Gouache was far more interested in his work than in the opinions which his two visitors might entertain of each other. He looked at the lady fixedly, moved his easel, raised the picture a few inches higher from the ground and looked again. Orsino watched the proceedings from a little distance, debating whether he should go away or remain. Much depended upon Madame d'Aragona's character, he thought, and of this he knew nothing. Some women are attracted by indifference, and to go away would be to show a disinclination to press the acquaintance. Others, he reflected, prefer the assurance of the man who always stays, even without an invitation, rather than lose his chance. On the other hand a sitting in a studio is not exactly like a meeting in a drawing-room. The painter has a sort of traditional, exclusive right to his sitter's sole attention. The sitter, too, if a woman, enjoys the privilege of sacrificing one-half her good looks in a bad light, to favour the other side which is presented to the artist's view, and the third person, if there be one, has a provoking habit of so placing himself as to receive the least flattering impression. Hence the great unpopularity of the third person—or "the third inconvenience," as the Romans call him.
Orsino stood still for a few moments, wondering whether either of the two would ask him to sit down. As they did not, he was annoyed with them and determined to stay, if only for five minutes. He took up his position, in a deep seat under the high window, and watched Madame d'Aragona's profile. Neither she nor Gouache made any remark. Gouache began to brush over the face of his picture. Orsino felt that the silence was becoming awkward. He began to regret that he had remained, for he discovered from his present position that the lady's nose was indeed her defective feature.
"You do not mind my staying a few minutes?" he said, with a vague interrogation.
"Ask Madame, rather," answered Gouache, brushing away in a lively manner. Madame said nothing, and seemed not to have heard.
"Am I indiscreet?" asked Orsino.
"How? No. Why should you not remain? Only, if you please, sit where I can see you. Thanks. I do not like to feel that some one is looking at me and that I cannot look at him, if I please—and as for me, I am nailed in my position. How can I turn my head? Gouache is very severe."
"You may have heard, Madame, that a beautiful woman is most beautiful in repose," said Gouache.
Orsino was annoyed, for he had of course wished to make exactly the same remark. But they were talking in French, and the Frenchman had the advantage of speed.
"And how about an ugly woman?" asked Madame d'Aragona.
"Motion is most becoming to her—rapid motion—the door," answered the artist.
Orsino had changed his position and was standing behind Gouache.
"I wish you would sit down," said the latter, after a short pause. "I do not like to feel that any one is standing behind me when I am at work. It is a weakness, but I cannot help it. Do you believe in mental suggestion, Madame?"
"What is that?" asked Madame d'Aragona vaguely.
"I always imagine that a person standing behind me when I am at work is making me see everything as he sees," answered Gouache, not attempting to answer the question.
Orsino, driven from pillar to post, had again moved away.
"And do you believe in such absurd superstitions?" enquired Madame d'Aragona with a contemptuous curl of her heavy lips. "Monsieur de Saracinesca, will you not sit down? You make me a little nervous."
Gouache raised his finely marked eyebrows almost imperceptibly at the odd form of address, which betrayed ignorance either of worldly usage or else of Orsino's individuality. He stepped back from the canvas and moved a chair forward.
"Sit here, Prince," he said. "Madame can see you, and you will not be behind me."
Orsino took the proffered seat without any remark. Madame d'Aragona's expression did not change, though she was perfectly well aware that Gouache had intended to correct her manner of addressing the young man. The latter was slightly annoyed. What difference could it make? It was tactless of Gouache, he thought, for the lady might be angry.
"Are you spending the winter in Rome, Madame?" he asked. He was conscious that the question lacked originality, but no other presented itself to him.
"The winter?" repeated Madame d'Aragona dreamily. "Who knows? I am here at present, at the mercy of the great painter. That is all I know. Shall I be here next month, next week? I cannot tell. I know no one. I have never been here before. It is dull. This was my object," she added, after a short pause. "When it is accomplished I will consider other matters. I may be obliged to accompany their Royal Highnesses to Egypt in January. That is next month, is it not?"
It was so very far from clear who the royal highnesses in question might be, that Orsino glanced at Gouache, to see whether he understood. But Gouache was imperturbable.
"January, Madame, follows December," he answered. "The fact is confirmed by the observations of many centuries. Even in my own experience it has occurred forty-seven times in succession."
Orsino laughed a little, and as Madame d'Aragona's eyes met his, the red lips smiled, without parting.
"He is always laughing at me," she said pleasantly.
Gouache was painting with great alacrity. The smile was becoming to her and he caught it as it passed. It must be allowed that she permitted it to linger, as though she understood his wish, but as she was looking at Orsino, he was pleased.
"If you will permit me to say it, Madame," he observed, "I have never seen eyes like yours."
He endeavoured to lose himself in their depths as he spoke. Madame d'Aragona was not in the least annoyed by the remark, nor by the look.
"What is there so very unusual about my eyes?" she enquired. The smile grew a little more faint and thoughtful but did not disappear.
"In the first place, I have never seen eyes of a golden-yellow colour."
"Tigers have yellow eyes," observed Madame d'Aragona.
"My acquaintance with that animal is at second hand—slight, to say the least."
"You have never shot one?"
"Never, Madame. They do not abound in Rome—nor even, I believe, in Albano. My father killed one when he was a young man."
"Prince Saracinesca?"
"Sant' Ilario. My grandfather is still alive."
"How splendid! I adore strong races."
"It is very interesting," observed Gouache, poking the stick of a brush into the eye of his picture. "I have painted three generations of the family, I who speak to you, and I hope to paint the fourth if Don Orsino here can be cured of his cynicism and induced to marry Donna—what is her name?" He turned to the young man.
"She has none—and she is likely to remain nameless," answered Orsino gloomily.
"We will call her Donna Ignota," suggested Madame d'Aragona.
"And build altars to the unknown love," added Gouache.
Madame d'Aragona smiled faintly, but Orsino persisted in looking grave.
"It seems to be an unpleasant subject, Prince."
"Very unpleasant, Madame," answered Orsino shortly.
Thereupon Madame d'Aragona looked at Gouache and raised her brows a little as though to ask a question, knowing perfectly well that Orsino was watching her. The young man could not see the painter's eyes, and the latter did not betray by any gesture that he was answering the silent interrogation.
"Then I have eyes like a tiger, you say. You frighten me. How disagreeable—to look like a wild beast!"
"It is a prejudice," returned Orsino. "One hears people say of a woman that she is beautiful as a tigress."
"An idea!" exclaimed Gouache, interrupting. "Shall I change the damask cloak to a tiger's skin? One claw just hanging over the white shoulder—Omphale, you know—in a modern drawing-room—a small cast of the Farnese Hercules upon a bracket, there, on the right. Decidedly, here is an idea. Do you permit, Madame!"
"Anything you like—only do not spoil the likeness," answered Madame d'Aragona, leaning back in her chair, and looking sleepily at Orsino from beneath her heavy, half-closed lids.
"You will spoil the whole picture," said Orsino, rather anxiously.
Gouache laughed.
"What harm if I do? I can restore it in five minutes—"
"Five minutes!"
"An hour, if you insist upon accuracy of statement," replied Gouache with a shade of annoyance.
He had an idea, and like most people whom fate occasionally favours with that rare commodity he did not like to be disturbed in the realisation of it. He was already squeezing out quantities of tawny colours upon his palette.
"I am a passive instrument," said Madame d'Aragona. "He does what he pleases. These men of genius—what would you have? Yesterday a gown from Worth—to-day a tiger's skin—indeed, I tremble for to-morrow."
She laughed a little and turned her head away.
"You need not fear," answered Gouache, daubing in his new idea with an enormous brush. "Fashions change. Woman endures. Beauty is eternal. There is nothing which may not be made becoming to a beautiful woman."
"My dear Gouache, you are insufferable. You are always telling me that I am beautiful. Look at my nose."
"Yes. I am looking at it."
"And my mouth."
"I look. I see. I admire. Have you any other personal observations to make? How many claws has a tiger, Don Orsino? Quick! I am painting the thing."
"One less than a woman."
Madame d'Aragona looked at the young man a moment, and broke into a laugh.
"There is a charming speech. I like that better than Gouache's flattery."
"And yet you admit that the portrait is like you," said Gouache.
"Perhaps I flatter you, too."
"Ah! I had not thought of that."
"You should be more modest."
"I lose myself—"
"Where?"
"In your eyes, Madame. One, two, three, four—are you sure a tiger has only four claws? Where is the creature's thumb—what do you call it? It looks awkward."
"The dew-claw?" asked Orsino. "It is higher up, behind the paw. You would hardly see it in the skin."
"But a cat has five claws," said Madame d'Aragona. "Is not a tiger a cat? We must have the thing right, you know, if it is to be done at all."
"Has a cat five claws?" asked Anastase, appealing anxiously to Orsino.
"Of course, but you would only see four on the skin."
"I insist upon knowing," said Madame d'Aragona. "This is dreadful! Has no one got a tiger? What sort of studio is this—with no tiger!"
"I am not Sarah Bernhardt, nor the emperor of Siam," observed Gouache, with a laugh.
But Madame d'Aragona was not satisfied.
"I am sure you could procure me one, Prince," she said, turning to Orsino. "I am sure you could, if you would! I shall cry if I do not have one, and it will be your fault."
"Would you like the animal alive or dead?" inquired Orsino gravely, and he rose from his seat.
"Ah, I knew you could procure the thing!" she exclaimed with grateful enthusiasm. "Alive or dead, Gouache? Quick—decide!"
"As you please, Madame. If you decide to have him alive, I will ask permission to exchange a few words with my wife and children, while some one goes for a priest."
"You are sublime, to-day. Dead, then, if you please, Prince. Quite dead—but do not say that I was afraid—"
"Afraid? With, a Saracinesca and a Gouache to defend your life, Madame? You are not serious."
Orsino took his hat.
"I shall be back in a quarter of an hour," he said, as he bowed and went out.
Madame d'Aragona watched his tall young figure till he disappeared.
"He does not lack spirit, your young friend," she observed.
"No member of that family ever did, I think," Gouache answered. "They are a remarkable race."
"And he is the only son?"
"Oh no! He has three younger brothers."
"Poor fellow! I suppose the fortune is not very large."
"I have no means of knowing," replied Gouache indifferently. "Their palace is historic. Their equipages are magnificent. That is all that foreigners see of Roman families."
"But you know them intimately?"
"Intimately—that is saying too much. I have painted their portraits."
Madame d'Aragona wondered why he was so reticent, for she knew that he had himself married the daughter of a Roman prince, and she concluded that he must know much of the Romans.
"Do you think he will bring the tiger?" she asked presently.
"He is quite capable of bringing a whole menagerie of tigers for you to choose from."
"How interesting. I like men who stop at nothing. It was really unpardonable of you to suggest the idea and then to tell me calmly that you had no model for it."
In the meantime Orsino had descended the stairs and was hailing a passing cab. He debated for a moment what he should do. It chanced that at that time there was actually a collection of wild beasts to be seen in the Prati di Castello, and Orsino supposed that the owner might be induced, for a large consideration, to part with one of his tigers. He even imagined that he might shoot the beast and bring it back in the cab. But, in the first place, he was not provided with an adequate sum of money nor did he know exactly how to lay his hand on so large a sum as might be necessary, at a moment's notice. He was still under age, and his allowance had not been calculated with a view to his buying menageries. Moreover he considered that even if his pockets had been full of bank notes, the idea was ridiculous, and he was rather ashamed of his youthful impulse. It occurred to him that what was necessary for the picture was not the carcase of the tiger but the skin, and he remembered that such a skin lay on the floor in his father's private room—the spoil of the animal Giovanni Saracinesca had shot in his youth. It had been well cared for and was a fine specimen.
"Palazzo Saracinesca," he said to the cabman.
Now it chanced, as such things will chance in the inscrutable ways of fate, that Sant' Ilario was just then in that very room and busy with his correspondence. Orsino had hoped to carry off what he wanted, without being questioned, in order to save time, but he now found himself obliged to explain his errand.
Sant' Ilario looked, up in some surprise as his son entered.
"Well, Orsino? Is anything the matter?" he asked.
"Nothing serious, father. I want to borrow your tiger's skin for Gouache. Will you lend it to me?"
"Of course. But what in the world does Gouache want of it? Is he painting you in skins—the primeval youth of the forest?"
"No—not exactly. The fact is, there is a lady there. Gouache talks of painting her as a modern Omphale, with a tiger's skin and a cast of Hercules in the background—"
"Hercules wore a lion's skin—not a tiger's. He killed the Nemean lion."
"Did he?" inquired Orsino indifferently. "It is all the same—they do not know it, and they want a tiger. When I left they were debating whether they wanted it alive or dead. I thought of buying one at the Prati di Castello, but it seemed cheaper to borrow the skin of you. May I take it?"
Sant' Ilario laughed. Orsino rolled up the great hide and carried it to the door.
"Who is the lady, my boy?"
"I never saw her before—a certain Donna Maria d'Aranjuez d'Aragona. I fancy she must be a kind of cousin. Do you know anything about her?"
"I never heard of such a person. Is that her own name?"
"No—she seems to be somebody's widow."
"That is definite. What is she like?"
"Passably handsome—yellow eyes, reddish hair, one eye wanders."
"What an awful picture! Do not fall in love with her, Orsino."
"No fear of that—but she is amusing, and she wants the tiger."
"You seem to be in a hurry," observed Sant' Ilario, considerably amused.
"Naturally. They are waiting for me."
"Well, go as fast as you can—never keep a woman waiting. By the way, bring the skin back. I would rather you bought twenty live tigers at the Prati than lose that old thing."
Orsino promised and was soon in his cab on the way to Gouache's studio, having the skin rolled up on his knees, the head hanging out on one side and the tail on the other, to the infinite interest of the people in the street. He was just congratulating himself on having wasted so little time in conversation with his father, when the figure of a tall woman walking towards him on the pavement, arrested his attention. His cab must pass close by her, and there was no mistaking his mother at a hundred yards' distance. She saw him too and made a sign with her parasol for him to stop.
"Good-morning, Orsino," said the sweet deep voice.
"Good-morning, mother," he answered, as he descended hat in hand, and kissed the gloved fingers she extended to him.
He could not help thinking, as he looked at her, that she was infinitely more beautiful even now than Madame d'Aragona. As for Corona, it seemed to her that there was no man on earth to compare with her eldest son, except Giovanni himself, and there all comparison ceased. Their eyes met affectionately and it would have been, hard to say which was the more proud of the other, the son of his mother, or the mother of her son. Nevertheless Orsino was in a hurry. Anticipating all questions he told her in as few words as possible the nature of his errand, the object of the tiger's skin, and the name of the lady who was sitting to Gouache.
"It is strange," said Corona. "I have never heard your father speak of her."
"He has never heard of her either. He just told me so."
"I have almost enough curiosity to get into your cab and go with you."
"Do, mother." There was not much enthusiasm in the answer.
Corona looked at him, smiled, and shook her head.
"Foolish boy! Did you think I was in earnest? I should only spoil your amusement in the studio, and the lady would see that I had come to inspect her. Two good reasons—but the first is the better, dear. Go—do not keep them waiting."
"Will you not take my cab? I can get another."
"No. I am in no hurry. Good-bye."
And nodding to him with an affectionate smile, Corona passed on, leaving Orsino free at last to carry the skin to its destination.
When he entered the studio he found Madame d'Aragona absorbed in the contemplation of a piece of old tapestry which hung opposite to her, while Gouache was drawing in a tiny Hercules, high up in the right hand corner of the picture, as he had proposed. The conversation seemed to have languished, and Orsino was immediately conscious that the atmosphere had changed since he had left. He unrolled the skin as he entered, and Madame d'Aragona looked at it critically. She saw that the tawny colours would become her in the portrait and her expression grew more animated.
"It is really very good of you," she said, with a grateful glance.
"I have a disappointment in store for you," answered Orsino. "My father says that Hercules wore a lion's skin. He is quite right, I remember all about it."
"Of course," said Gouache. "How could we make such a mistake!"
He dropped the bit of chalk he held and looked at Madame d'Aragona.
"What difference does it make?" asked the latter. "A lion—a tiger! I am sure they are very much alike."
"After all, it is a tiresome idea," said the painter. "You will be much better in the damask cloak. Besides, with the lion's skin you should have the club—imagine a club in your hands! And Hercules should be spinning at your feet—a man in a black coat and a high collar, with a distaff! It is an absurd idea."
"You should not call my ideas absurd and tiresome. It is not civil."
"I thought it had been mine," observed Gouache.
"Not at all. I thought of it—it was quite original."
Gouache laughed a little and looked at Orsino as though asking his opinion.
"Madame is right," said the latter. "She suggested the whole idea—by having yellow eyes."
"You see, Gouache. I told you so. The Prince takes my view. What will you do?"
"Whatever you command—"
"But I do not want to be ridiculous—"
"I do not see—"
"And yet I must have the tiger."
"I am ready."
"Doubtless—but you must think of another subject, with a tiger in it."
"Nothing easier. Noble Roman damsel—Colosseum—tiger about to spring—rose—"
"Just heaven! What an old story! Besides, I have not the type."
"The 'Mysteries of Dionysus,'" suggested Gouache. "Thyrsus, leopard's skin—"
"A Bacchante! Fie, Monsieur—and then, the leopard, when we only have a tiger."
"Indian princess interviewed by a man-eater—jungle—new moon—tropical vegetation—"
"You can think of nothing but subjects for a dark type," said Madame d'Aragona impatiently.
"The fact is, in countries where the tiger walks abroad, the women are generally brunettes."
"I hate facts. You who are enthusiastic, can you not help us?" She turned to Orsino.
"Am I enthusiastic?"
"Yes, I am sure of it. Think of something."
Orsino was not pleased. He would have preferred to be thought cold and impassive.
"What can I say? The first idea was the best. Get a lion instead of a tiger—nothing is simpler."
"For my part I prefer the damask cloak and the original picture," said Gouache with decision. "All this mythology is too complicated—too Pompeian—how shall I say? Besides there is no distinct allusion. A Hercules on a bracket—anybody may have that. If you were the Marchessa di San Giacinto, for instance—oh, then everyone would laugh."
"Why? What is that?"
"She married my cousin," said Orsino. "He is an enormous giant, and they say that she has tamed him."
"Ah no! That would not do. Something else, please."
Orsino involuntarily thought of a sphynx as he looked at the massive brow, the yellow, sleepy eyes, and the heavy mouth. He wondered how the late Aranjuez had lived and what death he had died.
He offered the suggestion.
"It would be appropriate," replied Madame d'Aragona. "The Sphynx in the Desert. Rome is a desert to me."
"It only depends on you—" Orsino began.
"Oh, of course! To make acquaintances, to show myself a little everywhere—it is simple enough. But it wearies me—until one is caught up in the machinery, a toothed wheel going round with the rest, one only bores oneself, and I may leave so soon. Decidedly it is not worth the trouble. Is it?"
She turned her eyes to Orsino as though asking his advice. Orsino laughed.
"How can you ask that question!" he exclaimed. "Only let the trouble be ours."
"Ah! I said you were enthusiastic." She shook her head, and rose from her seat. "It is time for me to go. We have done nothing this morning, and it is all your fault, Prince."
"I am distressed—I will not intrude upon your next sitting."
"Oh—as far as that is concerned—" She did not finish the sentence, but took up the neglected tiger's skin from the chair on which it lay.
She threw it over her shoulders, bringing the grinning head over her hair and holding the forepaws in her pointed white fingers. She came very near to Gouache and looked into his eyes, her closed lips smiling.
"Admirable!" exclaimed Gouache. "It is impossible to tell where the woman ends and the tiger begins. Let me draw you like that."
"Oh no! Not for anything in the world."
She turned away quickly and dropped the skin from her shoulders.
"You will not stay a little longer? You will not let me try?" Gouache seemed disappointed.
"Impossible," she answered, putting on her hat and beginning to arrange her veil before a mirror.
Orsino watched her as she stood, her arms uplifted, in an attitude which is almost always graceful, even for an otherwise ungraceful woman. Madame d'Aragona was perhaps a little too short, but she was justly proportioned and appeared to be rather slight, though the tight-fitting sleeves of her frock betrayed a remarkably well turned arm. Not seeing her face, one might not have singled her out of many as a very striking woman, for she had neither the stateliness of Orsino's mother, nor the enchanting grace which distinguished Gouache's wife. But no one could look into her eyes without feeling that she was very far from being an ordinary woman.
"Quite impossible," she repeated, as she tucked in the ends of her veil and then turned upon the two men. "The next sitting? Whenever you like—to-morrow—the day after—name the time."
"When to-morrow is possible, there is no choice," said Gouache, "unless you will come again to-day."
"To-morrow, then, good-bye." She held out her hand.
"There are sketches on each of my fingers, Madame—principally, of tigers."
"Good-bye then—consider your hand shaken. Are you going, Prince?"
Orsino had taken his hat and was standing beside her.
"You will allow me to put you into your carriage."
"I shall walk."
"So much the better. Good-bye, Monsieur Gouache."
"Why say, Monsieur?"
"As you like—you are older than I."
"I? Who has told you that legend? It is only a myth. When you are sixty years old, I shall still be five-and-twenty."
"And I?" enquired Madame d'Aragona, who was still young enough to laugh at age.
"As old as you were yesterday, not a day older."
"Why not say to-day?"
"Because to-day has a to-morrow—yesterday has none."
"You are delicious, my dear Gouache. Good-bye."
Madame d'Aragona went out with Orsino, and they descended the broad staircase together. Orsino was not sure whether he might not be showing too much anxiety to remain in the company of his new acquaintance, and as he realised how unpleasant it would be to sacrifice the walk with her, he endeavoured to excuse to himself his derogation from his self-imposed character of cool superiority and indifference. She was very amusing, he said to himself, and he had nothing in the world to do. He never had anything to do, since his education had been completed. Why should he not walk with Madame d'Aragona and talk to her? It would be better than hanging about the club or reading a novel at home. The hounds did not meet on that day, or he would not have been at Gouache's at all. But they were to meet to-morrow, and he would therefore not see Madame d'Aragona.
"Gouache is an old friend of yours, I suppose," observed the lady.
"He was a friend of my father's. He is almost a Roman. He married a distant connection of mine, Donna Faustina Montevarchi."
"Ah yes—I have heard. He is a man of immense genius."
"He is a man I envy with all my heart," said Orsino.
"You envy Gouache? I should not have thought—"
"No? Ah, Madame, to me a man who has a career, a profession, an interest, is a god."
"I like that," answered Madame d'Aragona. "But it seems to me you have your choice. You have the world before you. Write your name upon it. You do not lack enthusiasm. Is it the inspiration that you need?"
"Perhaps," said Orsino glancing meaningly at her as she looked at him.
"That is not new," thought she, "but he is charming, all the same. They say," she added aloud, "that genius finds inspiration everywhere."
"Alas, I am not a genius. What I ask is an occupation, and permanent interest. The thing is impossible, but I am not resigned."
"Before thirty everything is possible," said Madame d'Aragona. She knew that the mere mention of so mature an age would be flattering to such a boy.
"The objections are insurmountable," replied Orsino.
"What objections? Remember that I do not know Rome, nor the Romans."
"We are petrified in traditions. Spicca said the other day that there was but one hope for us. The Americans may yet discover Italy, as we once discovered America."
Madame d'Aragona smiled.
"Who is Spicca?" she enquired, with a lazy glance at her companion's face.
"Spicca? Surely you have heard of him. He used to be a famous duellist. He is our great wit. My father likes him very much—he is an odd character."
"There will be all the more credit in succeeding, if you have to break through a barrier of tradition and prejudice," said Madame d'Aragona, reverting rather abruptly to the first subject.
"You do not know what that means." Orsino shook his head incredulously. "You have never tried it."
"No. How could a woman be placed in such a position?"
"That is just it. You cannot understand me."
"That does not follow. Women often understand men—men they love or detest—better than men themselves."
"Do you love me, Madame?" asked Orsino with a smile.
"I have just made your acquaintance," laughed Madame d'Aragona. "It is a little too soon."
"But then, according to you, if you understand me, you detest me."
"Well? If I do?" She was still laughing.
"Then I ought to disappear, I suppose."
"You do not understand women. Anything is better than indifference. When you see that you are disliked, then refuse to go away. It is the very moment to remain. Do not submit to dislike. Revenge yourself."
"I will try," said Orsino, considerably amused.
"Upon me?"
"Since you advise it—"
"Have I said that I detest you?"
"More or less."
"It was only by way of illustration to my argument. I was not serious."
"You have not a serious character, I fancy," said Orsino.
"Do you dare to pass judgment on me after an hour's acquaintance?"
"Since you have judged me! You have said five times that I am enthusiastic."
"That is an exaggeration. Besides, one cannot say a true thing too often."
"How you run on, Madame!"
"And you—to tell me to my face that I am not serious! It is unheard of. Is that the way you talk to your compatriots?"
"It would not be true. But they would contradict me, as you do. They wish to be thought gay."
"Do they? I would like to know them."
"Nothing is easier. Will you allow me the honour of undertaking the matter?"
They had reached the door of Madame d'Aragona's hotel. She stood still and looked curiously at Orsino.
"Certainly not," she answered, rather coldly. "It would be asking too much of you—too much of society, and far too much of me. Thanks. Good-bye."
"May I come and see you?" asked Orsino.
He knew very well that he had gone too far, and his voice was correctly contrite.
"I daresay we shall meet somewhere," she answered, entering the hotel.
The rage of speculation was at its height in Rome. Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of persons were embarked in enterprises which soon afterwards ended in total ruin to themselves and in very serious injury to many of the strongest financial bodies in the country. Yet it is a fact worth recording that the general principle upon which affairs were conducted was an honest one. The land was a fact, the buildings put up were facts, and there was actually a certain amount of capital, of genuine ready money, in use. The whole matter can be explained in a few words.
The population of Rome had increased considerably since the Italian occupation, and house-room was needed for the newcomers. Secondly, the partial execution of the scheme for beautifying the city had destroyed great numbers of dwellings in the most thickly populated parts, and more house-room was needed to compensate the loss of habitations, while extensive lots of land were suddenly set free and offered for sale upon easy conditions in all parts of the town.
Those who availed themselves of these opportunities before the general rush began, realised immense profits, especially when they had some capital of their own to begin with. But capital was not indispensable. A man could buy his lot on credit; the banks were ready to advance him money on notes of hand, in small amounts at high interest, wherewith to build his house or houses. When the building was finished the bank took a first mortgage upon the property, the owner let the house, paid the interest on the mortgage out of the rent and pocketed the difference, as clear gain. In the majority of eases it was the bank itself which sold the lot of land to the speculator. It is clear therefore that the only money which actually changed hands was that advanced in small sums by the bank itself.
As the speculation increased, the banks could not of course afford to lock up all the small notes of hand they received from various quarters. This paper became a circulating medium as far as Vienna, Paris and even London. The crash came when Vienna, Paris and London lost faith in the paper, owing, in the first instance, to one or two small failures, and returned it upon Rome; the banks, unable to obtain cash for it at any price, and being short of ready money, could then no longer discount the speculator's further notes of hand; so that the speculator found himself with half-built houses upon his hands which he could neither let, nor finish, nor sell, and owing money upon bills which he had expected to meet by giving the bank a mortgage on the now valueless property.
That is what took place in the majority of cases, and it is not necessary to go into further details, though of course chance played all the usual variations upon the theme of ruin.
What distinguishes the period of speculation in Rome from most other manifestations of the kind in Europe is the prominent part played in it by the old land-holding families, a number of which were ruined in wild schemes which no sensible man of business would have touched. This was more or less the result of recent changes in the laws regulating the power of persons making a will.
Previous to 1870 the law of primogeniture was as much respected in Rome as in England, and was carried out with considerably greater strictness. The heir got everything, the other children got practically nothing but the smallest pittance. The palace, the gallery of pictures and statues, the lands, the villages and the castles, descended in unbroken succession from eldest son to eldest son, indivisible in principle and undivided in fact.
The new law requires that one half of the total property shall be equally distributed by the testator amongst all his children. He may leave the other half to any one he pleases, and as a matter of practice he of course leaves it to his eldest son.
Another law, however, forbids the alienation of all collections of works of art either wholly or in part, if they have existed as such for a certain length of time, and if the public has been admitted daily or on any fixed days, to visit them. It is not in the power of the Borghese, or the Colonna, for instance, to sell a picture or a statue out of their galleries, nor to raise money upon such an object by mortgage or otherwise.
Yet these works of art figure at a very high valuation, in the total property of which the testator must divide one half amongst his children, though in point of fact they yield no income whatever. But it is of no use to divide them, since none of the heirs could be at liberty to take them away nor realise their value in any manner.
The consequence is, that the principal heir, after the division has taken place, finds himself the nominal master of certain enormously valuable possessions, which in reality yield him nothing or next to nothing. He also foresees that in the next generation the same state of things will exist in a far higher degree, and that the position of the head of the family will go from bad to worse until a crisis of some kind takes place.
Such a case has recently occurred. A certain Roman prince is bankrupt. The sale of his gallery would certainly relieve the pressure, and would possibly free him from debt altogether. But neither he nor his creditors can lay a finger upon the pictures, nor raise a centime upon them. This man, therefore, is permanently reduced to penury, and his creditors are large losers, while he is stillde jureandde factothe owner of property probably sufficient to cover all his obligations. Fortunately, he chances to be childless, a fact consoling, perhaps, to the philanthropist, but not especially so to the sufferer himself.
It is clear that the temptation to increase "distributable" property, if one may coin such, an expression, is very great, and accounts for the way in which many Roman gentlemen have rushed headlong into speculation, though possessing none of the qualities necessary for success, and only one of the requisites, namely, a certain amount of ready money, or free and convertible property. A few have been fortunate, while the majority of those who have tried the experiment have been heavy losers. It cannot be said that any one of them all has shown natural talent for finance.
Let the reader forgive these dry explanations if he can. The facts explained have a direct bearing upon the story I am telling, but shall not, as mere facts, be referred to again.
I have already said that Ugo Del Ferice had returned to Rome soon after the change, had established himself with his wife, Donna Tullia, and was at the time I am speaking about, deeply engaged in the speculations of the day. He had once been, tolerably popular in society, having been looked upon as a harmless creature, useful in his way and very obliging. But the circumstances which had attended his flight some years earlier had become known, and most of his old acquaintances turned him the cold shoulder. He had expected this and was neither disappointed nor humiliated. He had made new friends and acquaintances during his exile, and it was to his interest to stand by them. Like many of those who had played petty and dishonourable parts in the revolutionary times, he had succeeded in building up a reputation for patriotism upon a very slight foundation, and had found persons willing to believe him a sufferer who had escaped martyrdom for the cause, and had deserved the crown of election to a constituency as a just reward of his devotion. The Romans cared very little what became of him. The old Blacks confounded Victor Emmanuel with Garibaldi, Cavour with Persiano, and Silvio Pellico with Del Ferice in one sweeping condemnation, desiring nothing so much as never to hear the hated names mentioned in their houses. The Grey party, being also Roman, disapproved of Ugo on general principles and particularly because he had been a spy, but the Whites, not being Romans at all and entertaining an especial detestation for every distinctly Roman opinion, received him at his own estimation, as society receives most people who live in good houses, give good dinners and observe the proprieties in the matter of visiting-cards. Those who knew anything definite of the man's antecedents were mostly persons who had little histories of their own, and they told no tales out of school. The great personages who had once employed him would have been magnanimous enough to acknowledge him in any case, but were agreeably disappointed when they discovered that he was not amongst the common herd of pension hunters, and claimed no substantial rewards save their politeness and a line in the visiting lists of their wives. And as he grew in wealth and importance they found that he could be useful still, as bank directors and members of parliament can be, in a thousand ways. So it came to pass that the Count and Countess Del Ferice became prominent persons in the Roman world.
Ugo was a man of undoubted talent. By his own individual efforts, though with small scruple as to the means he employed, he had raised himself from obscurity to a very enviable position. He had only once in his life been carried away by the weakness of a personal enmity, and he had been made to pay heavily for his caprice. If Donna Tullia had abandoned him when he was driven out of Rome by the influence of the Saracinesca, he might have disappeared altogether from the scene. But she was an odd compound of rashness and foresight, of belief and unbelief, and she had at that time felt herself bound by an oath she dared not break, besides being attached to him by a hatred of Giovanni Saracinesca almost as great as his own. She had followed him and had married him without hesitation; but she had kept the undivided possession of her fortune while allowing him a liberal use of her income. In return, she claimed a certain liberty of action when she chose to avail herself of it. She would not be bound in the choice of her acquaintances nor criticised in the measure of like or dislike she bestowed upon them. She was by no means wholly bad, and if she had a harmless fancy now and then, she required her husband to treat her as above suspicion. On the whole, the arrangement worked very well. Del Ferice, on his part, was unswervingly faithful to her in word and deed, for he exhibited in a high degree that unfaltering constancy which is bred of a permanent, unalienable, financial interest. Bad men are often clever, but if their cleverness is of a superior order they rarely do anything bad. It is true that when they yield to the pressure of necessity their wickedness surpasses that of other men in the same degree as their intelligence. Not only honesty, but all virtue collectively, is the best possible policy, provided that the politician can handle such a tremendous engine of evil as goodness is in the hands of a thoroughly bad man.
Those who desired pecuniary accommodation of the bank in which Del Ferice had an interest, had no better friend than he. His power with the directors seemed to be as boundless as his desire to assist the borrower. But he was helpless to prevent the foreclosure of a mortgage, and had been moved almost to tears in the expression of his sympathy with the debtor and of his horror at the hard-heartedness shown by his partners. To prove his disinterested spirit it only need be said that on many occasions he had actually come forward as a private individual and had taken over the mortgage himself, distinctly stating that he could not hold it for more than a year, but expressing a hope that the debtor might in that time retrieve himself. If this really happened, he earned the man's eternal gratitude; if not, he foreclosed indeed, but the loser never forgot that by Del Fence's kindness he had been offered a last chance at a desperate moment. It could not be said to be Del Ferice's fault that the second case was the more frequent one, nor that the result to himself was profit in either event.
In his dealings with his constituency he showed a noble desire for the public welfare, for he was never known to refuse anything in reason to the electors who applied to him. It is true that in the case of certain applications, he consumed so much time in preliminary enquiries and subsequent formalities that the applicants sometimes died and sometimes emigrated to the Argentine Republic before the matter could be settled; but they bore with them to South America—or to the grave—the belief that the Onorevole Del Ferice was on their side, and the instances of his prompt, decisive and successful action were many. He represented a small town in the Neapolitan Province, and the benefits and advantages he had obtained for it were numberless. The provincial high road had been made to pass through it; all express trains stopped at its station, though the passengers who made use of the inestimable privilege did not average twenty in the month; it possessed a Piazza Vittorio Emmanuela, a Corso Garibaldi, a Via Cavour, a public garden of at least a quarter of an acre, planted with no less than twenty-five acacias and adorned by a fountain representing a desperate-looking character in the act of firing a finely executed revolver at an imaginary oppressor. Pigs were not allowed within the limits of the town, and the uniforms of the municipal brass band were perfectly new. Could civilisation do more? The bank of which Del Ferice was a director bought the octroi duties of the town at the periodical auction, and farmed them skilfully, together with those of many other towns in the same province.
So Del Ferice was a very successful man, and it need scarcely be said that he was now not only independent of his wife's help but very much richer than she had ever been. They lived in a highly decorated, detached modern house in the new part of the city. The gilded gate before the little plot of garden, bore their intertwined initials, surmounted by a modest count's coronet. Donna Tullia would have preferred a coat of arms, or even a crest, but Ugo was sensitive to ridicule, and he was aware that a count's coronet in Rome means nothing at all, whereas a coat of arms means vastly more than in most cities.
Within, the dwelling was somewhat unpleasantly gorgeous. Donna Tullia had always loved red, both for itself and because it made her own complexion seem less florid by contrast, and accordingly red satin predominated in the drawing-rooms, red velvet in the dining-room, red damask in the hall and red carpets on the stairs. Some fine specimens of gilding were also to be seen, and Del Ferice had been one of the first to use electric light. Everything was new, expensive and polished to its extreme capacity for reflection. The servants wore vivid liveries and on formal occasions the butler appeared in short-clothes and black silk stockings. Donna Tullia's equipage was visible at a great distance, but Del Fence's own coachman and groom wore dark green with, black epaulettes.
On the morning which Orsino and Madame d'Aragona had spent in Gouache's studio the Countess Del Ferice entered her husband's study in order to consult him upon a rather delicate matter. He was alone, but busy as usual. His attention was divided between an important bank operation and a petition for his help in obtaining a decoration for the mayor of the town he represented. The claim to this distinction seemed to rest chiefly on the petitioner's unasked evidence in regard to his own moral rectitude, yet Del Ferice was really exercising all his ingenuity to discover some suitable reason for asking the favour. He laid the papers down with a sigh as Donna Tullia came in.
"Good morning, my angel," he said suavely, as he pointed to a chair at his side—the one usually occupied at this hour by seekers for financial support. "Have you rested well?"
He never failed to ask the question.
"Not badly, not badly, thank Heaven!" answered Donna Tullia. "I have a dreadful cold, of course, and a headache—my head is really splitting."
"Rest—rest is what you need, my dear—"
"Oh, it is nothing. This Durakoff is a great man. If he had not made me go to Carlsbad—I really do not know. But I have something to say to you. I want your help, Ugo. Please listen to me."
Ugo's fat white face already expressed anxious attention. To accentuate the expression of his readiness to listen, he now put all his papers into a drawer and turned towards his wife.
"I must go to the Jubilee," said Donna Tullia, coming to the point.
"Of course you must go—"
"And I must have my seat among the Roman ladies"
"Of course you must," repeated Del Ferice with a little less alacrity.
"Ah! You see. It is not so easy. You know it is not. Yet I have as good a right to my seat as any one—better perhaps."
"Hardly that," observed Ugo with a smile. "When you married me, my angel, you relinquished your claims to a seat at the Vatican functions."
"I did nothing of the kind. I never said so, I am sure."
"Perhaps if you could make that clear to the majorduomo—"
"Absurd, Ugo. You know it is. Besides, I will not beg. You must get me the seat. You can do anything with your influence."
"You could easily get into one of the diplomatic tribunes," observed Ugo.
"I will not go there. I mean to assert myself. I am a Roman lady and I will have my seat, and you must get it for me."
"I will do my best. But I do not quite see where I am to begin. It will need time and consideration and much tact."
"It seems to me very simple. Go to one of the clerical deputies and say that you want the ticket for your wife—"
"And then?"
"Give him to understand that you will vote for his next measure. Nothing could be simpler, I am sure."
Del Ferice smiled blandly at his wife's ideas of parliamentary diplomacy.
"There are no clerical deputies in the parliament of the nation. If there were the thing might be possible, and it would be very interesting to all the clericals to read an account of the transaction in the Osservatore Romano. In any case, I am not sure that it will be much to our advantage that the wife of the Onorevole Del Ferice should be seen seated in the midst of the Black ladies. It will produce an unfavourable impression."
"If you are going to talk of impressions—" Donna Tullia shrugged her massive shoulders.
"No, my dear. You mistake me. I am not going to talk of them, because, as I at once told you, it is quite right that you should go to this affair. If you go, you must go in the proper way. No doubt there will be people who will have invitations but will not use them. We can perhaps procure you the use of such a ticket."
"I do not care what name is on the paper, provided I can sit in the right place."
"Very well," answered Del Ferice. "I will do my best."
"I expect it of you, Ugo. It is not often that I ask anything of you, is it? It is the least you can do. The idea of getting a card that is not to be used is good; of course they will all get them, and some of them are sure to be ill."
Donna Tullia went away satisfied that what she wanted would be forthcoming at the right moment. What she had said was true. She rarely asked anything of her husband. But when she did, she gave him to understand that she would have it at any price. It was her way of asserting herself from time to time. On the present occasion she had no especial interest at stake and any other woman might have been satisfied with a seat in the diplomatic tribune, which could probably have been obtained without great difficulty. But she had heard that the seats there were to be very high and she did not really wish to be placed in too prominent a position. The light might be unfavourable, and she knew that she was subject to growing very red in places where it was hot. She had once been a handsome woman and a very vain one, but even her vanity could not survive the daily shock of the looking-glass torture. To sit for four or five hours in a high light, facing fifty thousand people, was more than she could bear with equanimity.
Del Ferice, being left to himself, returned to the question of the mayor's decoration which was of vastly greater importance to him than his wife's position at the approaching function. If he failed to get the man what he wanted, the fellow would doubtless apply to some one of the opposite party, would receive the coveted honour and would take the whole voting population of the town with him at the next general election, to the total discomfiture of Del Ferice. It was necessary to find some valid reason for proposing him for the distinction. Ugo could not decide what to do just then, but he ultimately hit upon a successful plan. He advised his correspondent to write a pamphlet upon the rapid improvement of agricultural interests in his district under the existing ministry, and he even went so far as to enclose with his letter some notes on the subject. These notes proved to be so voluminous and complete that when the mayor had copied them he could not find a pretext for adding a single word or correction. They were printed upon excellent paper, with ornamental margins, under the title of "Onward, Parthenope!" Of course every one knows that Parthenope means Naples, the Neapolitans and the Neapolitan Province, a siren of that name having come to final grief somewhere between the Chiatamone and Posilippo. The mayor got his decoration, and Del Ferice was re-elected; but no one has inquired into the truth of the statements made in the pamphlet upon agriculture.
It is clear that a man who was capable of taking so much trouble for so small a matter would not disappoint his wife when she had set her heart upon such a trifle as a ticket for the Jubilee. Within three days he had the promise of what he wanted. A certain lonely lady of high position lay very ill just then, and it need scarcely be explained that her confidential servant fell upon the invitation as soon as it arrived and sold it for a round sum to the first applicant, who happened to be Count Del Ferice's valet. So the matter was arranged, privately and without scandal.
All Rome was alive with expectation. The date fixed was the first of January, and as the day approached the curious foreigner mustered in his thousands and tens of thousands and took the city by storm. The hotels were thronged. The billiard tables were let as furnished rooms, people slept in the lifts, on the landings, in the porters' lodges. The thrifty Romans retreated to roofs and cellars and let their small dwellings. People reaching the city on the last night slept in the cabs they had hired to take them to St. Peter's before dawn. Even the supplies of food ran low and the hungry fed on what they could get, while the delicate of taste very often did not feed at all. There was of course the usual scare about a revolutionary demonstration, to which the natives paid very little attention, but which delighted the foreigners.
Not more than half of those who hoped to witness the ceremony saw anything of it, though the basilica will hold some eighty thousand people at a pinch, and the crowd on that occasion was far greater than at the opening of the Oecumenical Council in 1869.
Madame d'Aragona had also determined to be present, and she expressed her desire to Gouache. She had spoken the strict truth when she had said that she knew no one in Rome, and so far as general accuracy is concerned it was equally true that she had not fixed the length of her stay. She had not come with any settled purpose beyond a vague idea of having her portrait painted by the French artist, and unless she took the trouble to make acquaintances, there was nothing attractive enough about the capital to keep her. She allowed herself to be driven about the town, on pretence of seeing churches and galleries, but in reality she saw very little of either. She was preoccupied with her own thoughts and subject to fits of abstraction. Most things seemed to her intensely dull, and the unhappy guide who had been selected to accompany her on her excursions, wasted his learning upon her on the first morning, and subsequently exhausted the magnificent catalogue of impossibilities which he had concocted for the especial benefit of the uncultivated foreigner, without eliciting so much as a look of interest or an expression of surprise. He was a young and fascinating guide, wearing a white satin tie, and on the third day he recited some verses of Stecchetti and was about to risk a declaration of worship in ornate prose, when he was suddenly rather badly scared by the lady's yellow eyes, and ran on nervously with a string of deceased popes and their dates.
"Get me a card for the Jubilee," she said abruptly.
"An entrance is very easily procured," answered the guide. "In fact I have one in my pocket, as it happens. I bought it for twenty francs this morning, thinking that one of my foreigners would perhaps take it of me. I do not even gain a franc—my word of honour."
Madame d'Aragona glanced at the slip of paper.
"Not that," she answered. "Do you imagine that I will stand? I want a seat in one of the tribunes."
The guide lost himself in apologies, but explained that he could not get what she desired.
"What are you for?" she inquired.
She was an indolent woman, but when by any chance she wanted anything, Donna Tullia herself was not more restless. She drove at once to Gouache's studio. He was alone and she told him what she needed.
"The Jubilee, Madame? Is it possible that you have been forgotten?"
"Since they have never heard of me! I have not the slightest claim to a place."
"It is you who say that. But your place is already secured. Fear nothing. You will be with the Roman ladies."
"I do not understand—"
"It is simple. I was thinking of it yesterday. Young Saracinesca comes in and begins to talk about you. There is Madame d'Aragona who has no seat, he says. One must arrange that. So it is arranged."
"By Don Orsino?"
"You would not accept? No. A young man, and you have only met once. But tell me what you think of him. Do you like him?"
"One does not like people so easily as that," said Madame d'Aragona, "How have you arranged about the seat?"
"It is very simple. There are to be two days, you know. My wife has her cards for both, of course. She will only go once. If you will accept the one for the first day, she will be very happy."
"You are angelic, my dear friend! Then I go as your wife?" She laughed.
"Precisely. You will be Faustina Gouache instead of Madame d'Aragona."
"How delightful! By the bye, do not call me Madame d'Aragona. It is not my name. I might as well call you Monsieur de Paris, because you are a Parisian."
"I do not put Anastase Gouache de Paris on my cards," answered Gouache with a laugh. "What may I call you? Donna Maria?"
"My name is Maria Consuelo d'Aranjuez."
"An ancient Spanish name," said Gouache.
"My husband was an Italian."
"Ah! Of Spanish descent, originally of Aragona. Of course."
"Exactly. Since I am here, shall I sit for you? You might almost finish to-day."
"Not so soon as that. It is Don Orsino's hour, but as he has not come, and since you are so kind—by all means."
"Ah! Is he punctual?"
"He is probably running after those abominable dogs in pursuit of the feeble fox—what they call the noble sport."
Gouache's face expressed considerable disgust."
"Poor fellow!" said Maria Consuelo. "He has nothing else to do."
"He will get used to it. They all do. Besides, it is really the natural condition of man. Total idleness is his element. If Providence meant man to work, it should have given him two heads, one for his profession and one for himself. A man needs one entire and undivided intelligence for the study of his own individuality."
"What an idea!"
"Do not men of great genius notoriously forget themselves, forget to eat and drink and dress themselves like Christians? That is because they have not two heads. Providence expects a man to do two things at once—an air from an opera and invent the steam-engine at the same moment. Nature rebels. Then Providence and Nature do not agree. What becomes of religion? It is all a mystery. Believe me, Madame, art is easier than, nature, and painting is simpler than theology."
Maria Consuelo listened to Gouache's extraordinary remarks with a smile.
"You are either paradoxical, or irreligious, or both," she said.
"Irreligious? I, who carried a rifle at Mentana? No, Madame, I am a good Catholic."
"What does that mean?"
"I believe in God, and I love my wife. I leave it to the Church to define my other articles of belief. I have only one head, as you see."
Gouache smiled, but there was a note of sincerity in the odd statement which did not escape his hearer.
"You are not of the type which belongs to the end of the century," she said.
"That type was not invented when I was forming myself."
"Perhaps you belong rather to the coming age—the age of simplification."
"As distinguished from the age of mystification—religious, political, scientific and artistic," suggested Gouache. "The people of that day will guess the Sphynx's riddle."
"Mine? You were comparing me to a sphynx the other day."
"Yours, perhaps, Madame. Who knows? Are you the typical woman of the ending century?"
"Why not?" asked Maria Consuelo with a sleepy look.