel that we +are rehabilitated. And what have I been dreaming of? I can write. I +shall send an article to the _Giornale Italo-Americano_. Unsigned, of +course. I shall write it to-night. + + * * * * * + +It is done. + + * * * * * + +It is accepted. + + * * * * * + +It is printed. + +It seems that that is all. They have told Aldo that they never pay for +articles that are sent to them from the outside--even if they are as +brilliant and original as this one. They only pay their own staff. Have +they room on their staff for a brilliant and original writer? Plenty of +room. But no money. + +Aldo is living on dates and a little rice. He speaks less than ever. I +do not know what his thoughts are. I am afraid for him. + +To-day as I was taking Anne-Marie for a run in front of the house I met +a man whom we knew in Italy, a Dr. Fioretti. He was an old friend of +Nino's. Do you remember? He looked at me, and past me, blankly, +unrecognizing. I thanked the fates. My knees ached with fear lest he +should stop and say: "You here! What are you doing? Where do you live?" +Where do I live? In this vile street near the negro quarter. What am I +doing? Starving. Are we dreaming, mother? Oh, mother! mother! when did I +fall asleep? I should like to wake up a little girl again in England. +Was there not another little girl called Edith, with yellow hair? Surely +I remember her. What became of her?... Or was she the girl who died?... + + * * * * * + +Aldo will not leave the house any more. He will not speak to us any +more. He sits and stares at us. I am afraid of him. I shall telegraph to +you if I can find the money to do so. Mrs. Schmidl keeps Anne-Marie +downstairs in her kitchen. But she is afraid of Aldo, too. I think they +will turn us out. But they will keep the child, and take care of her. + +I shall go out. I shall ask everybody, anybody, to help me.... + + * * * * * + +I have been to the Italian Church, to the Italian Consul, to the Italian +Embassy. They will see. They will do what they can. There are many +pitiable cases. Are we a "pitiable case"? How strange! They would not +give me any money to send a telegram. They said they would telegraph +themselves, after they had come to see us, and made inquiries.... + +I stopped a woman in the street, and said, "I beg your pardon. Will +you----" and then my courage failed and I asked where West 28th Street +was. She directed me, and I turned back and walked in the direction I +had come from. + +I came to Fifth Avenue, and walked up it in my shabby clothes. I passed +rows of large houses. One of them had the windows open, and someone +inside was playing "Der Musikant" of Hugo Wolff. And a woman's voice was +singing: + + "Wenn wir zwei zusammen waeren + Wuerd' das Singen mir vergeh'n." + +I stopped. I turned back, and walked up the wide stone steps. I rang the +visitors' bell, and a manservant in ornate livery opened at once. + +"I wish to speak to the lady who is singing," I said. + +"Oh," said the man. I knew he thought me a beggar, and was going to send +me away. + +"Tell her--tell her quickly," I said, "that--that Hugo Wolff told me I +might come." + +Something in my face--oh, my despairing face, mother!--touched something +human in the pompous automaton. He went straight into the drawing-room +and gave my message. There was a basket of Easter lilies on the +hall-table. + +The music stopped, and almost at once on the threshold of the +drawing-room a lady appeared. She was young--hardly older than I--and +beautiful, dressed in soft mauve cloth. She looked at me curiously, and +then said suddenly: + +"Will you come in?" + +I went into the large, luxurious drawing-room. Titian's "Bella" looked +down at me blandly with her reddened eyelids. + +"What message was that you sent?" she asked, with her graceful head on +one side. + +My voice had almost left me. "I said Hugo Wolff told me to come in. I +heard you singing 'Der Musikant'...." + +She laughed, and said: "Are you a musician?" + +I said: "No." And I thought of telling her the History of the Wolf. But +I feared she might know my name, and tell the Italians in New York. And +the Italo-Americano would print an article about it--and the Corriere +della Sera in Milan would reprint it.... + +"Is there anything I can do for you?" she said. + +I nodded. + +"Money?" she asked softly. + +I nodded. + +"How much do you need?" + +"Five dollars," I said. + +She smiled, and said: "Is that all? I should willingly do more for a +friend of Hugo Wolff's!" + +She went out of the room, and closed the door behind her. She left me in +my shabby clothes, in my black straw hat and my need of five dollars, in +her gorgeous drawing-room, scattered with priceless ornaments in silver +and gold, jewelled frames and trinkets lying all about the tables. I +covered my face with my hands, and the tears rolled through my fingers. +She came back a few minutes afterwards with a gold twenty-dollar piece +in her hand. She gave it to me, and said, "For luck!" and added: + +"Is there nothing else I can do?" I nodded, with my eyes full of tears. +"Yes!" and I looked at the piano. + +She smiled and sat down. She sang for me. I know she sang her very best. +She had a lovely voice. + +When I went through the hall to the door two men-servants bowed me out +as if I were a princess. And I went down the stairs weeping bitterly. + +I went along the street, crying and not caring who saw me. Then I sat +down in Madison Square. Suddenly someone came and sat beside me. A +woman. I felt her eyes fixed on me for a long time, and I turned and +looked at her. There, under a turquoise toque, sat the golden hair and +the large face of the prairie chicken. + +"How do you do, Mrs. Doyle?" I said. + +"What?" She turned quickly. "How do you know my name?" And she added, +frowning: "What are you crying for?" + +"For love of a woman who has been kind to me," I said. + +"There are lots of kind women," she answered. "I'm kind. What do you +want?" + +"I want you to come and talk to my husband," I said. "You know him. You +met him in Monte Carlo. His name is Aldo della Rocca." + +"What? Della Rocca? That lovely Italian creature? That Apollo of +Belvedere? Of course I remember him. Where is he? What is he doing +here?" + +"Come and see," I said. + +And she came up to Mrs. Schmidl's house in 28th Street. + +That evening we dined with the prairie chicken, or rather, she invited +herself to dine with us. She said "Poison!" when she tasted the +Knoedelsuppe, and "Poison!" when she tasted the Blutwurst and Kraut. She +is probably a very great lady, judging by her bad behaviour. + +In my heart hope opens timid eyes. + + * * * * * + + + + +VII + + +Mrs. Doyle was a very great lady. Her husband had been a political +"boss"; her sister had married an English baronet; and her daughter, +Marge, eighteen years old, "a mere infant," as she said, had married +Herbert van Osten, the Congressman. + +She was full of good ideas. "Now, you two might be the rage of New York +in no time," she said, at the end of the dinner. "You are a Count, +aren't you?" And she looked confidently at Aldo. "'Della Rocca'! That +sounds like a Count." + +"Oh yes," said Aldo, with his shining white smile, humorously +remembering his grandfather's name, "Esposito," which means a foundling, +and the "Della Rocca" added to it because the little Esposito had been +left on a rock near Posilippo. + +"Well, let me see. You must have an atelier of some kind. Ateliers are +all the rage. And your wife----" Mrs. Doyle raised her sepia eyebrows +and pinched her large chin pensively. + +"My wife is a great poetess," said Aldo. + +"Is she?" said Mrs. Doyle. "Well--let me see. She must--she must dress +a little differently--red scarves and things--and look picturesque, and +read her poems in salons here. Poetry is all the rage. And if it is +Eyetalian, you know," she added encouragingly to Nancy, "no one will +understand it. I shall discover you. I shall give an At Home. +'Eyetalian poetry' in a corner of the cards. That's an elegant idea!" + +But Nancy was refractory. She said she would not wear red scarves, nor +recite her poetry; and what was Aldo going to do in an atelier? + +"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Doyle, "faces like his are not met with every +day on Broadway. I don't know how it is in your country, but his looks +alone are enough to make him the rage here." + +Aldo nodded, looking at Nancy as if to say: "You see?" + +"But what is the good of being the rage if one has nothing to live on? +What are we to eat?" asked Nancy, feeling brutal and unlovely, and +_terre a terre_. + +"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Doyle. "If once you are the rage in a +place like New York!" ... And she raised her round blue eyes to Frau +Schmidl's ceiling, where languid flies walked slowly. + +But Nancy assured her that it was impossible. Could she not find some +work for Aldo to do? + +"What work?" said Mrs. Doyle, resting an absent-minded blue gaze on the +lustrous convolutions of Aldo's hair, on his white, narrow forehead, on +his intense and violent eyes, and the scarlet arcuation of his vivid +lips. "What work can he do?" + +"Oh!" Nancy said vaguely, "what work do men do? He has been to the +University and taken a degree. He has studied law, but has not +practised. I am sure he could do anything. He is very clever." + +"Oh yes," assented Mrs. Doyle dreamily. + +She was thinking. She was thinking of something her married daughter had +been saying to her that very morning. Suddenly, she got up and said +good-bye. She let Aldo help her into her long turquoise coat, and find +her gloves; and then she sent him off to fetch a motor-cab. Alone with +Nancy, she was about to open her large silver-net reticule when she saw +Nancy's straight gaze fixed upon her. So she refrained, and kissed her +instead. + +"Ta-ta, Apollo," she said, shaking a fat, white-gloved hand out of the +carriage window to Aldo, who stood on the side-walk, bare-headed and +deferential. Then, leaning back as the carriage slid along 7th Avenue +and turned into 66th Street, she mused: "He will do--he will do +elegantly. Won't Marge be delighted! That will teach Bertie to sit up. +Elegant idea! Bertie will have to sit up." + +Bertie was not sitting up. His wife, Mrs. Doyle's daughter, was. And +very straight she sat, with defiant, frizzy head and narrow lips, when +she heard the front door open and close. But it was not to her husband's +insubordinate footsteps. It was the indulgent swish of her mother's +silken skirts that rustled slowly upwards. + +Bertie's wife sprang up and opened the door. + +"'Mum'? At this hour? What has happened?" + +"Nothing, Marge--nothing. Is Bertie at home?" said Mrs. Doyle. + +"No," and the young pink lips narrowed again. "It is only eleven o'clock +at night. Why should he be at home?" + +"Marge, I have an elegant idea," said Mrs. Doyle, seating herself +resolutely in an armchair opposite her daughter. "I have found the very +thing we need. The bo ideel, my lambkin." + + * * * * * + +When Mrs. Doyle rose to go at midnight they were both wreathed in +smiles. + +"You will have to be very careful, dear," said Mrs. Doyle. "Don't be +rash, and unlikely, and over-generous. The wife is a stubborn creature +who spells things with a capital letter: you know what I mean--Work and +Art and Dignity, and all that kind of thing. She must not be rubbed up +the wrong way. Besides, it will answer just as well if he does not know +what he is doing." + +"That's so," said her daughter. "Mum, you're a daisy." + +The unsuspecting Bertie came home that night a little before one +o'clock, keyed up for the usual withering sarcasm and darkling reproach. +He found his wife asleep, lamb-like and dove-like, her frizzy head +foundered contentedly in the pillows, a book of Gyp on the coverlet, and +a mild smile--was it of indulgence or of treason?--playing on her soft +half-open lips. + +The next day Mrs. Doyle called on Aldo and Nancy. Anne-Marie was +introduced and patted on the head, and sent down into the kitchen. + +"I have a secretaryship for you," said Mrs. Doyle to Aldo. "You can +start at once. Twenty dollars a week. They won't give more." + +Aldo was graciously complacent, and Nancy looked anxious. + +"His English is very imperfect," she said. + +"Oh, the English is chiefly copying; he can do that, can't he?" + +"Of course," said Aldo, frowning at Nancy. + +Nancy asked for particulars, and Mrs. Doyle folded her fat hands and +gave them. It was a confidential post. He was to be "secretary to her +daughter"--catching Nancy's steady grey eye, Mrs. Doyle added--"'s +husband, Mr. Van Osten;" and the work was chiefly of a political +character. He would have to--er--copy speeches, and ... etcetera. He +would have a study, not in the Van Osten's house, but--er--in the same +street a few doors off, opposite. He was not to talk about his work, +because it was of a very--er--private character. + +"Mr. Van Osten is a peculiar man," added Mrs. Doyle. "But you will +understand all that in time, when you get to know him. When can you +start?" + +"Now," said Aldo. + +Mrs. Doyle laughed. "Well, I think next Monday will do. Meanwhile"--and +she coughed--"the Van Ostens are very--oh, very much for appearance, you +know. You had better go to Brooks and get him to rig you out. I shall +drive round and speak to Brooks about you at once." + +Nancy flushed and protested. "You can pay it back to me," said Mrs. +Doyle. "Don't bother me so." + +So Nancy flushed, and was silent; and Aldo went to Brooks, and was +rigged out. + +He also had some visiting-cards with "Count Aldo della Rocca" printed on +them, but not his address, which was near the nigger quarter, and +probably would continue to be so for a long time to come. + +On the following Monday, at half-past eleven, he arrived at the Van +Osten house in 66th Street. Mrs. Doyle had particularly impressed upon +him that he was not to come earlier than half-past eleven. Mrs. Doyle +was waiting for him in the drawing-room, and introduced him to her +daughter. Mr. Van Osten was not in. The Count was to do his work alone +for these first few days, as Mr. Van Osten was very busy in Washington. +The two ladies had their hats on, and accompanied him across the street +to No. 59. They had a latchkey which they gave to him, and went with him +to the room that was to be his study on the top-floor. It was a large, +light, almost empty, room. A wide desk stood in front of the window; +there were a few chairs and tables, and a half-empty book-case. On the +desk was a pile of papers, newspapers, and manuscripts. A typewriting +machine stood on the table. + +"Oh," said Aldo blankly, "I do not know how to use a typewriter." + +"Never mind," said the ladies in unison. + +"We put it there in case you could," said Mrs. Doyle. + +Then Mrs. Doyle showed him his work. "All this has to be copied," she +said, showing him the tidy manuscript sheets. "And then you ought to +make extracts from these papers." + +She pointed to the newspapers--they were of the preceding week. He was +to mark and cut out everything referring to the Congo, and underline +with red ink Mr. Van Osten's name every time he came across it. + +"And everything that Mr. Van Osten himself says has to be copied in this +large book." + +"Would it not be better to cut out the speeches in print and paste them +in?" said Aldo. + +"Oh no," said Mrs. Doyle. "He wants them copied. Doesn't he, Marjorie?" + +Her daughter turned from the window and said: + +"Oh yes!" She had flittering green eyes and a funny smile. Her frizzy, +light hair came down to the bridge of her small freckled nose, and she +had a manner of throwing back her head in order to look from under her +hair that was peculiar to her. She was dressed like an expensive French +doll. + +"Oh yes," she repeated, with her head thrown back, and in her high +childish voice. "I guess he wants it all copied." Her smile flickered, +and she turned to the window again. + +The ladies left him, and he sat down to work. He copied steadily in his +beautiful _commis voyageur_ handwriting until two o'clock. Then he +went out and had a hasty lunch. At four o'clock Mrs. Doyle rustled in +and asked him how he was getting on. He was getting on splendidly. At +six he went home. + +This went on for three days, and on Wednesday afternoon he had nothing +left to copy, or to cut out, or to paste in. He looked out of the +window. He took a book from the book-case--they were almost all French +novels. After reading an hour, he decided to go across to No. 8, the Van +Ostens' house, and ask for instructions. He had not yet seen his +employer, and, as all men who are sure of their tailor and their +physique, he liked new acquaintances. + +The butler who opened the door looked at his clothes, then took his hat, +and divested him of his overcoat. He presented a silver tray, on which +Aldo, after a moment's hesitation, deposited his visiting-card. The man +looked at it, opened the drawing-room door, and pronounced: "Count Aldo +della Rocca." A subdued sound of voices and tea-cups subsided into +silence, and Aldo entered the room. + +He bowed low, his secretary bow, standing at the door, for he did not +want to offend his employers. When he raised his head, Mrs. Van Osten's +light green flitter of a smile was greeting him from the sofa. His quick +eye saw that she was nervous. She put out her hand and said: + +"Oh, Count della Rocca, how do you do? Just in time for a cup of tea." + +He stepped past the four or five ladies and an old gentleman who sat +near her, and kissed her hand in Southern fashion. He was not to be the +secretary? _Benissimo!_ He was not the secretary. He was the Count. + +"But perhaps," continued his hostess, "you don't like tea? Vermouth or +Campari is what you take in your country at this hour, is it not?" And +she held out a cup of tea to him, with her head thrown back and slightly +on one side. + +"Oh, Madame! All what is taken from so fair a lady's hand is nectar!" +said Aldo, with his best smile; and the ladies tittered approval. + +"Ah, Latin flattery, Count," said his hostess, and introduced him to her +friends. + +Once or twice he noticed that she glanced anxiously at him, as if +dreading what he might do or say; but Aldo, remembering the political +and private character of his work, did not mention it. The ladies left +one by one. And the old gentleman left. Then Mrs. Van Osten turned her +little dry, hard face to Aldo. + +"Why did you come?" she asked. + +"I have finished my work," said Aldo, feeling himself very much the +secretary again. "I knew not what I was to do." + +"Oh, I see. I will tell my mother--I mean my husband--about it." And at +this moment Mrs. Doyle entered. Her daughter drew her to the window, and +spoke to her in a whisper for some time. Mrs. Doyle replied: "Oh, all +the better. I did not know how we should ever begin it." She turned to +Aldo, standing stiff and secretarial in the middle of the room. + +"I am glad you took Mrs. Van Osten's cue," she said. Aldo wondered what +"cue" meant, but did not ask. "Do so, always. It is of the greatest +importance. And now about Mr. Van Osten. _Never_ speak to him about your +work. He does not like it. Unless he mentions it to you, never speak +about it at all. Let him see that you are absolutely discreet. Now you +may stay till he comes." + +He stayed and made flat general conversation. Mrs. Van Osten looked +bored. Mrs. Doyle answered him nervously and absentmindedly. + +The bell rang loud, and the butler opened the hall-door to admit his +master. Aldo stood up. Suddenly he felt a hand on his sleeve. It was +little Mrs. Van Osten's jewelled hand that pulled him down into his +chair. She leaned forward, with her chin on her hand, and smiled. + +"I am sure you are musical," she said, smiling into his eyes, as through +the open door Mr. Van Osten entered, large, leisurely, and good-looking. + +"Hulloa!" he said to his wife. "Well, mother?" to Mrs. Doyle. Then he +looked at Aldo, who very slowly, wondering what he was to do, got up +from his seat. + +"Bertie," said his wife, looking up at him with a look that was at once +the look of a cat and of a mouse, "this is Count della Rocca whom I was +telling you about." + +Van Osten put out his large hand. "Glad to meet you," he said. Then Mrs. +Doyle sat down and talked to him. + +"You are musical?" said Mrs. Van Osten, lifting her small chin, and +twinkling her eyes at Aldo. + +Aldo suddenly remembered what Dr. Fioretti, a friend of Nino's who had +travelled in England and the United States, used to say about American +women. He seemed to hear Fioretti speaking in his impressive manner, as +if each word he said were three times underlined: "I tell you this about +the American woman: as man and as doctor, my dear friend...." And Aldo +decided that Fioretti was right. + +He found himself seated at the piano, while his hostess's tiny figure +was thrown forward listening to him with rapt attention. Suddenly--while +her husband was laughing loud at something Mrs. Doyle had said--she put +out her hand and said: "Good-bye. Come next Saturday. Now go. Go quick." +And he rose and took his leave. + +He described his visit to Nancy, who was so much astonished that he +thought it wise to omit the reference to next Saturday. On the following +morning another pile of papers lay on the desk for him, and he worked on +conscientiously. On Saturday a mauve envelope containing twenty dollars +was placed on the top of his papers; and on a slip of paper was written: +"Come at six." + +At six he went to No. 8, and found Mrs. Van Osten alone. She scarcely +spoke to him until her husband came in. Then she seemed suddenly to wake +up, and was all smiles and pretty gestures; when Aldo spoke to her she +drooped her lashes and played with her long chiffon scarf. He left her a +little later, feeling dense and bewildered. + +A fortnight afterwards he was invited to dinner. "I am sure Van Osten +feels that he can trust me now," said Aldo to Nancy, adjusting a +faultless tie at the summit of an impeccable shirt-front. "And to-day he +will probably speak to me of our work." + +"I am afraid Anne-Marie is going to have measles," said Nancy, sitting +drearily on the old green armchair, while Anne-Marie pulled some of the +stuffing out of it with languid feverish hand. "Seventh Avenue is full +of it." + +"It is a beastly neighbourhood," said Aldo, buttoning his waistcoat, and +fixing a sham gold chain into his watch-pocket with a safety-pin. "We +must get out of it as soon as we can." + +"Did those people you met at Mrs. Van Osten's ask where we lived?" asked +Nancy. + +"Yes. And on the spur of the moment I said Number 59 in the same street. +That is where the office is, you know. I hope they won't make +inquiries." + +Nancy sighed. Aldo kissed her, and carefully patted Anne-Marie, who had +dirty hands and a tearful face. Then he ran down and got on a car that +took him up town. + +No reference was made during dinner to politics or to the work. There +were a dozen people present, and once--to try him, Aldo felt it!--his +host said, looking straight at him: "And what are you doing in New York, +Mr. Della Rocca?" + +With the corner of his eye Aldo had seen Mrs. Van Osten's small head +start up like a disturbed snake at the end of the table. He answered +imperturbably, looking Van Osten in the face: + +"Some literary work. I find it _very interesting_." + +He said this markedly, and Van Osten only said: "Oh, indeed?" But Aldo +knew that he was pleased. Van Osten must now indeed feel that Aldo was +absolutely discreet and intelligent. + +After dinner, when the men joined the ladies in the drawing-room, Mrs. +Van Osten called him to her with her eyes. He sat down at her side, and +talked about Italy. She drooped her head as if she were blushing, and +he wondered why. He glanced round, and saw that her husband was looking +at her. + +A tall thin woman stood near him, and Aldo heard her say: "What a +splendid-looking man! Quite like that Somebody's Hyperion in +that--er--what-do-you-call-it gallery." + +"Yes," said Van Osten. "Nice sleek animal." And he continued to look at +his wife. + +To Aldo's astonishment, she suddenly smiled and put her hand into his +own, palm upwards. He felt the little chilly hand trembling lightly on +his. Her words were as astonishing as her gesture. She said: + +"Well, then, Count Aldo, if you insist, tell my fortune." + +He had not insisted; but he told her fortune, following the little +crinkly lines in her palm with the light touch of his forefinger. She +shivered and she laughed, and she threw her head back. + +Van Osten sauntered up to them with his hands in his pockets; he looked +large and powerful. Aldo felt like a fool, with the little chilly hand +still lying in his. He went on, however: "This is the line of the +intellect--" Van Osten laid his hand casually on his wife's slim +shoulder, and kept it there. She glanced up at him, and again in her +eyes was the look of a cat, and also of a mouse. + +"... That is what I read in this hand," continued Aldo. + +Van Osten moved and put forward a large patent-leather shoe. "And what +is it you read in this foot?" he said. "Kicks?" + +His wife burst into a ripple of laughter and withdrew her hand from +Aldo's. Aldo also was much amused. The only one who did not seem to +find the joke funny was Van Osten himself. + +A few days later in the study, when Aldo had copied four columns out of +a newspaper, he leaned back in his chair. He was irritated and tired. +There was not enough ink in the inkstand, and he had to dip in his pen +at every second word. He felt exasperated and on edge. Little Mrs. Van +Osten was getting on his nerves. What did she mean? What did she want? +She was in love with him, of course. That was not surprising. But what +was surprising was her behaviour when they were alone. Either she left +the room at once, or she looked at him with green, far-away, wintry eyes +as if he were a wall or a window. + +The night after the dinner-party he had been greatly agitated. This +woman loved him. This very wealthy woman seemed to be willing to +compromise herself for his sake. What should he do? For a moment the +thought of running away with her crossed his mind. She was a plain +little thing, but enormously rich. He might be able to be of more solid +use to Nancy and his child by such a step than by slaving for them +thirty years at twenty dollars a week. In a year perhaps, he might be +able to return to Nancy, comfortably well off. These erratic American +women were extravagant and generous, he knew. + +He had walked home that night with his head in the clouds, dreaming of +automobile trips across Europe, of staying at the best hotels and not +paying any bills. He had found Frau Schmidl awake, and Nancy in tears, +and Anne-Marie with the measles. He had stayed at home three days, +sitting in the darkened, stuffy little room, heating malted milk and +Nestle's food on a spirit-lamp, and singing arias from grand operas to +Anne-Marie, who liked nothing else. + +When he had gone back to the room in 66th Street nobody had been to ask +after him, and his work lay as he had left it. He had gone across to the +Van Osten's house, and had heard Mrs. Van Osten say in a high treble +voice: "I am not at home." And he had felt she was looking at him behind +the curtains as he crossed the road. + +He dipped his pen in the half-empty inkstand, and then impatiently +leaned it up against a pen-box. It fell over, and was emptier than +before. He looked round the room for an ink-bottle. He thought of +ringing the bell, but the old servant that appeared on the rare +occasions when he wanted her, had, after the first week, looked so +ill-tempered that he dreaded asking for anything. He looked about, and +opened drawers and closets. In a cupboard in the wall, on the top shelf, +pushed far back, he saw a packet of papers which he seemed to recognize. +He pulled them out and looked. It was his work of the week before--182 +pages, neatly written. What were they doing up there? + +He gazed at them for a long time; then he put them back. He resolved to +make an experiment. He rang the bell, and asked the untipped and +unamiable old servant to bring him some ink. + +When he had a full inkstand before him, he dipped in his pen and wrote: +"The debate concluded with the usual majority for the Government. La +donna e mobile qual piuma al vento. I wonder whether anyone will notice +that I am writing rubbish. Sul mare luccica l'astro d'argento Santa +Lucia, Santa Lucia." + +He finished the page, and put it on the others. Then he smoked +cigarettes, and read "Autour du Mariage" until it was lunch-time. While +he was at lunch a note was left for him. + +"Come this evening at eight, sharp." + +His finished sheets had been taken away as usual, and a new pile placed +on the desk for him to copy. He went to the cupboard in the wall, and +looked on the top shelf. Yes; the pile of papers at the back was larger. +He pulled it out; on the top lay the page with the jumble of Italian +words on it. He took a little heap of the sheets at random from the +pile, placed them on his desk, and left them there. Then he lay back in +his chair, and reflected. + +For three weeks he had been copying things out of old newspapers seven +hours a day. He had been paid twenty dollars a week for it. Why? Was +Mrs. Doyle a charitable angel who wished to help him and his family +without being thanked? No. He felt that was not it. His eye fell on the +note. "Come this evening." A light went up in his mind as he recognized +the fact that he was paid for the hours he spent in No. 8, not for those +he passed in No. 59. + +It probably meant that Mrs. Van Osten loved him, and must see him when +she wanted to. The work was but a pretext to keep him near her, within +call, away from others, perhaps. "Poor little woman!" he said. "How she +must suffer!" Then he reflected that twenty dollars a week was not much. + +At a quarter past eight that evening he turned into 66th Street, and +crossed Mr. Van Osten, who had just come out of his house. Aldo saluted +him respectfully, but Van Osten stood still and lit his cigar without +appearing to notice the greeting. + +He found Mrs. Van Osten alone, bare-shouldered, in black and diamonds. +She was agitated and angry. + +"You are late!" she cried. + +"Forgive!" he said, kissing her hand. + +She dragged it from him. "Did you meet my husband?" + +"Yes," said Aldo. + +"Did he see you?" + +"Yes." + +"Are you sure? Are you sure?" And she breathed quickly. + +"Yes." + +"He saw you? He saw you coming here and did not turn back----?" She +stopped, and the narrow lips closed tightly. Aldo looked at her, and +thought her positively ugly. She looked like a small, tight, thin, +crumpled edition of Mrs. Doyle. + +"Little young prairie-chicken," said Aldo to himself. But the butler +came in with the coffee on a large silver tray, and the under-butler +followed with the cream and sugar on another large silver tray. And the +riches, the atmosphere of calm, powerful wealth, overcame Aldo's soul; +his senses swam in satisfaction, and he felt that, however thin and +small and crumpled she might be, he yet could return the +prairie-chicken's love. + +When the servants had left the room Aldo felt that he ought to speak. +After a while he remembered what, once or twice, he had done with +acceptable success in Italy when alone with a comparatively unknown +woman. In a low voice he said: + +"What is your name?" + +Mrs. Van Osten raised glassy eyes. He repeated: "I do not yet know your +name." + +She took a sip of coffee, and said, very slowly and very clearly: + +"Mrs.--Van--Osten." + +"No--not that name," he said. "Your own name--your little name----" + +There was a slight noise in the hall, and the outer door closed. Mrs. +Van Osten heard it, and answered Aldo quickly with excited eyes. + +"Marjory," she said. + +Aldo bent forward over his coffee-cup. "Marjory?" he repeated softly. + +It succeeded. It succeeded far better than he had expected, or than it +usually did. + +"Say it again!" she said quickly. "I like to hear it. Say it again. +Quick!" + +"Marjory!" exclaimed Aldo, bending nearer, just as the door opened and +her husband came in. + +She turned to him at once. "Oh, Bertie! You have come back?" and she +laughed. Aldo looked at her. There was something in her voice and in her +laugh that he knew. He had heard it in women's voices before. It was +love. And love was in her eyes as she raised them to her husband's +frowning face. + +Then Aldo understood what he was there for. And more than ever, as he +looked at Mr. Van Osten's powerful frame, did he realize that twenty +dollars was little. + +He stayed only a short time, during which he was sad, and silent, and +bitter. And Mrs. Van Osten was pleased with his attitude. As he took his +leave, he suddenly decided to show her that he had understood. + +"Would you honour me by seeing 'Tannhaeuser' from my box at the opera +to-morrow night?" + +A gleam shot at him from Mrs. Van Osten's sly eye. Her husband laid his +large hand on his wife's bare shoulder. + +"We are engaged," he said. + +Mrs. Van Osten put her head against his arm. + +"Indeed, we are more than that, Bertie," she said, looking up at him +with an enamoured and rapturous smile. + +Aldo bowed and withdrew. + +The next day was Saturday. On his desk lay the mauve envelope, and in it +was a hundred-dollar bill. + +"I shall not need you now for a month or two, I believe," said Mrs. Van +Osten wistfully. She had come over to his "office" early on the Monday +morning. "But"--and she sighed deeply--"I do not suppose the effect you +have had upon my husband will last for ever." + +"Nothing does last for ever," said Aldo sententiously, seated before his +desk. + +"Then I shall send for you to come to the house again. Meanwhile, you +might hang round a little in a general way," said Mrs. Van Osten. "You +can send me flowers if you like. See that they are expensive ones. But +don't come over often. If he once kicks you out, it will make everything +impossible." + +"Yes," said Aldo. + +"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Van Osten; "why are such things necessary. Why are men +such beasts?" + +After a short pause Aldo spoke respectfully in a subdued voice: "May I +ask who _she_ is?" + +"You are impertinent," said Mrs. Van Osten, "but I may as well tell you. +Everyone knows. It is Madeline Archer, that dancing minx. She has made +half the wives in New York miserable!" + +Aldo made a little sympathizing, clucking sound with his tongue. +Meanwhile his thoughts were quick and definite. + +"If," he said, as she rose to go, "any friend of yours, one of the wives +you have just mentioned, wanted--er--would like--er--thought that I +could assist...." + +"Oh!" cried Mrs. Van Osten, clasping her hands with peals of laughter, +"you _are_ a daisy! Oh, you take the pumpkin-pie! Upon my word! You are +the greatest ever!" And she laughed and laughed, rocking to and fro. + +Aldo laughed too, glad to think he was so funny. + +"Before you know where you are, you'll be opening a bureau--'First Aid +for Neglected Wives.' 'Perfect jealousy-arouser of the careless or the +cooling husband. Diploma. References. Moderate tariff. Success +guaranteed.'" + +"Good idea!" said Aldo, laughing. And in a way he meant it. + +She stopped laughing suddenly. "You won't turn out to be a blackmailer, +will you?" + +"No," said Aldo, looking at her straight from out of his beautiful eyes. + +"I believe you," she said, putting out her hand. "Besides, Mum, who +knows a thing or two about human nature, said that you were a good, soft +old thing. And now," she added, with solemnity, "for what you have done +for me, and the way you've scared Bertie into good behaviour, you may +give me a kiss." + +She put up her narrow mouth, and Aldo, laughing a little, kissed it. + +"... I'm glad I have kissed a Count," said Mrs. Van Osten, as she went +down the stairs. + + + + +VIII + + +It was a bright autumn day when Valeria in Milan received Nancy's letter +from New York, telling her about those first weeks of misery. + +Valeria had an income of two hundred francs a month, which Uncle +Giacomo, who kept her securities for her, paid to her punctually; and +which she as punctually paid over to Aunt Carlotta for her board and +lodging, reserving apologetically thirty or forty francs for her own +small needs. On the day the letter arrived, Valeria locked herself in +her room, and went on her knees before Guido Reni's gipsy-faced Madonna. +The Madonna must help Nancy. She, Valeria, must help Nancy. + +Uncle Giacomo would give nothing that might fall into Aldo's hands; +Carlo less than nothing; he would only reproach and recriminate. As for +Nino, he had nothing to give. Aunt Carlotta would possibly lend five +hundred francs with great difficulty and many warnings. So Valeria +decided that she would raise some money from her own investments, and +arrange to have a smaller income for a few years. Nancy must have money. +So Valeria put on her hat and her black silk bolero coat with the lace +jabot down the front, and brown kid gloves, and went out to face a +stormy interview with Zio Giacomo. + +The interview was stormy. Giacomo's temper shortened with his breath, +and Valeria was wrung with anguish lest his anger should harm him, and +was rent with remorse when she had succeeded in obtaining what she +wanted. She would not say what the money was for, because she knew that +Zio Giacomo would oppose it, so she was mysterious and wilful, hinted at +tragic possibilities, wept and warned, and finally left Zio Giacomo +convinced that she had got herself into some serious financial scrape. +"Ah, these silly women," said Zio Giacomo, watching Valeria tripping +across the road, holding her violet leather handbag, her umbrella and +her long skirts in confused hands. At one moment she was right under a +horse's nose, but the driver pulled up suddenly, and the swerving +carriage went on, carrying on its box a red-faced, head-shaking, +remark-making, driver. "Silly women!" said Uncle Giacomo again, and +returned wrathfully to his desk. + +Valeria went to a bank, where, after much confusionary explanation, and +a quarter of an hour's waiting, she emerged with five thousand francs, +and some silver and pence. Her violet bag was fat with it all. "Now," +said Valeria to herself, "I will go to Cook's in the Via Manzoni, and +change it into American money. Or perhaps they can send it over in some +other way." Then she went along Piazza del Duomo, thinking of Nancy. +Poor, penniless Nancy! Poor little helpless mother of the still more +helpless Anne-Marie! "I wish Tom were here to look after us all!" she +said, stepping off the pavement to cross into Via Manzoni. + +If Tom had been there he would have stopped her. He would have caught +hold of her elbow, in the masterful way he always did when they crossed +a street together, saying: "Wait a minute." Tom would have seen the +tram-car coming rapidly from the right, and a carriage driving up from +the left, and behind the carriage--oh, quite a distance off--a motor +coming along smoothly and quickly. But Tom, or what was left of Tom, lay +in Nervi with folded hands, and nobody told Valeria to wait a minute. So +she stepped lightly off the pavement, holding her violet bag tightly in +one hand, and her umbrella and her skirts in the other. She saw the +tram-car coming from the right on the far side of the street, and +thought she would run across and pass in front of it. She ran two steps, +and then saw the carriage close to her, coming from the left. It was +impossible to cross before it, so she stepped back quickly, very +quickly, and the carriage passed. The driver's face was turned to her: +was that anger in his face? What a mad, terrible face! He was screaming +and gesticulating. What tempers people had in Italy, thought Valeria, +for thought is rapid.... Then something struck her in the back, and she +thought no more. A moment's maddening roar and clamour and confusion, +then utter stillness. + +... Valeria felt a cadenced, gently oscillating movement, and opened her +eyes. She could see nothing. A grey linen roof was above her, grey linen +walls around her. Ah, the walls undulated, parted slightly, and let some +light through. Valeria could see parts of shops, and of houses, and +people passing.... She was being carried through the streets. What was +the matter with her mouth? She raised her hand in its brown kid glove +and touched her mouth, and down along one side of it where she felt +something unusual; her glove seemed not to touch her cheek but her +teeth; then something hot and viscid ran into the palm of her hand and +down her arm. A hand--was it hers?--fell on her breast. Suddenly she +remembered her violet bag, fat with money. Where was it? She tried to +say, "Where is it? Where is it? It is Nancy's." She cried it out loud, +but could hear only a muffled bubbling and blowing through her mouth. +Then oblivion. + +... Now she was in a small, light room. Everything round her was light +and white; she saw the ceiling first. It was of glass--white frosted +glass. Everything was white; the people were white, except their faces, +which looked dark and yellow over their white clothes. One of the faces +looked at her very near, then another. Then a lighter face came with +white wings round its head. Valeria knew what that was, but could not +remember. She thought she would smile at that face, and did so, but the +face did not smile back. It continued looking at her closely, and she +felt a hand touch her forehead and smooth back her hair. + +Another face came, red, with bloodshot eyes, and someone took hold of +her head and turned it. A voice said: "Useless. But we can try." Then a +sound of running water. Valeria put out her hand to stop it. Immediately +the winged face was bending over her. "Yes, dear? Yes, dear?" Valeria +thought she told her to stop the running water. But the winged face only +nodded and smiled, and said: "That is a good, brave dear! We shall soon +be better--soon be better." Another face and a voice: "Shall I wash +this?" Then something gushed over Valeria's cheek and trickled, warm and +salt, down her throat. Something choked. Then there was a pain, a pain +somewhere in the room, a burning, maddening pain. A man's voice said: +"Leave alone. That's no use. Look at this." Valeria's head was turned +round again, and she heard a crepitant sound as if her hair were being +cut. Running water again.... Valeria's head lay sideways, and she could +see the white-gowned back of a man washing his hands under a silver tap. +She liked watching him. He turned round, shaking his wet hands in the +air with his sleeves rolled back. It was he who had the red face and +the bloodshot eyes, and a clipped grey moustache. He nodded to Valeria +as he saw her eyes open, and said: "That's good, that's right. A little +patience." Valeria smiled at him; she felt that her mouth did not move, +so she blinked with her eyes, and the red face nodded back in friendly +manner. + +Someone held her wrist, and for a while everything was silent. Again, +again, a shooting, maddening pain. An exclamation, and then a word: +"Useless." Valeria opened her eyes. She saw the white-winged woman's +face with her eyes fixed on the red face, which was bending forward, and +the two other faces were also bending over, looking down at something +Valeria could not see, for it was on her own pillow. Then the red-faced +man said: "Useless," again. And the white-winged face moved its lips. + +"Useless!" The word conveyed nothing clear to Valeria's mind, but +something in her body responded to the word. Thump, thump, thump, her +heart began to beat, loud and quick, louder and quicker, until it could +be heard all over the room. Thump, thump, thump, it rolled like a drum, +and Valeria turned her frightened eyes to the red face above her. She +said to him: "Stop my heart. Stop my heart from beating like this." But +the three men and the sister did not seem to hear. They stood quite +still listening to it, and then Valeria knew that she had not spoken. +Thud, thump; thud, thump; quicker and quicker, and Valeria's eyes rolled +wildly, imploring help. Then the Sister said to the surgeon: "Oh, try! +try, poor thing!" And again water rushed, and something was rolled +stridently across the marble floor. + +"Ether," said the surgeon. + +One of the yellow faces bent over her, and he had a dark net mask in his +hand. He held it over her face. + +Suddenly Valeria was wide awake. She sat up with a shriek, and struck +out at the yellow face and the mask. She saw the two doctors and the old +surgeon, and the Sister of Charity. She spoke and her voice came. She +wanted to say: "Save me! Save me!" but she heard herself saying: "I have +time to cross!" Then she tried to explain about the violet bag, and the +money, but what she cried was: "Nancy! Nancy!" Then the surgeon was +angry with the man who held the mask, and turned on him with impatient +words. But the Sister stood over Valeria, and made the sign of the cross +above her. "Lie down, dear, lie down," she said. So Valeria lay down. + +Thud, thump; thud, thump; thud, thump, rolled the drum of her heart. + +"Now," said the surgeon, "you must be good. Don't move! Count! Count to +twenty." + +Valeria struggled to get up. The black mask was near her face again. + +"Now, dear, now!" said the Sister's voice. "Count: one--two--three----" + +"Breathe deeply," said someone, and Valeria did as she was told. + +Then she remembered that she was to count. But she had lost time, so she +felt she must begin further on. "... Nine," she said, breathing deeply; +"ten." She was on a swing--a large, wild swing in the air that swung her +out in the sky and back through the wide, white air. "Eleven, twelve," +Valeria felt that she must say thirteen quickly because--unlucky +number--"thirteen ... fourteen...." + +The swing swung her out, flying through the air with a swoop and a sweep +beyond all the mountains. The people around her seemed to be left far +away, down in the little white room. They would never hear her voice +from so far away. "FIFTEEN!" she cried, shouting loud, loud, from afar. +Then the sweep of a gigantic wave swung her out into Eternity. + + * * * * * + +"I knew it was useless," said the Surgeon angrily. The face was covered, +and the stretcher was wheeled away. + +An hour later Zio Giacomo, Nino, and Aunt Carlotta came hurrying in, +red-eyed and white-faced. It was over. Aunt Carlotta wrung her hands, +and the Sister consoled her, and assured her that there had been no +suffering. + +"I want to see her," said Aunt Carlotta, sobbing. + +"No, no," said the Sister. "Don't." + +"Don't!" said Giacomo brokenly, the tears streaming down his face. Nino +said not a word, but went with one of the young doctors into the large +bare room where two stretchers stood, each with a shrouded burden. + +"This one," said the doctor, he who had held the mask. Nino saw, gasped, +and turned away. + +Aunt Carlotta was being led in, supported by the Sister. Nino grasped +her hand. + +"Come away," he whispered; "come away at once." + +Carlotta shook her head, her face buried in her handkerchief. "My +sister's child! My sister's only child! I must close her eyes." Nino +went out. + +Carlotta was led to the farther of the two stretchers. The cloth was +lifted from Valeria's face. Then shriek after shriek resounded through +the bare chill room, echoing through the wide corridors, reaching the +patients lying selfish and sad in their wards. Shriek after shriek. But +the two quiet figures on the stretchers were not disturbed. + +Valeria was buried in Nervi near Tom. + + + + +IX + + +When Nancy in New York received the news of her mother's death she wore +black instead of brown, and wept, and wept, and wept, as children weep +for their mothers. Then she wore brown again, and went on living for +Anne-Marie, as mothers live for their children. + +They had left Mrs. Schmidl's kindly, dingy roof, and moved a little +further away from the niggers, into a small flat in 82nd Street. Mrs. +Schmidl's niece, Minna, came and did the housework, and took Anne-Marie +for walks. Anne-Marie loved Minna. Anne-Marie watched her with entranced +gaze when she spoke to the tradesmen, and followed her from room to room +when she swept and did the beds. Minna wore low-necked collars, and a +little black velvet ribbon round her neck, and pink beads. She was +beautiful in Anne-Marie's sight, and Anne-Marie imitated as much as +possible her manner, her walk, and her language. Nancy could hear them +talking together in the kitchen. Minna's voice: "What did you have for +your tea? A butter-bread?" And Anne-Marie's piping treble: "Yes, two +butter-breads mit sugar." Minna: "That's fine! To-morrow Tante Schmidl +makes a cake, a good one. We eat it evenings." "A cake--a good one!" +echoed Anne-Marie. + +Nancy's soul crumbled with mortification. She had taken out her +manuscript, and it lay before her on the table once more. Its broad +pages were dear to her touch. They felt thick and solid. The tingling +freshness of thought, the little thrill that always preceded the ripple +and rush of inspiration, caught at her, and the ivory pen was in her +hand. + +"A cake--a good one," repeated in the next room Anne-Marie, who liked +the substantial German sound of that phrase. + +"Oh, my little girl! My little girl! How will she grow up?" And Nancy +the mother took the ivory pen from Nancy the poet's hand, and Anne-Marie +was called and kept, and taught, for the rest of the day. + +During the months that followed, Nancy played a game with her little +daughter which, to a certain extent, was successful. + +"We will play that you are a little book of mine, that I have written. A +pretty little book like Andersen's 'Maerchen,' with the pictures in it. +And in this book that I love----" + +"What colour is it?" asked Anne-Marie. + +"Pink, and white, and gold," said Nancy, kissing the child's shining +hair. + +"Well, in it, in the midst of the loveliest fairy-tale, somebody has +come and written dreadfully silly, ugly words, like--like +'butter-bread.' I must take all those out, mustn't I? And put pretty +words and pretty thoughts in instead. Otherwise nobody will like to read +the book." + +"No," said Anne-Marie, looking slightly dazed. "And will you put +pictures in it?" + +"Oh yes," said Nancy. "And I wish I could put rhymes into it too." + +But that was not to be. Long explanations about boy and toy--rain and +pain--fly and cry--far and star--left Anne-Marie bewildered and cross. + +Nancy coaxed and petted her. "Just you say a rhyme! Only one. Now what +rhymes with _day_?" + +No. Anne-Marie did not know what rhymed with day. + +"_Play_, of course, my goosie dear! Now what rhymes with _dear?_" + +"Play," said Anne-Marie. + +"No; do think a little, sweetheart. With _dear!--dear?_" + +"Vegetables?" asked Anne-Marie, who had spent many hours in Frau +Schmidl's kitchen. + +Nancy groaned. _"Dear_!" she repeated again. + +_"Darling!"_ cried Anne-Marie triumphantly, and was lifted up and +embraced. + +"I wish you were a poet, Anne-Marie!" said her mother, pushing the fair +locks from the child's level brow. + +"What for?" said Anne-Marie, wriggling. + +"Poets never die," said Nancy, thus placing a picture in the fairy-tale +book. + +"Then I'll be," said Anne-Marie, who knew death from having buried a +dead kitten in the Schmidls' yard, and dug it up a day or two after to +see what it was like. + +But Anne-Marie was not to be a poet. In the little pink and white books +that mothers think they create, the Story is written before ever they +reach the tender maternal hands. And Anne-Marie was not to be a poet. + +But Nancy herself could not forget that Fate had printed the seal of +immortality upon her own girlish brow. She thought: "I cannot finish +The Book now. The Book must wait until later on, when Anne-Marie does +not need me every moment. But now, now I can write a cycle of +child-poems on Anne-Marie." + +So she watched her little daughter through narrowed eyelids, throwing +over the unconscious blonde head the misty veil of imagery, searching in +the light blue eyes for the source of word and symbol, standing +Anne-Marie like a little neoteric statue on the top of a sonnet, trying +to fix her in some rare, archaic pose. But Anne-Marie was the child of +her surroundings; Anne-Marie wore clothes of Minna's cutting and +fitting, and on her yellow head a flat pink cotton hat like a lid. +Anne-Marie had spoken Italian like a royal princess, but her +German-American English was of 7th Avenue and 82nd Street. And +Anne-Marie's pleasures were, as are those of every child, taken where +she found them; for her no wandering in a shady garden, nursing an +expensive, mellifluously-named doll. Since the Monte Carlo +"Marguerite-Louise," whose eyes, attached to two small lumps of lead now +lay in a box on a shelf, Anne-Marie's dolls had been numerous but +unloved. At Mrs. Schmidl's suggestion, and for economic motives, Nancy +had gone down town one day to a wholesale shop in Lower Broadway, where +she had been able to buy "one dozen dolls, size nine, quality four, hair +yellow, dress blue," for two dollars and seventy cents. + +The first of the dozen was the same evening presented to Anne-Marie. It +was rapturously kissed; it was christened Hermina--Minna's name; its +clotted yellow hair was combed; attempts were made to undress it, but as +it did not undress, it was put to sleep as it was, and Anne-Marie went +to bed carefully beside it. + +In due time Hermina broke and died. What unbounded joy was Anne-Marie's +when Hermina herself, with the self-same azure eyes, clotted yellow +hair, blue dress, angel smile, reappeared before her. She was +rapturously kissed. In due time also this second Hermina, legless, and +with pendulous, dislocated head, was taken away from Anne-Marie's fond +arms, and a new stiff Hermina was produced, with clotted hair and angel +smile renewed. Anne-Marie's eyes opened large and wide, and she drew a +deep breath. With more amazement than love she accepted the third +Hermina, and did not kiss her. That Hermina died quickly, and Nancy, +with a triumphant smile, produced a fourth. With a shriek of hatred +Anne-Marie took her by the well-known painted boots, and hit the +well-known face against the floor. + +The other eight were given to her at once, and were hit, and hated, and +stamped upon. For many nights Anne-Marie's dreams were peopled with dead +and resuscitated Herminas--placid, smiling Herminas with no legs; booted +Herminas with large pieces broken out of their cheeks; fearful Herminas +all right in the back, but with darksome voids where their faces ought +to be under the clotted yellow hair. + +She would have no more dolls, and her pleasures were taken where she +found them mainly in the kitchen. She liked to wash dishes, because she +was not allowed to; and she could be seen whisking a kitchen-towel under +her arm in the brisk, important manner of Minna. She liked to see the +butcher's man slap a piece of steak down on the table; and the laugh of +the "coloured lady" who brought the washing was sweet in her ears. She +also liked the piano that was played in the adjoining flat--the piano +that drove Nancy to distraction and despair whenever she tried to work. + + "Rose of my spirit, Fountain of my love, + Lilial blue-veined flower of my desire----" + +wrote Nancy, trying not to hear the climpering next door. + +"Minna! Minna! What is that tune?" called Anne-Marie, jumping from her +chair. "Is it 'Eastside, Westside,' or 'Paradise Alley'?" + +"No, it ain't. It's 'Casey would waltz.'" + +"Oh, is it? Sing it. Do sing it, Minna." + +And from the kitchen came Minna's voice, a loud soprano: + + "Casey would waltz with the strawberry blonde, + And the band--played--on." + +Then Anne-Marie's childish falsetto: + + "Casey would waltz with the strawberry blonde, + And the band--play--don." + +Alas! even the cycle of child poems must wait until Nancy could afford a +larger apartment, and a governess for the "lilial blue-veined flower of +her desire." There was no "Stimmung" for lyrics in the left-top flat in +82nd Street. + +Aldo was at home a good deal during the day-time, yawning, reading the +interminable Sunday papers that lay about all the week, smoking +cigarettes, and wishing they could afford this and that. + +In the evenings he went out. His work, it seemed, was to be done more in +the evening than in the day-time, so he explained to Nancy. He explained +very little to Nancy. Once he had brought home one hundred dollars +instead of twenty, but she had been so startled and aghast, so nervous +and impatient to know how he had got it, and, above all, it had been so +impossible to make her understand the subtleties of his duties to Mrs. +Van Osten, that he had finally declared it was simply a present for an +extra important piece of work he had had to do. And the next time he +received a hundred dollars--about three months afterwards, when more +arduous duties once more developed upon him--he took eighty to the Dime +Savings-Bank, and brought the usual twenty dollars home. + +As soon as the little savings-bank book was placed in his hand, the +Caracciolo grandfather awoke in him again, and murdered the lazzarone +who cared not for the morrow. He became heedful of little things, +grudging of little expenses. The dingy flat was run on the strictest +principles of economy, and when a dollar could be taken up the steps of +the savings-bank and put away, he was happy. He had learned that by +making deep, grateful eyes at Minna over the accounts, she would keep +expenses down to please him; and many were the lumps of sugar and bits +of butter taken from Mrs. Schmidl's larder by Minna's fat, pink hand and +placed, sacrificial offerings, on the Della Roccas' shabby table. + +Anne-Marie's pink hats and Minna-made frocks had to last through the +seasons long after the "coloured lady" had washed every vestige of tint +and vitality out of them, and they were a thorn in Nancy's eye. Nancy +wore her pepper-and-salt dress day after day; it turned, and it +dyed--black, and when it was no more, she got another like it. + +The days passed meanly and quickly. And Nancy learned that one can be +dingy, and sordid, and poverty-stricken, and yet go on living, and +gently drift down into the habit of it, and hardly remember that things +were ever otherwise. + +The evenings only were terrible. When Minna had gone home, and +Anne-Marie slept, and Aldo had sauntered out to meet some Italians, or +had hurried in full evening-dress to his work, Nancy sat drearily in the +"parlour." From mantelpiece, shelf, and what-not photographs of unknown +people, friends of Mrs. Johnstone, the landlady, gazed at her with faded +faces and in obsolete attire; actresses in boy's clothes, and +large-faced children; chinless young men in turned-down collars; Mr. and +Mrs. Johnstone in bridal attire; their first-born baby with no clothes +on, now a clerk at Macy's. Hanging on the wall, with whitish eyes that +followed Nancy about, was the enlarged photograph of dead Mr. Johnstone, +and Nancy, in her loneliness, feared him. She covered him one evening +with a table-cloth, but it was worse. When, on her arrival months ago, +she had collected all these photographs and hidden them away in a +closet, Mrs. Johnstone, who liked to drop in suddenly, had arrived, and +looked round with a red face. + +"You don't want to do that," she had said, taking all the pictures out +again and setting them up in their places. She also would not allow the +large ornamental piano-lamp, that took up half the stuffy little room, +to be moved. It had cost thirty-two dollars. So it stood there in the +dark-carpeted, obscure parlour, and its yellow silk shade with the grimy +white silk roses pinned on it was an outrage to Nancy's pained gaze. + +One evening at bed-time Anne-Marie said to her mother: "I like the girl +next door." + +"You do not know her, darling," said Nancy. + +"Oh yes, I do. I talked to her from the back-window." + +"What is her name?" said Nancy, unfastening strings and buttons on her +daughter's back. + +"Oh, she told me--I don't know. A little dry name like a cough." + +Nancy laughed and kissed the nape of Anne-Marie's neck, which was plump, +and fair, and sweet to smell. At that moment the girl-neighbour knocked +and came in, with a bear made of chocolate for Anne-Marie. Her name--the +dry name like a cough--was Peggy. + +"I've just come in because I thought you seemed kind of lonesome," she +said, looking round the parlour after Anne-Marie had been tucked in and +left in the adjoining bedroom with the door ajar. + +She then told Nancy that she worked in a hairdresser's shop down +Broadway, "mostly fixing nails." "Sickening work," she added. "All those +different hands I have to keep holding kind of turns me. Especially +women's!" + +Nancy laughed. Peggy offered to fix her nails for nothing, and after +some hesitation Nancy allowed her to do so. + +"My! you have hands quite like a lady," said Peggy; and the cup of +Nancy's bitterness was full. Nancy quickly changed the subject. + +"Is it you who play the piano?" she asked. + +"No, my brother. He works in a shipping office. But he is great on +music." + +At this point Anne-Marie's voice was heard from the adjoining room: +"What is that piece that was lovely?" + +Peggy laughed, but could not say which piece Anne-Marie meant. After a +while she went to call her brother, who came in, lanky and diffident, +and was introduced as "George." Anne-Marie kept calling from her room +about the piece that was lovely, and finally the young man went back to +his flat, leaving the doors open, and played all the pieces of his +repertoire. + +But "the piece that was lovely" was not among them. Peggy and Nancy +said: "She probably dreamt it." But Anne-Marie cried "No, no, no!" at +the first note of every piece that was started. At last she wept, and +was naughty and rude, and the bear's hindlegs, which she had not yet +eaten, were taken away from her. + +Peggy and George were very friendly, and promised to call again. They +lived alone. Their parents had a sheep ranch in Dakota. + +"Rotten place," said George. "New York is good enough for me." And they +shook hands and left. + +After that, when Mr. Johnstone frightened Nancy more than usual, she +knocked at the wall in Anne-Marie's room with a hair-brush, and Peggy +came in, and spent a friendly evening with her. Sometimes George came, +too, and read the magazine supplements of the Sunday papers aloud. +George read all the poems. + +"He's a great one for poetry," said his sister. + +George passed his manicured fingers through his thin hair, and looked +self-conscious. + +"I guess all the real poets are dead long ago," he said. + +"I fear so," said Nancy. + +"Mamma!" came Anne-Marie's voice, distinct and wide-awake, through the +half-open door. + +"Yes, dear," said Nancy. "Good-night." + +"Mamma!" cried Anne-Marie. "Come here." + +Nancy rose and went to her. Anne-Marie was sitting up in bed. + +"What did he say?" + +Nancy did not know. + +"He said the poets were dead. All the real ones. You said poets could +never die." + +Nancy sat down on the bed, and pressed the little fair head to her +heart. + +"I will tell you about that to-morrow," she said. "And you must not +listen to what is said in another room. It is not honourable." After a +long explanation of what "honourable" meant, Nancy rose and kissed her. + +"You had better shut the door," said Anne-Marie. "One can't be +honourable if one can be not." + +So the door was closed. + +Early next morning Anne-Marie inquired about the poets. + +"Well," said Nancy, who had forgotten about it, and was taken unawares. +She spoke slowly, making up her story as she went on, and trying to put +another picture in the little book of Anne-Marie's mind. "Once the world +was full of roses, and poets lived for ever." + +"Yes," said Anne-Marie. + +"Then one day some people said to God: 'There are too many useless +things in the world. Roses, for instance. We could do without them, and +have vegetables instead.' So God took away the roses. And all the poets +died." + +"What of?" + +"Of silence," said Nancy. "They died because they had nothing more to +say." + +Anne-Marie looked very sad. Nancy made haste to comfort her. + +"Then God put a few roses back, for little Anne-Maries who don't like +vegetables (which is very naughty of them, because they do one good), +and so also a few poets came back into the world." + +"But not the real ones?" + +"Well, not quite real ones, perhaps," said Nancy. + +"Then what is the good of them?" asked Anne-Marie. + +Nancy could not say. Nancy could not say what was the good of not quite +real poets. But for that matter, what was the good of the real ones? +What was the good of anything? Nancy's thoughts went in drooping file to +her own work. What was the good of writing a Book? "I need not have +written any story at all," she said to herself. + +Perhaps that is what God will say when the dead worlds come rolling in +at his feet, at the end of Eternity. + + + + +X + + +Poverty and loneliness pushed Nancy along the dreary year, and she went +in her brown dress, with her heels worn down at the side, through the +autumn and the winter. Aldo was away for weeks at a time, and although +he seemed in good humour when he was at home, and dressed elaborately, +he was always parsimonious in the house, warning against rashness and +expense. + +Anne-Marie went to a kindergarten, where the grocer's children, and the +baker's children, and the milkman's children went, and she liked them, +and they liked her. + +And now April was here. Where it could, it pushed and penetrated; +through the trestles of the elevated railroads it spilt its sunshine on +the ground. And it ran into the open window of the 82nd Street flat, +and stretched its sweetness on the faded yellow silk of the hated +lampshade. + +To Nancy, who was moping in her dingy brown dress, April said: "Go out." +So she put on her hat, and went out. And, having no reason to turn to +the right, she turned to the left, and after a few blocks, having no +reason to turn to the left, she turned to the right, and ran straight +into a little messenger-boy, who was coming round the corner carrying +some flowers in tissue-paper, and whistling. + +Some trailing maidenhair escaping from the paper caught in her dress, +and broke off. "I am sorry," she said. + +"Can't yer use yer eyes!" said the boy rudely. + +Then April said to Nancy: "Smile!" And she smiled, dimpling, and said +again: "I am sorry." + +The boy looked at her, and turned his tongue round in his mouth; then he +sniffed, and said: "Here you are! This is for you." + +He pushed the bunch of flowers into Nancy's hand, then turned back, and +went round the corner again, whistling. Nancy ran after him, but he ran +quicker, looking round every now and then and laughing at her. When he +turned another corner Nancy stood with the flowers in her hand, +wondering. + +She opened the paper a little at the top, and looked in. Mauve orchids +and maidenhair--a bouquet for a queen. She walked slowly back to her +house, carrying the flowers in front of her with both hands, and their +idle beauty and extravagant loveliness lifted her prostrate spirit above +the dust around her. + +She went to her room with them, avoiding Minna, who was clattering +dishes in the kitchen, and, locking her door, sat down near the bed. She +drew the tissue-paper away, and the fairy-like flowers, scintillant and +bedewed, nodded at her. + +In their midst lay a letter, with the crest of a Transatlantic steamship +on the envelope. She opened it with timid hands. + + "DEAR UNKNOWN IN THE PALE BLUE DRESS, + +"I am sending this to you as a child sends a walnut-shell boat sailing +down a river. Where will it go to? Whom will it reach? I am leaving +America to-day. By the time you read this--are you smiling with +wondering eyes? or is your mouth grave, and your heart subdued?--I shall +be throbbing away to Europe on board the _Lusitania_, and we shall +probably never meet. But I am superstitious. As I drove down to the +steamer just now the words that are often in my mind when I travel +sprang with loud voices to my ear: + +"'Dort wo du nicht bist, dort ist dein Glueck.' + +"Do you know German? + +"'There _where thou art not_, is thy happiness.' + +"I am leaving America because I hate it, and have never been happy here; +probably my happiness was meanwhile in Europe, or Asia, or Australia. +But what, now that I am going to Europe, if my happiness were in America +after all? What if I were driving away from it, taking ships and sailing +from it, catching trains and leaving it behind? I stopped the cab, and +got these flowers on chance. + +"The steward has called a messenger, an impish boy with a crooked mouth. +He stands here waiting. + +"I look at him, and like to think that you will see him too. But you? +How shall we find you, the flowers, and my heart, and the +messenger-boy? + +"I shall tell him to stop the first girl he meets who is dressed in +light blue. That is you. And I reason that if you wear a light blue +dress you must be young; and if you are young you are happy; and if you +are happy you are kind; and if you are kind you will write to me, who am +a lonely, crabbed, and crusty man. + +"My address is the Metropole, London. + + "ROBERT BEAUCHAMP LEESE." + +Nancy placed the letter on the bed beside the flowers; she sat a long +time, with folded hands, looking at them. They brought but one message +to her eyes that were vexed with shabbiness, to her soul that was shrunk +by privation--riches. + +They belonged to another sphere. They had come up the wrong street, into +the wrong house. If they could have life and motion they would rise +quickly--Nancy could imagine them--lifting dainty skirts and tripping +hurriedly out from the sordid flat. + +Nancy laid her cheek near to the delicate petals, and her hand on the +letter. Her fancy played with an answer--an answer that should startle +him, surprise him. + + "How shall I hold you, fix you, freeze you, + Break my heart at your feet to please you!..." + +Yes, she could quote Browning to him, and Heine; she could paint a +fantastic picture of her light blue gown, against which the mauve +orchids melted in divine dissonance of colour; she would be wearing with +it a large black hat, with feathers curving over a shading velvet +brim.... + +She sighed, and went to the rickety bamboo-table, where the inkstand +stood on a cracked plate, and the ivory pen lay in demoralized +familiarity, with a red wooden penholder belonging to Anne-Marie. On +the cheap notepaper which she used when she wrote to borrow a saucepan +from Mrs. Schmidl, or to ask Mrs. Johnstone to wait until next week, she +wrote: + + "DEAR SIR, + +"The wrong girl got your letter. I was dressed in _brown_." + +She did not sign her name, but she read his letter over again, and, +seeing that he was lonely, and crabbed, and crusty, she added her +address. + +He answered to "Miss '_brown_'" at the address she had given him, and he +began his letter: "Dear wrong girl, write to me again." And she wrote +back to say that indeed she would not dream of writing to him. + +He replied thanking her, and asking if she were not the Miss Brown he +had met on board ship sixteen years ago, who had been so kind and +maternal to him, and had then had smallpox so badly. He hoped and +believed she was that Miss Brown. + +Nancy felt that she must tell him she was not that Miss Brown. And she +did so. And there the correspondence ended. At least, so she told +herself as she ran up the stairs after posting her letter at the corner +of the street. + +She was alone that evening, as so often. The piano-lamp was lit. The +little china clock on the mantelpiece ticked time away like a hurrying +heart, and Nancy suddenly realized that life was passing quickly, and +that she was not living. She was shut up in the dusky little flat with +Mr. Johnstone, and was as dead as he. A fierce excitement overcame her +suddenly, like a gust of wind, like a flame of fire--regret for her +wasted talents, resentment against her fate, hatred of the poverty that +was crippling and maiming and crushing her. What was she doing? Was she +asleep? was she drugged? was she dreaming? What had come over her that +she could let herself drift down into the nameless obscurity, the sullen +ignominy of despair? + +When midnight struck, Nancy leaped from her chair as one who is called +by a loud voice. Life was rushing past her; she would wake, and go too. +Some old French verses came into her head about "la belle" who wanted to +enter the "blue garden"; who passed it in the morning, and looked in +through the open gates. + + "La belle qui veut, + La belle qui n'ose, + Cueillir les roses + Du jardin bleu." + +And she passed at noon, and looked in through the open gates: + + "La belle qui veut, + La belle qui n'ose, + Cueillir les roses + Du jardin bleu." + +In the evening she said: "Now I will enter." But she found that the +gates were closed. + + "La belle qui veut, + La belle qui n'ose, + Cueillir les roses + Du jardin bleu." + +Some characters evolve slowly, by imperceptible gradations, as a rose +opens or a bird puts on its feathers. But Nancy broke through her +chrysalis-shell in an hour. From one day to the next the gentle, +submissive Nancy was no more; the passive, childlike soul clothed in +the simplicity of genius died that night--for no other reason but that +her hour had come--drifted off, perhaps, in the little dreamboat of her +childhood, where Baby Bunting sat at the helm waiting for her. And +together they went back, afloat on the darkness, to the Isle of What is +No More. + + * * * * * + + "DEAR UNKNOWN, + +"You are very persistent. Is it not enough to know who I am not, that +you needs must want to know who I am? What's in a name? A woman by any +other name would be as false. + +"Then call me, if call me you will, by the sweeping, impersonal, fragile +name of Eve. And picture me as Eve, with the serpent coiled round her +neck like a boa, and the after-glimmer of a lost Paradise in her +tranquil eyes. The tranquil eyes are blue, under dark hair. + +"What! more questions? Yes, I am young--not disconcertingly so. And +good-tempered--not monotonously so. And almost pretty--not distractingly +so. + +"And I write to you, not because I am temerarious, but because the month +is April and the time is twilight. And you are the Unknown." + +The Unknown answered. And she wrote to him again. She put all her +fancies and all her phrases into the letters. She wrote him lies and +truth. She described herself to him as she thought she was not--but as +perhaps she really was. In her letters she was a spoilt butterfly, +whirling through life with vivid wings. + +As she wrote she grew to resemble the girl she wrote about. She borrowed +money from Peggy and from George, who had fallen in love with her. She +would pay it back some day. She bought clothes, and ran up debts, and +signed notes, and resorted to expedients. All the cleverness that should +have gone into her book she used in her everyday life to wrench herself +free from the poverty that was choking her. "Nothing matters! Nothing +matters!" Only to get out of the mire and the mud--to lift little +Anne-Marie out of the hideous surroundings, to stand her up safe and +high in the light, out of reach of the sordid struggle. + +One day--a chilly afternoon in May--Aldo did not come home. Minna had +gone to fetch Anne-Marie from school, when a messenger rang and gave +Nancy a sealed letter. + +In it Aldo said the chance of his life had come, and that he could not +throw it aside--no! for her own sake, and for the child's, he would not +do so. He thought not of himself. His thwarted ambitions, his warped +talents, his stifled nature, had cried for a wider horizon. But not for +this was he taking so grave a step. One day she would know how he was +sacrificing himself for her sake. And he would open his arms, and she +would fall on his breast and thank him. (Here was a blur--where Aldo's +tear had fallen.) And he enclosed five hundred dollars. She was to be +careful, as five hundred dollars was a large sum--two thousand five +hundred francs. And she might take a smaller flat, and pay Minna eight +dollars a month instead of ten. And she had better not write about this +to Italy, as probably in a few months' time everything would be +explained, and now farewell, and the Saints protect them! And she was to +pray for him. And he was for ever her unhappy Aldo. + +The messenger had darted off as soon as she had signed his receipt, and +Nancy sat down, rigid and dazed, with her letter and the +five-hundred-dollar bill in her hand. + +Aldo was not coming back. Aldo had left her and the child to struggle +through life alone. All that day she carried her heart cold and stern as +a rock in her delicate breast. + +In the evening she went into his room. True, it was a mean and miserable +room. Everything in it--from the small window that looked out on a dark, +damp wall to the torn carpet, from the crooked folding-bedstead to the +broken piece of mirror leaning against the wall on the narrow +mantelpiece--everything was horrible, everything was good to get away +from. Nancy looked round, and pity drove the stinging tears to her eyes. +Poor Aldo! What had Aldo had, after all, to come home to? Not love. For +the love that would have carried them through and over such wretchedness +was not in Nancy's heart. Her love for him had been all for his beauty; +her love had been a delicate, sensitive, blow-away creature, half ghost, +half angel, whom to wound was to kill. And Fate had amused itself by +throwing bricks and bats at it, choking it under mountains of ugliness, +kicking it through crowded streets, dragging it up squalid stairs.... +When Nancy drew the sheet from its face, she saw that it had been dead a +long time. And she was sorry for Aldo. + +She pulled his trunk out from under the bed, and remorsefully and +compassionately put all his things into it--his books, his broken comb +and cheap brushes, his old patent-leather shoes that he wore about the +house instead of slippers, some packets of cigarettes. When she opened +his dark cupboard, and saw that all the new clothes had been taken away, +she smiled with a little sigh, and remembered how pale he had looked +when he said good-bye that morning. + +How had he got those five hundred dollars to give her? She knelt down +suddenly beside the open trunk, and said a prayer for him, as he had +wished her to do. When she rose and shut the trunk, she shut in it the +memory of Aldo, that was not to be with her any more. + +Anne-Marie hardly noticed her father's absence, talking of him +occasionally in the airy, detached manner of children; but Minna went +for a week with red eyes and swollen face. And after a while the +accounts rose with a rush. + +Nancy paid all her debts, bought some clothes, and gave Mrs. Johnstone +notice. She engaged a suite in a fashionable boarding-house on Lexington +Avenue. Peggy and George stayed with her the last day in the flat, and +helped her with her packing; but in the evening they went back to their +rooms, for they were expecting a friend--Mr. Markowski, a Pole--who was +to come and make music with George. + +Anne-Marie was asleep, and Nancy sat down in the denuded room where +everything belonging to her had already been put away. The dead Mr. +Johnstone looked sadly at her, and even the piano-lamp was bland and +dulcet, shining on the roses that George had brought her. + +The postman's double knock startled her, and she received from his hand +a letter. Aldo? No. It came from England, and was addressed to "Miss +Brown." She called the grinning postman in, and gave him half a dollar. +Thank you. He would see that all them "Miss Brown" letters and any +others were brought to her new address. She opened the letter; the +large, well-known handwriting was pleasant to her eyes. The little crest +of the Grand Hotel spoke to her of cheerful, well-remembered things. +She seemed to look through its round gold ring as through an +opera-glass, that showed her far-away things she knew and loved. "Hotel +Metropole." She imagined the brilliantly lit lounge, the gaily-gowned, +laughing women rustling past with the leisurely, well-groomed men; the +soft-footed, obsequious waiters; the ready, low-bowing porter; the +willing, hurrying pageboys; and beyond the revolving glass doors +London, bright, brilliant, luxurious, rolling to its pleasures. + +She sat down and answered the Unknown's letter: + +"The room is closed and warm and silent. The lamp and the fire give a +mellow glow to the heavy old-rose curtains, and to the soft-tinted +arabesques on the carpet. Some large pale roses are leaning drowsily +over their vase, and dreaming their scented souls away. + +"I am smoking a Russian cigarette (with a _soupcon_ of white heliotrope +added to its fragrance), and writing to you. + +"My unknown friend! Are you worthy of companionship with the scent of my +roses and the smoke of my cigarette--such delicate, unselfish +things?..." + +A piercing cry from the adjoining room made Nancy leap from her chair. +Penholder in hand, she rushed into Anne-Marie's room. The child, a slip +of white, was standing on her bed, pale of cheek, wild of eye, one hand +extended towards the wall. Her tumbled hair stood yellow and flame-like +round her head. + +"Listen!" she gasped--"listen!" And Nancy stopped and listened. + +Clearly and sweetly through the wall came the voice of a violin. Then +the piano struck in, accompanying the "Romance" of Svendsen. Anne-Marie +stood like a little wild prophetess, with her hand stretched out. Then +she whispered: "It is the lovely piece--the lovely piece that he could +not remember!" + +"It is a violin, darling," said Nancy, and sat down on the bed. + +But Anne-Marie was listening, and did not move. Nancy drew the blanket +over the little bare feet, and put her arm round the slight, nightgowned +figure. + +The last long-drawn note ended; then Anne-Marie moved. She covered her +face with her hands and began to cry. + +"Why do you cry, darling--why do you cry?" asked Nancy embracing her. + +Anne-Marie's large eyes gazed at Nancy. "For many things--for many +things!" she said. And Nancy for the first time felt that her child's +spirit stood alone, beyond her reach and out of her keeping. + +"Is it the music, dear?" + +Anne-Marie held her tight, and did not answer. Nancy coaxed her back to +bed, and soon tucked her up and left her. But the door between them was +kept wide open, and the sound of Grieg's "Berceuse" and Handel's +"Minuet" reached Nancy at her table, and helped her to add fantastic +details to her letter. + +The next morning they moved to the boarding-house in Lexington Avenue. +They did not see George, who had already gone down-town to his shipping +office; but Peggy helped them into the carriage, and with Minna ran up +and down the stairs after forgotten parcels. + +"What's wrong with the kiddy? She don't look festive," said Peggy, +handing a hoop and a one-legged policeman, survivor of the Schmidl's +Punch-and-Judy show, into the carriage to Anne-Marie. + +"Your music yesterday excited her very much," said Nancy. "She liked the +violin." + +"Oh, that was Markowski. He's a funny old toad," said Peggy; and she got +on to the carriage-step to kiss Anne-Marie. But Anne-Marie covered her +face, and turned her head away. She seemed to be crying, and Peggy +winked at Nancy, and said; "She's a queer little kid." And Nancy said, +"She does not like good-byes." Then Minna got into the carriage with the +cage of Anne-Marie's waltzing mice, for she was going to the +boarding-house with them to help unpack. + +"Good-bye! Au revoir! Come and see us soon!"... The carriage rumbled +off. Minna had counted and recounted on her fingers how many things they +had, and how many things they had forgotten, when Anne-Marie raised her +red face from her hands. + +"I _do_ like good-byes," she said. "But why did she say an old toad did +the music?" + +Nancy comforted her, and said it did not matter, and they were going to +a nice, nice, nice new house. + +The nice new house was expecting them, and a cheeky, pimply German +page-boy took their packages up. He was rough with the hoop and the +policeman, and held his nose as he carried up the waltzing mice. But the +room they were to have was large and sunny, and everything was bright. + +They went down to luncheon, and sat down at a table with many strangers. +Anne-Marie, who thought it was a party, was very shy in the beginning +and very noisy at the end of the meal. The boarders were the kith and +kin of all boarding-house guests. There was the silent old gentleman +and the loud young man; the estimable couple that kept themselves to +themselves; and the lady with the sulphur-coloured hair who did not keep +herself to herself. There was the witty man and the sour woman; there +were the ill-behaved children, that quarrelled all day and danced +skirt-dances in the drawing-room at night; and their ineffectual mother +and harassed father. There was also the Frenchman, the two Swedish +girls, and the German lady. + +The German lady sat opposite Nancy, and, having looked at her and at +Anne-Marie once, continued to do so at intervals all during lunch. Every +time Nancy raised her eyes she met those of the German lady fixed upon +her. They were kindly, inquisitive brown eyes behind glasses. Nobody +spoke to Nancy at luncheon, the sulphur-haired lady and the witty man +talking most of the time of their own affairs and their opinion of Sarah +Bernhardt. Nancy was kept busy telling Anne-Marie in Italian not to +stare at the two little girls, who seemed to fascinate her by their +execrable behaviour. + +In the evening Nancy went down to dinner alone. After the soup the +German lady spoke to her. + +"I hope the little girl is quite well," she said, nodding towards the +empty place near Nancy. + +"Oh yes, thank you. She has early supper and goes to bed." + +"That is English habit," said the German lady. "Were you in England?" + +"When I was a child," said Nancy. + +Then the fish came; and always Nancy felt the brown eyes behind the +glasses fixed on her face. At the mutton the German lady spoke again: + +"I heard you speak Italian," she said. "Are you from _il bel paese ove +il si suona_?" + +Nancy laughed and said: "My mother was Italian. My father was English. I +was born in Davos, in Switzerland." For some unaccountable reason the +German lady flushed deeply. She did not speak again until the sago +pudding had gone round twice and the fruit once--very quickly. + +"You speak German?" she said. + +"I had a German governess," said Nancy. + +Again the German lady's smooth cheeks flushed. Then every one rose and +went into the drawing-room, and Nancy went to her room and wrote to the +Unknown. + +"You ask me to talk about myself. Nothing pleases me better; for I am +selfish and subjective. + +"I am a gambler. I went to Monte Carlo some time ago. Oh, golden-voiced, +green-eyed Roulette! I gambled away all my money and all the money of +everyone else that I could lay hands on. I laid hands on a good deal. I +have rather pretty hands. + +"I am a dreamer. I have wandered out in deserted country roads dreaming +of you, my unknown hero, and of Uhland's mysterious forests, and of +Maeterlinck's lost princesses, until I could feel the warmth welling up +at the back of my eyes, which is the nearest approach to tears that is +vouchsafed me. + +"I am a heathen. I have a hot, unruly worship for everything beautiful, +man, woman, or thing. I believe in Joy; I trust in Happiness; I adore +Pleasure. + +"I am a savage--an overcivilized, hypercultivated savage with some of +the growls and the hankerings after feathers still left in him. I adore +jewels. I have some diamonds--diamonds with blue eyes and white +smiles--as large as my heart. No, no! larger! I wear them at all seasons +and everywhere; round my throat, my arms, my ankles, all over me! I like +men to wear jewels. If ever I fall in love with you, I shall insist upon +your wearing rings up to your finger-tips. Do not protest, or I will +_not_ fall in love with you. + +"I am feminine; over- and ultra-feminine. I wear nothing but +fluffinesses--trailing, lacey, blow-away fluffinesses, floppy hats on my +soft hair, and flimsy scarves on my small shoulders. I have no views. I +belong to no clubs. I drink no cocktails--or, when I do, I make +delicious little grimaces over them, and say they burn. They _do_ burn! +I smoke Russian cigarettes scented with white heliotrope, because surely +no man would dream of doing such a sickening thing. + +"I am careless; I am extravagant; I am lazy--oh, exceedingly lazy. I +envy La Belle au Bois dormant, who slept a hundred years. Until Prince +Charming.... + +"Good-bye, Prince Charming. + + "EVE." + + + + +XI + + +The next day at luncheon the German lady stared again, and looked away +quickly. + +Anne-Marie asked her mother: "What is Irish stew when he is alive?" +Nancy smiled and dimpled. Then the German lady, who had seen the dimple +and the smile, said in a sudden, loud voice, over which she had no +control: "Is your name Nancy?" + +Nancy looked up with a start. "Yes!" she said. And everyone was silent. + +"My name is Fraeulein Mueller," said the German lady, taking a pink-edged +handkerchief from her pocket and making ready for tears. + +"Fraeulein Mueller! Fraeulein Mueller!" said Nancy dreamily. "You read +Uhland to me, and Lenau, and ... 'shine out little head sunning over +with curls.'" + +Then Fraeulein Mueller wept in her handkerchief, and Nancy rose from her +seat and went round and kissed her. Then it was Fraeulein Mueller's turn +to get up and go round and kiss Anne-Marie; whereupon the sulphur-haired +lady remarked how small the world was; and the witty man said they would +next discover that he and she were brother and sister, and had she not a +strawberry mark on her left shoulder? + +After lunch Fraeulein Mueller asked Nancy to her room, and she held +Anne-Marie on her lap, and had to say the baby rhyme, "Da hast du 'nen +Thaler, geh' auf den Markt" about fifty times, with the accompanying +play on Anne-Marie's pink, outstretched palm, before she was allowed to +talk to Nancy. Then she told them all about the years she had passed in +an American family after leaving the Grey House, and about the little +house she had just rented on Staten Island--a tiny little house in a +garden, where she was going to live for the rest of her life. She was +furnishing it now, and it would be ready next week. + +"You must come to see it. You must stay with me there," said Fraeulein +Mueller, looking for a dry spot on the sodden handkerchief. "Oh, meine +kleine Nancy! My little Genius! Und was ist mit der Poesie?" + +The following week Fraeulein Mueller left Lexington Avenue for her +"Gartenhaus," as she called it, and three days later Nancy and +Anne-Marie went to stay with her for a fortnight. + +"What for an education has the child?" inquired the old governess, when +Anne-Marie had been put to bed after a day of wonders. What? +Strawberries grew on plants? Anne-Marie had always thought they came in +baskets. + +"She seems to know nothing," said Fraeulein Mueller. "I tried her with a +little arithmetic. Did she know the metric system? Oh yes, she said she +did, and wanted to speak about something else. But I kept her to it," +said Fraeulein sternly, "and asked her: 'What are millimetres?' Do you +know what the child said? She said that she supposed they were relations +of the centipedes!" + +Nancy laughed, and told Fraeulein Mueller about the Sixth Avenue School. +Fraeulein clasped horrified hands. + +"I will educate her myself. I suppose she is also a genius." + +"No, I am afraid not," said Nancy, shaking her head regretfully. "I wish +she were!" + +The two women were silent; and from the little bedroom upstairs, through +the open window, came Anne-Marie's voice, like tinkling water. + +"She is singing," said Fraeulein Mueller. + +"Oh yes; she always sings herself to sleep. She likes music." And Nancy +told her about the violin. + +"We shall buy her a violin to-morrow," said Fraeulein Mueller. + +And so she did. The violin was new and bright and brown; it was labelled +"Guarnerius," and cost three dollars. Anne-Marie pushed the bow up and +down on it with great pleasure for a short time. Then she became very +impatient, and took it out into the garden, and looked for a large +stone. + +"... It made ugly voices at me," she said, standing small and +unrepentant by the broken brown pieces, while Fraeulein Mueller and Nancy +shook grieved heads at her. + +"I do not think that music is her vocation after all," said Fraeulein +Mueller. "But we shall see." + + + + +XII + + +"Good-morning, my tenebrious Unknown. I am in the country, perched up on +a stone wall with nothing in sight but vague, distant hills and sleepy +fields. Queer insects buzz in the sun, and make me feel pale. I dread +buzzing insects with a great shivery dread. + +"Why are you not here? I am wearing a large straw hat with blue ribbons, +and a white dress and a blue sash, like the _ingenue_ in a drawing-room +comedy. And there is no one to see me. And the fields are full of +flowers, and I pick them, and have no one to give them to. Surely it is +the time in all good story-books when the heroine in a white dress and +blue sash is sitting on a wall for Prince Charming to pass and see her, +and stop suddenly.... But life is a badly constructed novel; +uninteresting people walk in and walk out, and all is at contra-tempo, +like a Brahms Hungarian Dance. + +"Prince Charming, why have you gone three thousand miles away?" + + * * * * * + +"Good-morning again. + +"This is a divine day--cool winds and curtseying grasses. + +"I am still here, living on herbs and sunsets and memories of things +that have not been. You are a thing that has not been. Perhaps that is +why you are so much in my thoughts. I have many friends whom I seldom +think of. I have a few lovers whom I never think of. And I have you who +are nothing, and whom I always think of. It is absurd and wonderful. + +"My lovers! You ask me who they are and why I have them. I have them +because they make me look pretty. I look pretty when I laugh. A woman's +beauty depends entirely upon how much she is loved. Did you not know +that? The best 'fard pour la beaute des dames' is other people's +adoration. + +"My lovers therefore have their use, but they are not entertaining. They +are uniformly sad or angry. Yet I am good to my lovers. I let them trot +in and out of their tempers like nice tame animals that nobody need +mind. I do not require them to perform in public; I sit and watch their +innocent tricks with kind and wondering eyes. + +"Et vous, mon Prince Charmant? What of you? Who are you making to look +prettier? Whose cheeks are you tinting? Whose eyes are you brightening? +Whose heart are you making to flutter by the hurry of yours? Who smiles +and dimples and blushes for your sake? I suppose you are falling in love +with your fair countrywomen--tall, tennis-playing English girls, with +cool, unkissed mouths and white, inexperienced hands. Ah, Prince +Charming, whom do you love? + + "EVE." + +He replied: "You have spoken. Whom do I love? Eve." + +She was glad. She lived a life of fevered joy. She was not Nancy. She +was the Girl in the Letters; and the Girl in the Letters was a wild, +unfettered, happy creature. Nothing seemed sweeter to her than this +subtle _amor di lontano_--this love across the distance. Ah, how modern +and piquant and recherche! And, again, how thirteenth-century! Was it +not Jaufre Rudel, the Poet-Prince, who had loved the unseen Countess +Melisenda for so many years? + + "Amore di terra lontana, + Per voi tutto il core mi duol," + +and who at last, coming to her, had died at her feet? Could they not +also love each other across the distance, wildly and blindly, without +the aid of any one of their senses? Surely that was the highest, the +divinest, the most perfect way of love! + +So Nancy lived her dream, and tossed the tender little love-letters +across the ocean with light hands. + + * * * * * + +"CHER INCONNU, + +"I write to you because it is raining and the sky is of grey flannel. +You will say that I wrote to you yesterday because the weather was fine +and the sky was of blue silk. + +"Ah, dear Unknown! It is true. You have grown into my life, like some +strange, startling modern flower, out of place, out of season, yet sweet +to my unwondering eyes. You are a black and white flower of words, +growing through your brief wild letters into the garden of my heart. + +"What a garden, mon ami! What a growth of weeds! what a burst of roses! +what a burgeoning of cabbages! An unnatural, degenerate garden, where +the trees carry _marrons glaces_ and the flowers are scented with +patchouli. + +"Into this luxuriance of perversity, this decadent brilliance of +vegetation, you have blossomed up, strange and new, for the delight of +my soul. That you should say you love me, you who have never seen me, is +sweeter perfume to my sated senses than the incense of all the thousand +seraph-flowers that bow and swing at my feet. + +"Good-bye. My name is Nancy." + +To this letter he replied by cable: "Nancy, come here at once." + +"'Come here at once!' The arrogant words go with a shock of pleasure to +my heart. I am unused to the imperative; nobody has ever bullied me or +told me to do this and that. I think I like it. I like being meek and +frightened, and having to obey. + +"'Come here at once!' I find myself timidly looking round for my hat and +gloves, and wondering whether I shall wear my blue or my grey dress on +the journey. I am nice on journeys. I am good-tempered, and wear +mousie-coloured clothes that fit well, and I have a small waist. All +this is very important in travelling, and makes people overlook and +forgive the many, many small packages I carry into the compartment, and +the hatboxes I lose, and the umbrellas I forget. When I am tired I can +put my head down anywhere and go to sleep; I sleep nicely and quietly +and purrily, like a cat. + +"I am really very nice on journeys. Also I am very popular with useful +people, like conductors and porters and guards. They take care of me and +give me advice, and open and shut my windows, and lock my compartments +even when it does not matter; and they bring me things to eat, and run +after all the satchels and parcels I leave about. + +"Your last letter says you are going to Switzerland. How nice! I should +like to be with you, throbbing away on excitable little Channel +steamers, puffing along in smoky, deliberate Continental trains, driving +the bell-shaking horses slowly up the wide white roads that coil like +wind-blown ribbons round the swelling breasts of the Alps; +table-d'hoting at St. Moritz; tennis-playing at Maloya; clattering and +rumbling over the covered bridges near Spluegen; wandering through the +moonlike sunshine of Sufer's pine-forest, where beady-eyed squirrels +stop and look, and then scuttle, tail flourishing, up the trees. I am +friends with every one of those squirrels. Greet them from me. + + "NANCY." + + * * * * * + + NEW YORK. + +"AMOR MIO DI LONTANO, + +"I am in the city again the horrible, glaring, screaming city, all loud +and harsh in the uncompromising July sun. How I long to-day for the +shade of the closed Italian houses, the friendly, indrawn shutters, the +sleeping silence of the empty streets, and, far-off, the cerulean sweep +of the Mediterranean! + +"And a new lover at my side! A brand-new lover, whose voice would sound +strange to my ears, whose eyes I had not fathomed, whose feelings I did +not understand, whose thoughts I could only vaguely and wrongly guess +at, whose nerves would respond strangely, like an unknown instrument, to +the shy touch of my hand. + +"Your letter is brought to me. Written at the Hotel Bellevue, Andermatt. +_Andermatt!_ How cool and buoyant and scintillant it sounds. It falls on +my heart like a snowflake in the humid heat of this town. + +"I have opened the letter. What? Only three words! + +"Again: 'Come at once.' Again the words, with their brief, irresistible +imperiousness, thrill my lazy soul. + +"If you write it a third time ... by all that is sweet and unlikely, I +shall come! + +"Will you be glad? Will you kiss my white hands gratefully? Shall we be +simple and absurd and happy? Or shall we fence and be brilliant, +antagonistic, keen-witted? No matter! No matter! The fever of my heart +will be stilled. My eyes will see you and be satisfied." + + * * * * * + +A cablegram to Andermatt. Reply paid. (Money borrowed from Fraeulein +Mueller.) + +"Dreamt that you had long black beard. Tell me that not true.--NANCY." + +Reply from Andermatt: + +"Not true. Come at once." + + * * * * * + +Nancy did not go at once. She had no money to go with; and, of course, +she never intended to go at all. + +He wrote: "Will you meet me in Lucerne?" and she replied: "Impossible." + +He: "I shall expect you in Interlaken." + +She: "Out of the question." + +He: "I shall be in London in October. After that I am off to Peru." + +So in September she wrote to him again. + +"I lay awake last night dreaming of our first meeting. It will be framed +in the conventional luxury of a little sitting-room in a Grand Hotel. It +will be late in the afternoon--late enough to have the pretty +pink-shaded lights lit, like shining fairy-tale flowers, all over the +room. Then a knock at the door. And you will come into my life. What +then, what then, dear Unknown? My hands will lie in yours like prisoned +butterflies; my wilfulness and my courage, my flippancy and effrontery +will throb away, foolishly, weakly, before your eyes. What then? Will +Convention guide the steed of our Destiny gently back into the well-kept +stables of the common-place? or shall we take the reins into our own +hands, and lash it rearing and foaming over the precipice of the +Forbidden, down into the flaming depths of passionate happiness? + +"Good-bye. Of course I shall not come." + + + + +XIII + + +Fraeulein Mueller came to town three times a week and taught Anne-Marie +arithmetic and geography. Of arithmetic Anne-Marie understood little; of +geography no word. She pointed vaguely with a ruler at the map, and +said: "Skagerrack and Kattegat," which were the words whose sounds +pleased her most. + +"The child is not at all a genius," said Fraeulein Mueller, much +depressed. + +One day George and Peggy came to visit them at the boarding-house. And +with them they brought Mr. Markowski and his violin. + +In the drawing-room after tea Nancy asked the shy and greasy-looking +Hungarian to play: and the fiddle was taken tenderly out of its +plush-lined case. Markowski was young and shabby, but his violin was old +and valuable. Markowski had a dirty handkerchief, but the fiddle had a +clean, soft white silk one. Markowski placed a small black velvet +cushion on his greasy coat-collar, and raised the violin to it; he +adjusted his chin over it, raised his bow, and shut his eyes. Then +Markowski was a god. + +Do you know the hurrying anguish of Grieg's F dur Sonata? Do you know +the spluttering shrieks of laughter of Bazzini's "Ronde des Lutins"? The +sobbing of the unwritten Tzigane songs? The pattering of wing-like feet +in Ries's "Perpetuum Mobile?" + +Little Anne-Marie stood in the middle of the room motionless, pale as +linen, as if the music had taken life from her and turned her into a +white statuette. Ah, here was the little neoteric statue that Nancy had +tried to fix! The child's eyes were vague and fluid, like blue water +spilt beneath her lashes; her colourless lips were open. + +Nancy watched her. And a strange dull feeling came over her heart, as if +someone had laid a heavy stone in it. What was that little figure, +blanched, decolorized, transfigured? Was that Anne-Marie? Was that the +little silly Anne-Marie, the child that she petted and slapped and put +to bed, the child that was so stupid at geography, so brainless at +arithmetic? + +"Anne-Marie! Anne-Marie! What is it, dear? What are you thinking about?" + +Anne-Marie turned wide light eyes on her mother, but her soul was not in +them. For the Spirit of Music had descended upon her, and wrapped her +round in his fabulous wings--wrapped her, and claimed her, and borne her +away on the swell of his sounding wings. + + + + +XIV + + +"Fraeulein, I have no more money--not one little brown cent in the wide +world," said Nancy, sitting on the lawn of the Gartenhaus, and drinking +afternoon tea out of Fraeulein's new violet-edged cups. + +"So?" said Fraeulein. For a long time her lips moved in mental +calculation. Then she said: "I could let you have forty-seven dollars." + +Nancy put down the cup, and, bending forward, kissed Fraeulein's downy +cheek. + +"Dear angel!" she said; "and then?" + +"What is to be done?" said Fraeulein, drying her lips on her new fringed +serviette, and folding it in a small neat square. + +"_Mah!_" said Nancy, raising her shoulders, swayed back into Italian by +the stress of the moment. + +"No news from your husband?" + +"Bah!" said Nancy, shrugging her shoulders again, and waving her hand +from the wrist downwards in a gesture of disdain. + +Fraeulein sighed, and looked troubled. Then she said: + +"You must come and live here, you and Anne-Marie. I will send Elisabeth +away--anyhow, she has broken already three lamp-glasses and a plate--and +we must live with economy." Fraeulein, who had lived with that lean and +disagreeable comrade all her life, then coughed and looked practical. +"Yes, I shall be glad to get rid of that clumsy girl, Elisabeth." + +Nancy put one arm round her neck and kissed her again. Then she said: "I +have only one hope." + +"What is that?" asked Fraeulein. + +It was Nancy's turn to cough. She did so, and then said: "There is ... +there are ... some ... some people in England who are interested in +me--in my writings. I think ... they might help ... I ought to go over +and see them." + +"Certainly," said Fraeulein, "you must go. And I will keep Anne-Marie +here with me. Then she need not interrupt her violin-lessons." + +"Yes," said Nancy. "You could keep Anne-Marie...." She sighed deeply. +"Of course she must not interrupt her lessons. I suppose you think I +_ought_ to go?" + +"Of course," said Fraeulein, who was practical. "A firm like that won't +do anything without seeing you and talking business. But mind, mind they +do not cheat! Authoresses are always being cheated." + +Nancy smiled. "I shall try not to let them." + +"Being English, perhaps they will not. In Berlin----" And here Fraeulein +repeated a discourse she had made many, many years ago in Wareside when +Nancy's first poem had been read aloud. Fraeulein remembered that day, +and spoke of it now with tearful tenderness. She also believed she +remembered bits of the poem: + + "This morning in the garden + I caught the little birds; + This morning in the orchard + I picked the little words." + +"What!" said Nancy. "Why did I 'pick the little words'?" + +"Perhaps it was 'plucked,'" said Fraeulein, looking vague. + + "This morning in the garden + I caught the little words; + This morning in the orchard + I plucked ... or picked the little birds----" + +--"or caught them," continued Fraeulein, much moved. + +"I cannot say that that sounds very beautiful," said Nancy. + +"Oh, but it was. It may have been a little different. But it was lovely. +And you were a little tiny thing, like Anne-Marie!" + +"Listen to Anne-Marie," said Nancy. + +Anne-Marie had insisted upon bringing her violin to the Gartenhaus, and +was now practising on it in the dining-room. The windows were open. She +was playing a little cradle-song very softly, very lightly, in perfect +tune. + +"That is indeed a Wonderchild," said Fraeulein. + +Markowski had called her a Wonderchild directly. When he had seen her +weeping convulsively after he had played, he had exclaimed: "This is a +Wonderchild. I will teach her to play the fiddle." + +And sure enough he had come to the house on the following day, with a +little old half-sized fiddle, like a shabby reproduction of the dead +Guarnerius, and had given Anne-Marie her first lesson. The lesson had +been long, and Anne-Marie had emerged from it with feverish eyes and hot +cheeks, and with anger in her heart. For the Bird, or the Fairy, or the +Sorcerer, or the Witch that made music in other violins, did not seem to +be inside the little shabby fiddle Markowski had brought her. + +"Be gentle, be gentle! and do what I say," said Markowski, with his +stringy black hair falling over his vehement eyes. "One day the Birds +and the Witches will be in it, and they will sing to you. Now, practise +scale of C." + +And Anne-Marie had practised scale of C--to Nancy's amazement, for she +thought that in one lesson no one could have learnt so much. In ten +lessons Anne-Marie had learnt fifteen scales and a cradle-song. In two +months she had learnt what other children learn in two years. So said +Markowski, who got more and more excited, and gave longer and longer +lessons, and came every day instead of twice a week. + +"What do I owe you?" Nancy asked him. "I can't keep count of the +lessons. You seem to be always coming." + +"Never mind! never mind!" said Markowski, waving excited, unwashed +hands. And as he had heard about their financial position from George +and Peggy, he added, "You will pay me ... when she plays you the Bach +Chaconne!" + +"Very well," said Nancy, who thought that that meant in a week or two. +"Just as you please, Herr Markowski." + +And then she thought he must be insane, because he was bent with +laughter as he packed away his violin. + +Fraeulein Mueller made accounts in a little black book all one day and +half one night, and in the morning she went to Lexington Avenue to see +Nancy. + +"I can give you eighty dollars. Will that pay your journey to England to +see the firm of publishers?" + +Oh yes, Nancy thought so. And how good of her! And how could Nancy ever +thank her? + +"Of course, those people will be glad to advance you something at once, +even if the manuscript is not quite ready," said Fraeulein, who was +romantic besides being practical. + +"I suppose so," said Nancy. + +"See that you have a proper contract. You had better ask a barrister to +make it for you." And Nancy promised that she would. + +So Fraeulein hurried off to the Deutsche Bank, and drew out eighty +dollars and a little extra, because Anne-Marie would have to have +puddings and good soups while she was with her. The thought of giving +puddings to Anne-Marie made her hurriedly take her handkerchief from her +pocket and blow her nose. + +"One day it shall be sago, one day it shall be rice, and one day it +shall be tapioca, with _Konfituere_." And Fraeulein Mueller hurried with +her eighty dollars to Nancy. + +But then a strange thing happened. Nancy would not go. Day after day +passed, and Nancy always had some excuse for not having packed her trunk +or taken her berth. Surely it was not so difficult to pack the little +things she wanted for a short business journey. Her new navy-blue serge, +observed Fraeulein, was very good, and the brown straw hat for autumn +would do nicely. + +"You must dress sensibly in a business-like way to go and see those +people," said Fraeulein. "It would never do if you went looking like a +flimsy fly-away girl." + +"No, indeed," said Nancy, smiling with pale lips. That evening she wrote +to George. He came up to town at the lunch-hour next day, and asked to +see her. She left Anne-Marie at table eating stewed steak, to go and +speak to him. + +"George," she said, keeping in hers the cool damp hand he held out, "I +want money. I want a lot of money." + +George slowly withdrew his hand, and pulled at a little beard he had +recently and not very successfully grown on his receding chin. + +"Then I guess you must have it," he said. + +"But I want a great deal. Two or three hundred dollars," said Nancy. "Or +four----" + +"Stop right there," said George. "Don't go on like that, or I can't +follow." And he pulled his beard again. + +"Oh, George, how sweet of you! how dear of you!" And she clasped his +moist left hand, which he left limply in hers. + +"The bother of it is, I don't know how I shall get it," said George. +"I'm just thinking that"---- + +"Oh, don't tell me--please don't tell me!" said Nancy. "I--I'd rather +not know! I know you won't steal, or murder anyone, but get it, George! +Oh, thank you! thank you so much! Good-bye!" + +And Nancy, as she looked out of the window after him, at his cheap hat +and his sloping shoulders, and saw him board a cable-car going +down-town, felt that she was a vulture and a harpy. + +"The Girl in the Letters has demoralized me," she said. + +He brought her four hundred dollars on the following Monday, and she +wept some pretty little tears over it, and covered her ears with her +hands, and dimpled up at him, when he began to tell her how he had got +them. She was the Girl in the Letters. She was practising. And with +George it answered very well--too well! She had to stop quickly and be +herself again. Then he went away. + +And she went out and bought dresses. She bought drooping, trailing gowns +and flimsy fly-away gowns, and an unbusiness-like hat, and shoes +impossible to walk in. She bought _Creme des Cremes_ for her face, and +_Creme Simon_ for her hands, and liquid varnish for her nails, and +violet unguent for her hair. + +Then she waited for the Unknown's next letter, saying + +"Come." + +The letter did not arrive. A day passed, and another. And he did not +write. A week passed, and another, and he did not write. Nancy sat in +the boarding-house with her dresses and her hats and her _Creme des +Cremes_. The entire four hundred dollars of George, and fifteen dollars +out of Fraeulein's eighty, were gone. + +Nancy sat and looked out of the window, and thought her thoughts. Could +she write to the Unknown again? No. Hers had been the last letter. He +had not answered it. Should she telegraph? Where to? And to say what? He +had gone to Peru. She knew, she felt, he had gone to Peru. The pretty, +silly, romantic story was ended--ended as she had wished it to end, +without the banal _denouement_ of their meeting. Better so. Much better +so. Nancy was really very glad that things were as they were. + +And now what was going to happen to her? She said to herself that she +must have been insane to borrow all that money and buy those crazy +dresses, those idiotic hats. What should she do? The terror of life came +over her, and she wished she were safely away and asleep in the little +Nervi cemetery between her father and her mother, cool and in the dark, +with quiet upturned face. + +Oh yes, she was really exceedingly glad that things were as they were! + +Half-way through the third week a telegram was brought to her. It came +from Paris. + +"Why not dine with me next Thursday at the Grand Hotel?" + +To-day was Thursday. + +She cabled back. + +"Why not? At eight o'clock.--NANCY." + +Oh, the excitement, the packing, the telegraphing to Fraeulein, the +hurry, the joy, the confusion! The stopping every minute to kiss +Anne-Marie; the sitting down suddenly and saying, "Perhaps I ought not +to go!" And then, the jumping up again at the thought of the boat that +left to-morrow at noon. + +Fraeulein came to fetch Anne-Marie at ten in the morning. She arrived +joyful and agitated, bringing a fox-terrier pup in her arms, a present +for Anne-Marie, to prevent her crying. + +"Why should I cry?" said Anne-Marie, with the hardness of tender years. + +"Why, indeed!" said Nancy, buttoning Anne-Marie's coat, while quick +tears fell from her eyes. "Mother will come back very soon--very soon." + +"Of course," said Anne-Marie, holding the puppy tightly round the neck, +and putting up a shoe to have it buttoned. + +"Don't let her catch cold, Fraeulein," sobbed Nancy, bending over the +shoe; and when it was fastened, she kissed it. + +"No," said Fraeulein, beaming. "She shall wear flannel pellipands that I +am making for her." + +The second shoe was buttoned and kissed. Her hat was put on with the +elastic in front of her ears. Her gloves? Yes, in her coat-pocket. +Handkerchief? Yes. The mice? Yes; Fraeulein had them, and the violin, and +the music-roll, and the satchel. The box was already downstairs in the +carriage. They were ready. + +"Let me carry down the puppy," said Nancy on the landing, with a break +in her voice. "Then I can hold your dear little hand." + +"Oh no!" said Anne-Marie. "I'll carry the puppy. You can hold on to the +bannisters." + +So Nancy walked down behind Anne-Marie and the puppy. Fraeulein was in +front, dreading the moment of leave-taking, and thinking with terror of +the possibility of travelling all the way to Staten Island with a loud +and tearful Anne-Marie. So she started a new topic of conversation. + +"You shall have pudding every day," she said, trying to turn round on +the second landing to Anne-Marie, close behind her, and nearly dropping +the satchel and the mice, as the violin-case caught in the bannisters. +"One day it shall be sago, another day tapioca...." + +"I don't like tapioca," said Anne-Marie, walking down the stairs. "I +don't like nothing of all that." + +They were at the door. By request of Nancy, nobody was there to speak to +them. But all the boarders who were in the house were looking at them +from behind the drawing-room curtains. + +"Then what do you like for dessert?" said Fraeulein, going down the stone +steps by Anne-Marie's side, while Nancy still followed. + +"I like peppermint bullseyes," said Anne-Marie, "and pink jelly." And +she added: "Nothing else," while the pimply boy and the maid hoisted her +into her carriage. Fraeulein got in after her, with the many packages. +And the puppy barked at the mice. + +"Good-bye, Anne-Marie! Good-bye, darling!" cried Nancy, kissing her with +great difficulty through the carriage-window across Fraeulein, and the +violin, and the mice, that were on Fraeulein's lap. "God bless you! God +bless you and keep you, my own darling!" + +The puppy barked deafeningly. The pimply boy nodded to the cabman, and +off they were. + +Nancy walked slowly back into the house, and up the stairs, and into the +desolate rooms. + + + + +XV + + +Peggy and George accompanied her to the boat, Peggy excited and +talkative, George depressed and silent. In his murky down-town office +George had felt himself of late more poet than clerk, and now he was all +elegy. She was leaving! She was going away with his heart, and she might +perhaps never return! She might perhaps never return the four hundred +dollars either. They belonged to a friend of George's--a mean and sordid +soul. George stifled the unlovely thought, born of the clerk, and +surrendered his spirit to the grief of the poet. + +Farewell! Farewell! The ship turned its cruel side, and hid the little +waving figure from his sight. It throbbed away like a great, unfaithful +heart, abandoning the land. Farewell! What were four hundred dollars, +belonging to a friend, compared with the torn and quivering heart-strings +of a lover? + +The ship heaved forward towards the east, rising and sinking as ships +rise and sink, carrying Nancy and her dresses, and her hats, and her +little pots of cream, to the Unknown. And the nearer they got to him, +the more frightened was Nancy. What if she should reach Paris, with the +fourteen dollars she still possessed, and he were not there? What if he +turned out to be a brute and a beast? What--oh, terrible thought!--if he +were to think her not as pretty as he had expected? She was not really +pretty. Oh, why had she not the pale sunshiny hair of the American girl +opposite her at table? Why not the youth-splashed eyes of the little +girl from the West, who was going to Paris to study art? Why not the +long, up-curling lashes of her light and starry glance? + +Nancy comforted herself by hoping that he himself might be hideous. But +if he were? How should she smile at him and talk to him if he were a +repugnant, odious monster? Then she reasoned that if he were a monster, +he would not have asked her to come. "Why not dine with me on Thursday?" +is not the kind of telegram a monster would send. No, he was not a +monster. + +What would he say to her when they met? Everything depended on the first +moment. She pictured it in a thousand different ways. The pictures +always began in the same manner. She arrived in Paris; she drove from +the Gare du Nord, not to the Grand Hotel where he was staying, but to +the Continental. She engaged a gorgeous suite of rooms. What! with +fourteen dollars? Exactly so! What did it matter? It was Rouge or Noir. +If Rouge came up, all was well. If Noir--_la debacle_! _le deluge_! +Fifty francs more or less made absolutely no difference. A few hours' +rest. An hour or two for an elaborate toilette; all the creams used, all +the details perfect. Then she would send a messenger, at a quarter to +eight, to his hotel: + +"Dear Unknown, I am here!" + +Then--ah! then, what? He arrives, he enters, he sees her. Then she must +say something. Ah! what? What are her first words to be? "_How do you +do?_" Dreadful! No, never that! "_Here I am!_" Worse, worse still. In +French, perhaps? "_Me voila!_" Ridiculous! No; she will say nothing. He +must speak first. + +Then she imagines his opening phrases. After a long silence his voice, +deep and trembling with emotion: "Yes, you are the Woman of my Dreams!" +That would be very nice. Or, then: "Ah! Eve! Eve! How I have longed for +you!" That would strike the right note at once. Or, then, with both +hands outstretched: "So _this_ is Nancy!" That would be rather nice. But +perhaps he will say something more original: "Why did you not tell me +you had a dimple in your chin?" + +Ah, how long Nancy lay awake thinking of those First Words! Nancy tossed +in her little berth, and turned her pillow's freshest side to her hot +cheek; and she palpitated and trembled, smiled and feared, repented and +defied, until the huge boat creaked against the landing stage of the +Havre dock. + +She arrived at the Gare du Nord at three o'clock. She drove to the +Continental, and engaged a suite of rooms that cost eighty francs a day: +a sitting-room, all tender greens and delicate greys, looking as if it +were seen through water, and adjoining it a gorgeous scarlet bedroom, +with a dozen mirrors a-shine, all deferentially awaiting the Elaborate +Toilette. + +Sleep was out of the question. By four o'clock the note that was to be +sent at half-past seven was written, and Nancy began her elaborate +toilette. She thought of ordering the coiffeur, but she remembered that +coiffeurs had always dressed her hair in wonderful twists and coils and +rolls, until her head looked like a cake to which her face did not in +any way belong. So she did her hair _a la Carmen_, parted on one side. +It seemed the style of hair-dress that the Girl in the Letters would +adopt. But when it was done it looked startling and impertinent. So she +unpinned it again and decided in favour of a simple, unaffected +coiffure. She parted her hair in the middle, plaited it, and pinned it +round her head. It _was_ unaffected and simple. She looked like the +youngest of the two Swedish girls in the boarding-house. She did not +look at all like the Girl in the Letters. So once more she unpinned it, +and did it _a la pierrot_--a huge puff in the middle, waving down over +her forehead, and two huge puffs, one on each side. It looked pretty and +unladylike. + +By this time it was six o'clock. The creams! First a little cold cream; +then _Creme Imperatrice_; then--she remembered the directions given her +by the person in the shop perfectly--a tiny amount of Leichner's rouge, +mixed with a little _Creme des Cremes_ in the palm of the hand, gently +rubbed into the cheeks and chin; then powder--rose-coloured and Rachel. +Now a _soupcon_ of rouge on the lobes of the ears and in the nostrils. +This, the person in the shop said, was very important. Then the eyebrows +brushed with an atom of _mascaro_, a touch of Leichner on the lips, an +idea of shadow round the eyes--and behold! + +Nancy beheld. Her face looked mauve, and her nostrils suggested a +feverish cold. Her eyes looked large, and tired, and intense, like the +eyes of the prairie chickens at Monte Carlo. + +Seven o'clock! She had forgotten her nails! For twenty minutes she +painted her nails with the pink varnish, which was sticky, and, once on, +would not wash off. Her fingers looked as if she had dipped them in +blood. + +Half-past seven! She must send the note. She rang the bell, and a +waiter came. He had been a nice, well-behaved German waiter, as he had +shown her respectfully to her expensive rooms. When he saw her as she +now appeared--she had hastily slipped into the lightest of the three +trailing dresses--the waiter stared; he stared rudely, with raised +eyebrows, at her, and took the note from her hand. + +He read the address, nodded, and said: "Jawohl! All right. C'est bon!" +And then he smiled. He smiled--at her!--and went down the passage +whistling softly. + +Nancy shut her door. She took off the trailing dress, and went to her +bathroom. She turned on the hot water and washed her face. She washed +off the shades and _soupcons_, the _cremes_ and the _mascaro_ from her +eyebrows and her chin, her ears and her nostrils. Then she pinned her +hair loosely on the top of her head, as she always did, and put on the +darkest of the three trailing gowns. But her nails she scrubbed in vain. +They remained aggressively rose-coloured, and Nancy blushed hotly every +time she saw them. She decided to put her hat and gloves on. She did so. +Then she sat down in her sitting-room and waited. She waited fifteen +minutes. + +Then somebody knocked. + +Nancy started to her feet as if she had been shot. With beating heart +she ran back into the bedroom and shut the door after her. No, it was +not quite shut; it swung lightly ajar, and Nancy left it so. She heard +the knock repeated more loudly at the outer door; she heard the door +open, and someone enter. Then the door closed, and steps--the waiter's +steps--went back along the hall. + +Somebody was in that room. Somebody! A man! A man whom she had never +seen. A man to whom she had written forty or fifty letters, whom she had +called "mon ami" and "mes amours," "Prince Charming," and "my unknown +lover"! + +Nancy stood motionless, petrified with shame, her face hidden in her +white-gloved hands. She would never go in--never! Not if she had to +stand here for years! She could not face that silent man next door. + +The situation was becoming ridiculous. The silence was tense in both +rooms. Ah, when three thousand miles had separated them, how near she +had felt to him! And now, with a few feet of carpet and an open door +between them, he was far away--incommensurably far away! A stranger, an +intruder, an enemy! + +Utter silence. Was he there? Yes. Nancy knew he was there, waiting. + +Suddenly Nancy was frightened. The one idea possessed her to get away +from that unseen, silent man. She would slip through the bathroom, and +out into the passage and away! She took a step forward. Her trailing +dress rustled. Her high-heeled boots creaked. And in the next room the +man coughed. + +Nancy stood still again, transfixed--turned to stone. + +Another long silence, ludicrous, untenable. Then in the next room the +First Words were spoken. He spoke them in a calm and well-bred voice. + +"Our dinner will be cold." + +Nancy laughed suddenly, softly, convulsively. Her voice was treble and +sweet as she replied: + +"What have you ordered?" + +The man in the next room said: "Fillet of sole." + +"Fried?" asked Nancy earnestly; and, knowing that unless she slid in on +that fillet of sole she would never do so, she passed quickly under the +draped portiere and entered the room. + +They looked each other in the face. She saw a large and stalwart figure, +a hard mouth, and a strong, curved nose in a sunburnt face, two chilly +blue eyes under a powerful brow, and waving grey hair. He looked down at +her, and was satisfied. His cool blue gaze took her in from the top of +her large black feathered hat to the tips of her Louis XV. shoes. + +"Come," he said, offering his arm. And they went out together. + +The dinner was not cold. Nancy hardly spoke at all. She was nervous and +charming. She sipped Liebfraunmilch, and dimpled and rippled while he +told her that he had mines in Peru, and that he had been away from +civilization for twenty years. + +"I went down to the mines when I was twenty, and came back when I was +forty. That is four years ago. I have been fighting my way ever since, +trying to keep clear of the wrong woman. I am afraid of women." + +"So am I," said Nancy, which was not true. + +He laughed, and said: "And of what else?" + +"Spiders," said Nancy, with her head on one side. + +"And what else?" + +"Lions," said Nancy. + +"And what else?" + +"Thunderstorms." And, as he seemed to be waiting, she added: "And of +you, of course." + +He did not believe it. But she was. + +After dinner he took her to the Folies Bergeres and then to the Boite a +Fursy; and he watched her narrowly, and was glad that she did not laugh. +Then he took her back to the hotel. They went up together in the lift, +and along the red-carpeted, boot-adorned corridor to her green and grey +salon. He did not ask permission, but walked in and sat down--large and +long--in the small brocaded armchair. + +"Are you tired?" he said. + +Nancy said, "No," and remained standing. + +He said, "Sit down," and she obeyed him. + +He sat staring before him for a while, with his underlip pushed up under +his upper-lip, making his straight, short-cut moustache stand out. He +was a strong, large, ugly man. Nancy suddenly remembered that she had +called him "toi," and said, "adieu, mes amours" to him in her letters, +and she felt faint with shame. He made a little noise, something between +a cough and a growl, and looked up at her. + +"What are you thinking?" he said. + +She laughed. "I am thinking that I called you Prince Charming, whereas +you really are the Ogre." + +"Yes," he said, and stared at her a long time. Then he got up suddenly +and put out his large hand. "Good-night, Miss Brown," he said. He took +his hat and stick, and went out, shutting the door decidedly behind him. + +The next morning at half-past eleven he came; he had a small bunch of +lilies of the valley in his hand. + +"Will you invite me to lunch?" he said. + +Yes, Nancy would be very pleased. She thought of the twenty-two francs +in her purse; but nothing mattered. + +They lunched in the dining-room, and he was very silent. Nancy spoke of +music, but he did not respond. + +"Do you sing?" she asked at last. + +He looked up at her like an offended wild beast. "Do I look as if I +could sing?" + +"No, you don't," she said. "You look as if you could growl." + +He smiled slightly under his clipped moustache, and did not answer. +Nancy gave up all attempt at conversation. Her heart beat fast. Things +were going wrong. He was tired of her already. He looked bored--well, +no, not bored, but utterly indifferent and hard, as if he were alone. +After their coffee he got up--every time he rose Nancy wondered anew at +his breadth and length--and led the way out. Nancy trotted after him +with short steps. He went into the lounge and took a seat near a table +in the window, pushing a chair forward for Nancy. + +"May I smoke?" he said, taking a large cigar-case from his pocket. + +Nancy nodded. He chose his cigar carefully, clipped the end off, and lit +it. Nancy could not think of a word to say. All her pretty, frivolous +conversation, all the bright remarks and witty repartee, wavered away +from her mind. She had not prepared herself for monologues. + +After the first puff he said: "You don't smoke, do you?" + +"Oh no!" said Nancy. + +As soon as she had said it a wave of crimson flooded her face. She +remembered writing that she smoked Russian cigarettes perfumed with +heliotrope. He had not believed her. How could she have written such an +idiotic thing? And suddenly she realized that she was not the Girl in +her Letters at all, and that he must be bored and disappointed. But no +more was he the Man of his Letters; at least, she had imagined him quite +different, with fair hair and droopy grey eyes, and a poet's soul. Then +she remembered that he had never spoken about himself in his letters at +all. + +At this point he looked up and said: "I like a woman who can keep quiet. +You have not spoken for half an hour." And she laughed, and was glad. + +When he had finished his cigar, he said: "I hope you have not left any +valuables in your room. It is not safe." + +"Oh no," said Nancy; "I haven't." + +"Have you given them to the office?" + +"No," said Nancy--"no;" and suddenly she remembered that she had told +him in her letters that she wore jewels all over her. + +Without looking up, he said: "Will you give me your purse? I will take +care of it." + +Nancy felt that if she went on flushing any more her hair would catch +fire. She drew out her purse and handed it to him. He opened it slowly +and deliberately. He took out the three sous and the two francs, and put +them into his pocket. Then he opened the middle division, and looked at +the twenty-franc piece. He took it out and placed it on the table. Then +he went through all the other compartments, gazing pensively at an +unused tramway ticket and at a medal of the Madonna del Monte. He put +those back again, and handed Nancy the purse. The twenty-franc piece he +put into a purse of his own, and into his pocket. + +"Now let us go for a drive," he said. + +Nancy, feeling dazed, rustled away, and took the lift to her room. She +pinned on her hat, took her coat and gloves, and just caught the lift +again as it was passing down. When he saw her, he said "That was quick," +and they went out together. A victoria was waiting for them. The porter +was profusely polite, and the horses started off at a loose trot down +the Boulevards and towards the Etoile. He asked her many questions +during the drive, and in her answers she was as much as possible the +Girl of the Letters. + +He sounded her about Monte Carlo, and she was glad that she was quite +_au courant_, and could mention systems and the Cafe de Paris. + +"Would you like to go there again?" he asked. + +"Yes--oh yes!" she said, clasping her mauve kid gloves. Then she fell +into a reverie, and she kept her hands clasped in her lap, for she was +saying an _Ave_ and _a Pater_ for Anne-Marie. + +The carriage was turning into the Bois when her companion said: + +"Where do you want to go?" + +Nancy said: "This is very nice. The Bois is lovely." + +"I mean where do you want to go to to-morrow, or the day after, or next +week. You do not want to stay in Paris for ever, do you?" + +She drew a little quick breath, and said, "Oh!" and then again, "Oh, +really?" and looked up at him with uncertain eyes. + +"Do not look at me as if I were the spider, or the lion, or the +thunderstorm. Tell me if there is any place on earth that you have +longed to go to. And when. And with whom." + +Nancy's eyes filled quickly with glowing tears. "I should like to go to +Italy," she said, "to a little village tip-tilted over the sea, called +Porto Venere." + +The Ogre, who had read "Elle et Lui," nodded, and said: "I know. +Anywhere else?" + +"I should like to stay a few days in Milan--to see some people who are +dear." + +"Et apres?" + +"I should like to go to Switzerland. Only to one or two little places +there--the Via Mala, Spluegen, Sufers--" + +"H'm--h'm," said he, and waited to hear more. + +"And then--and then--yes, perhaps to Monte Carlo--and oh, to Naples and +to Rome! But I want to stay longest in Porto Venere." + +He nodded, and said: "When do you want to start?" + +"To-morrow," said Nancy. + +"And how? In a train? Or by motor? Or by boat?" + +"I don't mind," said Nancy, hiding her face in her handkerchief and +beginning to weep. + +"And with whom?" There was a pause. "What about a maid?" + +"Oh, no maid!" said Nancy. Then she looked up. "With you," she said, +because the Girl in the Letters would have said it, and also because she +wanted him to come. + +"All right. Don't take much luggage," he said. + + + + +XVI + + +They went. They went through Switzerland. They drove down the wide white +roads that coil like wind-blown ribbons round the swelling breasts of the +Alps; they went up the barren Julier Pass, and through the shuddering +Via Mala, breakfasting at St. Moritz, table d'hoting at Maloya, +wandering through the moonlike sunshine of Spluegen's pine-forests, +clattering and rumbling over the covered bridges of Sufers. The +snow-tipped pine-trees, like regiments of monks with nightcaps on, +nodded at them in stately gravity; the squirrels stopped with quick, +beady glances, and scuttled away, tail-flourishing, up the branches, +while the bland Helvetian cows stood in the green meadows to watch them +pass. + +Every evening they went together down boot-adorned passages to the door +of Nancy's room. And there he said, "Good-night, Miss Brown," and left +her. + +They went on into Italy--straight down to Naples without stopping in +Milan, for Nancy would not see anyone she loved after all; for she could +not explain anything, and did not know what to say, and did not want to +think of anything just now. She would think afterwards. They clambered +up the Vesuvius; they wandered through Pompei; they went to Spezia, and +remembered Shelley; they went on to Porto Venere, and trembled to think +that the sharks might have eaten Byron when he swam across the bay; they +rowed about the Golfo, and ate _vongole_ and other horrible, +ill-smelling _frutti di mare_. And every evening, in the boot-adorned +passages of the hotels, he took her to the door of her room, and said, +"Good-night, Miss Brown." + +In Spezia a little steamer that was coasting northwards took them on +board. They were sliding on blue waters into Genoa, when Nancy, seated +on a basket of oranges, felt the touch of the Ogre's hand on her +shoulder. She looked up and smiled. He sat down on another basket beside +her. It creaked and groaned under his weight, so he got up and fetched a +heavy wooden case, dragging it along the deck to Nancy's side. + +"Now what?" he said. + +Nancy had grown to understand him well. Not for an instant did she think +that he was talking of the moment, or the next hour, as she had thought +when they had driven in the Bois, now more than a month ago. She knew +that he looked at life in large outlines, and seldom spoke of small, +immediate things. + +"Now what?" she echoed. He put his large brown hand on her small one, +and it was his first caress. It thrilled Nancy to the heart. His chilly +blue eyes watched her face, and saw it paling slowly under his gaze. + +"Now you must go home," he said. + +"Yes," said Nancy, "now I must go home." And she wondered vaguely +whether home was the boarding-house in Lexington Avenue or Mrs. +Johnstone's flat in 82nd Street. She decided that it was the flat, where +the bunch of orchids and maidenhair had come and lived almost a week. +Peggy and George would be her friends again, and the dead Mr. Johnstone, +and the naked baby, and the chinless young man would be with her in the +evenings. And Anne-Marie must leave Fraeulein Mueller's _Gartenhaus_, and +go back to school on Sixth Avenue. + +"What are your thoughts," said the Ogre. + +"... I was wondering what made you send that messenger-boy with the +flowers and the letter--the letter to the girl in blue.... It was not a +bit like you," she said. And, looking into the hard face, she added: +"You are not at all like that." + +"I know I'm not," he said. Then he added, with a laugh, "Thank God! But +we all do things that are not like ourselves now and then. Don't we?" +She did not answer. "Don't you?" he insisted. + +Nancy sighed and wondered. "I don't know. What is like me, and what is +not like me? I do not know at all. I do not know myself." + +"I do," said the Ogre. And there was another long silence. He had the +aggravating habit of stopping short after a sentence that one would like +to hear continued. + +"Speak," said Nancy. "Say more." + +"It was not like me to send those useless and expensive flowers out into +the world to nobody, and to write a crazy letter _in's Blaue +hinein_--into space. But we all have mad moments in our lives when we do +things that are quite unlike us." A pause again. "It was not like you to +write me those letters describing your old-rose curtains--afterwards +they were blue velvet--and your scented cigarettes, and your jewels, and +your lovers. And it was not like you to cross the Atlantic and come to +Paris and to supper with a man you had never met, in order to see +whether you could get money out of him." + +Nancy covered her face. "Oh!" she said, "have you thought that?" + +"Oh!" he said, "have you done that?" And there was silence. + +The Captain passed and remarked on the fine weather, adding that they +would arrive in less than an hour. Then he went by. + +"I liked your first letter--poor little truthful letter on the cheap +paper. You said you were the wrong girl. You were dressed in brown. I +could see you in your shabby brown dress--I knew it must be shabby--and +I liked the idea of doing something unexpected with a little money. Then +I was amused at your letter saying you were not Miss Brown. After that +the lies began." + +Nancy quivered. The houses of Quarto were coming into sight; the red +hotel of Quinto was gliding past. + +"How could you think that I would believe in the old-rose curtains in +the 300's of East 82nd Street, I who have lived five or six years in New +York? That showed me that you were a foreigner, or you would have known +that street numbers in New York tell their own tale. Then your letters +told me that you were a fanciful creature, and they told me that you +were lonely, or you would not have found time to write so much--a +cultivated, little fibber, who quoted every poet under the sun, +especially the out-of-the-way ones. Then, when I found out that you +had a child--" + +"Oh!" gasped Nancy, and the tears welled over. "You know about +Anne-Marie!" + +"I know about Anne-Marie. I even have a picture of her." He unbuttoned +his coat, and drew out his pocket-book, and from it a little snapshot +photograph, which he handed to Nancy. It was herself and Anne-Marie in +front of a toy-shop. They were in the act of turning from it, and +Anne-Marie's foot was lifted in the air. They were both laughing, and +neither of them looking their best. + +"Oh, but that's hideous of her," said Nancy. "She is quite different +from that." + +He smiled, and put the picture back into his pocket-book, and the +pocket-book into his breast-pocket. + +"When I had found out that you had a child, and that your husband"--he +hesitated--"was--er--Neapolitan, I understood what you were after, and +decided that I would--walk into it--que je marcherais, as the French +say. Et j'ai marche." A long silence, and then he said: "And now, what +do you want?" + +But Nancy was crying, and could not answer. "Do you want to go on living +in America?" Nancy shook her head. + +"What are you crying for?" and he took her wrist, and pulled one hand +from her face. + +Nancy raised her reddened eyes. "I am crying," she said brokenly, +"because all the--the prettiness has been taken out of everything. Yes, +I was poor--yes, I was miserable, and I was inventing things in my +letters; but I thought you believed them--and I thought you--you loved +me, like Jaufre Rudel. And I have never, never been so happy as when--as +when--I loved you across the distance--and you were the Unknown--and now +it is all broken and spoilt--and all the time you thought I wanted +money--I mean you knew I wanted money, and you had that hideous picture, +and"--here Nancy broke into weak, wild sobs--"you thought I looked like +that!" + +"That's so," said Jaufre Rudel. + +And he let her cry for a long time. + +Quarto had slipped back into the distance, and San Francesco D'Albaro +was moving smoothly into view. + +"I can't go on crying for ever," said Nancy, raising her face with a +quivering smile, "and the Captain will think you are a huge, horrid, +scolding English Ogre." + +They were nearly in. "Get your little bag and things," he said to her, +and she rose quickly and complied. Everybody was standing up waiting to +land. Oh, how good it was to be taken care of and ordered about, to be +told to do this and that! She stood behind him small and meek, holding +her travelling-bag in one hand, and in the other the umbrellas and +sticks strapped together. His large shoulders were before her like a +wall. She raised the bundle of umbrellas to her face and kissed the +curved top of his stick. And now, what? + +They drove to the hotel. Then they had dinner. In the evening they sat +on the balcony, and watched the people passing below them. Handsome +Italian officers, moustache-twisting and sword-clanking, passed in twos +and threes, eyeing the hurrying modistes and the self-conscious +_signorine_ that walked beside their portly mothers and fathers. The +military band was playing in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, and the music +reached the balcony faintly. Then Nancy told him about her work. About +the first book of verse that had set all Italy aflame, about the second, +The Book, the work of her life, that had been interrupted. + +He listened, smoking his cigar, and making no comment. Then he spoke. + +"There is a boat from here on Wednesday. The _Kaiser Wilhelm_. A good +old boat. Go over and fetch the child." Then he halted, and said: "Or do +you like her to be brought up in America?" + +"Oh no!" said Nancy. + +"Well, fetch her," he said. "And fetch the old Fraeulein across too, if +she likes to come. Then go to Porto Venere, or to Spezia, or anywhere +you like, and take a house, and sit down and work." + +She could not speak. She saw Porto Venere white in the sunshine, +tip-tilted over the sea, and she saw The Book that was to live, to live +after all. + +As she did not answer he said: "Don't you like it?" + +She took his hand, and pressed it to her lips, and to her cheek, and to +her heart. She could not answer. And his chilly blue eyes grew suddenly +lighter than usual. "Dear little Miss Brown," he said; "dear, dear, +foolish, little Miss Brown." And, bending forward, he kissed her +forehead. + + + + +XVII + + +The _Gartenhaus_ on Staten Island in the twilight, with lamplight and +firelight gleaming through its casements, and a little hat of snow on +its roof, looked like a Christmas-card, when Nancy hurried through the +narrow garden-gate, and ran up the tiny gravel-path. She had left all +her belongings at the dock in order not to lose an instant. Anne-Marie's +pink fingers were dragging at her heart. + +Fraeulein, foggy as to time-tables and arrivals of boats, had thought it +wisest not to attempt a meeting at the crowded, draughty, New York +landing-station. She had kept Anne-Marie indoors for the last three +days, saying: "Your mother may be here any moment." After the first +thirty-six hours of poignant expectancy and frequent runnings to the +gate, Anne-Marie had silently despised Fraeulein for telling naughty +untruths, and had whispered in the hairy ear of Schopenhauer that she +would never again believe a word Fraeulein ever said again. +Schopenhauer--whose name had been chosen by Fraeulein for educational +purposes, namely (as she wrote in her diary), "to enlarge the childish +mind by familiarity with the names of authors and philosophers"--was +sympathetic and equally sceptical when Fraeulein Mueller sibilantly urged +him: "Schoppi, Schoppi, mistress is coming. Go seek mistress! Seek +mistress, sir." But Schoppi, who had searched and sniffed every corner +of the hedge, and dug rapid holes round the early cabbages and in the +flower-bed, knew that "mistress" was a pleasurably exciting, but merely +delusive and empty sound. And so nobody expected Nancy as she ran up the +path in the twilight, and saw the lights shining through the casement. + +Her heart beat in trepidant joy. She had been so anxious about +Anne-Marie. During the last few hours of the journey she had had ghostly +and tragic imaginings. What if Anne-Marie had been running about the +island, and had fallen into the sea? What if a motor-car--her heart had +given a great leap, and then dropped, like a ball of lead, turning her +faint with reminiscent terror. She would not think about it. No, she +would not think of such things any more. But what if Anne-Marie had +scarlet fever? Yes! suddenly she felt convinced that Anne-Marie had +scarlet fever, that she would see the little red flag of warning hanging +out over the _Gartenhaus_ door.... + +Nancy made ready to knock; then, before doing so, she dropped quickly to +her knees on the snowy doorstep, and folded her hands in a childlike +attitude of prayer: "O God! let me find Anne-Marie safe and happy!" + +Almost in answer a sound struck her ear--a chord of sweetness and +harmony, then a long, lonely note, and after it a quick twirl of running +notes like a ripple of laughter. The violin! + +Nancy sprang from the doorstep, and ran under the window that was lit +up. She scrambled on to the rockery under it, and, scratching her hand +against the climbing rose-branches, she grasped the ledge and looked in +through the white-curtained glass. It was Anne-Marie. Standing in the +circle of light from the lamp, with the violin held high on her left +arm, and her cheek resting lightly against it, she looked like a little +angel musician of Beato Angelico. + +Her eyes were cast down, her floating hair rippled over her face. +Nancy's throat tightened as she looked. Then Nancy's brain staggered as +she listened. For the child was playing like an artist. Trills and +arpeggios ran from under her fingers like clear water. Now a full and +sonorous chord checked their springing lightness, and again the bubbling +runs rilled out, sprinkling the twilight with music. + +Nancy's hand slipped from the sill, and a rose-branch hit the window. +Then the fox-terrier's sharp bark rang through the house; there were +hurrying feet in the hall; the door was opened by the smiling +Elisabeth--and Fraeulein was exclaiming and questioning, and Anne-Marie +was in her mother's arms. Warm, and living, and tight she held her +creature, thanking God for the touch of the fleecy hair against her +face, for the fresh cheek that smelt of soap, and the soft breath that +smelt of grass and flowers. + +"Anne-Marie! Anne-Marie! Have you missed me, darling?" + +Anne-Marie was sobbing wildly. "No! No! I haven't! Only now! Only now!" + +"But now you have me, my own love." + +"But now I miss you! Now I miss you," sobbed Anne-Marie, incoherent and +despairing. And her mother understood. Mothers understand. + +"Anne-Marie! I shall never go away from you again! I promise!" + +Anne-Marie looked up through shimmering tears. "Honest engine?" she +asked brokenly, putting out a small damp hand. + +"Honest engine," said Nancy, placing her hand solemnly in the hand of +her little daughter. Schopenhauer, squirming with barks, was patted and +admired, and made to sit up leaning against the leg of the table; and +Fraeulein told the news about Anne-Marie having _doch gegessen_ the +tapioca-puddings, but never the porridge, and seldom the vegetables. +Then, as it was late, Anne-Marie was conducted upstairs by everybody, +including Schopenhauer, and while Elisabeth unfastened buttons and +tapes, Fraeulein brushed and plaited the golden hair, and Nancy, on her +knees before the child, laughed with her and kissed her. + +When she was in bed Elisabeth and Schopenhauer had to sit in the dark +beside her until she slept. + +"But, Fraeulein, that will never do!" said Nancy, as they went down the +little staircase together arm-in-arm. "You spoil her shockingly." + +"Hush!" said Fraeulein. And as they entered the cheerful drawing-room, +where the violin lay on the table, and the bow on a chair, and a piece +of rosin on the sofa, Fraeulein stopped, and said impressively, "You do +not know that that child is a Genius!" + +In Fraeulein's voice, as she said the word "genius," was awe and homage, +service and genuflexion. Nancy sat down, and looked at the little piece +of rosin stuck on its green cloth on the sofa. "A Genius!" The word and +the awestruck tone brought a recollection to her mind. Years ago, when +she had stepped into the dazzling light of her first success, and all +the poets of Italy had come to congratulate and to flatter, One had not +come. He was the great and sombre singer of revolt, the Pagan poet of +modern Rome. He was the Genius, denounced, anathematized and exalted in +turn by the hot-headed youth of Italy. He lived apart from the world, +aloof from the clamour made around his name, shunning both laudators and +detractors, impassive alike to invective and acclamation. To him, with +his curt permission, Nancy herself had gone. A disciple and apostle of +his, long-bearded and short of words, had come to conduct her to the +Poet's house in Bologna. It was an old house on the broad, ancient +ramparts of the city, where an armed sentinel marched, gun on shoulder, +up and down. Nancy remembered that she had laughed, and said +frivolously: "I suppose the Poet has the soldier on guard to prevent his +ideas being stolen." The apostle had not smiled. Then she had entered +the house alone, for the apostle was not invited. + +The Spirit of Silence was on the cold stone staircase. The door had been +opened by a pale-faced, stupid-looking servant, whose only mission in +life seemed to be not to make a noise. Three hushed figures, the +daughters of the Poet, had bidden her in a half-whisper to sit down. +They all had a look about them as if they lived with something that +devoured them day by day. And they looked as if they liked it. They +lived to see that the Genius was not disturbed. Then the Genius had +entered the room--a fierce and sombre-looking man of sixty, with a +leonine head and impatient eyes. And she, seeing him, understood that +one should be willing to tiptoe through life with subdued gesture and +hushed voice, so that he were not disturbed. She understood that he had +the right to devour. + +He carried her little book in his hand, and spoke in brief, gruff tones. +"Three women," he said, his flashing eyes looking her up and down as if +he were angry with her, "have been poets: Sappho, Desbordes Valmore, +Elizabeth Browning. And now--you. Go and work." + +That was all. But it had been enough to send Nancy away dazed with +happiness. The Devoured Ones had opened the door for her, and silently +shown her out; and as she went tremblingly down the steps she had heard +a heavy tread above her, and had stopped to look back. He had come out +on to the landing, and was looking after her. She stood still, with a +beating heart. And he had spoken again. Three words: "Aspetto e +confido--I wait and trust." + +She had replied, "Grazie," and then had gone running down the stairs, +trembling and stumbling, knowing that his eyes were upon her. + +"_Aspetto e confido_." He had waited and trusted in vain. She had never +written another book. And now he would never read what she might write, +for he was dead. + +Nancy still stared at the little piece of rosin stuck on its dentelated +green cloth--stared at it vaguely, unseeing. What? Anne-Marie was a +Genius? The little tender, wild-eyed birdling was one of the Devourers? +Yes, already in the _Gartenhaus_ there was the atmosphere of hushed +reverence, the attitude of sacrifice and waiting. Fraeulein spoke in +whispers; Elisabeth and the fox-terrier sat in the dark while the Genius +went to sleep. Her violin possessed the table, her bow the armchair, her +rosin the sofa. Fraeulein had all the amazed stupefaction of one of the +Devoured. + +"The child is a Genius," she was repeating. "She will be like Wagner. +Only greater." + +Then she seemed to awake to the smaller realities of life. "What did the +Firm say? When does your book appear? My poor dear, you must be tired! +you must be hungry! But, hush! the child's room is just overhead, so, if +you do not mind, I will give you your supper in the back-kitchen. +Anne-Marie, when she is not eating, does not like the sound of plates." + + + + +XVIII + + +So Nancy did not go to Porto Venere after all. Nor to Spezia. For there +was no great violin teacher in either of those blue and lovely places. + +There were only balconied rooms, with wide views over the Mediterranean +Sea, where Nancy could have written her Book, and seen visions and +dreamed dreams; but surely, as Fraeulein said, she could write her book +in any nice quiet room, with a table in it, and pen and ink, while +Anne-Marie must cultivate her gift and her calling. Anne-Marie must +study her violin. So Nancy wrote, and explained this to the Ogre, and +then she went with Anne-Marie and Fraeulein to Prague, where the greatest +of all violin-teachers lived, fitting left hands with wonderful +technique, and right hands with marvellous pliancy; teaching slim +fingers to dance and scamper and skip on four tense strings, and supple +wrists to wield a skimming, or control a creeping, bow. And this +greatest of teachers took little Anne-Marie to his heart. He also called +her the _Wunderkind_, and set her eager feet, still in their white socks +and button shoes, on the steep path that leads up the Hill of Glory. + +Nancy unpacked her manuscripts in an apartment in one of the not very +wide streets of old Prague; opposite her window was a row of brown and +yellow stone houses; she had a table, and pen and ink, and there was +nothing to disturb her. True, she could hear Anne-Marie playing the +violin two rooms off, but that, of course, was a joy; besides, when all +the doors were shut one could hardly hear anything, especially if one +tied a scarf or something round one's head, and over one's ears. + +So Nancy had no excuse for not working. She told herself so a hundred +times a day, as she sat at the table with the scarf round her head, +staring at the yellow house opposite. Through the open window came the +sound of loud, jerky Czech voices. The strange new language, of which +Nancy had learned a few dozen words, rang in her ears continuously: +Kavarna ... Vychod ... Lekarna ... the senseless words turned in her +head like a many-coloured merry-go-round. Even at night in her dreams +she seemed to be holding conversations in Czech. But that would pass, +and she would be able to work; for now she had no anxieties and no +preoccupations. Fraeulein looked after Anne-Marie, body and soul, with +unceasing and agitated care, deeming it as important that she should +have her walk as that she should play the "Zigeunerweisen," that she +should say her prayers as that she should eat her soup. And Nancy had no +material preoccupations either. She had decided to accept gratefully, +and without scruple, all that she needed for two years from her friend +the Ogre. Long before then The Book would be out, and she could repay +him. And what mattered repaying him? All he wanted was that she should +be happy, and live her own life for two years. He would have to go back +to Peru, and stay there for about that period of time. Let her meanwhile +live her own life and fulfil her destiny--thus he wrote to her. And the +Prager Bankverein had money for her when she needed it. + +So Nancy sat before her manuscripts and lived her own life, and tried +not to hear the violin, and not to mind interruptions. In her heart was +a great longing--the longing to see the Ogre again before he left +Europe, a great, aching desire for the blue chilliness of his eyes, for +his stern manner, and his gruff voice, and for the shy greatness of his +heart that her own heart loved and understood. + +And besides this ache was the yearn and strain and sorrow of her destiny +unfulfilled. For once again the sense of time passing, of life running +out of her grasp, bit at her breast like an adder. + + "La belle qui veut, + La belle qui n'ose + Cueillir les roses + Du jardin bleu." + +She sat down and wrote to him. "I cannot work. I cannot work. I am swept +away and overwhelmed by some chimeric longing that has no name. My soul +drowns and is lost in its indefinite and fathomless desire. Will you +take me away before you go, away to some rose-lit, jasmine-starred nook +in Italy, where my heart may find peace again? I feel such strength, +such boundless, turbulent power, yet my spirit is pinioned and held down +like a giant angel sitting in a cave with huge wings furled.... + +"You have unclosed the sweep of heaven before me; I will bring the +sunshot skies down to your feet...." + +The door opened, and Fraeulein's head appeared, solemn and sibylline, +with tears shining behind her spectacles. + +"Nancy, to-day for the first time Anne-Marie is to play Beethoven. Will +you come?" + +Yes, Nancy would come. She followed Fraeulein into the room where +Anne-Marie was with the Professor and his assistant. + +The Professor did not like to play the piano, so he had brought the +assistant with him, who sat at the piano, nodding a large, rough black +head in time to the music. Anne-Marie was in front of her stand. The +Professor, with his hands behind him, watched her. The Beethoven Romance +in F began. + +The simple initial melody slid smoothly from under the child's fingers, +and was taken up and repeated by the piano. The willful crescendo of +the second phrase worked itself up to the passionate high note, and was +coaxed back again into gentleness by the shy and tender trills, as a +wrathful man by the call of a child. Martial notes by the piano. The +assistant's head bobbed violently, and now Beethoven led Anne-Marie's +bow, gently, by tardigrade steps, into the first melody again. Once +more, the head at the piano bobbed over his solo. Then, on the high F, +down came the bow of Anne-Marie, decisive and vehement. + +"That's right!" shouted the Professor suddenly. "Fa, mi, sol--play that +on the fourth string." + +Anne-Marie nodded without stopping. Eight accented notes by the piano, +echoed by Anne-Marie. + +"That is to sound like a trumpet!" cried the master. + +"Yes, yes; I remember," said Anne-Marie. + +And now for the third time the melody returned, and Anne-Marie played it +softly, as in a dream, with a _gruppetto_ in _pianissimo_ that made the +Professor push his hands into his pockets, and the assistant turn his +head from the piano to look at her. At the end the slowly ascending +scales soared and floated into the distance, and the three last, calling +notes fell from far away. + +No one spoke for a moment; then the Professor went close to the child +and said: + +"Why did you say, 'I remember' when I told you about the trumpet +notes?" + +"I don't know," said Anne-Marie, with the vague look she always had +after she had played. + +"What did you mean?" + +"I meant that I understood," said Anne-Marie. + +The Professor frowned at her, while his lips worked. + +"You said, 'I remember.' And I believe you remember. I believe you are +not learning anything new. You are remembering something you have known +before." + +Fraeulein intervened excitedly. "Ach! Herr Professor! I assure you the +child has never seen that piece! I have been with her since the first +day she _ueberhaupt_ had the violin, and--" + +The Professor waved an impatient hand. He was still looking at +Anne-Marie. "Who is it?" and he shook his grey head tremulously. "Whom +have we here? Is it Paganini? Or Mozart? I hope it is Mozart." Then he +turned to the man at the piano, who had his elbows on the notes, and his +face hidden in his hands. "What say you, Bertolini? Who is with us in +this involucrum?" + +"I know not. I am mute," said the black-haired man in moved tones. + +"Thank the Fates that you are not deaf," said the Professor, looking +vaguely for his hat, "or you would not have heard this wonder." + +Then he took his leave, for he was a busy man. Bertolini remained to +pack up the Professor's precious Guarnerius del Gesu, dearer to him than +wife and child, and his music, and his gloves, and his glasses, and +anything else that he left behind him, for the Professor was an +absent-minded man. + +Then Nancy said to the assistant: "Are you Italian?" + +"Sissignora," said Bertolini eagerly. + +"So am I," said Nancy. And they were friends. + +Bertolini came the next day to ask if he might practise with "little +Wunder," as he called her. He also came the next day, and the day after, +and then every day. He was a second-rate violinist, and a third-rate +pianist; but he was an absolutely first-rate musician, an extravagant, +impassioned, boisterous musician, whose shouts of excitement, after the +first half-hour of polite shyness, could be heard all over the house. + +Anne-Marie loved to hear him vociferate. She used to watch his face when +she purposely played a false note; she liked to see him crinkle up his +nose as if something had stung him, and open a wild mouth to shout. Once +she played through an entire piece in F, making every B natural instead +of flat. "Si bemolle! B flat!" said Bertolini the first time. +"_Bemolle!_" cried Bertolini the second time. "BEMOLLE!" he roared, +trampling on the pedals, and with his hand grasping his hair, that +looked like a curly black mat fitted well over his head. + +"What is the matter with Bemolle?" asked Fraeulein, raising bland eyes +from her needlework. + +Anne-Marie laughed. "I don't know what is the matter with him. I think +he's crazy." And thus Signor Bertolini was christened Bemolle for all +time. + +Bemolle, who was a composer, now composed no more. He soon became one of +the Devoured. His mornings were given up to the Professor; his +afternoons he gave to Anne-Marie. He would arrive soon after lunch, and +sit down at the piano, tempting the child from playthings or story-book +by rippling accompaniments or dulcet chords. And because the Professor +had said: "With this child one can begin at the end," Bemolle lured her +long before her ninth birthday across the ditches and pitfalls of Ernst +and Paganini, over the peaks and crests of Beethoven and Bach. + +On the day that Nancy was called from her writing to hear Anne-Marie +play Bach's "Chaconne," Nancy folded up the scarf that she had used to +cover her ears with, and put it away. Then she took her manuscripts, +and kissed them, and said good-bye to them for ever, and put them away. + + * * * * * + +Soon afterwards the Ogre came to Prague. He had received Nancy's letter +about Italy, and had come to answer it in person. It was good to see him +again. His largeness filled the room, his mastery controlled and soothed +the spirit. He was the "wall" that Clarissa had spoken of in the Villa +Solitudine long ago. + +Lucky is the woman who belongs to a wall. When she has bruised and +fretted herself in trying to push through it, and get round it, and jump +over it, let her sit down quietly in its protecting shadow and be +grateful. + +An hour after his arrival the imperious Anne-Marie was subjugated and +entranced, Fraeulein was a-bustle and a-quiver with solicitude as to his +physical welfare, and Nancy sat back in a large armchair, and felt that +nothing could hurt, or ruffle, or trouble her any more. + +In the evening, when Fraeulein had taken Anne-Marie to bed, the Ogre +smoked his long cigar, and said to Nancy: + +"There is no jasmine in this season in Italy. And not many roses. But +the place that you asked for is ready. It has a large garden. When I +have settled you there, I am going to Peru." + +"Oh, must you?" said Nancy. "Must you really?" + +"The Mina de l'Agua needs looking after. Something has gone wrong with +it. I ought to have gone three months ago, when I first wrote to you +that I should," said the Ogre. "But enough. That does not concern you." + +Nancy looked very meek. "I am sorry," she said apologetically. + +"Very well," said the Ogre "Now let us talk about your work and Italy. +When do you start?" + +Those four words thrilled Nancy with indescribable joy. "When do you +start?" What a serene, what an attractive phrase! + +"Can you be ready on Thursday?" Again the balm and charm of the question +ran into Nancy's veins. She felt that she could listen to questions of +this kind for ever. But he stopped questioning, and expected an answer. +It was a hesitant answer. She said: + +"What about Anne-Marie's violin?" + +He waited for her to explain, and she did so. Anne-Marie was going to be +a portentous virtuosa. The great master had said so. It would never do +to take her away from Prague. Nowhere would she get such lessons, +nowhere would there be a Bemolle to devote himself utterly and entirely +to her. + +The Ogre listened with his eyes fixed on Nancy. + +"Well? Then what?" + +"Ah!" said Nancy. "Then what!" And she sighed. + +"Do you want to leave her here?" asked the Ogre. + +"No," said Nancy. + +"Do you want to take her with you?" + +"N-no," said Nancy. + +"Then what?" said the Ogre again. + +Nancy raised her clouded eyes under their wing-like eyebrows to his +strong face. "Help me," she said. + +He finished smoking his cigar without speaking; then he helped her. He +looked in her face with his firm eyes while he spoke to her. + +He said: "You cannot tread two ways at once. You said your genius was a +giant angel sitting in a cave, with huge wings furled." + +"Yes; but since then the genius of Anne-Marie has flown with clarion +wings into the light." + +"You said that your unexpressed thoughts, your unfulfilled destiny, hurt +you." + +"Yes; but am I to silence a singing fountain of music in order that my +silent, unwritten books may live?" + +He did not speak for some time. Then he said: "Has it never occurred to +you that it might be better for the little girl to be just a little +girl, and nothing else?" + +"No," said Nancy. "It never occurred to me." + +"Might it not have been better if you yourself, instead of being a poet, +had been merely a happy woman?" + +"Ah, perhaps!" said Nancy. "But Glory looked me in the face when I was +young--Glory, the sorcerer!--the Pied Piper!--and I have had to follow. +Through the days and the nights, through and over and across everything, +his call has dragged at my heart. And, oh! it is not his call that +hurts; it is the being pulled back and stopped by all the outstretched +hands. The small, everyday duties and the great loves that hold one and +keep one and stop one--they it is that break one's heart in two. Yes, +_in two_, for half one's heart has gone away with the Piper." She drew +in a long breath, remembering many things. Then she said: "And now he is +piping to Anne-Marie. She has heard him, and she will go. And if her +path leads over my unfulfilled hopes and my unwritten books, she shall +tread and trample and dance on them. And good luck to her!" + +"Well, then--good luck to her!" said the Ogre. + +And Nancy said: "Thank you." + +"Now you are quite clear," he said after a pause; "and you must never +regret it. If you want your child to be an eagle, you must pull out your +own wings for her." + +"Every feather of them!" said Nancy. + +"And when you have done so, then she will spread them and fly away from +you." + +"I know it," said Nancy. + +"And you will be alone." + +"Yes," said Nancy. + +And she closed her eyes to look into the coming years. + + + + +XIX + + +The Ogre remained in Prague a week, and took Anne-Marie on the Moldau +and to the White Mountain, to the Stromovka and the Petrin Hill. Bemolle +was frantic. For six days Anne-Marie had not touched the violin. He had +looked forward to long hours of music with Anne-Marie, and had prepared +her entire repertoire carefully in contrasting programmes for the +English visitor's pleasure. But the English visitor would have none of +it, or very little, and that little not of the best. Not much Beethoven, +scarcely any Bach, no Brahms! Only Schubert and Grieg. Short pieces! +Then the large man would get up and shake hands, first with Anne-Marie, +then with Bemolle, and say "Thank you, thank you," and the music was +over. + +On the last day of his stay he came before luncheon, and went to the +valley of the Sarka alone with "Miss Brown"--he never called Nancy +anything else, and she loved the name. It was a clear midsummer day. The +country was alight with poppies, like a vulgar summer hat. The heart of +Miss Brown was sad. + +"I leave this evening," he said, "at 8.40." + +"You have told me that twenty times," said Miss Brown. + +"I like you to think of it," he said; and she did not answer. "I am +going back to the mines, back to Peru--" + +"You have said that two hundred times," said Miss Brown pettishly. + +He paid no attention. "To Peru," he continued, "and I may have to stay +there a year, or two years ... to look after the mine. Then I return." +He coughed. "Or--I do not return." + +No answer. + +"You have not changed your mind about going to Italy and writing your +book?" + +"No," said Nancy, with little streaks of white on each side of her +nostrils. + +"I thought not." + +Then they walked along for a quarter of an hour in silence. The wind ran +over the grasses, and the birds sang. + +"Nancy!" he said. It was the first time he had called her by her name. +She covered her face and began to cry. He did not attempt to comfort +her. After a while he said, "Sit down," and she sat on the grass and +went on crying. + +"Do you love me very much?" he asked. + +"Dreadfully," said Nancy, looking up at him helplessly through her +tears. + +He sat down beside her. + +"And do you know that I love you very much?" + +"Yes, I know," sobbed Nancy. + +There was a short silence. Then he said: "In one of your letters long +ago you wrote: 'This love across the distance, without the aid of any +one of our senses, this is the Blue Rose of love, the mystic marvel +blown in our souls for the delight of Heaven.' Shall we pluck it, Nancy, +and wear it for our own delight?" + +The grasses curtseyed and the river ran. He took her hand from her face. +Nancy looked at him, and the tears brimmed over. + +"Then," she said brokenly, "it would not be the Blue Rose any more." + +"True," he said. + +"Then it would be a common, everyday, pink-faced flower like every +other." + +"True," he said again. + +She withdrew her hand from his. Then his hand remained on his knee in +the sunshine, a large brown hand, strong, but lonely. + +"Oh, dear Unknown!" said Nancy; and she bent forward and kissed the +lonely hand. "Do not let us throw our blue dream-rose away!" + +"Very well," he said--"very well, dear little Miss Brown." And he kissed +her forehead for the second time. + +That evening he went back to his mines. + + + + +XX + + +The following winter, when Nancy had been in Prague nearly a year, the +Professor said: + +"Next month Anne-Marie will give an orchestral concert." + +"Oh, Herr Professor!" gasped Nancy. "Was giebt's?" asked the Professor. + +"Was giebt's?" asked Anne-Marie. + +"She is only nine years old." + +"Well?" said the Professor. + +"Well?" said Anne-Marie. + +Who can describe the excitement of the following days? The excitement of +Bemolle over the choice of a programme! The excitement of Fraeulein over +the choice of a dress! The excitement of Nancy, who could close no eye +at night, who pictured Anne-Marie breaking down or stopping in the +middle of a piece, or beginning to cry, or refusing to go on to the +platform, or catching cold the day before! Everyone was febrile and +overwrought except Anne-Marie herself, who seemed to trouble not at +all about it. + +She was to play the Max Bruch Concerto? _Gut!_ And the Fantasia +Appassionata? All right. And the Paganini variations on the G string? +Very well. And now might she go out with Schop? For Schopenhauer, +long-bodied and ungainly, had come with them to Europe, and was now +friends with all the gay dogs of Prague. + +"I will order the pink dress," said Fraeulein. + +"Oh no! Let it be white," said Nancy. + +"I want it blue," said Anne-Marie. + +So blue it was. + +One snowy morning Anne-Marie went to her first rehearsal with the +orchestra. There was much friendly laughter among the strings and wind, +the brass and reeds, when the small child entered through the huge glass +doors of the Rudolfinum, followed by Bemolle carrying the violin, Nancy +carrying the music, Fraeulein carrying the dog, and the Professor in the +rear, with his hat pulled down deeply over his head, and a large unlit +cigar twisting in his fingers. Anne-Marie was introduced to the Bohemian +chef d'orchestre, and was hoisted up to the platform by Fraeulein and the +Professor. Violins and violas tapped applause on their instruments. + +And now Jaroslav Kalas raps his desk with the baton and raises his +arm. Then he remembers something. He stops and bends down to Anne-Marie. +Has she the A? Yes, thank you. And the little girl holds the fiddle to +her ear and plucks lightly and softly at the strings. She raises it to +her shoulder, and stands in position. + +Again the conductor taps and raises his arms. B-r-r-r-r-r roll the +drums. Re-do-si, re-do-si, re-e, whisper the clarinets. A pause. +Anne-Marie lifts her right arm slowly, and strikes the low G--a long +vibrating note, like the note of a 'cello. Then she glides softly up the +cadenza, and ends on the long pianissimo high D. Bemolle, who has been +standing up, sits down suddenly. The Professor, who has been sitting +down, stands up. Now Anne-Marie is purling along the second cadenza. +Fraeulein, beaming in her lonely stall in the centre of the empty hall, +nods her head rapidly and continuously. Nancy has covered her face with +her hands. But the little girl, with her cheek on the fiddle, plays the +concerto and sees nothing. Only once she gives a little start, as the +brass instruments blare out suddenly behind her and she turns slightly +towards them with an anxious eye. Then she forgets them; and she carries +the music along, winding through the andante, gliding through the +adagio, tearing past the allegro, leaping into the wild, magnificent +finale. + +Perfect silence. The orchestra has not applauded. Kalas folds his +arms and turns round to look at the Professor. But the Professor is +blowing his nose. So Kalas steps down from his desk, and, taking +Anne-Marie's hand, lifts it, bow and all, to his lips. Then, stepping +back briskly to the desk, he raps for silence. "Vieuxtemps' Fantasie," +he says, and the music-sheets are fluttered and turned. + + * * * * * + +All Prague sat expectant--rustling and murmuring and coughing--in the +stalls and galleries of the Rudolfinum, on the night of the concert. The +Bohemian orchestra were in their seats. Kalas stepped up to his +desk, and an overture was played. + +A short pause. Then, in the midst of a tense silence, Anne-Marie +appeared, threading her way through the orchestra, with her violin under +her arm. Now she stands in her place, a tiny figure in a short blue silk +frock, with slim black legs and black shoes, and her fair hair tied on +one side with a blue ribbon. Unwondering and calm, Anne-Marie confronted +her first audience, gazing at the thousand upturned faces with gentle, +fearless eyes. She turned her quiet gaze upwards to the gallery, where +row on row of people were leaning forward to see her. Then, with a +little shake of her head to throw back her fair hair, she lifted her +violin to her ear, plucked lightly, and listened, with her head on one +side, to the murmured reply of the strings. Kalas, on his tribune, +was looking at her, his face drawn and pale. She nodded to him, and he +rapped the desk. B-r-r-r-r-r-r rolled the drums. + + * * * * * + +In the artists' room at the close of the concert people were edging and +pressing and pushing to get in and catch a glimpse of Anne-Marie. The +Directors and the uniformed men pushed the crowd out again, and locked +the doors. The Professor, who had listened to the concert hidden away in +a corner of the gallery, elbowed his way through the crush and entered +the artists' room. The doors were quickly locked again behind him. + +The Professor had his old black violin-case in his hands. He went to the +table, and, pushing aside a quantity of flowers that lay on it, he +carefully put down his violin-case. It looked like a little coffin in +the midst of the flowers. Anne-Marie was having her coat put on by +Kalas, and a scarf tied round her head by Nancy, who was white as +a sheet. The Professor beckoned to her, and she ran to him, and stood +beside him at the table. He opened his violin-case and lifted out the +magnificent blond instrument that he had treasured for thirty years. He +turned the key of the E string, and drew the string off. Then he drew +the A string off; then the D. The violin, now with the single silver G +string holding up its bridge, lay in the Professor's hands for a moment. +He turned solemnly to the little girl. + +"This is my Guarnerius del Gesu. I give it to you." + +"Yes," said Anne-Marie. + +"You will always play the Paganini Variations for the G string on this +violin. Put no other strings on it." + +"No," said Anne-Marie. + +The Professor replaced the violin in the case, and shut it. "I have +taught you what I could," he said solemnly. "Life will teach you the +rest." + +"Yes," said Anne-Marie, and took the violin-case in her arms. The +Professor looked at her a long time. Then he said: + +"See that you put on warm gloves to go out; it is snowing." He turned +away quickly and left the room. + +Nancy put her arm round Anne-Marie. + +"Oh, darling, you forgot to thank him!" she said. + +Anne-Marie raised her eyes. She held the violin-case tightly in both her +arms. "How can one thank him? What is the good of thanking him?" she +said. And Nancy felt that she was right. + +"Where are my gloves?" said Anne-Marie. "He told me to put them on. And +where is Fraeulein?" + +Fraeulein had gone. She had been sent home in a cab after the second +piece, for she had not a strong heart. Bemolle, who had been weeping +copiously in a corner, stepped forward with the other violin-case in his +hand. + +Now they were ready. Anne-Marie was carrying the Guarnerius and the +flowers, so Nancy could not take her hand. The men in uniform saluted +and unlocked the doors, throwing them wide open. Then Anne-Marie, who +had started forward, stopped. Before her the huge passage was lined with +people, crowded and crushed in serried ranks, with a narrow space +through the middle. At the end of the passage near the doors they could +be seen pushing and surging, like a troubled sea. Anne-Marie turned to +her mother. + +"Mother, what are the people waiting for?" she asked. + +Nancy smiled with quivering lips. "Come, darling," she said. + +"No," said Anne-Marie; "I will not come. I am sure they are waiting to +see something, and I want to wait, too." + +As the crowd caught sight of her and rushed forward, she was lifted up +by a large policeman, who carried her on his shoulder and pushed his way +through the tumult. Anne-Marie clutched her flowers and the violin-case, +which knocked against the policeman's head with every step he took. +Nancy followed in the crush, laughing and sobbing, feeling hands +grasping her hands, hearing voices saying: "Gebenedeite Mutter! +glueckliche Mutter!" And she could only say: "Thank you! Thank you! Oh, +thank you!" + +Then they were in the carriage. The door was shut with a bang. Many +faces surged round the windows. + +"Wave your hand," said Nancy. And Anne-Marie waved her hand. Cheers and +shouts frightened the plunging horses, and they started off at a gallop +through the nocturnal streets. Nancy put her arm round Anne-Marie, and +the child's head lay on her shoulder. The Guarnerius was at their feet. +The flowers fell from Anne-Marie's hand on to the Professor's old black +case, that was like a shabby little coffin. So they drove away out of +the noise and the lights into the dark and silent streets, holding each +other without speaking. Then Anne-Marie said softly: + +"Did you like my concert, Liebstes?" + +She had learned the tender German appellative from Fraeulein. + +"Yes," whispered Nancy. + +"Did I play well, Liebstes?" + +"Yes, my dear little girl." + +A long pause. "Are you happy, Liebstes?" + +"Oh yes, yes, yes! I am happy," said Nancy. + + + + +XXI + + +Before a week had passed Nancy had discovered how difficult a thing it +was to be the mother of a wonderchild, and had grown thin and harassed +by the stream of visitors and the deluge of letters that overwhelmed +their modest apartment in the Vinohrady. As early as eight o'clock in +the morning rival violinists walked beneath the windows to hear if +Anne-Marie was practising, and how she was practising, and what she was +practising. As they did not hear her, they concluded that she practised +on a mute fiddle, and were wrathful and disappointed. By ten o'clock +Lori, the smiling maid, had introduced a reporter or two, an impresario +or two, a mother or two with a child or two, and none of them seemed to +need to go home to luncheon. Questions were asked, and advice was +tendered. "How long did the child practise every day?" "Two or three +hours," said Nancy. "Too much," cried the mothers. "Too little," said +the impresarios. "At what age did she begin?" "When she was between +seven and eight." "Too young," said the mothers. "Too old," said the +impresarios. "How does she sleep?" asked the mothers. "What fees do you +expect?" asked the impresarios. "Why do you dress her in blue?" asked +the mothers. "Why not in white or in black velvet?" "Why don't you cut +her hair quite short and dress her in boy's clothes, and say she is five +years old?" asked the impresarios. "How old is she _really_?" "Does her +father beat her?" There seemed to be no restraint to the kind and the +quantity of questions people were prepared to ask. + +Meanwhile the fame of Anne-Marie had flashed to Vienna, and she was +invited to play in the Musikverein Saal. They said good-bye to the +Professor with tears of gratitude, and left--taking away with them his +best violin and his only assistant, for Bemolle was to go with them and +carry the violin, and run the messages, and see after the luggage, and +attend to the business arrangements. This last duty neither Fraeulein nor +Anne-Marie, and least of all Nancy, was capable of undertaking. Bemolle +himself was nervous about it, but the Professor (who knew as much about +business as Anne-Marie) had coached him. + +"All you have to do is to count the tickets they give you, and the money +they give you. And there must be no discrepancy. Do you see?" + +Yes, Bemolle saw. And so that was what he did, everywhere and after each +concert. He counted the tickets, and he counted the money that was given +him very carefully and lengthily, while the smiling manager stood about +and smoked, or went out and refreshed himself; and it was always all +right, and there was never any discrepancy anywhere. So _that_ was all +right. + +The great hall of the Musikverein was filled for Anne-Marie's first +concert. It was crowded and packed for her second, and third, and +fourth. A blond Archduchess asked her to play to her children, and +Anne-Marie's lips were taught to frame phrases to Royal Highnesses, and +her little black legs were trained to obeisance and curtsey. Then Berlin +telegraphed for the Wonderchild, and the Wonderchild went to Berlin and +played Bach and Beethoven in the Saal der Philharmonic. Two tall, +white-haired gentlemen came into the artists' room at the end of the +concert. Solemnly they kissed the child's forehead, and invoked God's +blessing upon her. When they had left, Nancy saw Bemolle running after +them and shaking their hands. Nancy said: "What are you doing, Bemolle?" +The emotional Bemolle, who, since Anne-Marie's debut, passed his days +turning pale and red, and always seemed on the verge of tears, +exclaimed: "I have shaken hands with Max Bruch and with Joachim. I do +not care if now I die." + +And always at the end of the concerts crowds waited at the doors for the +child to appear. Anne-Marie passed through the cheering people with her +arms full of flowers, nodding to the right, nodding to the left, smiling +and thanking and nodding again, with Nancy nodding and smiling and +thanking close behind her. Sometimes the crowd was so great that they +could not pass, and Anne-Marie had to be lifted up and carried to the +carriage buoyantly, laughing down at everybody and waving her hands. +Then there was a rush round the carriage door. Nancy, crushed and +breathless, tearful and laughing, managed to get in after her, the door +banged, and off they were, Anne-Marie still nodding first at one window +then at the other, and rapping her fingers against the glass in +farewell.... At last the running, cheering crowds were left behind, and +she would drop her head with a little sigh of happiness against Nancy's +arm. + +"Did you like my concert, mother dear? Did I play well, Liebstes?" + +That was the hour of joy for Nancy's heart. The concerts themselves +turned her into a statue of terror, enveloped her with fear as with a +sheet of ice. While Anne-Marie played, swaying slightly like a flower in +a breeze, her spirit carried away on the wing of her own music, Nancy +sat in the audience petrified and blenched, her hands tightly +interlaced, her heart thumping dull and fast in her throat and in her +ears. If the blue dream-light of Anne-Marie's eyes wandered round and +found her, and rested on her face, Nancy would try to smile--a strained, +panic-stricken smile, which made Anne-Marie, even while she was playing, +feel inclined to laugh. Especially if she were at that moment performing +something very difficult, spluttering fireworks by Bazzini, or a +romping, breakneck bravura by Vieuxtemps, she would look fixedly at her +mother, while an impish smile crept into her eyes, and her fingers +rushed and scampered up and down the strings, and her bow swept and +skimmed with the darting flight of a swallow. + +Nancy, watching her and trying, with ashen lips, to respond to her +smile, would say to herself: "She will stop suddenly! She will forget. +She cannot possibly remember all those thousands and thousands of notes. +She will let her bow drop. The string will break. Something will happen! +And if my heart goes on hammering like this, I shall fall down and die." +But nothing happened, and she did not die, and the piece ended. And the +applause crackled and crashed around them. And the concert ended, and +soon they were alone together in the flower-filled, fragrant penumbra of +the moving carriage. + +"Are you happy, mother dear?" + +"Yes, yes, yes! I am so happy, my own little girl!" + + * * * * * + +In the gentle month of May they went to London. + +London! Nancy's father's home! London! Close to Hertfordshire, where +Nancy had lived the first eight years of her life. + +On board the Channel steamer Nancy, with beating heart, full of +tenderness and awe, pointed out the white cliffs to Anne-Marie. "That is +England." + +"Yes," said Anne-Marie, "I know." + +"You must love England, darling," said Nancy. + +"We shall see," said the Wonderchild, who was not prepared to love by +command. Fraeulein was bubbling over with reminiscences. It was in Dover +that Nancy's mother had come to meet her twenty-four years ago. They had +had tea and sponge-cakes in the train. They had bought an umbrella +somewhere, because she had left hers on the boat, and it was raining. + +So it was to-day, raining drearily, heavily on the sad green landscapes +as the train ran through Kent and towards London. + +They went to a hotel, close to the hall where Anne-Marie was to play. +And all the way driving to it Bemolle wept, with emotion at being in +London, and with emotion at not being in Italy; for in a little village +at the foot of the Appenines, his old mother still lived, following him +with anxious letters while he rushed across Europe carrying the violin +for Anne-Marie. + +The first London concert was to be the week after their arrival. The +manager, pink-faced and blue-eyed, came to the hotel to talk about the +programme. + +"England is not Berlin. Don't make it too heavy," he said. So the +Beethoven Concerto was taken out, and the Vieuxtemps Concerto put in its +stead. The Chaconne was taken out, and the Faust Phantasie put in its +stead. The manager said, "That's right," and went out to play golf. + +The London audience and the London critics came _en masse_ to hear +Anne-Marie. The London audiences clapped and shouted. The London critics +carped and reproved. How sad it was, said they, that a child with such a +marvellous gift should waste her genius on music of the cheap virtuoso +kind! What a responsibility on the shoulders of parents and masters who +withheld from her the classic glories of Beethoven and Bach! + +The manager, coming for the programme of the second concert, said: "Pile +it on. Give it to them heavy. It's the heavy stuff they want." Then he +went out and played golf. + +So Anne-Marie played the Beethoven Concerto and the Beethoven Romance, +the Bach Chaconne and Fugue, Prelude and Sarabande. And the audience +shouted and clapped. + +But the critics carped and reproved. How can a mere child understand +Beethoven and Bach? How wrong to overweight the puerile brain with the +giants of classic composition! It is almost a sacrilege to hear a little +girl venturing to approach the Chaconne. Let her play Handel and Mozart. + +So in the third concert Anne-Marie played Handel and Mozart, and the +audience shouted and clapped. + +But the critics said that, though she played the easy, simple music very +nicely for her age, still, in a London concert hall one expected to hear +something more puissant and authoritative. And why did she give concerts +at all? Why not do something else? Study composition, for instance? + +"That's England all over," said the manager, and went out and played +golf. + +Nancy was bewildered and unhappy. Bemolle danced about in helpless +Latin rage, and Fraeulein sat down and wrote a long letter to the +_Times_. But it is uncertain whether the _Times_ printed it. + +Anne-Marie, who did not know that critics existed, nor care what critics +said, was happy and cheerful, and bought a dog in Regent Street, to +replace the quarantined Schopenhauer. He was a young and thin and +careless dog, and answered to the name of Ribs. Then Anne-Marie decided +that she loved England very much. + +Many people called at the hotel to ask for autographs, and to express +their views. One elderly musician was very stern with Anne-Marie, and +sterner still with Nancy. He began by asking Nancy what she thought her +child was going to be in the future. + +"I do not know," said Nancy. "I am grateful for what she is now." + +"Ah! but you must think of the future. You want her to be a great +artist--" + +"I don't know that I do," said Nancy. "She is a great artist now. If she +degenerates"--and Nancy smiled--"into merely a happy woman, she will +have had more than her share of luck." + +"Take care! The prodigy will kill the artist!" repeated the stern man. +"You pluck the flower and you lose the fruit." + +Nancy laughed. "It is as if you said: 'Beware of being a rose-bud lest +you never be an apple!' I am content that she should bloom unhindered, +and be what she is. Why should she not be allowed to play Bach like an +angel to-day, lest she should not be able to play him like Joachim ten +years hence?" + +"Yes, why not!" piped up Anne-Marie, who had paid no attention to the +conversation, but who liked to say "Why not?" on general principles. + +The stern man turned to her. "Bach, my dear child----" he began. + +Anne-Marie gave a little laugh. "Oh, I know!" she said cheerfully. + +"What do you know?" asked the gentleman severely. + +"You are going to say, '_Always_ play Bach; nothing else is worthy,'" +said Anne-Marie, regretting that she had joined in the conversation. + +"I was not going to say anything of the kind," said the stern man. + +"Oh, then you were going to say the other thing: 'Do not _attempt_ to +play Bach--no child can understand him.' Professors always say one or +the other of those two things. Much stupid things are said about music." + +"It is so," said the gentleman severely. "You cannot possibly understand +Bach." + +Anne-Marie suddenly grasped him by the sleeve. + +"What do _you_ understand in Bach? I want to know. You must tell me what +you understand. Exactly what it is that you understand and I don't. +Bemolle!" she cried, still holding the visitor's sleeve. "Give me the +violin!" + +Bemolle jumped up and obeyed with beaming face. + +"Anne-Marie, darling!" expostulated Nancy. + +But Anne-Marie had the violin in her hand and wildness in her eye. + +"Stay here," she said to the visitor, relinquishing his sleeve with +unwilling hand, and hastily tuning the fiddle. "Now you have got to tell +me what you understand in Bach." She played the first five of the +thirty-two variations of the Chaconne; then she stopped. + +"What does Bach mean? What have you understood?" she cried. The English +musician leaned back in his chair and smiled with benevolent +superiority. + +"And now--now I play it differently." She played it again, varying the +lights and shades, the piani and the forti. "What different thing have +you understood?" + +"And now--now I play it like Joachim. So, exactly so, he played it for +me and with me... + +"... Now what have you understood that I have not? What has Bach said to +you, and not to me, you silly man?" + +Nancy took Anne-Marie's hand. "Hush, Anne-Marie! For shame!" + +"I will not hush!" cried Anne-Marie, with flaming cheeks. "I am tired of +hearing them always say the same stupid things." + +The visitor, smiling acidly, stood up to go. "I am afraid too much music +is not good for a little girl's manners," he said. + +"Mother," said Anne-Marie, with her head against her mother's breast. +"Tell him to wait. I want to say a thing that I can't. Help me." + +"What is it, dear?" + +"When we were to have gone to a country that you said was hot and +pretty--and dirty--where was that?" + +"Spain?" + +"Yes, yes, yes! You said something about the little hotels there ... the +funny little hotels. What did you say about them?" + +Nancy thought a moment. Then she smiled and remembered. "I said: 'You +can only find in them what you bring with you yourself.'" + +"Yes, yes!" cried Anne-Marie, raising her excited eyes. "Now say that +about music." + +And Nancy said it. "You will only find in music what you bring to it +from your own soul." + +"Yes," said Anne-Marie, turning to the visitor; "how can you know what I +bring? How can you know that what you bring is beautifuller or gooder? +How can you know that Bach meant what _you_ think and not what I think?" + +"Don't get excited, you funny little girl," said the visitor; and he +took his leave with dignity. + +But Anne-Marie was excited, and did not sleep all night. + + + + +XXII + + +"Anne-marie, the King wants to hear you play!" + +"The King? The real King?" + +"Yes." + +"Not a fairy-tale king?" + +"No." + +"The King who was ill when I had a birthday-cake long ago?" + +"Yes." + +"And that I made get well again?" + +"Oh, did you, dear?" laughed Nancy. "I did not know that." + +"I did it," said Anne-Marie, with deep and serious mien. "I made him get +well. Do you remember the seven candles round my cake?" + +"I heard of them. You were seven when you were at the _Gartenhaus_; and +I was away from you." And Nancy sighed. + +"And you know about the birthday wishes?" asked the eager Anne-Marie. +"The Poetry says: + + "The heart must be pure, + The Wish must be sure, + The blow must be one-- + The magic is done!" + +"What terrible lines!" said Nancy. + +"Fraeulein did them, from the German," said Anne-Marie. + +"What is the blow?" + +"The blowing-out of the candles. You may only blow once. And 'the Wish +must be sure.' You must not change about, and regret, and wish you +hadn't. Fraeulein told me it would be safest to make a list of all my +wishes beforehand. So I made a list days and days before my birthday. +They were to be seven things--one for each candle. There was a white +pony, and a kennel for Schopenhauer, and a steamer to go and fetch you +home in, and a lovely dress for Fraeulein, and a gold watch for you, and +something else for Elisabeth, and another dog for me, and to go to the +theatre every day, and--" + +"There seem to be more than seven things already," said Nancy. + +"Well, they were most beautiful. Especially the pony and the steamer.... +And then you wrote about the King." + +"I remember," said Nancy. + +"You said he was ill, and that he was your papa's King, and that he was +good and forgave everybody: whole countries-full of bad people! And you +wrote that I was to say a prayer, and ask God to make him well." + +"I remember." + +"Well, I didn't, I said to God: 'Wait a minute!' because next day was my +birthday, and I had the cake with the seven Wishes. I thought first I +would just give up the kennel, and wish _once_ for the King to get well. +So I did it, and blew out one candle; then I gave up the present for +Elisabeth, and wished for the King again. Then I thought I could do +without the dress for Fraeulein. And without the theatre.... And then I +let the steamer and the pony go too. And I blew out all seven candles +for the King!" Anne-Marie folded her hands in her lap. "So that's how I +made him get well." + +"How nice," said Nancy. + +"And now I am going to see him, and to play to him," said Anne-Marie +dreamily. "It is very strange." She raised her simple eyes to her +mother. "Do you think I ought to tell him about my having saved him?" + +"I think not," said Nancy. "It is much nicer to have saved him without +his knowing it." + +So Anne-Marie did not tell him. + +... But he knew. "I know that he knew!" sobbed Anne-Marie in the evening +of the great day, trembling with emotion in her mother's arms. "I saw it +in the kindness of his eyes. And mother! mother! I think that was why he +kissed me." + + + + +XXIII + + +The Piper piped tunes into Anne-Marie's ear, tunes that she had to hum, +and to sing, and to play; tunes that enraptured her when she created +them, and hurt her when she forgot them. So Bemolle had to write them +down. Everything she heard wandered off into melodies, melted into +harmonies, divided itself up into rhythms. Mother Goose rhymes and +Struwwelpeter were put to music, and all the favourites in Andersen's +Maerchen--the Princess and the Mermaid, the Swineherd and the +Goblins--corresponded to some special bars of music in Anne-Marie's +mind. "She has the sense of the Leitmotiv," said Bemolle, with awestruck +eyes and oracular forefinger. + +It had been arranged that Bemolle should have his mornings to himself +for his own compositions. He had, two years before, by dint of much +scraping, paid five hundred francs to secure a good libretto for his +much-dreamed-of opera, of which he had already composed the principal +themes when he first went with the Professor to play for Anne-Marie; he +was also half-way through a tone-poem on Edgar Allan Poe's "Eldorado." +He played it occasionally to Anne-Marie; frequently to Nancy: + + "Gaily bedight, a gallant Knight, + In sunshine and in shadow----" + +"Do you hear?" he would say, playing with much pedal, while his rough +black head bounced and dipped. "Do you hear the canter and gallop and +thump? It is the Horse, and the Heart, and the Hope of the Knight!" + +Yes; Nancy could hear the Horse, and the Heart, and the Hope quite +clearly. + +"Now!" Bemolle's curly black mat would swoop over the keys and stay +there quite near to his fingers, "Now--the Hag appears! Do you hear the +Hag murmur and mumble? This is the Hag murmuring and mumbling." + +"I should make her mumble in D flat," said Anne-Marie airily. And then +she trotted out of the room, leaving in Bemolle's heart a vague sense +of dissatisfaction with his Hag, because she was mumbling in A natural. + +Soon, as there was much to do, programmes to prepare, letters to answer, +engagements to accept, tours to refuse, and they were all four rather +unbusiness-like and confusionary, Bemolle had to put aside his opera and +his tone-poem, and dedicate himself exclusively to the business +arrangements of the party. + +They frequently got confused in their dates. "The Costanzi in Rome has +telegraphed, asking for three concerts in February, and I have +accepted!" cried Bemolle triumphantly, when Nancy and Anne-Marie +returned from one of the dreaded and inevitable afternoon receptions +given in their honour. + +"I thought we had accepted Stockholm for February," said Nancy, with +troubled brow. + +"So we had!" exclaimed Bemolle. "Oh dear! Now we must cancel it." + +"Oh, don't cancel Rome! Cancel Stockholm," said Nancy. + +And so they cancelled Stockholm with great difficulty, promising +Stockholm a date in March, immediately after Rome, and immediately +before Berlin, where Anne-Marie was to play for the Kaiserfest the Max +Bruch Concerto, accompanied by the great composer himself. + +A week later, Nancy, looking at Bemolle's little book of dates and +engagements, said: "How can we get from Rome to Stockholm, and from +Stockholm to Berlin in six days, and give three concerts in between?" + +"We cannot do so," said Fraeulein. "From Berlin to Warnemuende--" + +"Oh, never mind details, Fraeulein," sighed Nancy. "It cannot be done." + +"We must cancel Rome," said Fraeulein. + +"No, you can't do that," said Bemolle. + +"Well, then, we must cancel Berlin," said Nancy. + +"Impossible!" + +"Then I suppose we must cancel Stockholm again." + +So they cancelled Stockholm again, by telegrams that cost one hundred +and fifty francs, and by paying damages to the extent of two thousand +francs, and by swallowing and ignoring threats of lawsuits and +acrimonious letters. + +"I think we ought to have an impresario," said Nancy. "We do not seem to +manage our business affairs well." + +So they decided to have an impresario. After wavering for a long time +between a little black man from Rome, who had followed them all over the +Continent, and a great Paris impresario who had only telegraphed twice, +they decided on a nice-looking man in Vienna, who had seemed honest, and +had promised them many things. He was telegraphed for--nobody ever wrote +letters if it could be helped; indeed, the correspondence which flowed +in on them from all parts of the world was only half read and a quarter +answered. The impresario from Vienna replied, asking for two hundred +kronen for travelling expenses. These were sent to him by telegraph. And +then he did not come. "We must not put up with it," said Fraeulein. So +they did not put up with it. They went to a solicitor, who asked for the +correspondence and ten pounds for preliminary expenses, which were given +to him. And that was all--except that about a year afterwards, when they +had forgotten all about it, a bill from the solicitor for four pounds +two shillings followed them across Europe, and finally reached them in +St. Petersburg. And they paid it. + +But meanwhile they decided upon the Paris impresario. He was a great +man, and had "launched" everybody who was anybody in the artistic world. +He needed no travelling expenses. He arrived, gorgeous of waistcoat, +resplendent of hat. He said he had already fixed up two Colonne concerts +in Paris for Anne-Marie. He was none of your slow, sleepy, impresarios. +Here was a contract in duplicate ready for them to sign. His bright +brown eye wandered critically over Bemolle. Then he took Fraeulein in at +a glance, and looking at Nancy's helpless and bewildered face he seemed +to be satisfied with Anne-Marie's surroundings. To Anne-Marie herself he +paid no attention. He had heard her play twice. That was enough. +Anne-Marie, as Anne-Marie, interested him not at all. Anne-Marie as +artist still less. Anne-Marie was a musical-box, ten years old, with +yellow hair, whom he had wanted to get hold of for the last six months. + +Here was the contract. No father? Well, Nancy could sign it in the +father's stead. + +Nancy, Bemolle, and Fraeulein read the contract over very carefully, +while the impresario drank claret and smoked cigarettes. He had a way of +sniffing the air up through his nostrils, and of swallowing with his +lips turned up at the corners in an expectant, self-satisfied manner +that distracted Nancy, and interfered with her understanding of the +contract. + +There were fourteen clauses. "It seems all right," said Nancy softly to +Bemolle. Bemolle frowned a businesslike frown, and Fraeulein said, +"Sprechen wir Deutsch," which they did, to the placid amusement of the +Paris impresario, who was born in Klagenfurt. + +After much reading and considering, Bemolle turned with his business +frown to the impresario. "You say forty per cent to the artist?" + +The impresario sniffed and swallowed. "That's right," he said. "I have +the risks and the expenses." + +"Of course," said Nancy. + +Bemolle touched her arm lightly and warningly. + +"Forty per cent of the _gross_ receipts?" asked Bemolle suspiciously. + +"Of the _net_ receipts," said the impresario. + +"Ah, that is better!" said the unenlightened Fraeulein. And Bemolle put +out his foot gently and kicked her. + +"Now, what is this clause about three years?" + +"That's right," said the impresario. "You do not think I am to have all +the trouble of launching her for you to take her away after six months, +while I sit sucking my fingers." + +"Gemeiner Kerl!" said Fraeulein to Nancy. + +But Nancy said: "She is already launched." + +"Is she?" said the impresario. "I don't think so." And he sniffed and +swallowed. "She must make about two million francs in the next two +years. Otherwise she may as well quit." + +"Zwei Millionen!" gasped Fraeulein, under her breath. + +Bemolle kicked her again. "And what does this mean? Clause eight. 'The +party of the second part agrees to give a minimum of one hundred and +forty concerts per year for three years'?" + +"That is a matter of form," said the impresario. "We put that into all +contracts lest we should feel inclined to sit about with our hands in +our pockets doing nothing. Now, if you don't like it, you can leave it. +I've not come over for this. I have a contract with the biggest star +singer in Europe to sign here to-day. That is what I came for. Look at +it." And he pulled out a contract made in the name of a world-famed +tenor, and dotted over with tens of hundreds of pounds as a field is +with daisies. + +Fraeulein was much impressed. "Better take him quick," she said in +German. "He might go." So they took him quick, and signed the contract. +And Bemolle was careful to have it stamped. + +"Und nun ist Alles in Ordnung," said the "gemeiner Kerl," grinning at +Fraeulein. And then he sniffed and swallowed. + +They soon found out what Clause eight meant. The party of the second +part was bound to give a minimum of one hundred and forty concerts a +year--and the party of the second part was Anne-Marie. Anne-Marie was +certainly not to be allowed to sit about with her hands in her pockets. +In sixteen days she gave twelve concerts with eleven journeys between. +She went from town to town, from platform to platform, looking like a +little dazed seraph playing in its dreams. Fraeulein broke down on the +sixth journey, and was left behind, half-way between Cologne and Mainz. +Bemolle said nothing. He could only look at Anne-Marie dozing in the +train, and great tears would gather in his round black eyes, linger and +roll down, losing themselves in his dark moustache, that drooped over +his mouth like a seal's. When the impresario travelled with them, +smoking cigarettes in their faces, and going to sleep with his hands in +his pockets, and his long legs stretched across the compartment, there +was murder--black and scarlet murder--in Bemolle's eyes, and his gaze +would wander from the impresario's flowered waistcoat to his blond, +pointed beard, searching for a place. + +During the concerts the impresario was everywhere to be seen, with his +hands in his pockets and his legs wide apart. Between the pieces he sat +in the artists' room and talked to everyone who came in to see +Anne-Marie, scenting out the journalists with the _flair_ of a dog. +Nancy could hear him inventing startling anecdotes about Anne-Marie. He +talked to the enthusiastic musicians and the tearful ladies that came to +congratulate, and always could Nancy hear him recounting the same untrue +and unlikely anecdotes. Yes, this child he had discovered playing the +piano when she was three years old. When she was five she had, with the +aid of her little brother, built a violin out of a soap-box. She had +been kidnapped by some Nihilists in Russia, and had been kept by them +three weeks in a kind of vault, where she had to play to them for hours +when they asked her to. She had jewels and decorations worth ten +thousands pounds. She had three Strads; one of them had belonged to +Wagner and the other to the Tsar. + +At the end of the concerts the impresario got into the carriage with +them. The impresario bore Anne-Marie through the clapping crowds. The +impresario carried her flowers and her violin, and waved his hand out of +the window to the people when Anne-Marie was too tired to do so. +Anne-Marie sat in her corner of the carriage and fell asleep. Nancy bit +her lips and tried not to cry. And Bemolle sat outside on the box, +thinking evil Italian thoughts, and murmuring old Italian curses that +had never been known to fail. + +This lasted just a fortnight. On the fifteenth day Anne-Marie said: "I +don't want to see that man any more. And I want to have a picnic in the +grass," she added, "with things to eat in parcels, and milk in a +bottle." + +"Very well, dear," said Nancy. "You shall have it." And they had it. And +it was very nice. + +When the impresario came that evening Anne-Marie was not to be seen. She +was in bed and asleep, rosy and worn out by her long day in the open +air. + +"Are you ready?" said the impresario, looking round. Nancy said: +"Anne-Marie cannot play to-night. She is tired. I did not know where to +find you, or I should have let you know before." + +"Oh, indeed!" said the impresario. And he sniffed and swallowed. + +"And really," said Nancy. "I have come to the conclusion that this won't +do. Anne-Marie must play only when she wants to. One or two concerts in +a month, if she feels like it, and not more. She shall not play because +she must, but because she loves to." + +"Gelungen!" said the impresario, sitting down and taking out his +cigarette case. + +"So I think you had better just pay for the concerts she has given, and +let us go." + +The impresario laughed long and loud. His shoulders shook with +amusement. + +"Na, gelungen!" he said again, leaving off laughing to light his +cigarette, and stretching out his long legs. "How much did you say I was +to pay?" And he shook with laughter again. + +"Well, our share, I suppose," said Nancy timidly. + +"That's right," said the impresario, and he stopped laughing suddenly, +and looked at his watch. "Now hurry up and come along. It is time to +start." + +"Anne-Marie is asleep," said Nancy. + +"Then wake her," said the impresario. + +Nancy felt herself turning pale. + +"Get on," said the impresario; "it won't kill her to play to-night. And +the concert-hall is sold out." + +"I am sorry," said Nancy; "but Anne-Marie never plays when she is +tired." + +"That is foolish, my dear woman," said the impresario, getting up. "I +shall be obliged to wake her myself if you don't." And he took a step +towards the closed door which led into the room where Anne-Marie was +sleeping. + +Now Anne-Marie's sleep was a sacred thing. A thing watched over and +hallowed, approached on tip of toe, spoken of with finger on lip and +bated breath. If Anne-Marie slept perfect silence was kept, and the +world must stop. If Bemolle chanced to open a door or creak a careless +shoe, he was frowned at with horrified brows. Anne-Marie's sleep was a +thing inviolate and sacrosanct. + +Bemolle had been standing near the window looking out into the darkness +while the impresario spoke to Nancy; but with the first step in the +direction of the closed door Bemolle darted forward with a growl like +that of a angry dog. Bemolle was short and stout, but his long +accumulated anger and hatred stood him in lieu of height and muscles. He +jumped at the impresario, he pulled his beard, he scratched his face, he +pummelled him in the chest, and with short, excited legs he kicked him. +When the big man recovered from the amazement caused by this unexpected +onslaught, he lifted Bemolle off his legs and sat him on the floor. The +he took his hat and his umbrella and walked out of the room, and out of +the hotel. + +"Has he gone?" said Bemolle, after a while, sitting up, with papery +cheeks and a reddened eye. + +"Yes, he has gone," said Nancy. "Poor Bemolle! Did he hurt you?" + +Bemolle did not rise from the floor. He shook his head, and muttered +hoarsely: + +"He wanted to wake Anne-Marie. He actually wanted to wake Anne-Marie!" + +... It cost them twenty-five thousand francs to annul the contract, and +five hundred francs in legal expenses. But they considered that it was +cheap for the joy of having got rid of the impresario. + +They had picnics and played about until Fraeulein was well enough to join +them again, and then they went to Rome, where they arrived with a +fortnight to spare before the orchestral concerts at the Teatro +Costanzi. + +Thither from Milan came Aunt Carlotta, bent and wrinkled, and Zio +Giacomo, trembling and slow; and Adele and Nino and Carlo and Clarissa +in a noisy and affectionate group. Many tender tears were shed in memory +of Valeria, who had not lived to see her little grandchild's fame. "But +she saw _your_ glory, Nancy," said Nino. + +They lived again in memory Nancy's visit to the Queen with her little +volume of poems, as they all went one sunshiny afternoon up the hill of +the Quirinal and past the Palace. Nino, whose hair was quite grey, and +who, according to Aunt Carlotta, was rather difficult to please and easy +to irritate, walked in front of them, and Anne-Marie trotted beside him, +holding his hand. He told her interesting tales about a pink pinafore +her mother had worn when she was eight years old, and what Fraeulein +looked like when she was apple-cheeked and twenty-five. Fraeulein, who +really did not show the twenty years' difference very much, walked +beside them, deeply moved by these reminiscences; and Bemolle, who was +to go and visit his lonely old mother as soon as the Costanzi concerts +were over, walked behind them all, tearful on general principles. + +"By the way," said Nino to Nancy, "I saw the dear old Grey House again. +I went to England on Carlo's affairs two months ago. I ran down to +Hertfordshire and looked at it. It seemed to be empty." + +"Oh," said Fraeulein, "what a beautiful place it was! Don't you remember +it, Nancy?" + +"I remember the garden," said Nancy, with vague eyes, "and the +swing----" + +"What swing?" said Anne-Marie, taking an interest. + +Nancy told her about the swing in the orchard of that far-away home, +where she had stood swinging and singing in the placid English sunshine +when she was a little girl. + +... After a very few days the well-remembered envelope with the golden +arms of the Royal House was put into Anne-Marie's small hands. On the +following evening, Adele, Carlotta, and Clarissa were in a flutter +preparing Nancy and Anne-Marie for their audience at the Quirinal. +Bemolle was fevered with excitement, for he was to play Anne-Marie's +accompaniments on the piano. He walked, pale and happy, carrying the +violin and the music, behind Nancy and Anne-Marie, as they passed, with +right hands bared, through the red room, and the yellow room, and the +blue room, and at last into the white and gold room where the King and +the Queen and many officers and ladies were waiting for them. The Queen +was not the same Queen whom Nancy had known, and whose name--the name of +a flower--was written on the first page of her old diary. But the +little boy whose picture, framed in diamonds, Nancy had received on her +wedding-day, was King. + +The Queen embraced Anne-Marie many times, and laughed when Anne-Marie +talked, and wept when Anne-Marie played. Anne-Marie gazed at the tall, +dark-eyed Queen with adoration, sparing a glance or two for a gorgeous +man in scarlet tunic, with many decorations, whom she took to be the +King. + +As the Adagio of Mendelssohn's concerto ended, a stern-faced man in +plain evening-dress, sitting slightly apart from the others, said: "I do +not care much for music, but this music I love." The Queen turned to him +with a smile on her beautiful face--a smile that startled Anne-Marie. +Anne-Marie followed the track of that shining smile, and her eyes +fastened on the face of the stern man. Where had she seen that face +before? Why was it so dear and familiar? Why did it make her think of +New York, and her mother weeping over letters from home. Stamps! She had +seen it on stamps! _He_ was the King of Italy! How could she have looked +at that silly, yellow-haired man in the red tunic! Anne-Marie's small +loyal heart prostrated itself in penitence before him who did not care +for music. And as she played, he smiled back at her with piercing, +friendly eyes. + +Bemolle, who had made his deep obeisance on entering the door, and had +then stopped beside the piano, bent under the awful joy of the majestic +presence, never straightened himself out again, but sat down and stood +up when spoken to, in a tense curvilinear posture that was painful to +look upon. He also played many wrong notes in the accompaniments, and +could feel the anger of Anne-Marie flashing upon him, even though her +small blue back was turned. Nancy sat beside the Queen, smiling through +tear-lit eyes, replying to the many intimate and kindly questions the +beautiful lips asked. The Queen addressed her by her maiden name that +was famous, and quoted her poems to her with softly cadenced voice; and +the past and the present melted into one in Nancy's heart, and she could +not separate their beauty. + +They drove back to the hotel in moved and grateful spirit. Anne-Marie, +fluffy and feathery in her mother's arms, chatted all the way home, for +she had much to say. + + + + +XXIV + + +A year of dream-like travels from triumph to triumph, from success to +success, scattered roses and myrtles at the feet of Anne-Marie. She went +through life as a child wanders through a fairy-tale garden, alight with +flowers that bow and bend to her hand. The concerts were her joy. Music +filled her soul to overflowing, and, like a pure and chosen vessel, +Anne-Marie poured it forth again upon the listening world. When she +played she was fulfilling her destiny, as a lark must sing. + +One day in Genoa she was taken to see Paganini's violin, hanging mute +and sealed in its glass case at the town hall. She looked at it silently +and turned away. + +"What are you thinking, dear heart?" said Nancy. "You look so sad." + +"I am thinking," said Anne-Marie, with solemn eyes, "how it must hurt +that violin and ache it, to be kept locked up, and not be allowed to +sing!" + +The remark was heard, and repeated, and reached the ears of the Mayor of +Genoa. One afternoon, with great pomp, Anne-Marie was invited to the +palace of the Municipio, and, before a few invited guests, the seals +were broken, and the hallowed instrument of the immortal Nicolo was +placed in the little girl's hands. Anne-Marie had not slept for three +nights thinking of that moment, imagining the joy of the imprisoned +voice when her hands should let it loose. + +She drew a new E string quickly over the tarnished bridge. Now she +plucked lightly at it, bending her head to listen. Then, raising her +bow, she struck the bonds of silence from the quivering strings. The +chord in D minor rippled out, hoarse and feeble. Anne-Marie struck a +second chord, pressing down her fingers with a vehement vibrato. Again +the reply came--muffled, quavering, weak. Anne-Marie's face grew white +and tense. She removed the violin from her shoulder with a little sob. + +"It is dead," she said. + +Years after, if ever Nancy thought that it might have been better had +Anne-Marie been held back, and not been allowed to play her heart out to +the world, the memory of the Silent Violin, locked in its glass case, +came back to her--the violin that had died of its own silence. And she +was glad that her little skylark had been allowed to sing. + +And sing it did, in many climes and under many skies. Was it in Turin +that the horses were taken from the carriage, and Anne-Marie and Nancy +drawn in triumph through the cheering, waving streets? Was it in Bern +that the police had to hold the crowd back, and clear the squares for +their plunging horses to pass? Where was it that she was serenaded and +called to the balcony twenty times by a crowd that seemed to have gone +mad? Where did men lift little children up that they might touch her +dress, and women, jostled in the crowd, with hats awry, fight for a +glimpse of the fair nodding head, for a touch of the little gloved hand? +Was it at Naples that they called her _la bambino, assistita_, and +thought her possessed by a spirit, and begged her to predict to them the +winning numbers of the following Saturday's lottery? + +Yes, that was in Naples. In the confused glory of the shifting scenes +some memories stood out clearly, and held Nancy's recollection. It was +in Naples that no seat had been reserved for her in the immense and +crowded concert-hall, and that the manager had told her of a lady who +would give her a seat in her own box: box 5, tier 2--Nancy remembered it +still. And when Anne-Marie, duly kissed and blessed, stepped out, violin +in hand, upon the platform, Nancy was still running along the empty +corridors of tier 2, looking for box 5. Here it was! There was a lady in +it alone. Nancy bowed to her and took her seat, murmuring: "Grazie." +Then, with tightly folded hands, she had whispered the little prayer she +always said for God to help Anne-Marie. And, as always, the prayer was +answered, for Anne-Marie played grandly and suavely, never even dreaming +that help could be needed. + +Nancy sat in the box, tense and terrified as usual, waiting for the +tranquil eyes of Anne-Marie to wander round the auditorium and find her. +There! They found her, and shone and twinkled. Then the Spirit of Music +dropped its great wings between them, and carried away little +Anne-Marie, swinging and singing her out of reach--out of reach of her +mother's love, farther than Nancy could follow. + +The lady in black took her pocket-handkerchief and pressed it to her +eyes. Nancy was used to the gesture, but it always moved her. She put +her hand lightly on the arm of the unknown woman whose heart her little +girl's music had wrung. + +The last piece was ended, and the well-known cries of applause were +starting from all corners of the house, when Nancy rose quickly to go +back to Anne-Marie. The woman in black put back her veil, and said: + +"My name is Villari." + +Nancy remembered the name. All that Aldo had told, all that Nino had not +told, years ago swept into her mind. She looked curiously into the tired +face, under its helmet of dark-red tinted hair. There were many lines in +the face. Nancy thought it looked like a map, and along the many little +lines Nancy's eyes seemed to travel into a sad and distant country. She +put out her hand. + +"I know your name well," said Nancy. "I salute the great artist." + +The woman sighed deeply. "I salute the happy mother," she said. Then she +pulled down her veil and turned away. + +Nancy hastened along the crowded corridors, where people in groups were +discussing her little daughter, and the words, "wonderful! marvellous! +incredible!" beat with their accustomed soft wing on her ears. + +"Happy mother!" Oh yes, she was a happy mother! She said it over and +over again, and repeated it to herself as she tied the soft woollen +scarf round Anne-Marie's head, and again as they made their way through +the cheering crowd, and the outstretched hands, and the waving hats. She +repeated it as she sat in the motor open to the balmy Neapolitan night, +and held Anne-Marie tightly as she stood up on the seat, waving both +small hands to the surrounding throng. The little standing figure swayed +as the carriage moved swiftly down the street. Soon the shouting people +were left behind, and Anne-Marie slid down to her place near her mother. +Beyond the Gulf, Vesuvius breathed its glowing rhythmic breath, and the +waters glittered. Nancy remembered that this was Aldo's birthplace; and +then she forgot it in the lilt of the usual dulcet words: + +"Did you like my concert, mother dear?" + +The phrase had now become a formula which they repeated laughingly like +the refrain of a song. Of all the hours of the rushing turbulent day, +this was the hour of joy for Nancy. Anne-Marie, who was elfish and +impish, made strange by her music, and made wild by the worship of many +people, in this one hour became a little tender child again, softer and +sweeter than the day-time Anne-Marie, nearer and more human than the +concert Anne-Marie, who was a strange, inaccessible being that Nancy +sometimes thought could not really belong to her. + +Fraeulein and Bemolle followed them in another carriage. No one since the +impresario had ever dared to intrude upon this sacred starlit hour of +their love. + +Did Nancy's heart ever regret her own hopes of glory? Did she remember +her unwritten Book? Did she feel the wounded place of the wings that she +had torn out? Never! She lived for Anne-Marie and in Anne-Marie. Little +by little the chimera of inspiration drew away from her. She forgot that +she had once clasped Fame to her own breast. No words, no visions, no +dreams haunted her any more. She breathed in the music Anne-Marie +played. She dreamed the music Anne-Marie composed. The Pied Piper had +passed her; his call dragged at her soul no more. The eagle of her +genius no more shook and shattered her with the wild beating of his +wings. She was like the Silent Violin--the music that her soul had not +sung was dead. + + + + +XXV + + +It was in Paris that what Nancy had so often vaguely dreaded and +expected happened at last. She was alone in the hotel in her own quiet +sitting-room when the lift-boy knocked at the door, and on her careless +response a visitor was ushered in. It was Aldo--Aldo with a square beard +and a dangling eyeglass, hat in hand, and faultlessly attired. + +He stood before her, gazing at her face. Then he put his hat on a chair, +extended both hands, and said in a deep, fervent voice: + +"Nancy!" + +Nancy had risen with quick, indrawn breath, and stood, slim and pale, in +her soft-tinted dressing-gown. He took another step towards her, still +with both hands outstretched. Nancy put out a diffident hand, and her +husband clasped it fervently in both his own. On his little finger was a +diamond ring. He bent his sleek black head over Nancy's hand and kissed +it. + +"Thank God!" he murmured, and sank into a chair. + +Nancy wondered what he was thanking God for. Aldo himself was not very +clear about it, but it seemed an appropriate thing to say. And he had +nothing else ready. The embarrassing silence was broken by Aldo. He +said: + +"Nancy, I have returned!" + +Nancy said, "Yes," and thought disconnected thoughts about his beard and +his diamond ring. + +"You have thought cruel thoughts of me during all this time?" + +No, Nancy had not thought cruel thoughts. + +"You have left off loving me?" + +Nancy looked at him with vague, dazed eyes, and smiled without knowing +why. Aldo tried not to notice the smile. He said: + +"Will you never forgive me?" + +"Oh yes, I suppose so," said Nancy; and she smiled again. + +She thought it funny that this strange man with the square beard and the +dangling eyeglass should be asking her to forgive him, and questioning +her about love. Nothing about him seemed in the least familiar. His +hair, that used to be parted in the middle, now waved back from his +forehead; his fan-shaped beard altered his face and made him look like a +Frenchman; even his hat, square and high and narrow-rimmed, lying on her +chair, had in it an element of utter strangeness. + +"What are you laughing at?" said Aldo. And some tone of offended vanity +in his voice startled her memory, and suddenly it was up and awake. + +"I am not laughing," said Nancy, and she began to cry. That was the +attitude that Aldo had expected, and knew how to cope with. A cold, +light-eyed woman with an ambiguous smile was an uncomfortable and +uncertain thing. But a woman in tears was a sight he had often seen, and +he understood the meaning of the bowed head and the significance of the +hidden face. He was beside her, his arm round her narrow shoulders. + +"Nancy, don't cry, don't cry! I have been a brute. But I will atone. I +will repay you in happiness a thousandfold for all that you have +suffered!" + +Still she wept with her face hidden in her hands. + +"I am rich. I have more money than we shall know how to spend." + +The heaving shoulders stopped heaving. They seemed to be waiting, +listening. There was distrust in those waiting shoulders, so he hurried +out: + +"It is all right. I have not gambled or done anything disreputable. The +money has been left to me"--still the shoulders waited--"by a--by--an +old person whom I befriended. She has died and left me her money. I +deserved it. I was very good to her--" + +The shoulders heaved again in a deep sigh. Relief? Despair? Aldo was +uncertain. + +"So all your troubles are at an end, Nancy. I have settled enough on you +and the child, so that you need no more exploit Anne-Marie." + +Nancy started up and away from him. "Exploit Anne-Marie!"... Exploit +Anne-Marie! Was that what he thought? Was that what other people +thought?--that she was _exploiting Anne-Marie_? + +Nancy covered her face again and burst into wild, uncontrollable sobs of +grief. She cried loud, like a child, and Aldo felt that these were not +the tears that he was used to and understood. + +In these tears were all Nancy's broken hopes and lost aspirations, all +that she had sacrificed and stifled and tried with prayers and fastings, +for Anne-Marie's sake, not to regret. Her work, her Book, her hopes of +Fame, her dreams of Glory, all that she had given up for love of +Anne-Marie, laid down for Anne-Marie's little feet to trample on, stood +up in her memory like murdered things. She remembered the beating wings +of her own genius that she had torn out in order not to impede +Anne-Marie in her flight, and the wounds burned and bled again. + +"I have not been exploiting Anne-Marie," she said, raising her +tear-merged eyes to Aldo. "All that she has earned in her concerts has +been put away for her. It is sacrosanct. No one has touched it." + +"Then how have you lived?" he said. + +"I have borrowed money," she said defiantly and angrily. "A lot of +money, which I shall repay when I can." + +"From whom?" asked Aldo. Nancy did not answer. + +"You can repay it now," said Aldo, frowning. And then he was silent. + +The frivolous hotel clock struck four in tinkling chimes. + +"Where is Anne-Marie?" asked Aldo, in a low voice. + +"She is out." And Nancy's face grew hard as stone. "I do not want her to +see you. She is not to be excited and upset." + +"Nancy!"--and Aldo's nostrils went white--"you must let me see her. I +have longed for her day and night for the past three years. I have +thought of nothing else. I have lain awake hours every night planning +the meeting with her. When I should be free, when I should be +rich"--Nancy flinched and shivered--"I thought of finding you struggling +and in need. And I planned our meeting. I was going to send something to +her--with no name--every day for a week beforehand, every day something +better than the day before. The first day only a box of sweets, or of +toys. Then a cageful of singing birds. Then a bankbook with money, and +the last day"--Aldo's eyes were full of tears now, but Nancy's were dry +and hard--"it was to be a pony-carriage with two white ponies and a +stiff little groom sitting behind"--Aldo's voice broke--"and that was to +fetch you both away, away from poverty, and misery, and loneliness, and +bring you back to me!" + +Aldo covered his face with his hands, and his tears fell over the +diamond ring. + +"Then I heard ... I read ... about Anne-Marie ... and I would not go to +hear her. I could not go, I could not sit alone ... and see my own +little girl ... standing there ... playing to a thousand strangers ... +while I, her father----" He became incoherent with grief. + +"And I have never heard her, never heard her," he sobbed. + +Nancy's lips were shut, and her heart was shut. She did not speak. + +Aldo looked at her through his swimming orbs, and wished that she would +weep too. He spoke in a broken whisper. + +"Am I not to be forgiven? Can we not all be happy again?" + +"No," said Nancy. + +"Do you mean never?" asked Aldo, and his beard worked strangely. + +"Never," said Nancy, and a shudder of dislike tightened her elbows to +her side. + +Then Aldo raved and wept. He had dreamed of this meeting for three +years; he had always loved her; he had always loved Anne-Marie; he had +done what he had done for her sake and for Anne-Marie; he had saved, and +skimped, and schemed for her and for Anne-Marie; he could not have lived +but for the thought of her and of Anne-Marie; and he would not live a +day longer unless it were with her and with Anne-Marie! + +As he spoke thus it was truth, and became truer while he said it, and +while he saw her and felt that she would never be anything in his life +again. + +"Oh, Nancy! Nancy! Nancy!" He grasped her cold, limp hand, and crushed +it in his own. "You will let me see Anne-Marie. You cannot refuse it! I +shall abide by what she says. If she does not want me I will go away. +But if she wants me--if she remembers me and says that I may +stay--promise me that you will let me! Promise! promise! I will not +leave you--I will not leave you until you promise!" + +Nancy would not promise. + +"Nancy, remember how we loved each other! Remember the days on Lake +Maggiore! Remember when you were writing your Book, and you used to read +it to me in the evening with your head against my arm. Remember +everything, Nancy, and promise that I may see Anne-Marie, and that if +she is willing you will let me stay. Promise, Nancy, promise!" + +But Nancy would not promise. + +"Nancy, have you forgotten the hard times in New York? The hunger and +the misery we went through together? For the sake of those dark days, +the days in the old Schmidls' house, and in the little flat; for the +sake of my dreary little dark room, that I have since so often longed +for and regretted, because I could see you and the child asleep through +the open door ... will you not promise, Nancy?" + +No; Nancy could not promise. + +"Do you remember when Anne-Marie had the measles?" sobbed Aldo. "And +she would only eat the food I cooked?... And she would only go to sleep +if she held my finger and I sang, 'Celeste Aida!' to her?... Will you +remember that, and will you promise?" + +Nancy remembered that. And she promised. + +They sat waiting for Anne-Marie to come back from her walk. Neither +spoke; but Aldo took a little picture-postcard of Anne-Marie with her +violin that lay on the table, and held it in his hand, gazing at it with +his elbow on his knee. Then his head drooped, and he sat with his +forehead pressed against the little picture. + +The unconscious Arbiter of Destinies came running along the hotel +passage with a balloon from the Bon Marche tied to her wrist. It was a +large red balloon with the words "Bon Marche" in gold letters on it, and +it had caused Fraeulein intense mortification as she had walked beside it +down the Boulevard des Italiens to the hotel. + +"People will recognize you," she had said to Anne-Marie in the street, +"and they will not take you and your music seriously any more. It is not +for a great artist to walk about with a stupid balloon." + +"It is not stupider than any other balloon," said Anne-Marie, slapping +its red inflated head, and watching it ascend slowly to the length of +its string. Then she pulled it down again, and a slight puff of wind +made it knock lightly against Fraeulein's cheek. + +Fraeulein was exceedingly vexed. "I cannot imagine how any one who plays +the Beethoven Sonata--" + +"Which Sonata?" asked Anne-Marie, who was an adept at changing the +conversation. "The Kreutzer or the Fruehling? I prefer the Kreutzer." + +Then she forcibly inserted her fingers under Fraeulein's hard and +resisting arm, and trotted gaily beside her. The balloon bumped lightly +against Fraeulein's hat, but Fraeulein did not mind; she merely said that +she would have preferred if "Louvre" had been written on it instead of +"Bon Marche," which looked so cheap. + +Anne-Marie now entered the sitting-room, balloon in hand. Fraeulein, +seeing a visitor there, withdrew to her room. + +Anne-Marie was used to people calling on her and waiting for her. She +put out a small warm hand to the stranger, who had started to his feet, +and was looking at her with vehement, tearful eyes.... Anne-Marie had +seen many strangers and many tearful eyes. She was not moved or +surprised. + +"Bon jour," she said, judging by the beard. + +Then she went to her mother. "Look at my balloon, Liebstes," she said, +slipping the string off her wrist. The balloon rose quickly and gently, +and before it could be stopped it was knock-knocking against the +ceiling. Anne-Marie's despairing eyes followed it. The room was high. +The piece of string hung beyond human reach. Then the man with the beard +took her hand, and said: + +"Anne-Marie!" + +Anne-Marie drew her hand away, rubbing it lightly against her dress. + +He again said: "Anne-Marie!" in a hoarse voice, with his hands clasped +together. "Look at me," he said, and the blue eyes obediently left the +ceiling and rested on his face. "Do you remember me?" + +"Yes," said Anne-Marie promptly and unveraciously. She had often been +chided by Fraeulein for saying an abrupt "no" on these occasions. "It is +rude to say 'no' and it hurts people's feelings. You must say: 'I am +not sure ... I think I remember ...' Fraeulein had admonished. "Oh, if I +must not say no, I had better say yes," said Anne-Marie, who believed in +being brief. And so she did on this occasion. + +The hot blood had rushed like a flame to Aldo's face. He dropped upon +his knee and took her hands, pressing them to his eyes, and to his +forehead, and to his lips. "My little girl! My little girl!" he said, +and the quick southern tears flowed. Anne-Marie said to herself: "He +must be a German musician." Only German musicians had been as +demonstrative as this. And she looked round to her mother, but her +mother's face was turned away. + +"May I stay--may I stay, Anne-Marie? You don't want me to go away again, +do you? Tell your mother that you want me to stay with you and take care +of you!" + +Now it was for Anne-Marie to be bewildered. + +"I don't want to be taken care of, thank you," she said, as politely as +she could. + +Aldo laughed through his tears. "Dear, funny little child of mine," he +cried, kissing her hand and her sleeve. + +Anne-Marie was matter-of-fact. "Good-bye," she said decisively. "If you +want an autograph, I will give you one." + +Aldo caught her by both arms, gazing into her face with blurred eyes. +"Anne-Marie! Anne-Marie! you said you remembered me! Don't you know who +I am? Don't you remember your father, Anne-Marie, who used to sing +'Celeste Aida, forma divina' to you when you were ill, and who took you +to see the squirrels in the park? Anne-Marie, don't you remember me?" + +Anne-Marie's underlip trembled. She shook her head. Aldo rose from his +knees. He turned away and hid his face in his hands. + +Anne-Marie tiptoed to her mother's side, and nestled in her encircling +arm. Then her eyes wandered upwards in search of the balloon. There it +was, close to the ceiling. Anne-Marie thought that it looked smaller +than it was before. She wondered how she would ever get it down again. + +Nancy had turned her face--a pinched white face that also looked +smaller, thought Anne-Marie--towards her, and spoke in a low voice. + +"Anne-Marie, he is your father." + +"Is he?" said Anne-Marie, glancing at the tall figure with the sloping +shoulders and the hidden face, and then at the hat on the chair. + +"Shall he stay with us?" questioned Nancy under her breath. + +"With us two?" asked Anne-Marie, with round, troubled eyes, and +remembering the impresario. + +"With us two." + +"For always?" and Anne-Marie's eyes were larger and more troubled. + +"For always," said Nancy. + +Anne-Marie glanced at the man again and at the hat again. Then she put +her cheek against her mother's arm, as she always did, when she asked a +favour. "Rather not, Liebstes," she whispered. + +The Arbiter had spoken. + +Aldo said only a few words more to Nancy. He placed his hands on +Anne-Marie's head, and looked at her a long time. Then he turned +suddenly, took up his square hat, and left the room. + +"That was a strange man," said Anne-Marie. "Was he really my father?" + +Nancy, with pale lips, said: "Yes." + +"Are you sure?" questioned Anne-Marie, raising her eyes to the balloon. + +"Yes, dear," said Nancy; and her tears fell. + +Suddenly Anne-Marie flew to the door. "Father!" she cried in a shrill +treble voice. + +Aldo, on the stairs, heard and stood still. His hand gripped the +bannisters, his heart leaped to his throat. + +"Father!" + +He turned slowly, doubtingly. + +"Father!" came the treble voice again; and he mounted the steps, and +went trembling and stumbling along the passage. Anne-Marie was standing +at the door. + +"Do you think," she said, "you could catch my balloon before you go?" + + * * * * * + +He caught her balloon. Then he went--out of the +room, out of their lives, out of the story. + + + + +XXVI + + * * * * * + + "MINA DE L'AGUA. + +"Nancy,--The years and the yearning are over. I am leaving for Europe. +You will come to meet me in Genoa; and we shall sit on the balcony where +three years ago you told me of your Book, which you feared would die +like a babe unborn in your breast. + +"I am coming to take you to Porto Venere, 'white in the +sunshine--tip-tilted over the sea'; and the Book shall live at last. + +"And we, also, shall live. Oh, Nancy, Nancy! I have been a silent and a +lonely man so long, that my love has no words, my happiness no language. +Even now I can hardly believe that the years of exile and solitude are +over. But I know that you, having loved me once, still love me and will +love me. I know that your heart is not a heart that changes, and that +the words that drew you to me across the ocean three years ago will +bring you to me again. Nancy, come to me. To my empty arms, to my sad +and solitary heart, Nancy, come at once. And for ever." + + * * * * * + +"DEAR OGRE, dear friend and love of mine, your call has shaken my soul. +All my longings, all my dreams, have joined their voices with yours, +crying to me to go to you. Alas! a little prayer that Fraeulein used to +make me say when I was a child whispers to me, and its small voice +drowns the cry of my desires. It is the prayer of the Three Angels that +stand round one's bed in the night: + + "'One holds my hands, One holds my feet, + And the Third One holds my heart.' + +"Can I come to you when I am thus bound--bound hands and feet by Law and +Church? My small conventional soul shrinks from the unlawful and the +forbidden. + +"But, believe me, were I free as air, were my hands unbound to lie in +yours, my feet unloosed to fly to you, the Third Angel remains. 'And the +Third One holds my heart.' Anne-Marie is the Third Angel. Anne-Marie +holds my heart. How could I bring her with me? Think and reply for me. +How could I leave her? Think and reply. Dear Ogre, I am one of the +Devoured. Little Anne-Marie has devoured me, and it is right that it +should be so; she has absorbed me, and I am glad; she has consumed me, +and I am grateful. For it is in the nature of things that to these lives +given to us, our lives should be given. What matter that I fall back +into the shadow--my course not run, my goal not reached, my mission +unfulfilled? Anne-Marie will have what I have missed; Anne-Marie will +reach the completeness that has failed me; for her will be the heights I +have not conquered, the Glory I have not attained. + +"Oh, lover and friend of mine, understand and forgive me. There is no +room for love in my life. My life is full of haste and turmoil, full of +Kings and Queens, full of rushing trains, and shouting voices, and +clapping hands.... + +"Can you not see it all as in a picture--the Pied Piper whistling and +dancing on ahead; little Anne-Marie, Fame-drunken, music-struck, +whirlwinding after him; and I following them in breathless, palpitant +haste, leaving all that was once mine behind me--my Books, my Dreams, my +Love?... Love in the picture is not a rose-crowned god of laughter and +passion. Love is a lonely figure, lonely and stern and sad. Oh, love, +forgive me, and understand! And say good-bye--good-bye to Nancy!" + + * * * * * + +He forgave her, and understood, and said good-bye to Nancy. + + + + +XXVII + + +The days swung on. And they swung Anne-Marie from triumph to triumph. +And they poured sunshine into her hair, and sea-shine into her eyes. And +they reared her into fulgent maidenhood, as a white lily is reared on a +fragile stem. + +They swung Nancy back into the shadow where mothers sit with gentle +hands folded, and eyes whose tears no one counts. She learned to forget +that she had even known a poem about "La belle qui veut, la belle qui +n'ose, ceuillir les roses du jardin bleu!" The blue garden of youth +closed its gates silently behind her, and the roses that Nancy's hand +had not gathered would bloom for her no more. + +But for Anne-Marie, when the time was ripe, the Pied Piper tossed his +flute to another Player. Anne-Marie stood still and listened to the new +call--the far-away call of Love. Soon she faltered, and turned and +followed the silver-toned call of Love. + + * * * * * + + + + +XXVIII + + +The carriage that was to take the bride and bridegroom to the station +was waiting in the Tuscan sunlight, surrounded by the laughing, +impatient crowd. As Anne-Marie appeared--her rose-lit face half hidden +in her furs, her travelling-hat poised lightly at the back of her +shining head--the crowd shouted and cheered, just as it had always done +after her concerts. And she smiled and nodded, and said, "Good-bye! +Good-bye! Thank you, and good-bye!" just as she always did at the close +of her concerts. The bridegroom, tall and serious beside her, would have +liked to hurry her into the carriage, but she took her hand from his arm +and stopped, turning and smiling to the right and to the left, shaking +hands with a hundred people who knew her and loved and blessed her. With +one foot on the carriage-step, she still nodded and smiled and waved her +hand. Then the young husband lifted her in, jumped in beside her, and +shut the carriage-door. Cheers and shouts and waving hats followed them +as the horses, striking fire from their hoofs, broke into a gallop, and +carried them down the street and out of sight. + +... Nancy had not left the house. She had not gone to the window. She +could hear the cheers and the laughter, and for a moment she pictured +herself with Anne-Marie in the carriage, driving home after the +concerts--Anne-Marie still nodding, first out of one window, then out of +the other, laughing, waving her hand; then falling into her mother's +arms with a little sigh of delight. At last they were alone--alone after +all the crowd--in the darkness and the silence, after all the noise and +light. And Anne-Marie's hand was in hers; Anne-Marie's soft hair was on +her breast. Again the well-known dulcet tones: "Did you like my concert, +Liebstes? Are you happy, mother dear?" Then silence all the way +home--home to strange hotels, no matter in what town or in what land. It +was always home, for they were together. + +Nancy stepped to the window, both hands held tightly to her heart. The +road was empty. The house was empty. The world was empty. Then she +cried, loud and long--cried, stretching her arms out before her, +kneeling by the window: "Oh, my little girl! My own child! What shall I +do? What shall I do?" + +But there was nothing left for Nancy to do. + + * * * * * + +Now it was late. Her Book was dead. Her child had left her. And the blue +garden was closed. + + + + +BOOK III + + + + +I + +Anne-Marie stirred, sighed, and awoke. + + +The room was dim and silent. But soon a gentle, rhythmical sound fell on +her ears, and pleased her. It was a soft, regular sound, like the +ticking of a clock, like the beating of a heart--it was the rocking of a +cradle. + +Anne-Marie smiled to herself, and her soul sank into peacefulness. The +gentle clicking sound lulled her near to sleep again. She was utterly at +peace--utterly happy. Life opened wider portals over wider shining +lands. + +Then, with the awakening of memory, came the thought of her violin. With +a soft tremor of joy, she realized that the brief silence of the past +year was over. Music would stream again from her hands over the world. + +Her violin! Under her closed lashes she thought of it. She could see the +gold-brown curves of the volute, the soft swing of the F's, the tense, +sensitive strings resting on the lithe, slim bridge--all waiting for +her, waiting for the touch of her wild young fingers to spring into life +and song again. + +The tears welled into her closed eyes. How she would work! What songs, +what symphonies she would create! How much she would say that nobody had +yet said.... + +Already Inspiration, nebulous and wan, laid soft hands upon her--drawing +faint harmonies, like floating ribbons, through her brain. Then joy +rushed through her like a living thing, and she saw her life before her. + +She would ascend the wide white road of Immortality with Love upholding +her, with Genius burning and exalting her like a flaming star that had +fallen into her soul.... + + * * * * * + +In the shadowy cradle the baby opened its eyes and said: "I am hungry." + + + + + _A Selection from the Catalogue of_ + + G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + + Complete Catalogues sent on application + + + + "_No one who reads it can ever forget it._" + _Albany Times-Union._ + + POPPY + + _The Story of a South African Girl_ + + By Cynthia Stockley + +"Breezy freshness, strong masculinity, and almost reckless abandon in +the literary texture and dramatic inventions."--_Phila. North American._ + +"Has a charm that is difficult to describe." _St. Louis Post-Dispatch._ + +"A book of many surprises, and a fresh new kind of heroine--strong, +sweet, and unconventional."--_St. Paul Pioneer Press._ + +"Extremely interesting--so much life, ardor, and color."--_New York +Herald._ + +"Shows undoubted power."--_N.Y. Times._ + +_Second Printing_ + +_With Frontispiece. $1.35 net ($1.50 by mail)_ + + New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London + + + + "_Clever, original, entertaining, thrilling._" + Cincinnati Times-Star. + + The Master Girl + + By Ashton Hilliers + + Author of "As It Happened," etc. + +A vivid story of prehistoric times, when the wife-hunter prowled around +the cave of the savage woman he intended to appropriate. Into this life +of hard necessity, of physical conflict, of constant peril and unceasing +vigilance, is introduced a love affair between a savage man and a savage +woman that presents a blending of tenderness and savagery typical of an +age when love and hate were more deeply rooted passions than they are +to-day. + +"_This tale of the Master Girl and her amazing doings has only one +fault. It is too short._"--New York Sun. + +_At all Booksellers. $1.25 net ($1.35 by mail)_ + + New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London + + + + _An ideal love story_ + + THE ROSARY + + By Florence L. Barclay + +"Once in a long while there appears a story like _The Rosary_, in which +there is but one adventure, the love of the two real persons superbly +capable of love, the sacrifices they make for it, the sorrows it brings +them, the exceeding reward. This can only be done by a writer of +feeling, of imagination, and of the sincerest art. When it is done, +something has been done that justifies the publishing business, +refreshes the heart of the reviewer, strengthens faith in the outcome of +the great experiment of putting humanity on earth. _The Rosary_ is a +rare book, a source of genuine delight."--_The Syracuse Post._ + +_Crown 8vo. $1.35 Net. ($1.50 by mail.)_ + + G. P. Putnam's Sons + New York London + + + + ANNA KATHARINE GREEN'S + + _GREAT NEW NOVEL_ + + THE HOUSE OF THE WHISPERING PINES + +This is one of the strongest and best detective stories ever written, +in which the popular author of "The Leavenworth Case" reaches the +culmination of her peculiar powers. + +_Imagine the situation!_ + +A rambling old country house surrounded by pines. Enter a man at +midnight, believing it deserted. He sees a beautiful girl come down the +stairs and depart. Upstairs he finds her sister, his fiancee, strangled. +As he bends over the lifeless body, enter the police, summoned by a +mysterious call. He is arrested. + +_Crown 8vo. $1.50_ + +_With Frontispiece in Color by Arthur I. Keller_ + + New York G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS London + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: There were a few printer's errors which have been +corrected. The oe ligature is indicated by [oe]. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Devourers, by Annie Vivanti Chartres + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEVOURERS *** + +***** This file should be named 39145.txt or 39145.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/1/4/39145/ + +Produced by Valentina, Sue Fleming, Carlo Traverso and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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