"A chi lo dite, Signora mia! Lasciate fare a me! Is it the first time?" said Gigia.
"If only one could hope that it would be the last," returned her mistress with a half laugh, half sigh.
By the time all these arrangements were made it was nearly twelve o'clock; and Bianca, dismissing her maid, placed herself, not without some care in the arrangement of her delicate draperies, on the sofa.
The judicious Gigia had said that the extent of snowy bosom exposed was not too liberal, due consideration being had to the circumstance that the Diva was to be caught by an unexpected surprise in an undress. So, as Bianca meant to be very much surprised, she carefully, and with dainty fingers, drew back the muslin on either side just a thought, so as to permit to an exploring eye merely such a suggestive peep of the swelling curves on either side as might furnish an estimate of the outline of the veiled heights beyond. She smiled, half with pleased consciousness and half with self-mockery, as she did so: then carefully arranged her drapery so as to allow two slim ankles to be visible just at the point where they crossed each other in a position which exhibited the curved instep of one slender foot in a full front view, and the side of the other negligently thrown across it. The pose was artistically perfect. Lastly, with one or two dexterous touches and shakes, she so arranged her wealth of hair as to combine an appearance of the most perfect negligee with a thoroughly artistic disposition of it, which, while it displayed to the best advantage the tresses themselves, served also to heighten the effect of the contours of neck and bust, which they partly showed and partly concealed.
And then the Diva waited patiently.
She had, as she had said to Gigia, no certain knowledge that he would come, nor even any very clear reason to believe that he would do so—that he would come, that is to say, earlier than one o'clock, at which hour it had been arranged that he should meet Stadione there. Nevertheless, Bianca had a strong persuasion that he would come earlier. Despite what she had said to Quinto Lalli of the circumstances and signs which seemed to indicate that the Marchese was not a man likely to be exposed to danger from such attacks as the Diva meditated making on him,—despite the fact that she had said to herself also all that she had said to her old friend, there had been something about the Marchese's manner—something in that last pressure of palm to palm that had set Bianca speculating as to the meaning of it. It was not a mere manifestation of admiration; the Diva was used enough to that in all its forms, and could read every tone of its language. It was more like wonder and curiosity,—at all events, it was not indifference. She had seen with half an eye, and without the slightest appearance of seeing it, that the Marchese could not keep his eyes away from her. During the drive to the city, and afterwards at the Palazzo Castelmare, while she was making the acquaintance of the principal people of the city, it had been the same thing. And nothing could be further than was the Marchese's manner, from the bold, unabashed staring, which such beautiful Divas as Bianca have often to endure. He evidently was devouring her with his eyes on the sly. Evidently he did not wish to be observed looking at her as he did look. Whenever her own eyes caught him in the fact, his were on the instant withdrawn: to return, as Bianca well marked, on the next instant.
Then, after those first words, which he had addressed to her at their meeting in the road, she had noted that he did not speak to her, as she sat by his side in the carriage, with the simple ease and freedom of indifference. There was almost something approaching to a manifestation of emotion in his manner of addressing her. It could not be that this elderly gentleman,—this very mature Marchese, had fallen in love with her already. Such an idea would have been too absurd! Yet his whole bearing was odd and ill at ease.
It had seemed to himself as if some subtle material influence affected him, as he sat by her side,—as if a magnetic emanation came forth from her that mounted to his brain, and disordered his pulses, and the flow of his blood. He had sat by the side of women as beautiful before now, and never been conscious of being affected in any similar manner. What it was that produced such an effect upon his nervous system,—what was the matter with him, he could not for the life of him imagine. It was unpleasant; he did not like it at all. And yet some irresistible stimulus and curiosity drove him to prolong rather than to avoid the sorcery.
Bianca was by no means fully aware of the power and of the strength of the sorcery which she was exercising on the Marchese. But she understood a great deal more about it than he did. And when, in making the appointment for him and the impresario to call on her at one o'clock, he had asked her if that was too early for her habits, and she had replied, that she was always afoot much earlier than that, Bianca had felt persuaded that he would be at the door at an earlier hour.
And her experience, or her instinct, with reference to such matters had not deceived her.
The quarter-past twelve had not struck, when the Diva heard a knock at the door of her apartment.
In the next instant Bianca heard the door of the room in which she was sitting opened very gently; it was Gigia who opened it, so gently as to enable her mistress to keep her eyes on a book she held in her hand, apparently unconscious that she was not alone. The Marchese Lamberto advanced two paces within the room, and then stopped gazing at the exquisite picture before his eyes. Bianca knew that all her preparatory cares were doing the work they were intended to do. But no sound had yet been made to compel her to recognize her visitor's presence; and she remained as motionless as a recumbent statue.
"I fear, Signora—," said the Marchese, after a few instants given to profiting by the rare opportunity a singular chance had given him,—"I fear, Signora—"
"Santa Maria, who is there!" cried Bianca in a voice of alarm, starting to her feet as she spoke with a bound, that none but so skilled an artist and so perfect a figure could have executed with the faultless elegance with which she accomplished it.
"A thousand pardons, Signora; your servant—"
"The Marchese Lamberto! It is unpardonable in the woman—to have so failed in her duty-towards your Excellency! It is I who have to beg your indulgence, Signor Marchese. Can it be one o'clock already? In truth I had no idea it was so late; and I have still to dress! How can I apologize to your Excellency sufficiently for appearing before you in this dishabille?"
"Nay, Signora, it is in truth I who have to apologize; it is not yet one o'clock, it is not much past twelve! And I feel that I am guilty of an unwarrantable intrusion. But I hoped for the opportunity of having a few words of conversation before the hour named for our little business with our good Signor Ercole. Permit me to assure you, Signora, that if your servant had given me the least hint that you were not yet—ready to see any visitor—"
"If only your Excellency will excuse—the fact is, I have so rarely any visitors that the poor woman does not understand her duty in such matters. Really I am so covered with confusion,"—she continued, putting up her delicate little hand with a feeble sort of little attempt to draw her dress a little more together across her throat. "I cannot forgive her! She has exposed me to seem wanting in respect towards your Excellency; I will dismiss her from my service!"
"Let me intercede for her, poor woman!" said the Marchese, advancing into the room; "indeed it was mainly my fault, I ought to have asked if you were visible."
"One word from la sua Signoria is enough. If you can forgive me, I must forgive her! But you will own, Signor Marchese, that it is—what shall I say—?" She hesitated and cast her eyes down with a bewitching smile and a little movement of her head to one side, "that it really is—embarrassing! Such a thing never happened to me before!"
"But now it has happened, Signora," said the Marchese, emboldened by the smile, and by a shy sidelong glance, which she shot from under her eye-lashes with a laugh in her eyes, as she spoke; "now it has happened that I have been permitted to see you in a toilet all the more exquisitely charming in that it wants the formality of the costume in which the world is wont to see you,—may I not say what I came for the purpose of saying?"
"Will you be very discreet, Signor?" she said, putting a slender rosy finger up to her smiling lips; "and never, never let it be known to any human being, that I ever received you save in the fullest of full dress, as would become me in receiving the honour of a visit from your Excellency!"
"Not a syllable, not a whisper!" replied the Marchese, taking her tone, and putting his own finger on his lips. "And then, I may say, Signora, that in Ravenna a visit at any hour from old Lamberto di Castelmare would do your fair name no harm!" he added, taking the arm-chair by the side of the sofa to which she pointed, as she resumed her former place and attitude on the couch.
"I dare say it might not, if I am to judge of his position in the society from your own, Signor Marchese. But I did not know, that there was any old Signor Lamberto di Castelmare. I supposed you were the head of the family, your uncle, perhaps?" said Bianca, very innocently.
"I have no uncle, Signora! I am the oldest Castelmare extant," said the Marchese.
"And you call yourself old Lamberto, Marchese! Why I would wager my pearl necklace,—and that is the most valuable possession I have—against a daisy chain, that you are not ten years older than I am. I shall be called old Bianca Lalli next, at that rate!"
"And how many years, since you are ready to wager on it,—have gone to the bringing the face and form I see before me to their matchless perfection?" said the Marchese.
"Who was ever before so prettily asked how old she was?" said Bianca, suffering her large blue eyes to rest fully on the Marchese's face for an instant, and then dropping them with an air of conscious embarrassment. "Well, a frank question deserves—or at least shall have—a frank answer! I shall never see my twenty-fourth birthday again?"
"And you judge me then to be thirty-four!" said the Marchese, looking at her laughingly.
"Certainly I don't think any room full of strangers would judge you to be more than that," replied Bianca, looking at him seriously.
"Ta!—ta!—ta! Add fifteen years to that; and you will be nearer the mark. So you see, bella Signora, that you may safely trust yourself to a tete-a-tete with me under any circumstances."
"Ta!—ta!—ta!" said Bianca, repeating his own phrase, with a merry laugh in her eyes, and shaking her rich auburn curls at him. "It seems impossible, utterly incredible! But I am very glad if it is so,—very glad. There is nothing so intolerable to me as the young lads who come buzzing about one circumstanced as I am, and whom it is as difficult to drive away as it is to drive away flies in summer. There is no trusting to them; they would compromise a poor girl as soon as look at her, if she was fool enough to let them. And I have had lessons in the necessity of caution, Signor Marchese. I have been cruelly treated,—very cruelly calumniated!" And Bianca, knowing, it is to be supposed, that, if it is not always the case that "Beauty's tear is lovelier than her smile," as the poet says, yet that it is a phase of beauty often more potent over a male heart than the sunniest smile, raised a corner of her daintily-embroidered handkerchief to her eyes.
The Marchese was an old man of the world,—as the cynical phrase goes,—and of what a world?—an old Italian Marchese of the beginning of the nineteenth century,—a period when, if crime was less rife than in former and stronger ages, morality was never at a lower ebb. He was a man whose musical tastes had made him conversant with the Divas of the stage, and familiar with the interior aspects of Italian theatrical life;—one, too, whom circumstances had caused to become specially well acquainted with the antecedent history of this particular Diva now stretched on the sofa before him. Yet none the less for all this did "beauty's tear," enhanced by beauty's laced pocket-handkerchief, exercise on him its usual glamour.
Calumniated!—that lovely creature of matchless purity before him,—matchless purity! so white was her throat; so round and slender her waist; so daintily snowy her muslin drapery. Calumny! Of course it was calumny. And how he could have poignarded the calumniators, and taken the poor, fluttering, persecuted Diva to his bosom. The desire to execute that latter portion of retributive and poetical justice was making itself felt stronger and stronger within him every minute, as he sat beside the sofa exposed to the full force of the magnetic poison-current which was intoxicating him.
"Signora—" he said, putting his hand out to take hers, which she readily gave him. His own hand shook, and he paused in his speech, overcome for a moment by a sort of dizziness and a sudden rush of the blood to his brow and eyes,—a veritable electric shock caused by the contact of her hand with his.
"Signora," he continued, recovering himself, "no such slander—no such insults will follow you here; none such shall follow you here. Lamberto di Castelmare can, at least in Ravenna, promise you that much. Nor if they did follow you, would such stories here be believed."
"Generous! Just!" murmured Bianca behind the laced pocket-handkerchief in a broken voice, just loud enough to reach the neighbouring ear of the Marchese, while she suffered her slender fingers to press the hand which held hers just perceptibly before withdrawing it from him;—"just," she continued in a louder tone, taking her handkerchief from her face, and raising her shoulders a little from the sofa, so as to turn more fully towards him, while her eyes fired point blank into his a broadside of uncontrollable gratitude and admiration;—"just, because generous and noble. Oh, Signor Marchese, those who have never known what it is to suffer from a slanderous tongue can never know the delight—the sweet consolation of meeting with such generous appreciation."
The poor Diva was quite overcome by her own emotion; and, sinking back on the cushions of the sofa, again lifted her handkerchief to her face, while one or two half-stifled sobs showed how deeply she had been moved;—and how perfect was the form and hue of the beautiful half-covered bosom which this emotion caused to heave beneath its gauzy veil.
Just at that minute there came, to the infinite disgust of the Marchese, a discreet tap at the door.
Bianca rapidly passed her fingers over the tresses above her forehead, resettled her pose on the sofa, and gave the Marchese a meaning look of common intelligence and mutual confidence, which set forth, as well as a volume could have done, and established the fact that there existed thenceforward a bond of union and a fellowship between her and him, such as shut them in together, and shut out in the cold all the rest of Ravenna, and then said "Passi," and admitted, as she knew very well, no more startling an interrupter than Gigia.
The well-trained servant said nothing and looked at nothing; but silently handed to her mistress two cards.
"Of course you told these gentlemen that I was not visible, Gigia?"
"Diamine! Signora; of course I should not have let any gentleman pass this morning more than any other morning of the year if you had not specially told me to admit the Marchese Lamberto at any hour he might come," said Gigia with a niaise simplicity, as she left the room.
Bianca covered her face with her pretty hands and shook a gale of perfume from her sunny locks, as she exclaimed, sotto voce,—"Oh, the stupidity of these servants! Signor Marchese," she continued, looking up shyly, but with a gay laugh in her eyes, "what must you not imagine?—not, at all events, I hope, that I contemplated the possibility of receiving you in this dishabille? But I will do as other criminals do;—confess when they are found out. I did think," she continued, casting down her eyes, and hesitating with the most charmingly becoming and naive confusion; "I had some little hope—no; I don't mean that;—I did not mean to put that into my confession;—it did occur to me as possible," she went on, hanging her pretty head, and playing nervously with the folds of her dress in a manner which had the accidental effect of causing it to leave uncovered an additional inch of silk stocking—"it did occur to me as possible that the Marchese Lamberto might come to me sooner than the time named for the meeting with the impresario;—for the sake of giving me any hints that his perfect knowledge of the subject might suggest; and I fully intended to be dressed and ready to receive him if he should show me any such condescending kindness—and so told my maid to make an exception in his case to my invariable rule! And then the minutes slipped away; and I fell into a reverie, thinking—thinking—thinking; and then, all of a sudden, before I knew that there was any one in the room—if you think of the devil—and I suppose it is equally true if you think of an angel;—but there, again, that was not intended to be any part of my confession. I think I shall give up confession, at all events to you, Signor Marchese, for the future. But now I have confessed myself this time, and told the whole, whole truth—may I hope for absolution?"
There was an adorable mixture of candour, and gaiety of heart, and child-like simplicity in the beautiful features as she looked up into his face when she finished speaking, together with an expression of appealing confidence and almost tenderness in the eyes that achieved the final and complete subjugation of the Marchese.
Again he took her hand, and again his head swam round with the violence of the emotion caused by the contact of palm with palm, as he said,
"Ah, Signora, if I were equally candid perhaps it would turn out that it was for me to confess, and for you to grant absolution—if you could. Do you think you could?" he said, raising her hand to his lips as he said the words.
"Ha! Signor Marchese, that would quite depend upon the nature of the confession. When I have heard it I will do my best to be an indulgent confessor. But, however curious I may be to hear you in the confessional, it must not be now; or I shall really not be ready to receive Signor Stadione. Heavens! It wants only ten minutes to one now. I must run and dress as quickly as I possibly can. To think that almost an hour should have run away since you came here; and it seems like ten minutes. May I beg your indulgence, Signor Marchese, if I ask you to wait for me while I dress? I will be as quick as I possibly can."
"On no account hurry yourself, Signora. It is my fault for having detained you. And if I had to wait ten hours instead of one, would not the one I have passed be cheaply purchased? Never mind Stadione; I will explain to him that you are dressing—"
"And that you have been made to wait some time already by my abominable unpunctuality," said Bianca, holding up one fore-finger and giving him a look of mutual intelligence.
"Of course—of course. A chi lo dite!" returned the Marchese, giving her once more his hand to help her to rise from the sofa.
As she did so she put into his hand, without any word of comment, but with a slight smile and a little momentary raising of her eyebrows, the two cards that Gigia had, a little while before, handed to her. They bore the names of the Barone Manutoli and the Marchese Ludovico Castelmare; and Bianca handed them to the Marchese with a matter-of-course air that seemed to say that, in the position which the Marchese Lamberto and she had assumed towards each other, it was natural and proper that he should see who had called on her.
He merely nodded as he looked at them; and then, for the second time, kissing the tips of the fingers he still held, as she got up from her couch, he bowed low as she passed him to go towards the bedroom; and she, before quitting the room, made a sweeping curtsey, half playfully, and then kissed the tops of her fingers to him as she vanished into the inner room.
The Marchese Lamberto and Signor Ercole Stadione quitted the house in which the prima donna had her lodging, together, when the business matters, which they had come thither to arrange, had been settled.
"A wonderful woman, Signor Marchese," said the little impresario, trotting along with short steps by the side of the Marchese, and rising on his toes in a springy manner, that made his walk resemble that of a cock-sparrow. "Truly a wonderful woman. I have seen and known a many in my day, Signor Marchese, as you are well aware, sir; but such an one as that, such an out-and-outer, I never saw before."
"She is evidently a lady, whose education and manners entitle her to be treated with all respect," replied the Marchese, more drily, the little man thought, than his great patron was usually in the habit of addressing him, and somewhat quickening his stride at the same time, as if he wanted to walk away from the impresario.
"Most undoubtedly, Signor Marchese, and every sort of respectful treatment she shall have. There shall be a stove and a new looking-glass put into her dressing-room this very day. If she don't draw, say Ercole Stadione knows nothing about it. A very singular thing it is, Signor Marchese,—and you must have observed it, Signor, as well as I,—there's some women whose singing, let 'em sing as well as they will, is the smallest part of their value in filling a theatre. There's no saying what it is, but they draw—Lord bless you, as a bit of salt will draw the cattle after it! And this Lalli is one of that sort. I know 'em, when I see 'em. Won't she draw, that's all!" said the little man again, rubbing his hands together, and chuckling with infinite glee.
The Marchese Lamberto would have been at a loss probably if he had been required to state clearly why he felt angry and annoyed with the impresario that morning, and thought him a bore, and wished to be quit of him. But such was the case. And presently, when the well-skilled and business-like little man began to canvass the capabilities of certain parts in his repertorio, for the most advantageous showing off of the personal advantages of the new acquisition, the Marchese could stand it no longer, but replied hastily:
"Well, well. All these matters had better be submitted to the lady herself. I think, Signor Ercole, that I will say good-morning now. You are going to the theatre, and I am waited for at the palazzo."
And the Marchese did return to the palazzo, though nobody was specially waiting for him there. On the contrary, he told the servant in the hall to admit nobody, and when he reached his library, he shut the door and bolted it. And then he threw himself into an easy chair to think.
The first thing that his thinking made clear and certain to him was that something had happened, or was happening to him, which had never happened to him before,—something respecting the exact nature of which all his previous experience afforded him no light.
In love! He had never been in love; but he knew, with some tolerable accuracy, what was generally understood by the phrase. He had read the poets, who describe the passion under sufficiently various phases; and he had heard plenty of lovers' talk among a people who are not wont to suffer, or to exult, or to be happy in silence. Was he in love with this woman? Did he, in his heart, love her—in his heart, as he was there in the solitude of his own room, at liberty and at leisure to examine his heart upon the subject. A heavy frown settled on the Marchese Lamberto's brow, and an unpleasant change came over his face, as he proceeded with the task of asking his heart this question. There rose up feelings and promptings within him, which almost drove him to the fierce assertion to himself that he hated this woman, who was thus occupying his thoughts against his will.
What had become of all that warm chivalry of feeling that had urged him, with all perfect earnestness of sincerity, to declare that no breath of calumny or insult should come near her, beneath the aegis that he could and would throw over her? Where was it gone? All clean gone. He knew, with tolerable accuracy, the story of the former life of this woman. They were facts which he knew,—certainly knew. But they had all vanished from his mind,—had been as though they were not,—while he had sat there by her sofa, looking at her and listening to her,—had all vanished, even as the ardent chivalry, which had then been caused by some sorcery to spring up in his mind, had vanished now.
It was passing strange.
That he was very sorely tempted—as he had never before in his life been, tempted—to make love to this actress,—as it is called,—to make love to her after the fashion, not so much of those poetical descriptions which have been referred to, as after the fashion of those prosaic settings-forth of the passion, which were familiar enough to his ears, was clearly recognizable by him. He knew very certainly that he desired that.
And was what he desired so much out of his reach? Surely all that had happened, all that he had seen, all that he had heard at the interview with Bianca that morning, was not calculated to lead him to think so. And why should it be? It would be all very much according to the ordinary current of events in such matters. He was a bachelor. He was wealthy. He was the most prominent noble of the city. He was brought specially into contact with the lady by his theatrical connection and habitudes. His patronage and protection were by far the most valuable that could be offered to her in Ravenna. The Diva herself was—such as Divas of her sort and time were wont to be. It would seem to be all very easy and straight-forward. What was the worst penalty wont to follow from such peccadilloes to persons in his position? The loss of a little money,—of a good deal of money perhaps. But he had plenty and to spare.
But none of these considerations availed to smooth the frown from the Marchese's brow, or to make the future at all seem clear before him.
In the first place to make this singer his mistress, simple and little objectionable as such a step might seem to most men of his country, and rank, and period, and freedom from ties, was not an easy matter, or an agreeable prospect to the Marchese, on purely social considerations. He had placed himself on a special pedestal, from which such a liaison would involve a fall. And such a fall, or the danger of such a fall, was very dreadful to the Marchese. There was the Cardinal; there were the good nuns, whose affairs he managed, and who looked on him as a saint on earth. Worst of all there was his nephew. How preach to him (terribly necessary as such preaching might be) under such circumstances?
To be sure, there was no need of doing whatever he might do in such sort that the whole town should be his confidant. He had as good opportunities for secrecy as could be desired. Theatrical business and his recognized connection with it was an abundant and unsuspected excuse for as much conversation with the lady,—as many interviews as he might wish. It seemed safe enough upon the whole.
And yet these considerations did not avail to take the frown from the Marchese's brow, or bring his perplexed self-examination to an end. The very evident disposition of the lady to be kind did not avail to please him. Instead of being pleased and triumphant at the probable prospect of so enviable a bonne fortune, he was displeased, unhappy, irritated, angry—angry with himself and with the sorceress who had thrown this spell on him. How was it? By what charm had she bewitched him so? Already he was impatient, longing to be back again in her presence. And yet he was angry with her,—doubted whether he did not rather hate her than love her.
At last he started from his chair and swore that he would retain the mastery over his own self; that he would think no more of the abominable woman,—see her no more!
Taking his hat he rushed out of the house, with an instinctive desire for bodily movement as a means of stilling the tossing fever that was raging within him; walked through the streets at such an unusual pace, that the people turned round to look after him as he passed; walked by the door of the house in the Via di Santa Eufemia in which Paolina lived,—saw Ludovico coming from it, who was surprised indeed at thus seeing his uncle; and more surprised still to find, that the Marchese passed him without seeming to notice him,—walked out into the country, and returned only at supper-time, tired and worn out; and then, when the supper was over, and Ludovico had gone out to the Circolo as usual, after pacing his room, and swearing to himself at every turn, that he would see the creature no more,—slunk out of his own palazzo, feeling afraid of being seen by his own servants, and wandered to her lodging!
And what were Bianca's meditations, when the business visit of the impresario was over, and he and the Marchese left her room together?
First and foremost, the Marchese Lamberto was in love with her; and that not as dozens of youngsters in many a city had been; but madly, desperately, in love with her. That fact admitted of no doubt whatever! It was strange, curious enough, that she should have succeeded so brilliantly, so entirely, and so immediately in spite of all the signs and tokens which had led her not small experience to expect so entirely different a result. Clearly the still larger experience of old Quinto Lalli had been more far-sighted. His view of the matter had been the true one!
But still, how far was his view of the question a correct one? What was the success, which had been very unmistakably so far achieved, in reality worth? It was very plain that this Marchese Lamberto had been caught, captivated, fascinated! But what then? There was no doubt at all that he would very willingly suffer her to add him to the list of her previous admirers and lovers. It never entered into the Diva's head to conceive, after the very unmistakable testimony she had received of the evident admiration of the Marchese, that very grave difficulties, objections, and hesitations would, on his side, stand in the way of his accepting any such position. She doubted not that this conquest was perfectly within her reach; and that there would be no difficulty at all in drawing large supplies from the Castelmare wealth towards recruiting the needs of the Lalli exchequer.
But this, as has been explained, was not what Bianca wanted. "Major rerum sibi nascitur ordo!" She was intent on playing a higher and greater game. Was it likely she would be able so to fix the harpoon she had successfully thrown in the very vitals of the prey, so to make this man feel that she was absolutely essential to his happiness, as to induce him to marry her? That was the question! And Bianca did not delude herself into imagining that anything that had passed between herself and the Marchese that morning entitled her to consider the battle which should lead to that victory as even begun.
The Diva did not conceal from herself the greatness and arduous nature of the task before her. She knew what a Marchese of mature age, of noble lineage, and of unblemished reputation, was; and she knew what she was. But she did not appreciate those extra difficulties in the case, which arose from the special social position, and still more from the special character and temperament of the man,—and these were the greatest difficulties of all!
On the whole, she was sanguine; and what was perhaps more to the purpose, old Quinto, when they talked the matter over together, and the general result of the morning interview had been reported to him, was sanguine too.
"Depend upon it, bambina mia," he said, "it is the best game—the real game. Young fry will rise to the bait more readily; but they also wriggle off the hook much more easily. It is the old fish who, when he has it once fixed in his gills, cannot get rid of it, struggle as he may. You play your game well,—neither relaxing, nor yet too much in a hurry, and I prophesy that I shall live to see you Marchesa di Castelmare."
"And many a year afterwards, I hope, papa mio. And you may depend on my teaching my husband to behave like a good son-in-law," said Bianca, with a bright laugh.
"As for the nephew," continued Quinto, "I can understand that it would be more agreeable to make your attack on him—"
"I don't know that at all, papa mio," interrupted Bianca. "You may laugh, if you will, and think that I am making a virtue of necessity—and small blame to me if I were—but the truth is, I do like the Marchese. I like him better, as far as I can yet tell, than any man I ever knew. Yes! you may make grimaces, and look as wicked as you please! But it is true. And, if you ever do see me Marchesa di Castelmare, you will see that I shall make him a very good, ay, and a very fond, wife."
"Who could doubt it, Signora, that has the advantage of knowing you as well as I do?" said the old man, with a mocking bow.
"You may sneer as much as you like, Quinto; but you understand nothing about it. The Marchese is a man any woman might love. You call him an old man? I tell you he is younger for a man than I am for a woman, God help me! It isn't only years that make people old."
"That's true, bambina mia, poveretta. And I am sure I have nothing to say against it if you can fancy this Marchese a gay and handsome young cavalier."
"Handsome he is, as far as that goes. I swear he is the handsomest man I have seen here! His nephew is good-looking enough, but he is not to be compared to his uncle either in face or person."
"Well, whether you have succeeded or not in making the Marchese in love with you, cara mia, I begin to think that you have succeeded already in falling in love with him," said Quinto, looking at her with raised eyebrows.
Bianca remained silent awhile, nodding her head up and down in a sort of reverie, and then said, rousing herself with a shake of her flowing curls as she looked up, "No; not quite that. But I won't say that it is impossible that if I am to make him love me, I may come to love him in the doing of it. You see, amico mio, it is something new. It is not the old weary mill-round. He did not come to me with the set purpose of making love to me, as all those young fellows have done, and do, just because they have nothing else to amuse them; because it's the fashion; because it's a feather in their caps; because it's the thing to have a prima donna for their mistress! If the Marchese has fallen, or falls, in love with me, he does so because he cannot help himself, he does it in despite of himself; and that flatters a woman, Quinto. Well, we shall see," she added, after another pause: "one thing, at all events. I swear that there shall be nothing between me and the Marchese—of—the old sort."
"It is wisely said, bambina mia. That is the road which must lead, if any can, to the winning of your game."
There was, at all events, one man at Ravenna who was entirely pleased and satisfied with the famous prima donna in all respects: and this was Signor Ercole Stadione.
The Carnival campaign of La Lalli had been thus far brilliantly successful, and the Carnival was now about half over. She "drew," as the little impresario had prophesied she would, to his heart's content. It was many a year since there had been so successful a season at the theatre. Each part she sang in was a more brilliant success than the last; and the public enthusiasm was such as enthusiasm on such subjects never is save in Italy.
In every respect, too, her ways and behaviour had been unexceptional. Her attention was never distracted from her business by the visits of young men behind the scenes—a torment which, during the reigns of other Divas, had often driven the poor little impresario, who dared not get rid of such intruders as he would have liked to do, almost wild. Bianca would permit no visits of the kind. She had never behaved herself to any of the young men in such sort as to cause any of those rivalries and jealousies which are sometimes apt to manifest themselves in hostile partisanship, when the Diva is on the boards—another fruitful source of trouble to much-tried impresarios.
She had walked circumspectly and prudently in all respects—a most moral and highly satisfactory Diva.
She was understood to receive no visitors at home—at least, none of a compromising kind. The Marchese Lamberto was often with her: of course, naturally! He was well known to be always a sort of second amateur manager: neither the theatre nor little Ercole Stadione could go on without him. And then the Marchese Lamberto was—the Marchese Lamberto! If he had chosen to sit by the bedside of any prima donna in Italy night after night, it would only have been supposed that he was giving her possets for the improvement of her voice.
Occasionally, also, she would receive the visits of the Marchese Ludovico; evidently by reason of the unavoidable intimacy of his uncle in the house. And Ludovico reported to them all at the Circolo that she was a most charming woman indeed—full of talent, merry as a young girl, companionable, and fond of society, but wholly devoted to her art, and quite inaccessible in the way of love-making. He assured the jeunesse doree of Ravenna that they lost nothing in any such point of view by their exclusion from her intimacy, for that all their enterprises in that line would be quite thrown away.
The Conte Leandro Lombardoni, indeed, always carried about with him in his breast-pocket, a carefully preserved little letter on pink notepaper, which he gave the world to understand was part of a correspondence carried on between him (reconciled as he was to the bel sesso) and the Diva; and had more than once contrived to be seen hanging about the door of her house at hours when honest Divas, as well as mortals, ought to be in bed and asleep. But nobody believed him, or imagined that anything save a bad cold was at all likely to result from his vigils beneath the cold stars. He showed, indeed, with many mysterious precautions against the remainder of the letter being seen, that the little pink sheet of notepaper did indeed bear the signature of "Bianca Lalli." But when one of the ingenuous youth picked his pocket of it, it was found to be a very coldly courteous acknowledgment of a copy of verses, which the Diva promised to read as soon as her avocations would permit her to do so!
"Any way," said the discomfited poet, "that is more than any of you others have got. And it's not so small a matter, when you come to think of it!"
"Per Bacco, no! Leandro is in the right of it!" said the young Conte Beppo Farini; "a small matter to find somebody who promises even to read his verses! I should think not, indeed! Where will you find another to do as much?"
"Riconciliato col bel sesso! I should think you were, indeed!" cried another; "she absolutely thanks you for sending her your rhymes! Nobody ever did as much as that before, Leandro mio! No wonder you haunt the street before her door!"
"I don't haunt the street before her door. Envy, Jealousy, ye green-eyed and loathsome monsters, how miserably small and mean can ye make the hearts of men!" said Leandro, lifting up hands and eyes.
"Bravo, Leandro, bravo! get upon the table, man!" cried Farini.
"Get home to bed, rather. It is too bad, because no human being will read his poetry, he takes to spouting it!" said the other.
"Let us look what she says," cried Ludovico di Castelmare; putting out his hand to take the little note. "Upon my word she writes a pretty hand. It is a very neatly expressed note."
"Oh, you can see that much, can you?" returned Leandro. "I should think it was too! Is there any one of you here can show such a note from any woman, let her be who she may? She says she will read the poem I have been good enough to send her—good enough to send her, mark that!—as soon as she can find time to do so! What could she say more, I should like to know? Of course she is occupied. It stands to reason. But she will read my poem; and then you will see!"
"Ay, then we shall see our little Leandro duly appreciated at last!" said the Barone Manutoli. "As soon as the Diva has found time to read the poem there will come another little pink note, adorably perfumed: he will be summoned to her august presence, and installed as her poet in ordinary, and who knows what else besides,—her Magnus Apollo? It is a pity there are not eight other prime donne to make up the sacred number. Then we should see our Leandro in his true position and vocation. Give me a sheet of paper, and I will show you a new presentation of Apollo and the Muses. They are all presenting him with pasticcerie and bonbons. He has one hand on the lyre, and the other on his stomach, for the homage of the goddesses has made him somewhat sick; his eyes, you observe, are cast heavenwards, partly by reason of poetic inspiration, and partly by reason of nausea!"
"Bravo! bravo, Manutoli!" cried a chorus of voices.
"Envy and jealousy, envy and jealousy, all envy and jealousy. It is pitiable to see what they can reduce men to," cried the poet, foaming at the mouth.
"Never mind them, Leandro mio—never mind them. It is the universal penalty of true merit, you know; the same thing all the world over," said Ludovico.
"But, I say, Ludovico," rejoined Manutoli, "in the meantime, till our Leandro's poem shall have been read and duly appreciated, you are the only one who has been admitted to the privacy of La Lalli. What is your report to us Gentiles of the outer court? Is she really so unapproachable? And is she as adorable behind the scenes as before them?"
"Well, you ought to be able to answer that question yourself, Manutoli," replied Ludovico; "you were with lo zio and me that day when we went out to meet her; I am sure you had a fair look at her then."
"A look? Yes; and I looked all I could look. I saw a charming face, younger and fresher looking than might have been expected from the length of time she has been on the boards,—a very pretty figure, as far as her travelling-dress would show it one; and the loveliest foot and ankle I ever saw in my life. I could swear to that again at any time. Don't you remember how she stood with her foot down on the step, when she was getting out of the carriage. I thought at the time that she knew what she was about very well."
"Of course she did. Do you think they don't always know very well, every one of them, off the stage or on the stage?" said Farini.
"But I want to know what sort of body, she is?" returned Manutoli; "I don't need to be told that she is a very lovely woman; but of what sort is she? Why does she keep us all at a distance? What is her game?"
"Upon my life I don't know," answered Ludovico, "unless it's a devouring passion for Leandro. I protest I have no reason to think she cares a button for anything but her own art. I never tried; but it's my impression that if I had ever whispered a word in her ear I should have got a flea in my own for my pains."
"You don't want to make us believe that you have been seeing her frequently all this time,—passing hours with her a quattro occhi, and have never made love to her, Ludovico?" said Farini.
"No; I don't want to make you believe don't care a straw whether you have it or not; but it is the the fact, for all that," returned Ludovico.
"Ludovico has enough on his hands in quarter. What would they say about it in the Via Santa Eufemia if he were to bow down to new and strange goddesses?" said Manutoli.
"That, if you please, Manutoli, we will not discuss either now or at any other time," said Ludovico, with a look that showed he was in earnest. "But, as for La Diva Bianca, I have no objection to tell all I know to anybody. My belief is that she is as correct and proper, and all that sort of thing, as a Vestal."
"Che!"
"Che!"
"Che!"
A chorus of protestations of incredulity in every tone of the gamut met the monstrous assertion.
"What, after all we heard of her doings at Milan—after all the histories of her goddess-ship in every city of Italy?" said Manutoli.
"Well, what did we hear of her doings at Milan? The fact is, we know nothing about the matter; and as to her previous history—of course I don't suppose that she is, and always has been, a Diana; but it may be that she has come to the time when she has thought it well to turn over a new leaf. Such times do come to such women; but all I know is, that I firmly believe that since she has been here she has lived the life of a nun," said Ludovico, in the simple tone of a man who is stating a truth which he has no interest in causing his hearers to credit or discredit.
"Per Bacco, it's queer!" said Farini, slapping his hand against his thigh. "I have heard," he continued in the tone of one speaking of some strange and almost incredible monstrosity,—"I have heard of such women taking a turn to devozione. It's not that with La Lalli, is it?"
"Che! Nothing of the sort; she is as full of frolic as a kitten—up to any fun. And she is a very clever woman, too, let me tell you—a good deal of education. If you will put making love to her out of your head, I never knew a woman who was pleasanter company," said Ludovico.
"And you really mean that you have never tried to make love to her in any way?" reiterated Manutoli.
"I do mean it, upon my soul; but I don't care a rap whether you believe it or not," rejoined Ludovico.
"And you are with her very frequently?" persisted Manutoli.
"Yes, I have seen a good deal of her altogether. I like her; and I fancy she likes me to go there; she seems to wish me to come. Perhaps it is a novelty to her to have a man about her who doesn't try to make love to her."
"The Marchese Lamberto sees her a good deal?"
"Yes; naturally. If it had not been for that I should probably never have made acquaintance with her at all. Lo zio is continually there. He ought to have been an impresario. In fact, he is the real impresario. Little Ercole only does what my uncle tells him. I don't believe she ever sings a note on the stage that he has not heard and approved beforehand."
"Suppose he is the dark horse; suppose she is his mistress all this time; and he takes care to keep her all to himself," said Manutoli.
"What, lo zio. Bah! I should have thought that you knew him better than that, Manutoli. To him a woman is a voice, and nothing else. If the same sounds could be got out of a flute or a fiddle he would like it much better, and think it far more convenient. I don't think my uncle Lamberto ever knew whether a woman was pretty or plain. I wish to heaven he would get caught for once in his life; it would suit my book very well. He would have less leisure to think of other things."
The fact was that the Marchese had, in truth, had less leisure to think of those other things from which Ludovico desired that his attention should be drawn away. His visits to the Via Santa Eufemia had been more frequent than ever; his visits to the Marchesa Anna Lanfredi and her niece rarer than ever. And he had received neither lectures nor remonstrances for a long time past. In truth, the Marchese had his mind too full of other matters to think much of his nephew's affairs or doings. And, besides that, there was a quite new and hitherto unknown feeling in the heart of the Marchese Lamberto which made him shrink from any such encounter with his nephew, as remonstrances respecting his conduct with regard to Paolina would have occasioned;—a feeling which made it seem to him that he was the watched instead of the watcher; that suggested to him the fear that the first word he might utter upon the subject would be met by references to doings of his own.
An utterly unfounded fear. But so it is that conscience doth make cowards of us all.
The Marchese was uneasy in the presence of his nephew. But the fact was that he was uneasy and unhappy altogether, and at all times. From being one of the most placidly cheerful and contented of men, he was becoming nervous, anxious, and restless. People began to remark that the Marchese was beginning to look older. They had said for years past that he had not grown a day older in the last ten years. But this winter there was a change in him!
It did not occur to anybody to connect any change that was observable either in the Marchese's manner or in his appearance, with the frequency of his visits to the quartiere inhabited by the prima donna and Signor Quinto Lalli, in the Strada di Porta Sisi. The ordinary habits of the Marchese, and his functions as a patron of the theatre and amateur impresario were so well known and understood, that it seemed perfectly natural to all Ravenna that he should be very frequently with the prima donna. And on the other hand, the almost monastic regularity of his life, and his character of long standing in such respects, would have made the notion that he had any idea of flirting with the singer appear utterly absurd and inadmissible to every man, woman, or child in the city, if it had ever come into anybody's head.
The fact was, however, that the Marchese was much oftener in the Strada di Porta Sisi than anybody guessed. Besides the morning visits, which were patent to all the world, who chose to take heed of them, the Marchese very frequently spent those evenings there, when the "Diva" did not sing; slinking out of the Palazzo Castelmare, and taking all sorts of precautions to prevent any human being—nephew, servants, friends, or strangers—from guessing the secret of these nocturnal walks.
Such precautions were very needless; if anybody had noticed the Marchese Lamberto passing under the shadow of the eaves in any part of the city after nightfall, it would only have been supposed that he was bound on some mission of beneficence, or good work of some sort! And if even it had become known to a few persons given to prying into what did not concern them, that the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare was not more immaculate in his conduct than his neighbours, the only result would have been a few jests which he would have never heard, and a few sly smiles which he would have never seen.
But the Marchese could not look at the matter in this light. He felt as if his fall from the social eminence on which he stood would have been as a moral earthquake in Ravenna. The idea that such jests and such smiles could exist, however unseen and unheard, would have been intolerable to him. And the Marchese was, accordingly, a miserable man.
A miserable man, and he could not help himself! Each time that he quitted the siren, the chain that bound him was drawn more tightly around him. At each visit he drank deep draughts of the philtre, that was poisoning the fountains of his life. Again and again he had made a violent struggle to throw off the enchantment and be free. And again and again the effort had been too great for his strength, and he had returned like the scorched moth, which comes back again and again to the fatal brightness, till it perishes in it.
In his hours of solitary self-examination he loathed and mocked himself to scorn! He, Lamberto di Castelmare, to risk and to feel humiliation, and to suffer for the love of a woman, whose light affections had been given to so many! He, who had been smiled on by many a high-born beauty in vain! Love! did he love her? Again and again he told himself that what he felt for her was far more akin to hate. He marvelled; he could not comprehend himself! He was often inclined to believe that the old tales of philtres and of witchery were not all false, and that he was in truth bewitched; and he struggled angrily against the spell, and at such times hated the beauty that had tangled him in it!
And in all this time Bianca had not yet ventured to show clearly her real game. Nor had it yet occurred to the Marchese that such a preposterous thought as that he could marry her could have entered into her mind. Yet it was clear to him that he made no progress towards making her his own upon any other terms. The alternations between beckoning him on and warding him off had been managed with such skill, that they appeared to be the result of the Diva's internal struggle with her own inclinations. What was he to understand by it? If she had been,—had always been—of unblemished character! But it was not so; he knew better!
That her conduct at Ravenna had been correct was undeniable. Still, even with regard to that, the Marchese was not spared the pangs of jealousy, in addition to all the rest. Ludovico continued to frequent the house in the Strada di Porta Sisi. It seemed, as he had said at the Circolo, as if Bianca wished him to come there. In fact he had spoken to the young men at the Circolo with perfect truth in all respects as to his relations with the Diva. There had never been any word of love-making or even flirting between them. Yet, in a sort of way, she seemed to wish to be agreeable to him and to attract him. But she never made any secret of his visits from the Marchese, although it was unmistakable enough that it was disagreeable to him to hear of them.
Had he been free from the spell himself he would have rather rejoiced that his nephew had met with an attraction, which would be likely to have the effect of making him faithless to Paolina. As it was, it was an additional source of irritation to the Marchese,—another drop of gall in his cup, to hear it constantly mentioned by Bianca in the most innocent way in the world, that Ludovico had been here with her, or there with her, or passing the morning with her!
It was drawing towards the end of the Carnival, which the late fall of Easter had made rather a long one that year, when, on one Saturday night, Bianca sat by her own fireside, expecting a visit from the Marchese. She doubted not that he would come, though no special appointment on the subject had been made between them. There were few "off evenings" now, that he did not spend with her. Saturday in most of the cities of Italy is, or was, an off night at the theatre, being the vigil of the Sunday feast-day. The ecclesiastical proprieties are less attended to now in matters theatrical, as in other matters in Italy. But Saturday used, in ante-revolutionary times, to be an evening on which actors and actresses and their friends could always reckon for a holiday.
Bianca was sitting, exquisitely dressed, it need hardly be said, in a style which combined with inimitable skill all the requirements of the most strict propriety with perfect adaptation to the objects of showing off every beauty of face, hair, hand, figure, foot to the utmost, and attracting her expected visitor as irresistibly as possible.
Quinto Lalli had been sent to enjoy himself at the Cafe, with stringent directions not to return before he should have ascertained that the Marchese had left the house, let the hour be as late as it might.
Bianca meditated deeply, while she waited her lover's coming.
Her lover! yes, there was no doubt about that. Bianca had felt perfectly assured that she was justified in considering the Marchese as such on that first morning, when he had come to her an hour in advance of the time appointed for his visit in company with the impresario. But it was high time that some better understanding of the footing on which they stood as regarded each other should be arrived at.
Hitherto no direct proposals of any kind had been made to her by the Marchese. He was not good at any such work. Any one of those distinguished sons of paternal governments, who had constituted the material of Bianca's experiences of that division of mankind, would have long since said what he wanted, and have very clearly indicated the terms on which he was willing to become the fortunate possessor of the coveted article. And Bianca would have perfectly well known how, under the present circumstances, to answer any such proposals, as she had known under the other circumstances of past days. But the Marchese made no proposals. What he wished, indeed, was abundantly clear to her. But his mode of making it clear rendered the task of dealing with him a somewhat difficult one.
Partially, Bianca understood the nature of the case. She was partly aware why the Marchese was slow to say that which so many, whom she had known, had made so little difficulty of saying. She understood that, whatever his years might be, he was a novice at that business. She comprehended that he was, in many respects, a younger man than many a coulisse-frequenting youth whom she had known. But she was far from conceiving any true notion of the Marchese's state of mind on the subject. She was very far from imagining that he looked with disgust and with terror at the position which she conceived him to be but too ready to accept to-morrow, if only he knew how to ask for it, or if it could be offered to him without his asking. She little guessed that his feeling towards her oscillated between the maddest desire and the fiercest hatred; that reveries, filled with pictured imaginings and fevered recollections of her beauty, alternated with the most violent efforts to cleanse his mind and imagination of the thought of her.
She understood nothing of all this, and it was impossible that she should understand it. In truth, she was innocent of any conduct which could have justified such sentiments. Why should he hate her? It was true that she sought to attract him,—true that she was scheming to lead him to a point at which he might find it so impossible to give her up, that, being well convinced that he could have her on no other terms, he might offer her marriage. But was there anything worse in that than men had been treated "since summer first was leafy?" How many men had married women in her position—women less capable of doing credit to the position to which they were raised than she was? How many men had been treated in such matters very much worse than she had any thought of treating him? She fully proposed to make him a good and true wife, and fully thought that she should do so. She was not deceiving him in any way. She made the best of her past life—naturally; but was it to be for a moment supposed that such a man as the Marchese could, or did, imagine that she, Bianca Lalli, whose career, for the last eight years, was known to all Italy, was in the position of a young contessa just taken from her convent?
It is abundantly clear that there were difficulties in the way of the desirable understanding being arrived at, greater than either the lady was aware of, or than might usually be expected to attend similar negotiations.
Bianca waited without impatience the coming of the Marchese. She was a study for an artist as she lay perfectly still on her sofa, turning the minutes of expectation to profit by arranging in her mind her plan of attack in the coming battle; for she was thoroughly determined that that evening should not pass without some progress towards the understanding having been accomplished.
One lamp on the table alone lighted the small but comfortable-looking room; but the flame was leaping cheerfully among the logs on the hearth, and the sofa was so placed that the fitful light from the fire glanced in a thousand capricious reflections on the Diva's auburn hair and rich satin dress. It was black of the most lustrous quality, and fitted her person with a perfection that showed the shape of the bust, and the lithe suppleness of the slender waist to the utmost advantage. The dress was made low on the superb shoulders—the dazzling whiteness of which, as seen contrasted with the black satin, was now covered with a slight silk scarlet shawl,—a most artistic completion of the harmonious colouring of the picture, which yet was not so fixed in its position as to be prevented from falling from the snowy slopes, it veiled at the smallest movement of them.
Presently the now well-known step and well-known tap at the door were heard, and the Diva, without stirring a hair's-breadth from her charmingly-chosen attitude, spoke, in a silver voice, the "Passi" which admitted her visitor.
"Ah, Signor Marchese," she said, with a sweet, but somewhat sad, smile, extending to him a long, white, slender, nervous-looking, ungloved hand, but not otherwise moving from her position. "Ah, Signor Marchese, then I am not to be disappointed this evening? I was beginning almost to fear that the fates were against me."
He advanced to the head of the sofa and took her hand, and held it awhile, while he continued to stand there looking down from behind her shoulder on the beautiful form as it lay there beneath his gaze—on the parting of the rich golden hair; on the snowy forehead; on the still whiter neck; on the gentle heaving of the bosom beneath its light veil of scarlet silk; on the tapering waist; on the exquisitely-formed feet peeping in their black satin bottines from beneath the extremity of her dress! It was all perfect: and the Marchese held the soft warm hand that served as a conductor to the stream of magnetic poison that seemed to flood his whole being as he gazed.
For an instant all the room seemed to swim round with him. The blood rushed to his brow. He shut his eyes, and a nervous crispation caused the fingers of his hands to close themselves with such force, that the grasp of that which held her little palm hurt her.
"Ah, my hand! you hurt my hand!" she said. "You don't know how you squeezed it, you are so strong. You don't know the quantity of force you put out!"
"Pardon—a thousand pardons, Signora! I am such a clumsy clown! Have I really hurt you, Bianca?"
"Not to the death, Signor," she said, with a charming smile, and holding up to him the injured member, shaking it as she let it dangle from the slender wrist. "But see! it is really all blushing red from the ardour of your hand's embrace!"
"Poor little hand!—indeed, it is!" said the Marchese, taking it gently and tenderly between both of his; then, suddenly throwing himself on his knees by the side of the sofa, while he still held it, he said, "And how can the great cruel hand that did the harm make fit amends?"
"Ah, Signor Marchese, it might find the way to do that, if it were so disposed. It would not be so far to seek. But you are seeking in the wrong direction," she continued, drawing herself back from him on the sofa, as he, leaning forward against it, had brought himself so near to her, that the back of the hand in which he held hers touched her waist. "You are seeking amiss. It is not so that any remedy can be found; and—pray rise, Signor, and take your usual chair. This must not be,—I am sure you would not willingly give me pain, Marchese, and you are paining me. Pray leave the sofa."
She had drawn herself back away from him as far as the breadth of the sofa would allow, yet without withdrawing her hand from him; and she looked at him certainly more in sorrow than in anger,—looked into his face earnestly with grave, sad eyes, and heaved a long sigh as he, after pressing the hurt hand to his lips, rose from his knees and took the chair she had pointed to.
"Pain you, Bianca?" he said, as he sat down; "why should I pain you? You do me no more than justice when you say that I would not do so willingly; but have you thought how much pain you inflict on me by thus keeping me at a distance from you? I think you must know that. Is there aught to offend you in anything that I have done, or said, or hoped, or wished?"
"I think, Signor Marchese," she said, dropping her large eyes beneath their long fringes, and looking adorably lovely as she did so, "I am afraid that what you have wished is—what some might deem offensive to a lady."
And as she spoke she looked out furtively from behind her eyelashes.
"Bianca, is that reasonable?" he said, in a tone of remonstrance. "Diamine, let us talk common sense; we are not children. Have you always found such wishes as mine offensive in others?"
"Yes, always—always offensive, always cruel," she said, with extreme energy; "but—can you not understand, Signor Marchese,—can you not conceive that what from one man passes and makes no mark, and leaves no sting, may from another—What cared I what all the empty-headed young fops who came in my way could say or do; they were nothing to me. But—I did not expect pain from the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare. I—I thought—I hoped—I—I flattered myself—fool, idiot fool that I have been!" she exclaimed, bursting into violent sobs, and hiding her face with her hands.
The Marchese was startled and utterly taken aback for a minute or two. He was genuinely at a loss to interpret the cause or the meaning of the lady's emotion. His puzzled embarrassment did not, however, prevent him from seeing that she looked, if possible, more fascinatingly beautiful in her grief and her tears than he had ever before seen her. And, again, despite what she had said, he knelt down by the side of the sofa, and gently removing her hands from before her face, murmured in her ear,—"Bianca, what is it—what is moving you so? Don't you know that you are dear to me;—that I would—Don't you know that I would do anything to be agreeable to you rather than give you any sorrow or pain? What is there within my power that I would not do? Bianca,—let me tell you—let me speak the truth—I cannot keep it in my own heart any longer—I love you! You have come to be all that I care for in the world. Bianca, do you hear me? For your love I would sacrifice all,—everything in the world; I die without it; I must have it—I must! You have been loved before; but never as I love you—never, never! And, Bianca, I—I—Bianca, you are my first love—my only love. Never, till I saw you, did I care to look on a woman for a second time; I never felt love. But, when I saw you—the first time—the first hour—Bianca, I must have your love or die; I thirst—I hunger for it. Since I have known you all my nature is changed; all my old life is flat and unmeaning, and without interest to me. I care for none of the things I used to care for; all—all has melted and slipped away from me, and nothing remains but one great devouring rage and passion—my love for you!"
He had spoken like a torrent, which, for a long time dammed up, at last becomes too powerful for restraint, and bursts forth, overthrowing all obstacles with its headlong flood.
Bianca turned her face away from him towards the back of the sofa; but she slowly, and with an uncertain intermittent movement, drew his hand over to her lips, and pressed it against them.
A light came into the Marchese Lamberto's eyes;—a gleam almost, one would have said, rather fierce than fond, as he felt the pressure of her lips; and a shock as from an electric spark ran through all his body, making him quiver from head to heel.
"Bianca, Bianca! You are mine—you are mine!" he cried, pantingly, with his mouth close to her ear, and encircling her waist, as he spoke, with the hand which she had relinquished after she had kissed it in the manner that had been described.
But she sprang away from him, pushing him from her, by putting her flat hand against his forehead, with her face still turned towards the back of the sofa, away from him.
"No, no, no!" she cried, violently; "it cannot be, not so—not so! I cannot—I cannot!"
"Bianca," he cried, starting to his feet as if he had been stung; "what does this mean? What am I to understand? What is it you wish? You know my position. I tell you that there is no sacrifice that I am not willing to make. I am rich; name what you would wish."
"Spare me—spare me, I deserve all; but spare me! I deserve to suffer, but not at your band," she cried, in words interrupted by her sobs.
"Spare you what, Bianca? In truth, I do not understand you," said the Marchese, genuinely mystified.
"Do you not understand?" she said, turning round on the sofa, so as to face him, and looking into his face with those great appealing eyes suffused with tears; "do you not understand? Can you not comprehend? A woman would understand, I think; but I suppose men feel these things differently."
"Upon my honour, Bianca, I do not know what you mean. Every word I have spoken to you has been spoken from the very depth of my heart. I am ready to—"
"Hush, hush, Marchese! No more of that; I could not bear it," she said, with a great sigh that seemed as if it would burst her bosom; "it is very—very painful to me; but I must endeavour to bring your heart to understand me,—it must be your heart, Lamber—your heart, Signor Marchese; for one does not arrive at the understanding of such things with the head. See, now, I will put myself in the place I deserve to occupy—in the dust at your feet! You may trample on me, if you will. I say I have deserved the shame and the misery I am now suffering. I deserve them because I have no right to resent the—the—the proposals which you—wish to make to me. I have suffered much from calumny and evil tongues—much from unhappy circumstances and evil surroundings. Yet it may be that I-have—more right to—resent—what—I have heard from you than you imagine. But let that pass. You know—or think you know—that I have accepted from others that which I have said I cannot accept from you; and you cannot imagine why this should be so. Oh, Marchese, does your heart lend you no aid to the understanding of it? What were those men,—those empty creatures whose gold could not repay the disgust occasioned by their presence, what were they to me? Did they love—pretend even to love—me? Did I love them? Love! Alas, alas, alas! Ah, Marchese, a poor girl exposed to the world, as I have been from my cradle upwards, has to suffer much that might well move the pity of a generous heart; but it is nothing—nothing—nothing to the tragedy of the misery, the shame, the remorse that comes upon her when at last the day shall come that her heart speaks and shows to her the awful chasm—the immeasurable gulf that separates such—I cannot, Lamber—pardon, I don't know what I am saying; I cannot go on—I cannot put it into words! Do not you—cannot you understand the difference?"
"I do understand, Bianca mia; povera anima sofferente—I do understand. Do you imagine that I would judge you harshly—severely? I know too well all that you would say; I know the difficulties, the impossibilities of your position. Do you think that I cannot make allowances for all the fatalities attending on such a combination of circumstances? And, trust me, the difference between what has been, and what I so earnestly hope may be now, is greater,—I feel it to be greater, not less than you can feel it to be. Truly there is nothing in common between the all-devouring passion which consumes me, and—such love-vows as you have spoken of. Do I not understand the difference. And remember, Bianca, dearest, that the protection I offer you would be the means of placing you out of the reach,—far out of the reach of any such disgusts,—such suffering for the future."
Bianca let her head fall on her bosom, and covered her face with her hands, and remained silent for some moments. Then, lifting her face slowly, and shaking her head, she sighed deeply as she looked with a wistful earnest glance into his eyes; she said,—"You are good,—you are,—very good and kind to me; perhaps it might have been better for my happiness if you had been less so. But bear with me yet a little, Signor Marchese. Sit down there,—there where I can see your face,"—pointing, as she spoke, to a spot exactly in face of the sofa,—"and let me see if I can explain myself to you. It is difficult; it is very difficult. A woman, as I said, would understand it at once; but men—are so different. You have told me, Signor Marchese, that you love me; that you never loved before; that I am the first woman who has ever moved your heart. Eh, bene, Signor Marchese! If I, having heard those protestations, were to confess that—that it was with me even as with you,"—she dropped her eyes and sighed as she made the confession;—"that I, too—that you have taught me now for the first time what it is to love,—though I might speak it less eloquently than you have done, the words would be equally true,—equally true, Signor," she repeated, slowly nodding her head. "And when I have confessed that it is so," she continued, speaking more rapidly, "can you wonder—can you not understand that it is impossible to me—that it would be a horror unspeakable to—to renew with the object of a true love—the first—the first, as God sees my heart—the degradation that has left nothing but bitterness and humiliation behind it? Shall the name of Lamberto di Castelmare be written in my memory in the hateful list of those who have been to me the occasion of remorse, of self-condemnation, of bitterness immeasurable? Never, never, never! Come what may there shall be one pure place in my heart; one unsoiled spot in my life; one ever-dear remembrance unlinked with sorrow and with shame; one memory which, however sad, shall not be humiliating."