Although she was not at all superstitious, Ely could not help feeling, with a shudder, how this sudden invasion of the radiant day by the sadness of evening, resembled the darkening of her inward heaven by the evocation of her past. This analogy had given an added poignancy to her contemplation of the tragic sunset, the battle of the day's last fire with the shadows of night, and happily the magnificence of this spectacle had been so overwhelming that even her light companions had felt its solemnity. No one had spoken during the few minutes of this enchantment in the west. Now, when the babble recommenced, she felt like fleeing from it—fleeing even from Hautefeuille, whose presence she feared. Moved as she was, she was afraid of breaking into tears beside him; tears that she would not be able to explain. When he approached her she said, "You must pay some attention to the others," and she began to pace the deck from end to end in company with Dickie Marsh. The American had the habit, while on board, of taking a certain amount of exercise measured exactly by the watch. He looked at the time, then paced over a measured distance until he had complied with his hygienic rules. "At Marionville," he would say, "it was very simple; the blocks are each exactly a half mile long. When you have walked eight of them, you know you have done four miles. And your constitutional is finished." Usually, when thus engaged in the noble duty of exercise, Marsh remained silent. It was the time when he invented those schemes that were destined to make him a billionaire. Ely, knowing of this peculiarity, counted upon not exchanging ten words while walking with the potentate of Marionville. She thought that the silent promenade would quiet her overwrought nerves. They had paced thus for perhaps ten minutes, when Dickie Marsh, who appeared more preoccupied than usual, suddenly asked:—
"Does Chésy sometimes speak to you of his affairs?"
"Sometimes," answered the young woman, "as he does to everybody. You know he has an idea that he is one of the shrewdest on the Bourse, and he is very glad to talk about it."
"Has he told you," Marsh continued, "that he is speculating in mining stocks?"
"Very likely. I do not listen to him."
"I heard him say so," the American said, "and just a moment ago, after tea, and I am still upset by it. And there are not many things that can worry me. At this moment," he continued, looking at Madame de Chésy, who was talking with Hautefeuille, "this charming Vicomtesse Yvonne is, beyond doubt, ruined; absolutely, radically ruined."
"That is impossible. Chésy is advised by Brion, who, I have heard, is one of the best financiers of the day."
"Pooh!" said Dickie Marsh, "he would be swallowed in one mouthful in Wall Street. As for the small affairs on this side of the water, he understands them well enough. But it is just because he understands them that his advice will ruin Chésy. It will not bore you to have me explain how and why I am sure that a crash is coming in that famous silver mine syndicate which you have at least heard of. All those who buy for a rise—whom we call the bulls—will be caught. Chésy has a fortune of $300,000. He explained his position to me; he will lose $250,000. If it has not happened already, it will happen to-morrow."
"And you have told him all that?"
"What's the use?" the American replied. "It would only spoil his trip. And then it will be time enough at Genoa, where he can telegraph. But you, Baroness, will help me to do them a real service. You see that if Brion advises Chésy to join the bulls, it is because he himself is with the bears. That is our name for those who play for a decline. All this is legitimate. It is a battle. Each one for himself. All the financiers who give advice to men of society do the same, and they are right. Only Brion has still another reason: imagine Madame de Chésy with an income of ten thousand francs.—You understand."
"It is ignoble enough for him, that calculation," Ely said with disgust. "But how can I help you to prevent that scoundrel from proposing to the poor little woman to be his paid mistress, since that is certainly what you mean?"
"Exactly," replied the American. "I wish you would say to her, not this evening, or to-morrow, but when things have turned the way I know they will. 'You have need of some one to help you out of your embarrassment? Remember Dickie Marsh, of Marionville.' I would tell her myself. But she would think me like Brion, amorous of her, and offering money for that. These Frenchwomen are very clever, but there is one thing they will never understand; that is that a man may not be thinking with them about the 'little crime,' as they call it themselves. That is the fault of the men of this country. All Europe is rotten to the core. If you speak to her, there will be a third person between her and me, and she will know very well that I have another reason."
He paused. He had so often explained to Madame de Carlsberg the resemblance between Yvonne de Chésy and his dead daughter, which moved him so strongly, that she was not deceived in regard to the secret reason of his strange interest and stranger proposition. There was in this business man, with all his colossal schemes, a touch of romanticism almost fantastic, and so singular that Ely did not doubt his sincerity, nor even wonder at it. The thought of seeing that pretty and charming face, sister to the one he had loved so much, soiled by the vile lust of a Brion, or some otherentreteneurof impoverished women of society, filled this man with horror, and, like a genuine Yankee, he employed the most practical means of preventing this sacrilege. Neither was Ely surprised at the inconsistency of Marsh's conscience when the speculator found Brion's rascality in money affairs very natural, while the Anglo-Saxon was revolted at the mere thought of a love-affair. No, it was not astonishment that Madame de Carlsberg felt at this unexpected confidence. Troubled as she was by her own unhappiness, she felt a new thrill of sadness. While she and Marsh paced from one end of the boat to the other during this conversation, she could hear Yvonne de Chésy laughing gayly with Hautefeuille. For this child, too, the day had been delicious, and yet misfortune was approaching her, from out of the bottomless gulf of destiny. This impression was so intense that, after leaving Marsh, Ely went instinctively to the young woman, and kissed her tenderly. And she, laughing, answered:—
"That is good of you. But you have been so good to me ever since you discovered me. It took you long enough."
"What do you mean?" asked the Baroness.
"That you did not at first suspect that there was a gallant little man hidden in your crazy Yvonne! Pierre's sister knows it well, and always has."
As the pretty and heedless young woman made this profession of faith, her clear eyes revealed a conscience so good in spite of her fast tone, that Ely felt her heart still more oppressed. The night had come, and the first bell for dinner had sounded. The three lights, white, green, and red, shone now like precious stones on the port, the starboard, and the foremast. Ely felt an arm pass under hers. It was Andryana Bonnacorsi who said:—
"It is too bad that we must go down to dress; it would be so pleasant to spend the whole night here."
"Would it not?" replied the Baroness, murmuring to herself, "She at least is happy." Then aloud: "It is the farewell dinner to your widowhood; you must look beautiful. But you seem to be worried."
"I am thinking of my brother," said the Italian woman, "and the thought of him weighs upon me like remorse. And then, I think also of Corancez. He is a year younger than I. That is nothing to-day, but in ten years?"
"She too feels the menace of the future," thought Ely, a quarter of an hour later, while her maid was arranging her hair in the chamber of honor that had been given her next to that of the dead girl. "Marsh is disconsolate to see Chésy confronted by a terrible disaster. Andryana is preparing for marriage, haunted by remorse and fear. Florence is uncertain of ever being able to wed the man she loves. And Hautefeuille and I, with a phantom between us, which he does not see, but which I see so clearly, and which to-morrow, or the day after, in a week or two, will be a living man, who will see us, whom I shall see, and who will speak,—will speak to him."
A prey to this growing melancholy, the young woman took her seat at the dinner table, laden with the costly flowers that delight the ostentatious Americans. Incomparable orchids spread over the table a carpet of the softest hues. Other orchids were wreathed about the candles and the electric chandelier suspended from the varnished ceiling; and amid this prodigality of fantastic corollas, gleamed a set of goldware of the time of Louis XIV.—the historical personage who was second only to Napoleon in the estimation of this Ohio democrat, who evinced, on this point, as on so many others, one of the most astonishing inconsistencies of his compatriots. And the bright tones of the wainscoting, the precision of the service, the delicacy of the food and wine, the brilliant toilets of the women, made this a setting for the consummation of refinement, with the sea visible through the open portholes, still motionless, and now touched by the rays of the crescent moon. Marsh had ordered the boat's speed to be slackened, so that the vibration of the screw was scarcely noticeable in the dining-room. The hour was really so exquisite, that the guests gradually yielded to the charm, the master of the boat first of all. He had placed Madame de Carlsberg in front of him, between Chésy and Hautefeuille, in order to have Madame de Chésy on his left, and in his tones and looks, as he talked to her, there was an amused and tender affection, a protecting indulgence, and an inexpressible depth of reverie. Resolved to save her from the danger which Chésy's confidences had suddenly revealed, it was as though he were going to do something more for the other, for the dead one whose image was sleeping in the rear room. He laughed at the follies of Yvonne, delicious in her pink dress, a little excited by the dry champagne whose golden foam sparkled in the glass,—a gold the color of her hair,—and still more excited by the sense of pleasing—the most dangerous and the only intoxication that women thoroughly enjoy. Miss Marsh, all in blue, seated between her and Chésy, listened to his discourse upon hunting, the one subject on which this gentleman was well informed, with the profound attention of an American girl who is gathering new information. Andryana Bonnacorsi was silent, but cheered by the genial surroundings, her tender blue eyes, the color of the turquoise in her magnificent white corsage, smiled musingly. She forgot the dangerous character of her brother, and the future infidelity of herfiancé, to think of nothing but the caressing eyes, the voluptuous lips, and the alluring grace of the young man whose wife she would be in a few hours. Nor could the Baroness Ely resist the contagion that floated in this atmosphere. Once more the loved one was near her and all her own. In his youthful eyes she could see such respect and love, timidity and desire. He spoke to her in words that all could hear, but with a trembling in his voice which she alone could understand. She began by replying to him, then she also grew silent. A great wave of passion rose within her, drowning all other thoughts. Her fears of the future, her remorse for the past—all was forgotten in the presence of Pierre, whom she could see with his heart beating, his breast agitated, alive and quivering beside her. How often he was thus to see her in memory, and pardon the fearful suffering she had caused him for the sake of her beauty at that moment! Ah! divine, divine beauty! Her eyes were drowned in languorous ecstasy. Her open lips breathed in the air as though half dying. The admirable curve of her neck rose with such grace above her low-cut dress of black,—a black that gave a richer gleam to the whiteness of her flower-soft skin; and in the simple folds of her hair, crowning her noble head, burned a single stone, a ruby, red and warm as a drop of blood.
How often he was to remember her thus, and as she appeared to him when later she leaned on the railing of the deck and watched the water that murmured, dashed, and sighed in the darkness, and the sky and the silent innumerable stars; and then looked at him and said: "I love you. Ah! how I love you." They had exchanged no promises. And yet, as surely as the sea and sky were there around them he knew that the hour had come, and that this night, this sky and sea, were the mystic and solemn witnesses of their secret betrothal! Nothing was audible in the calm night but the peaceful and monotonous respiration of the moving boat and the rhythmic splash of the sea—the caressing sea, their accomplice, who enchanted and rocked them in its gentle waves—while the tempest waited.
When the first pale rays of dawn broke upon the glass of the porthole, Pierre rose and went on deck. Dickie Marsh was there already, regarding the sky and the sea with the attentive scrutiny of an old sailor.
"For a Frenchman," he said to the young man, "you surprise me. I have seen a good many of your countrymen upon theJenny. And yet you are the first that I have seen, so far, who rises at the most delicious hour of the day on sea.—Just breathe the breeze that comes from the open. You could work for ten hours without feeling tired, after taking a supply of such oxygen into your lungs.—The sky makes me a little uneasy," he added. "We have gone too far out of our course. We cannot reach Genoa before eight o'clock and theJennymay receive a good tossing before that time.—I never had any sympathy for those yachtsmen who invite their friends to enjoy the hospitality of a stateroom in company with a slop-pail!—We could have gone from Cannes to Genoa in four hours, but I thought it better to let you sleep away from the tumult of the port.—The barometer was very high! I have never seen it descend so quickly."
The dome of the heavens, so clear all the preceding day and night, had indeed, little by little, been obscured by big, gray, rock-like clouds. Others were spread along the line of the horizon like changing lines fleeing from each other. Pale rays of sunlight struggled to pierce this curtain of gray vapor. The sea was still all around them, but no longer motionless and glossy. The water was leadlike in hue, opaque, heavy, menacing. The breeze freshened rapidly, and soon a strong gust of wind swept over the sullen sheet of the water. It caused a trembling to run along the surface, as though it shuddered. Then thousands of ripples showed themselves, becoming larger and larger, until they swelled into countless short, choppy waves, curling over and tossing their white crests in the air.
"Are you a good sailor?" Marsh asked Hautefeuille. "However, it does not matter. I was mistaken in my calculations. TheJennywill not get much tossing about, after all.—We're going before the wind and will soon be under the shelter of the coast. Look! There is the Porto-Fino lighthouse. As soon as we have rounded the cape, we shall be out of danger."
The sea, by this time, was completely covered with a scattered mass of bubbling foam through which the yacht ploughed her way easily without rolling much, although she listed alternately to the right and then to the left like a strong swimmer accommodating his stroke to the waves. Close to a ruined convent, some distance ahead, a rocky point projected, bearing a dazzlingly white lighthouse at its extremity. The promontory was covered, as with a fleece, with a thick growth of silvery olive trees, between which could be seen numerous painted villas, while its rocky base was a network of tiny creeks. This was Cape Porto-Fino, a place rendered famous by the captivity there of Francis I. after Pavia. The yacht rounded it so closely that Hautefeuille could hear the roar of the waves breaking upon the rocks. Beyond the promontory again stretched the sullen sheet of water with the long line of the Ligurian coast, which descends from Chiappa and Camogli as far as Genoa by way of Recco, Nervi, and Quinto. Height ascending after height could be seen, the hills forming the advance guard of the Apennines, their valleys planted with figs and chestnuts, their villages of brightly painted cottages, dotting the scene, and with, in the foreground, the narrow strip of sandy soil that serves as seashore. The landscape, at once savage and smiling, impressed the business man and the lover in different ways, for the former said with disdain:—
"They have not been able to make a double track railway along their coast! I suppose the task is too big for these people.—Why, my line from Marionville to Duluth has four tracks—and we had to make tunnels of a different sort from these!"
"But even one line is too much here," replied Hautefeuille, pointing to a locomotive that was slowly skirting the shore, casting out a thick volume of smoke. "What is the good of modern inventions in an old country?—How can one dream of an existence of struggles amid such scenery?" he continued, as though thinking aloud. "How is it possible to contemplate the stern necessities of life upon this Riviera, or upon the other?—Provence and Italy are oases in your desert of workshops and manufactories. Have a little respect for them. Let there be at least a corner of the world left for lovers and poets, for those who yearn for a life of peace and happiness, for those who dream of a solitude shared only by some beloved companion and surrounded by the loveliness of nature and of art.—Ah! how sweet and peaceful this morning is!"
This state of enraptured exaltation, which made the happy lover reply with dreamy poetical reflections to the American's practical remarks, without noticing the comical character of the contrast, lasted all through the day. It even increased as time passed. TheJenny'spassengers came up on deck one by one. And then Madame de Carlsberg appeared, pale and languid. In her eyes was the look of tender anxiety that gives such a touching aspect to the expression of a loving woman on the morrow of her first complete surrender. And what a happy revulsion, what rejoicing, when she sees, as Ely de Carlsberg did in her first glance, that the soul of her beloved vibrates in sympathy with her own, that he is as sensitive, as tender, as loving as before! This similarity of nature was so sweet, so deep, so penetrating, for the charming woman, that she could have gone down upon her knees before Pierre. She adored him at this moment for being so closely the image of what she desired him to be. And she felt compelled to speak of it, when they were seated side by side, as upon the night before, watching the gulf growing into life before them, with Genoa the Superb surging from the waves.
"Are you like me?—Were you afraid and yet longing to see me again, just as I longed to see you and yet was afraid? Were you also afraid of being soon called upon to differ for so much happiness? Did you feel as though a catastrophe were close at hand?—When I awoke and saw stretching before me the leaden sea and clouded sky, a shudder of dread ran through me like a presentiment.—I thought all was over, that you were no longer my Prince Beau-Temps"—this was a loving title she had conferred upon Pierre, alleging that the sky had cleared each time she had met him. "How exquisite it is," she continued caressingly, with the irresistible fascination of a loving woman, "to have trembled with apprehension and then to find you just as you were when I left you last night—no, not last night, this morning!"
At the remembrance of the fact that they had parted only so short a time before, she smiled. Her face lit up with an expression in which languor was mingled with such archness, grace with such voluptuous charm, that the young man, at the risk of being seen by the Chésys or Dickie Marsh, printed a kiss upon the hem of the loose Scotch cloak that enveloped her, its long hood streaming behind in the wind. Happily the American and his two guests had eyes for nothing but the beautiful city growing nearer and nearer and more distinct. It towered aloft now, girdled by its encircling mountains. Beyond the two ports, with their forests of masts and spars, could be seen the countless houses of the town, of all shapes and heights, pressed closely one upon the other. Tiny, narrow streets, almost lanes, wound upward, cutting through the mass of dwellings at right angles. The colors of the houses, once bright and gay, were faded and washed out by sun and rain. And yet it seemed still a city of wealth and caprice, with the terraces of its palaces outlined and covered with rare plants and statues. The apparently endless line of scattered villas stretching along the coast were here clustered in groups like little hamlets, forming suburbs outside the suburbs, and further on stood isolated in the luxuriant verdure of gardens and shrubbery. With the simple aid of a field-glass Marsh recognized everything, palaces, villas, suburbs, one after the other.
"There is San Pier d'Arena," he said, handing the glass to Yvonne and her husband, "and there are Cornegliano and Sestri to the left. To the right you can see San Francesco d'Albaro, Quarto, Quinto, San Mario Ligure, the Villa Gropallo, the Villa Croce."
"Why, Commodore, there is another trade you can turn to the day your pockets are empty," said Madame de Chésy, laughingly. "You can become cicerone."
"Oh," said Marsh, "it is the easiest thing in the world. When I see a place that I cannot recognize or that I do not know, I feel as though I were blind."
"Ah! You are not like me," cried Chésy. "I never could understand a map, and yet that has not prevented me getting a lot of amusement out of my travels.—Believe me, my dear fellow, we are right not to trouble about such things; we have sailors on sea and coachmen on land to attend to them!"
While this conversation was going on at the bow, Florence Marsh was aft trying to instil a little courage into Andryana Bonnacorsi. The future Vicomtesse de Corancez would not even glance at the town, but remained with her eyes looking fixedly at the vessel's wake.
"I feel convinced," she said with a sigh, "that Genoa will be fatal to me; 'Genova prende e non rende,' as we Italians say."
"It will take your name, Bonnacorsi, and will not return it, that is all," replied Florence, "and the proverb will be verified!—We have a proverb, too, in the United States, one that Lincoln used to quote. You ought to take note of it, for it will put an end to all your fears. It is not very, very pretty, particularly to apply to a marriage, but it is very expressive. It is, 'Don't trouble how to cross a mud creek before you get to it.'"
"But suppose Lord Bohun has changed his mind and theDalilahis in the port with my brother on board? Suppose the Chésys want to come with us? Suppose Prince Fregoso at the last minute refuses to lend us his chapel?"
"And suppose Corancez says, 'I will not' at the altar?" interrupted Florence. "Suppose an earthquake engulfs the lot of us?—Don't be uneasy, theDalilahis riding at anchor in the roadstead at Calvi or Bastia. The Chésys and my uncle have five or six English and American yachts to visit, and it is madness to think that they will sacrifice this arrangement for the sake of going with us to museums and churches. Since the old prince has consented to lend his place to Don Fortunato it is not likely that he has changed his mind—particularly as he and the abbé were companions in prison in 1859. Between Italians anything concerning theRisorgimentois sacred. You know that better than I do. I have only one fear," she added with a gay laugh, "and that is that this Fregoso may have sold some of his finest paintings and his most beautiful statuary to one of my countrymen. Those pirates loot everything, under the plea that they have not only the money but also good taste, and that they are connoisseurs. Would you believe it, when I was at college in Marionville, the professor of archæology taught us the history of Grecian art anterior to Phidias with the aid of photographs of specimens in the collection belonging to this very Fregoso?"
"Well, what did I tell you?" Florence Marsh again asked her friend, a couple of hours later. "Was I right? Have you come to the mud creek?"
The passengers had landed, just as had been prearranged. The Chésys and Dickie Marsh had gone off to visit the fleet of pleasure yachts moored near the pier. The Marchesa had received a telegram from Navagero announcing the arrival of the Dalilah in Corsican waters. And now a hired landau was bearing the tender-hearted woman, in company with Florence, Madame de Carlsberg, and Pierre Hautefeuille, toward the Genoese palace, where Corancez was awaiting them. The carriage climbed up the narrow streets, passing the painted façades of the old marble houses whose columns, all over the city, testify to the pretentious opulence of the old half-noble, half-piratical merchants. All along the route the streets, or rather the corridors, that descended to the port swarmed with a chattering, active, gesticulating people. Although the north wind was now blowing keenly, the three women had insisted upon the carriage being left open, so that they could see the crowd, the crumbling, splendid façades, and the picturesque costumes. The Marchesa smiled, still agitated, but now happy, in reply to Miss Marsh's words of encouragement, as she said:—
"Yes, you were right. I am not afraid now, and begin to think that I am awake and not dreaming.—Yet, if any one had told me that some day I should go with you three along the Piazza delle Fontane Morose to do what I am going to do.—Ah!Jésus Dieu! there is Corancez!—How imprudent he is!"
It was, indeed, the Provençal. He was standing at the corner of the famous square and the ancient via Nuova, now the via Garibaldi, the street which Galéas Alessi, Michael Angelo's pupil, glorified with the palaces of Cambiaso, Serra, Spinola, Doria, Brignole-Sale, and Fregoso, masterpieces of imposing architecture that, by themselves, are sufficient justification for the title of Superb, given to Genoa by its arrogant citizens.
It was certainly ill-advised to venture into the streets, risking a meeting with some French acquaintance. But Corancez had not been able to resist the temptation. He was playing for such high stakes that for once his nervousness had overmastered the natural prudence of the Provençal, ordinarily patient and circumspect, one of those people for whom the Genoese would seem to have invented this maxim: "He who is patient will buy thrushes for a liard each."
By means of a messenger he had been informed of the arrival of theJenny. He had then left the safe shelter of the palace so as to be sure that hisfiancéehad arrived. When he saw the beautiful golden hair of Madame Bonnacorsi, a wave of hot blood seemed to course through his veins. He jumped upon the carriage-step gayly, boyishly even, without waiting for the carriage to stop. Without any more delay than was required to kiss his betrothed's hand, to utter a word of welcome to Madame de Carlsberg and Florence, and to greet Hautefeuille gratefully, he began to tell of his two weeks' exile with his usual gayety.
"Don Fortunato and I are already a couple of excellent friends," he said. "Wait till you see what a comical little fellow he is with his knee-breeches and big hat. You know him, Marchesa, so you can imagine. I am already hisfiglio mio!—As for you, Andryana, he worships you. He has written, specially for you, an epithalamium in fifty-eight cantos!—And yet this religious marriage without the civil ceremony disquiets him.—What would Count Camillo Cavour, whose walking-stick and portrait he piously cherishes, have said of it? Between Cavour and the Marchesa, the Marchesa and Cavour, he has been hard pushed to make a choice. However, he has thrown in his lot with the Marchesa, a decision that I understand very easily. All the same, he is now afraid to even glance at the portrait and the stick, and will not dare to do so until we have complied with all the requirements of the Italian law.—I vowed to him that there would only be a delay of a few days, and then Prince Pierre reassured him.—That is another character.—You will have to visit the museum and see his favorites there.—But, here we are!"
The landau stopped before the imposing door of a palace, having, like its neighbors, a marble peristyle, and brilliantly painted, like the other houses. The balustrade of the balcony upon the first floor bore a huge carved escutcheon, displaying the three stars of the Fregosi, an emblem that was once dreaded all over the Mediterranean when the vessels of the Republic swept the seas of the Pisans, the Venetians, the Catalans, Turks, and French.
The new arrivals were received by aconciergewearing the livery, very much soiled, of the Fregosi, the buttons stamped with armorial bearings. He carried a colossal silver pommelled cane in his hand, and led the visitors into a vaulted vestibule at the foot of a huge staircase.
Beyond they could see an enclosed garden, planted with orange trees. Ripe fruit glowed among the sombre foliage, through which glimpses could be obtained of an artificial grotto peopled with gigantic statuary. Several sarcophagi embellished the entrance, characterized by that air of magnificence and decay common to old Italian mansions. How many generations had mounted that worn staircase since the gifted genius designed the white moulding upon a yellow background that decorated the ceiling! How many visitors had arrived here from the distant colonies with which the great Republic traded! And yet probably no more singular spectacle had been seen for three centuries, than that presented by the noble Venetian lady arriving from Cannes upon the yacht of an American, for the purpose of marrying a ruined would-be gentleman from Barbentane, and accompanied by a young American girl, and the morganatic wife of an Austrian archduke with her lover, one of the most artless, most provincial Frenchmen of the best school of French chivalry.
"You must admit that my weddingcortègeis anything but commonplace," said Corancez to Hautefeuille, glancing at the three women behind whom he and his friend were standing.
They had not met since the morning they had visited theJennyat Cannes. The acute Southerner, the moment of his arrival, had felt that there was a vague embarrassment in Pierre's greeting and in his expression. Upon the boat, the young lover's happiness had not been in the least troubled by the presence of Miss Marsh and of the Marchesa, although he knew they could not be ignorant of his sentiments. But he also knew that they would respect his feelings. With Corancez it was different. A mere glance of Corancez's disturbed him. "All is over," the Provençal had evidently thought. And, with his easy-going instincts of loose morality, Corancez was all the happier for his friend's happiness; he rejoiced in his friend's joy. He therefore bent all his energies upon the task of dispelling Hautefeuille's slight uneasiness, which he had discovered with his infallible tact.
"Yes," he went on in a conciliatory tone, "this staircase is a little more chic than the staircase of some vilemairie.—And it is also delightful to have such a friend as you for my witness! I don't know what life may hold in store for us, and I am not going to make a lot of protestations, but, remember, you can ask me anything, after this proof of your friendship.—There must have been a host of things that were disagreeable to you in this expedition. Don't deny it. I know you so well!—And yet you have faced them all for the sake of your old friend, who is not, for all that, Olivier du Prat.—Isn't myfiancéegloriously beautiful this morning?" he continued. "But, hush! here comes the old Prince in person, and Don Fortunato.—Watch closely, and listen; you'll find it worth your while!"
Two old gentlemen were just issuing from the entrance of a high windowed hall, at the top of the staircase. They might have stepped out of one of the pictures in which Longhi has fixed so accurately, and so unpretentiously, the picturesque humor of ancient Italy. One was the Abbé Lagumina, very thin, very little; with his shrivelled legs, no thicker than skeleton's, buried in knee-breeches, and stockings that came above his knees. His bowed body was wrapped in a long ecclesiastical frock-coat. He rubbed his hands together unceasingly and timidly, bowing all the time. And yet his physiognomy was so acute, so stamped with intelligence, that the ugliness of his huge nose and his toothless gums was forgotten and only the charm of his expression remained.
The other was Prince Paul Fregoso, the most celebrated descendant of that illustrious line, whose doughty deeds are inscribed in the golden book of Genoa's foreign wars, and, alas! in the book of brass devoted to her civil conflicts. The Prince owed his Christian name, Paul, an hereditary one in the family, to the legendary souvenirs of the famous Cardinal Fregoso, who was driven from the city, and ruled the seas for a long time as pirate.
This grandnephew of the curious hero was a veritable giant. His features were massive, and his eyes intensely bright. His feet and hands were distorted by gout. In spite of his faded, sordid costume, in spite of the fact that he was almost bent in two and leaned upon his stick, of which the point was protected from slipping by an india-rubber shield, Prince Paul looked every inch a descendant of the doges by his haughty mien. He spoke with a deep, voluminous, cavernous voice, that indicated great vigor even at his advanced time of life, for he was about seventy-nine years of age.
"Ladies," he said, "I beg you to excuse me for not having descended this diabolical staircase in order to greet you as I ought to have done. Please do not believe the epigram that our Tuscan enemies have made about us: 'At Genoa there are no birds in the air, the sea has no fish, the mountains are woodless, and the men without politeness.'—You see my birds," and he pointed through the window to the gulls that soared above the port in search of food. "I hope, if you do me the honor of lunching with me, that you will find my mullets are as good as those you get at Leghorn.—And, with your permission, we will go at once into another salon, where there is a fireplace. In that fireplace you will see plenty of wood that comes from my estates outside the Roman gate. With such a north wind we need plenty of warmth in these big halls, which in our fathers' time required only a scaldino.—The first greeting is that due to the health of our guests! Madame la baronne! Madame la marquise! Miss Marsh!"—And he bowed to each of the three ladies, although he did not know either of them, with an indescribable air of easy grace and ceremonious courtesy.—"The abbé will lead the way.—I can only follow you like an unfortunategancio di mare—the deformed, miserable creature you call a crab," he added, addressing Corancez and Hautefeuille. He made them go on before him, and then dragged himself along in their wake with his poor, feeble steps, to a rather smaller salon.
Here a meagre wood fire smouldered, making much smoke in a badly constructed chimney. The floor was formed of a mosaic of precious marbles, and the ceiling decorated with colored stuccoes and frescoes, representing the arrival of Ganymede at the feast of the gods. It was painted lightly and harmoniously with colors whose brilliancy seemed quite fresh. The graceful figures, the exquisite fancifulness of landscape and architecture, all the pagan charm, in fact, in its very delicacy, spoke of some pupil of Raphael. Below the moulding were hung several portraits. The aristocratic touch of Van Dyck was apparent at the first glance. Beneath the huge canvases antique statues were grouped on the floor, and stools that had once been gilded, shaped like the letter X, and without backs, gave the air of a museum to the salon. The three women could not restrain their admiration.
"How beautiful it is! What treasures!" they cried.
"Look at the Prince," said Corancez, in a whisper to Pierre. "Do you see how disgusted he is? You have got a front seat for a comedy that I can guarantee as amusing. I am going to pay a little attention to myfiancée. Don't lose a word; you will find it worth attention."
"You think this is beautiful?" said the Prince to the Baroness and Miss Marsh, who stood beside him, while Corancez and Madame Bonnacorsi chatted in a corner. "Well, the ceiling is not too bad in its way. Giovanni da Udine painted it. The Fregoso of that time was jealous of the Perino del Vagas of the Doria Palace. That particular head of the house was my namesake, Cardinal Paolo, the one you know who was a pirate—before he was a cardinal. He summoned another of Raphael's pupils, the one who had aided the master at the Vatican.—Each of those gods has a history. That Bacchus is the cardinal himself, and that Apollo, whose only garment is his lute, was the cardinal's coadjutor!—Don't be shocked, Don Fortunato.—Ah, I see, he has gone off to prepare for the marriage sacrament;mene malo.—The Van Dycks, also, are not bad as Van Dycks.—They too have their history. Look at that beautiful woman, with her impenetrable, mysterious smile.—The one holding a scarlet carnation against her green robe.—And then look at that young man, with the same smile, his pourpoint made of the same green material, with the same carnation.—They were lovers, and had their portraits painted in the same costume. The young man was a Fregoso, the lady an Alfani, Donna Maria Alfani.—All this was going on during the absence of the husband, who was a prisoner among the Algerians. They both thought he would never return.—'Chi non muore, si revede,' the cardinal used to like to say, 'He who is not dead always returns.'—The husband came back and slew them both.—These portraits were hidden by the family. But I found them and hung them there."
The two immense pictures, preserved in all their brilliancy by a long exile from the light, smiled down upon the visitors with that enigmatical smile of which the old collector had spoken. A voluptuous, culpable grace shone out of the eyes of Donna Maria Alfani, lingered upon her crimson lips, her pale cheeks, and her dark hair. The delicate visage, so mobile, so subtle, preserved a dangerous, fascinating attraction even up there in the stiff outlines of the lofty green frieze. The passionate pride of a daring lover sparkled in the black eyes of the young man. The perfect similarity in the colors of their costumes, in the hue of the carnations they held in their hands, in the pose of the figures, and in the style of the paintings seemed to prolong their criminal liaison even after death. It seemed like a challenge to the avenger. He had killed them, but not separated them, for they were there, upon the same panel of the same wall, proclaiming aloud their undying devotion, glorified by art's magic, looking at each other, speaking to each other, loving each other.
Ely and Pierre could not resist the temptation to exchange a glance, to look at each other with the tenderness evoked by the meeting of two lovers with the relics of a passion long since passed away. In it could be read how keenly they felt the evanescent nature of their present happiness in the face of this vanished past. Ely was moved more deeply still. The cardinal-pirate's threatening adage, "Chi non muore, si revede," had made her shudder again, had thrilled her with the same terror she had felt upon the boat at the sweetest moment of that heavenly hour. But this terror and melancholy were quickly dissipated like an evil dream when Miss Marsh replied to the commentaries of the Genoese prince:—
"My uncle would pay a big price for those two portraits. You know how fond he is of returning from his visits to the Old World laden with knick-knacks of this kind! He calls them his scalps.—But Your Highness values them very highly, I suppose? They are such beautiful works of art!"
"I value them because they descend to me as heirlooms from my family," replied Fregoso. "But don't profane in that way the great name of Art," he added solemnly. "This and that," he continued, pointing to the vaulted dome and to the picture, "can be called anything you like, brilliant decoration, interesting history, curious illustrated legend, the reproduction of customs of a past age, instructive psychology.—But it is not Art.—There has never been any art except in Greece, and once in modern times, in the works of Dante Alighieri. Never forget that, Miss Marsh."
"Then you prefer these statues to the pictures?" asked Madame de Carlsberg, amused by the tone of his sally.
"These statues?" he replied. He looked around at the white figures ranged along the walls, and the grand lines of his visage took on an expression of extreme contempt. "Those who bought these things did not even know what Greek art was. They knew about as little as the ignoramuses who collected the mediocrities of the Tribune or of the Vatican."
"What?" interrupted Madame de Carlsberg. "The Venus de' Medici is at the Tribune and the Apollo and the Ariadne at the Vatican!"
"The Venus de' Medici!" cried Fregoso, angrily, "don't speak to me about the Venus de' Medici!—Look," he went on, pointing to one of the statues with his gouty fingers, "do you recognize it? That is your Venus!—It has the same slender, affected body, the same pose of the arms, the same little cupid at her feet, astride a playful dolphin, and, like the other, it is a base copy made from Praxiteles's masterpiece in the taste of the Roman epoch which brought it into existence.—Would you have in your house one of those reproductions of 'Night' which encumber the shops of the Tuscan statuary dealers?'—Copies, I tell you; they are all copies, and made in such a way!—That is the sort of art you admire in Florence, Rome, Naples.—All those emperors and Roman patricians who stocked their villas with the reproductions of Greekchefs d'œuvrewere barbarians, and they have left to us the shadow of a shadow, a parody of the real Greece, the true, the original, the Greece that Pausanias visited!—Why, that Venus is a pretty woman bathing, who takes flight to arouse desire! She is a coquette, she is lascivious!—What has she in common with the Anadyomene, with the Aphrodite who was the incarnation of all the world's passionate energies, and whose temple was forbidden to men, with the goddess that was also called the Apostrophia, the Preserver?—Think of asking this one to resist desire, to tear Love from the dominion of the senses!—And look at this Dromio of your Apollo.—Does it not resemble in a confusing way the Belvedere that Winckelmann admired so much?—It is another Roman copy of a statue by Scopas. But what connection is there between this academic gladiator and the terrible god of the Iliad, such as he is still figured on the pediment at Olympia?—The original was the personification of terrible, mutilating, tragical light. You feel the influence of the East and of Egypt, the irresistible power of the Sun, the torrid breath of the desert.—But here?—It is simply a handsome young man destined to lighten the time of a depraved woman in a secluded chamber, avenereo, such as you can find by the hundred in the houses at Pompeii.—There is not an original touch about these statues; nothing that reveals the hand of the artist, that discloses the eye guiding the hand, the soul guiding the eye, and guiding the soul, the city, the race, all those virtues that make Art a sacred, magisterial thing, that make it the divine blossom of human life!"
The old man spoke with singular exaltation of spirit. His faded visage was transfigured by a noble, intellectual passion. Suddenly the comical and familiar side of the man came uppermost again. His long lips protruded in a ludicrous pout and, threateningly shaking his knotted finger at one of the statues, a Diana with a quiver, whose countenance, white in some parts and yellow in others, disclosed the fact that it had been restored, he added:—
"And the hussies are not even intact!—They are only patched-up copies.—Just look at this one.—Ah, you baggage, you should not keep that nose if it were not too much trouble to knock it off!—Ah!" he continued, as a servant opened the double door at the end of the gallery, "a thoroughbred needs no spur—Don Fortunato is ready."
Approaching Andryana Bonnacorsi, he said:—
"Will Madame la marchesa do me the honor of accepting my arm to lead her to the altar? My age gives me the right to play the rôle of father. And if I cannot walk quickly enough you must excuse me; the weight of years is the heaviest man ever has to carry.—And don't be alarmed," added the good old man in a whisper, as he felt the arm of his companion tremble. "I have studied your Corancez very deeply for several days. He is an excellent and good fellow."
"Well," said Corancez to Madame de Carlsberg, offering her his arm, while Florence Marsh took Hautefeuille's, "are you still as sceptical as you were about chiromancy and the line of fate? Is it simply a chance that I should have the Baroness Ely leaning on my arm in my wedding procession? And is it merely hazard that has provided me with an original like our host to amuse you during the wearisome affair?"
"It is not wearisome," replied the Baroness, laughing. "All the same, you are lucky in marrying Andryana; she is looking so beautiful to-day, and she loves you so much!—As to the Prince, you are right; he is unique. It is pleasant to find such enthusiasm in a man of his age.—When Italians are taken up with an idea they are infatuated with it passionately, devotedly, as they are with a woman.—They have rebuilt their country with the help of that very quality."
During these few minutes Miss Marsh was talking to Hautefeuille.
"You cannot understand that feeling," she was saying, "for you belong to an old country. But I come from a town that is very little older than myself, and it is an ecstasy to visit a palace like this where everything is eloquent of a long past."
"Alas, Miss Marsh," replied Hautefeuille, "if there is anything more painful than living in a new country, it is living in one that wants to become new at any price when it is filled to overflowing with relics of the past, of a glorious past,—a country where every one is making desperate efforts to destroy everything.—France has had that mania for about a hundred years."
"Yes, and Italy has had it for twenty-five years," said the American girl. "But we are here," she added gayly, "to buy everything and to preserve it.—Oh! what an exquisite chapel.—Just look at it!—Now I'll bet you that those frescoes will finish their existence in Chicago or Marionville."
As she spoke she pointed out to Pierre the mural paintings that decorated the chapel they entered at the moment. The little place where the cardinal-pirate had doubtless often officiated was embellished with a vast symbolical composition from floor to ceiling. It was the work of one of those unknown masters whose creations confront one at every step in Italy and which anywhere else would be celebrated. But there, as the soldiers in the famous charge say, they are too numerous! This particular painter, influenced by the marvellous frescoes with which Lorenzo Lotto had beautified the Suardi Chapel at Bergamo, had represented, above the altar, Christ standing up and holding out His hands. From the Saviour's finger-tips a vine shoot spread out, climbing up and up to the dome, covered with grapes. The tendrils wound round, making frames for the figures of five saints on one side, and on the other five female figures. Above the head of Christ the inscription, "Ego sum vitis, vos palmites," gave an evangelical significance to the fantastic decoration.
The principal episodes in the legend of St. Laurence, the patron saint of the cathedral at Genoa, were painted on the walls and in the panels made by the pillars. These were: Decius slaying the Emperor Philip in his tent; the young sou of the dead Emperor confiding his father's treasures to Sixtus to be distributed among the poor; Sixtus being led to the scene of his martyrdom, followed by Laurence, crying, "Where art thou going, O father, without thy son? Where art thou going, O priest, without thy deacon?" Laurence receiving the treasures in his turn and confiding them to the poor widow; Laurence in prison converting the officer of the guard; Laurence in Sallust's gardens collecting together the poor, the halt, and the blind, saying at the same time to Decius, "Behold the treasures of the Church!" Laurence surrounded by flames upon a bed of fire!—The picturesqueness of the costumes, the fancy displayed in the architecture, the fruitful nature of the landscape, the breadth of the drawing, and the warmth of the coloring revealed the influence of the Venetian school, although attenuated and softened by the usury of time, which had effaced the too glaring brilliancy and toned down the too vivid warmth of the painting. It had taken on something of the faded tone of old tapestry.
The whole gave to the marriage that was being celebrated in the old oratory of the ancient palace of an aged prince by a Gallophobe priest a fantastic character that was both delightful and droll. The ultra-modern Corancez kneeling with the descendants of the doges with Don Fortunato to bless them, in a setting of the sixteenth century, was one of those paradoxes that only nature dare present, so pronounced are they as to be almost incredible! And equally incredible was the simple-mindedness of the abbé, the impassioned worshipper of Count Camillo. He rolled out a little oration to the youngfiancésbefore uniting them. This oration was in French, a condescension he had determined upon making, in spite of his political hatreds, for the sake of the foreigner to whom he was to marry his dear marchesa.
"Noble lady! Honored sir! I do not intend to say much.—Tongueless birds furnish no auguries.—Sir, you are going to marry this dear lady in the presence of God. In thus consecrating the union of a great Venetian name with that of a noble French family, it seems as though I were asking once more for the blessing of Him Who can do all things, that I were appealing to Him to consecrate the friendship between two countries which ought to be only one in heart; I mean, my lady, our dear Italy, and your beautiful France, my lord!—Italy resembles that figure painted by a master, a genius, upon the wall of this chapel. It is from her that proud Spain and brilliant France, two young branches of the Latin race, have sprung as from a fruitful vine. The same vigorous sap courses through the veins of the three nations. May they be reunited some day! May the mother once more have her two daughters by her side! May they be united some day as they are already by the relationship of their languages, by the communion of their religion! May they be bound together by a bond of love that nothing can break, such as is going to unite you, my dear lord and lady! Amen!"
"Did you hear him?" Corancez asked Hautefeuille an hour later.
TheIta missa esthad been spoken; the solemn "I will" had been exchanged, and the luncheon—including the mullet that surpassed those of Leghorn—had been brought to an end amid toasts, laughter, and the reading of the epithalamium upon which Don Fortunato had worked so long and so patiently. The entire company had adjourned to the gallery for coffee, and the two young men were chatting in the angle of a window close to the repaired Artemis.
"Did you hear him? The good old abbé simply worships me.—He worships me even too much, for I am not as noble as he has made me out.—He has given Andryana a proof of inalienable affection in consenting to our secret marriage. He is as intelligent as it is possible to be. He knows Navagero to the very marrow and dreaded an unhappy future for Andryana if she did not escape from her brother's clutches. He is also a clever diplomatist, for he persuaded his old companion incarcere duroto lend us his little chapel.—Well, intelligence, diplomacy, friendship, and all the rest are swept on one side in the Italian soul by the law of primogeniture. Did you not hear how, in his quality of Cavour's friend, he made us feel that France was only the youngest scion of the great Latin family?—In this case the youngest has fared better than the eldest! But I pardoned all Don Fortunato's presumption when I thought of the face my brother-in-law will pull, Italian though he is, when he is shown the piece of paper which bears your name beside that of the Prince.—Would you like another proof of Corancez's luck? Look over yonder."
He pointed through the window to the sky covered with black clouds and to the street below, at the foot of the palace, where the north wind, sweeping along, made the promenaders huddle up in their cloaks.
"You don't understand?" he went on. "Don't you see you cannot sail again while such a sea is on? The ladies will stay at the hotel all night." As he spoke the Provençal smiled with an easy-going, semi-complicity. Happily the newly made vicomtesse drew near and brought thetête-à-têteto an end. She was leaning on Madame de Carlsberg's arm. The two young women, so beautiful, so graceful, so delicate, so enamoured, formed a living commentary as they thus approached the two young men. And the pagan air that one seems to breathe in Italy was so keen, so penetrating, that Pierre's uneasy scruples were soothed by the love he could read in his mistress's brown eyes that were lit up by the same tender fire that shone in the blue eyes of the Venetian when she regarded her husband.
"You have come to us from the Prince, I suppose?" asked Corancez. "I know him! You will have no peace until he has shown you his treasures."
"Yes, he has been asking for you," said Andryana. "But I came on my own account.—A husband who abandons his wife an hour after marriage is rather hurried."
"Yes, it is a little too soon," repeated Ely. And the hidden meaning of the words, addressed as it was in reality to Hautefeuille, was as sweet as a kiss to the young man.
"Let us obey the Prince—and the Princess," he said, bearing his mistress's hand to his lips as though in playful gallantry, "and go to the treasure-house. You know all about it, I suppose?" he added, turning to his friend.
"Do I know it?" replied Corancez. "I had not been here an hour before I had gone through the whole place. He is a little bit—" and he tapped his forehead significantly, pointing to the old Prince and Don Fortunato, who were going out of the gallery with Miss Marsh. "He is a little bit crazy.—But you will judge for yourself."
All the procession—to use the term employed by the "representative of a great French family," as the Abbé Lagumina styled the Provençal—followed in Fregoso's wake and descended a narrow staircase leading to the private apartments of the collector. He was now leading, eager to show the way. As is often the case in big Italian mansions, the living rooms were as little as the reception halls were big. The Prince, when alone, lived in four cramped rooms, of which the scanty furniture indicated very plainly the stoicism of the old man, wrapped up in a dream-world and as indifferent to comfort as he was impervious to vanity. The twenty or twenty-five pieces that formed his museum were hung on the walls. At the first glance the Fregoso collection, celebrated all over the two hemispheres, was made up of shapeless fragments, rudely carved, that could not fail to produce the same impression upon the ignorant in such matters that Corancez had felt. Fregoso had studied antique art so closely that he now cared for nothing but statuary dating from an epoch anterior to Phidias. He worshipped these relics of the sixth century which afford glimpses of primitive and heroic Greece—the Greece that repulsed the Asiatic invasion by the simple virtue of a superior, elevated race placed face to face with the countless hordes of an inferior people.
The Genoese nobleman had become the most devoted of archæologists after being one of the most active conspirators. And now he lived among the gods and heroes of that little known and distant Hellas as though he had been a contemporary of the famous soldier carved upon the stele of Aristion.
The gouty old man seemed to be miraculously rejuvenated the moment the last of his guests crossed the threshold of the first chamber, which usually served him as a smoking-room. He stood erect. His feet no longer dragged upon the floor as though too heavy for his strength. His dæmon, as his beloved Athenians would have said, had entered into him and he began to talk of his collection with a fire that arrested any inclination to smile. Under the influence of his glowing language the mutilated marble seemed to become animated and to live again. He could see the figures of two thousand four hundred years ago in all their freshness. And by a species of irresistible hypnotism his imagination imposed itself upon the most sceptical among his auditors.
"There," he said, "are the oldest carvings known.—Three statues of Hera, three Junos in their primitive form: that is, wooden idols copied in stone by a hand that still hesitates as though unfamiliar with the work."
"The xoanon!" said Florence Marsh.
"What! You have heard of the xoanon?" cried Fregoso. And from this point on he addressed only the American girl. "In that case, Miss Marsh, you are capable of understanding the beauty of these three examples of art. They are unique.—Neither that of Delos, that of Samos, or that of the Acropolis is worthy to be compared with them.—You can see the creation of life in them.—Here you see the body in its sheath, and what a sheath!—One as shapeless and rough as the harshest of wools. And yet it breathes, the bosom is there, the hips, the legs are indicated.—Then the material grows supple, becoming a delicate fabric of fine wool, a long divided garment that lends itself to every movement. The statue awakes. It walks.—Just look at the grandeur of the torso under the peplum, the closely fitting cloak gathered in closely fitting folds on one side and spread fanlike on the other. Don't you admire the pose of the goddess as she stands, the weight of her body thrown upon the right foot, with the left advanced?—Now she moves, she lives!—Oh! Beauty! Heavenly Beauty!—And look at the Apollos!"
He was so excited by his feverish enthusiasm that he could no longer speak. He pointed in speechless admiration to three trunks carved in stone that had been turned red by a long sojourn in a ferruginous soil. They were headless and armless, with legs of which only the stumps remained.
"Are they not the models of those at Orchomenos, Thera, and Tenea?" asked Miss Marsh.
"Certainly," replied the Prince, who could no longer contain his happiness. "They are funeral images, statues of some dead hero deified in the form of Apollo.—And to think that there are barbarians in the world who pretend that the Greeks went to Egypt and to Mesopotamia in search of their art!—Do you think an Egyptian or an Asiatic could ever have imagined that proud carriage, that curved chest, that strong back?—They never made anything but sitting idols glued to the wall.—Just look at the thighs! Homer says that Achilles could leap fifty feet. I have studied the subject deeply, and I find that the tiger's leap at its maximum is exactly that distance. It appears incredible to us that a man could do that. But look at those muscles—that makes such a leap a possibility. Art is seen at its perfection there; magnificent limbs capable of magnificent efforts. 'I moti divini,' as Leonardo said. If you put that energy at the service of the city and represent that city by gods, by its gods, you have Greece before you."
"And you have Venice, you have Florence, you have Sienna, you have Genoa, all Italy, in fact!" interrupted Don Fortunato.
"Italy is the humble pupil of Greece," replied Fregoso, solemnly. "She has received touches of grand beauty, but she is not the grand beauty."
Looking around, he added mysteriously:—
"Ah! we must close the shutters and lower the curtains. Will you help me, Don Fortunato?"
When the room had thus been darkened, the old man handed a lighted taper to the abbé and made a sign for them all to follow him. Approaching a head carved in marble placed upon a pedestal, he said, in a voice broken with emotion:—
"The Niobe of Phidias!"
The three women and the two young men then saw by the light of the tiny flame a shapeless fragment of marble. The nose had been broken and shattered. The place where the eyes ought to have been was hardly recognizable. Almost all the hair was missing. By chance, in all the dreadful destruction through which the head had passed, the lower lip and the chin had been spared. Accustomed as he was to the almost infantilemise-en-scèneof the archæologist, Don Fortunato let the light shine full on the mutilated mouth and chin.
"What admirable life and suffering is displayed in that mouth!" cried Fregoso, "and what power there is in the chin!—Does it not express all the will and pride and energy of the queen who defied Latona?—You can hear the cry that issues from the lips.—Follow the line of the cheek. From what remains you can figure the rest.—And what a noble form the artist has given the nose!—Look at this."
He took up the head, placed it at a certain angle, drew out his handkerchief, and taking a portion of it in his hands, he stretched it across the base of the forehead at the place where there was nothing but a gaping fracture in the stone.
"There you have the line of the nose!—I can see it.—I can see the tears that flow from her eyes," and he placed the head at another angle. "I can see them!—Come!" he said, sighing, after a silence, "we must return to everyday life. Draw up the curtains and open the shutters."
When daylight once more lit up the shapeless mass Fregoso sighed again. Then, taking up a head, rather less battered than the Niobe, he bowed to Miss Marsh, whose technical knowledge and attentive attitude had appealed in a flattering way to his mania.
"Miss Marsh," he said, "you are worthy of possessing a fragment of a statue that once graced the Acropolis.—Will you allow me to offer you this head, one only recently discovered? Look how it smiles."
The head really seemed to smile in the old man's hands, with a curious, disquieting smile, mysterious and sensual at the same time.
"It is the Eginetan smile, is it not?" asked the American girl.
"Archæologists have given it that name on account of the statues upon the famous pediment. But I call it the Elysian smile, the ecstasy that ought to wreathe forever the lips of those tasting the eternal happiness, revealed in advance to the faithful by the gods and goddesses.—Remember the line Æschylus wrote about Helen: 'Soul serene as the calm of the seas.' That smile expresses the line completely."
When Hautefeuille and the three women were once again in the landau that was taking them toward the port after the fantastic marriage and the more fantastic visit, they looked at each other with astonishment. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon and it seemed so strange to be again in the streets full of people, to see the houses with the little shops on the ground-floor, to read the bills that covered the walls, and to form part of the swarming, contemporary life. They felt the same impression that seizes one after a theatrical performance in the daytime when one is again on the boulevard flooded with sunshine. The deception of the theatre, which has held you for a couple of hours, makes the reawakening to life almost painful. Andryana was the first to speak of this uncomfortable sensation.
"If I had not Don Fortunato's epithalamium in my hand," she said, showing a little book she held, "I should think I had been dreaming.—He has just given it to me with great ceremony, telling me at the same time that only four copies of it had been printed at the workshop where the proclamations of Manin, our last doge, used to be, printed. There is one for Corancez, one for Fregoso, one for the abbé himself, and this one!—Yes, I should think I had been dreaming."
"And I also," said Florence, "if this head were not so heavy." She weighed the strange gift which the archæologist had honored her with in her little hands. "Heavens, how I should like to visit the museum without the Prince!—I have an idea that he hypnotized us, and that if he were not there we should see nothing.—For example, we saw the smile on this face when Fregoso showed it to us.—I cannot find the least trace of it now. Can you?"
"No!—Nor I!—Nor I!—" cried Ely de Carlsberg, Andryana, and Hautefeuille in chorus.
"I am certain, however," the latter added, laughingly, "that I saw Niobe, who had neither eyes nor cheeks, weeping."
"And I saw Apollo run, although he had no legs," said Madame de Carlsberg.
"And I saw Juno breathe, though she had no bosom," said Andryana.
"Corancez warned me of it," said Hautefeuille. "When Fregoso is absent, his collection is a simple heap of stones; when he is there, it is Olympus."
"That is because he is a believer and impassioned about art," replied the Baroness. "The few hours we spent with him have taught me more about Greece than all my promenades in the Vatican, the capital, and the Offices. I do not even regret being unable to show you the Red Palace," she said, addressing Hautefeuille, "notwithstanding the fact that its Van Dycks are wonderful."
"You will have plenty of time to-morrow," said Miss Marsh. "My uncle will sail to-night, I know; but he will leave us here, for theJennyis going to have a rough time, and he will not allow any one to be sick on his boat. Look how the sea is already rolling in to the port.—There is a tempest raging out at sea."
The landau arrived at the quay where the yacht's dingy was awaiting the travellers. Little waves were breaking against the walls. All the roadstead was agitated by the rising north wind and was a mass of tiny ripples, too small to affect the big steamers riding at anchor, but strong enough to pitch about the pleasure boats and fishing smacks. What a difference there was between this threatening gray swell that was felt even in the port, in spite of its protecting piers, and the wide mirror-like expanse of motionless sapphire which had spread before them the day before at the same hour in the open sea off Cannes! What a contrast between this cloudy sky and the azure dome that smiled down upon their departure, between this keen north wind and the perfumed sighing of the breeze yesterday!—But who thought of this? Certainly not Florence Marsh, completely happy in the possession of the archaic scalp she was taking on board. Certainly not Andryana, to whom the prospect of a night spent on shore was full of such happy promise; she was to meet her husband, and the idea of this clandestine and at the same time legitimate rendezvous after her romantic marriage had filled the loving woman with happiness. It was the first time for many years that she had forgotten her dreaded brother. Nor did Hautefeuille or his mistress notice the contrast, for the long hours of the night were to be spent together. The young man, who had fallen behind with Ely de Carlsberg, said gayly and yet tenderly, as they walked down toward the dingy of the Jenny, whose red, white, and black flag crackled in the breeze:—
"I am beginning to believe that Corancez is right about his lucky line!—And it appears to be contagious."
At the very moment he spoke, and as Ely answered him with a smile full of languor and voluptuousness, one of the sailors standing on the quay near the boat handed a large portfolio to Miss Marsh. It was the vessel's postman, who had just returned with the passengers' mail. The young girl rapidly ran through the fifteen or twenty letters.
"Here is a telegram for you, Hautefeuille," she said.
"You will see," he said to Ely, continuing his badinage, "it is good news."
He tore open the yellow slip. His visage lit up with a happy smile, and he handed the telegram to Madame de Carlsberg, saying:—
"What did I tell you?"
The despatch said simply:—
"Am leaving Cairo to-day. Shall be at Cannes Sunday or Monday at latest. Will send another telegram. So happy to see you again.OLIVIER DU PRAT."
"Am leaving Cairo to-day. Shall be at Cannes Sunday or Monday at latest. Will send another telegram. So happy to see you again.
OLIVIER DU PRAT."
The second telegram arrived, and on the following Monday, at two o'clock, Pierre Hautefeuille was at the station at Cannes, awaiting the arrival of the express. It was the train he had taken to come from Paris in November, while still suffering from the attack of pleurisy that had been nearly fatal to him. Any one who had seen him getting out of the train on that November afternoon, thin, pale, shivering in spite of his furs, would never have recognized the invalid, the feverish convalescent, in the handsome young fellow who crossed the track four months later, supple and erect, rosy-cheeked and smiling, and with his eyes lit up with a happy reflection that brightened all his visage. Between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five, in that period of life when the vital principle is ripe and intact, the most timid of men have at times a keen joy in life which betrays itself in every gesture. It is a sign that they love, that they are beloved, that all around smiles upon their love. And the sensation that no obstacle stands between them and their passions fills them to overflowing with happiness. Their very physique seems to be transfigured, to be exalted. They have a different bearing, another look, a prouder attitude. It is as though some magnetic current emanated from happy lovers, that clothes them with a momentary beauty intelligible to every woman. They recognize at once the "enraptured lover," and hate him or sympathize with him, according as they are envious or indulgent, prosaic or romantic.
To this latter class belonged the two people whom Hautefeuille met face to face on the little central platform that serves as a sort of waiting-place at the Cannes station. One of these was Yvonne de Chésy, accompanied by her husband and Horace Brion. The other was the Marchesa Bonnacorsi,—as she still called herself,—escorted by her brother, Navagero. To reach them, the young man had to work his way through the fashionable crowd gathered there, as is usual at this hour, awaiting the train that is to carry them to Monte Carlo. The comments exchanged between the two women and their escorts during the few minutes that this operation took proved once more that the pettiness of malignant jealousy is not the characteristic of the gentler sex solely.
"Hallo! there is Hautefeuille!" said Madame de Chésy. "How pleased his sister will be to see him so wonderfully changed!—Don't you think he is a very handsome young fellow?"
"Yes, very handsome," assented the Venetian, "and the prettiest part of it is that he does not seem to be aware of it."
"He won't keep that quality long," said Brion. "It is 'Hautefeuille here, 'Hautefeuille' there! You hear of nothing but Hautefeuille at your house," addressing Yvonne, "at Madame Bonnacorsi's, at Madame de Carlsberg's. He was simply a good, little, inoffensive, insignificant youngster. You are going to make him frightfully conceited."
"Without considering that he will compromise one of you sooner or later if it continues," said Navagero, glancing at his sister.
Since the trip to Genoa the artful Italian had noticed an unusual air about Andryana and had been seeking the motive of it, but in the wrong direction.
"Ah! That's it, is it?" cried Yvonne, laughingly. "Well, just to punish you I am going to ask him to come into our compartment, and shall invite him to dine with us at Monte Carlo, so that he can take charge of Gontran—who needs some one to look after him. I say, Pierre," she went on, addressing the young man who was now standing before her, "I attach you to my service for the afternoon and evening.—You will report it to me if my lord and master loses more than one hundred louis.—He lost a thousand the day before yesterday attrente-et-quarante. Two affairs like that every week throughout the winter would be a nice income.—I shall have to begin thinking of how I am to earn the living expenses."
Chésy did not reply. He tugged at his mustache nervously, shrugging his shoulders. But his features contracted with a forced smile that was very different from the one his wife's witty sallies usually provoked. The catastrophe Dickie Marsh had predicted was slowly drawing near, and the unfortunate fellow was childish enough to try to offset the imminent disaster by risking the little means he had left upon the green cloth at Monte Carlo. Heedless to say, his wife was entirely ignorant of the truth. Thus Yvonne's remark was singularly cruel for him, and for her, uttered as it was, in the presence of Brion, the professional banker of needymondaines. Hautefeuille, who had been enlightened by his conversations with Corancez and Madame de Carlsberg, felt the irony hidden in the pretty little woman's conversation at such a moment, and said:—
"I am not going to Monte Carlo. I am simply waiting for one of my friends—for Olivier du Prat—whom, I think, you know."
"What! Olivier! Why, he is an old sweetheart of mine, when I was staying with your sister.—Yes, I was crazy about him for at least a fortnight. Bring him along then and invite him to dine with us this evening. You can take the five o'clock train."
"But he is married."