XIII
SO confident was he—and so out of conceit with his impending success—that he took a day’s vacation, going up to New York with Wallingford to attend a ball for which Longview had hired half of Sherry’s, and otherwise to amuse himself. The revisiting of the scene of his early failure depressed him; he lost nearly a thousand dollars at Canfield’s; he borrowed a thousand from Wallingford; he returned to Washington in the depths of the blues. And he found the posture of his affairs completely changed.
On the very day he gave Elsie the chance to become a Countess, Prince Rontivogli had discovered that Ysobel Ballantyne had decided that she was sufficiently in love with Boughton to take the risk of his not succeeding to the title. Rontivogli was not the man to waste time on impossibilities—indeed, he had no time to waste. He turned away from the beautiful Miss Ballantyne instantly, and with all the ardour ofhis fiery Southern nature laid siege to Elsie Pope. And, while Elsie was somewhat reserved in her welcome, he found an ally in her father, who thought it would sound extremely well to be able to say, “My daughter, the Princess.”
Rontivogli was tall, had a clear, pallid skin, eloquent black eyes, the brow and nose and chin of an Italian patrician, the manners and speech of chivalrous adoration for women which disguise profound contempt for their intelligence.
When Frothingham, just returned from New York, and still enshrouded in surly gloom, drove up to Pope’s door, he saw Rontivogli’s cabriolet standing a few yards down the drive. Rontivogli was conducting himself in Washington as if he were rich, so plausibly that only the foreign element was without doubts as to the object of his visit to America. At sight of this trap Frothingham scowled. “What’s that Italian doing here?” he said to himself, and his fear answered the question. When they came face to face in the parlour Elsie greatly enjoyed it. The Italian was smooth and urbane; Frothingham, careless of the feelings of a man he despised and thoroughly English in his indifference to the demands of courtesy to Elsie,was almost uncivil. He and Elsie talked for a few minutes, then she drew Rontivogli into the conversation. The Prince answered in French, and French became the language. Frothingham spoke it far worse than Rontivogli spoke English, so he was practically excluded. He sat dumb and stolid, wondering why “the brute hasn’t the decency to take himself off when I came last.”
But “the brute” drew Elsie into a lively discussion on a book he had sent her and, because there was no break in the argument, was seemingly not impolite in lingering. It was almost an hour before he rose, kissed her hand, gave her an adoring look, said “À bientôt,” and departed. But, although he was physically gone, he was actually still there—if anything Frothingham was more acutely conscious of him.
“I don’t believe Miss Ballantyne could stand that fellow,” he said, aware of his tactlessness, but too angry to care. “I think all those Latins unendurable. They’re a snaky lot and their manners suggest waiters and valets.”
Elsie flushed and slightly drew in the corners of her mouth, a sure sign that her temper had been roused in the worst way—through wounded vanity. “Oh, youBritish are so insular,” she replied, “and so self-satisfied. Here in Washington we learn to appreciate all kinds of foreigners and to make allowances even for Englishmen”—that last with a mere veneer of good nature. “I think Rontivogli charming. He’s so intelligent, and has so much temperament.”
Frothingham recovered his self-control in presence of obvious danger. He looked calmly at her through his eyeglass. “Dare say you’re right,” he drawled. “Rontivogli’s a decent enough chap, so far as I know, and for an Italian devilish clean-looking.”
Elsie had no intention of driving him off; in spite of the Italian’s superiority in title and “temperament,” she preferred the Englishman—she knew him better and in a more candid way. She became conciliatory, and they were soon amicable again. But Frothingham saw that his vacation had been perilously costly, that he must work to reinstate himself, that it was not a wise moment for reopening the matter of the engagement which only four days ago seemed all but settled. He found that Elsie was dining at the Italian Embassy, to go afterwards to a ball at the Vice-President’s to which he was invited. He arranged to see her there and left.
Boughton and he dined together at the Metropolitan Club. While they were having a before-dinner cocktail Boughton told him, in confidence, that he was engaged to Ysobel Ballantyne. “So that’s why I find Rontivogli poaching,” thought Frothingham. And he said presently: “What do you know about that chap Rontivogli? Helooksa queer ’un.”
“Not a thing,” replied Boughton. “I had all our fellows writing over to the other side, following him up. The answers thus far show nothing downright shady. He’s down to a box of a house and a few acres just north of Milan. And that’s swamped in mortgages. No one knows how he raised the wind for this trip. He seems to have a good bit of cash, doesn’t he?”
“I’m particularly interested in knowing about him,” continued Frothingham. “He’s developed an astonishing interest in a girl friend of mine. I’d hate to see her taken in by a scamp. And I’m sure he’s that.”
“Oh,” said Boughton. “Miss Pope?”
“Yes,” replied Frothingham. “And she thinks well of him.”
“I’ll be glad to help you, old man. I sha’n’t drop my inquiry as I’d intended.”
“Thanks,” said Frothingham. And they talked of other matters.
When he looked Elsie up at the Vice-President’s that night for the first of the dances she had promised him, he found her on a rustic bench in the garden, almost screened from observation, Rontivogli beside her. The Italian’s classic face was aglow, and Frothingham saw that he had checked a torrent of enamoured eloquence. He saw, also, that Elsie was not pleased by the interruption. However, she left Rontivogli and went with him. As they entered the ballroom he said: “I don’t care for this music, do you? Let’s sit it out. Only”—he gave her a look of quiet raillery—“you must engage not to go back to your volcano untilmydance is over.”
“Volcano?” A smile of pleased vanity strayed into her eyes and out again.
“Yes—your Vesuvius, whose eruption I was brute enough to interrupt. Beastly of me, wasn’t it?”
“Rontivogli seems to annoy you a great deal.”
“He? Not in the least.” And his tranquil eyeglass affirmed his falsehood. “But I assure you he’llspout all the fiercer for the interruption. I know those Southern chaps. I don’t wonder we stand no show against ’em. I tossed the sponge as soon as I saw what he was about.”
They were sitting on the stairs now and could talk without being overheard. “Possibly you may remember,” he went on, “I said something that was rather important to me—last Thursday, down near the monument—at half-past six precisely, to be exact—I heard a clock strike as I finished. Do you recall it?”
Elsie was puzzled by his light, satirical tone. “Yes,” she said. “I do vaguely recall that you said something vague.”
“I didn’t mean to be vague. But that doesn’t matter now. I see there’s no chance for me—at present. And I wished to say to you that at least I sha’n’t give up our delightful friendship. No matter what you do with your Italian, you’ll feel that I’m your friend, won’t you?” Frothingham said it as if he meant it; and to a considerable extent he did mean it—chagrined though he was, he fancied her so little in the rôle he had invited her to play that his prospective defeat found him not utterly despondent. He had reasoned out his course carefully and had cometo the conclusion that his chance lay in posing as her disinterested friend. Perhaps she would confide in him, would give him the opportunity to advise and criticise—an admirable position from which to undermine and destroy his rival.
As Elsie had not fully made up her mind to Rontivogli, and as she saw nothing but advantage to her in keeping Frothingham “on the string,” she responded to his frank and manly appeal. And she believed what he said, as she believed pretty much everything men told her; and she liked him better than ever. “If he were only a prince,” she said to herself regretfully, “and had temperament.”
That same night she accepted Rontivogli; when Frothingham came to lunch the next day she told him. “Well,” he drawled, “I can’t say I’m shouting glad. But I can honestly congratulatehim. And—I hope you won’t regret.”
“We’re not announcing the engagement for several days,” she said.
“That’s good. You don’t mind my saying—you know we’ve agreed to be friends—but I think you—your father ought to make careful inquiry about him. I’m sure everything’s all right, but—it’s prudent.”
Elsie smiled. “Oh, we have made inquiries,” she said. “Besides, anyone can see what sort of man he is—anyone but a prejudiced Englishman.”
“I don’t deny prejudice. Is it surprising?” And he gave her a long look that might have meant anything or nothing. “But—one can’t be too careful about foreigners.”
“Foreigners!” Elsie laughed with good-humoured mockery. “And what areyou?”
“Why, an Englishman. We don’t count as foreigners here.”
“No—but as—as”—Elsie had “poor relations” on the tip of her tactless tongue, but she caught it and changed it to “step-brothers.” And she went on, “Which is much more suspicious.”
Frothingham found encouragement in her willingness to discuss her fiancé with him—it showed plainly how foreign she felt to Rontivogli, how friendly to him. A few afternoons later—it was the day after the dinner at which her engagement was formally announced—she went with Frothingham to call on “Madame Almansa” in her surroundings of Spartan simplicity. They found Ysobel and Boughton there also, and when Ysobel took Frothingham and Boughtoninto the small library adjoining the smaller drawing room to look at some old prints “Sue” had brought with her from Spain, Elsie talked with “Sue” of the engagement.
Madame Almansa was chary of congratulations, full of cautionings and doubts. “I don’t wish to cast a shadow on your happiness, dear—for youarehappy, aren’t you?”
“Indeed I am,” replied Elsie convincingly—Rontivogli was an ideal lover; he could even sing his mad passion in a voice that was well-trained and thrilling.
“But—you know my sad experience.” Madame Almansa sighed like Medea thinking on the treachery of Jason. Her glance fell upon the engagement ring. She took Elsie’s hand. “How beautiful!” she exclaimed. “I love emeralds and that is a magnificent one. And only a tiny flaw.”
Elsie coloured with annoyance. “I think you are mistaken,” she said. “It’s a perfect stone.”
“Certainly it is perfect, dear,” replied Madame Almansa in her superior, informative tone. “Perfect for an emerald. But, you know, there are no emeralds of size anywhere in the world that haven’t flaws. Atleast, I never heard of one. Emeralds are valuable in spite of their flaws.”
Elsie coloured again, this time with annoyance at having exposed her ignorance.
“A superb setting,” continued Madame Almansa. “It must be very, very old. I love that kind of setting—beautifully engraved, dull gold. The only objection is that it’s the best kind for deceiving one as to genuineness, isn’t it? One could not tell whether that stone was genuine or imitation. You know, they make such wonderful imitations. When I was going out in the world I had all my best jewels reproduced in imitation stuff, and usually I wore the imitation. One felt so much safer.”
Elsie drew her hand away, smiling sweetly. She was inwardly raging—“The cat!” she said to herself. “Clawing me viciously, and purring as if she hadn’t a claw.”
She left in a few minutes, Rontivogli calling for her. To relieve her feelings, and also because she was in the habit of saying nearly everything that came into her head, she told him what Madame Almansa had said, making vigorous comments as she related.
Rontivogli, half turned toward her as they sat sideby side in her victoria, regarded her with his luminous smile. “That is the way of the world,ma belle et bonne,” he said in his gentlest manner. “It is difficult to harden one’s self to such wickedness. But there is also much that is beautiful and fine. And we—you and I—will shut everything else out of our lives, will we not?”
He made her feel unworthy, almost “common,” when he talked in that fashion—she realised painfully that she was sadly lacking in “temperament,” and she dreaded that he might find her out.
“The ring,” he went on, “has been in the family for eight hundred years—perhaps longer. It is unchanged. No question of its genuineness has ever been raised, so far as I know. We are not so suspicious as some of you Americans.”
“She didn’t question it’s genuineness,” replied Elsie. “She simply wished to make me uncomfortable with a malicious insinuation. Or, maybe, she was just talking. It was silly of me to tell you.”
He protested that he was not disturbed. But he seemed unable long to keep off the subject, returning to it as the cleverest habitual liar will fatuously return to his unquestioned lie to weaken it by trying furtherto bolster it up. So persistent was he that he at last made her uneasy—not that she suspected him, or was conscious of having been disturbed by his unnecessary reassurances. The next morning she went down to a jeweller’s in Pennsylvania Avenue—she had other business there and thought it her sole object in going, forgetting that she had intended to send her mother. She discussed several proposed purchases with the manager, whom she knew well. As she talked she had her elbows on a show case, and her ungloved hands clasped so that the ring was in full view—curiously, it was not on the engagement finger. He noted it, thought she wished him to speak of it, because as she exhibited it she often glanced at it.
“Would you mind letting me look at that beautiful ring?” he asked.
“Certainly.” She drew it off with some nervousness, gave it to him, and, as he looked, watched him and it alternately with vague anxiety.
“A very old, a very quaint setting,” he said, “and a fine——”
He paused; her mouth was dry and her skin hot.
“A fine stone—a beautiful stone,” he continued. “One of the finest I ever saw. The flaw is slight.”
Elsie drew a long breath—she felt an unaccountable sense of relief. The manager took his glass, went to the window, and studied the stone and the setting. “I’m glad to hear you say the stone’s genuine,” said she, now admitting to herself that Madame Almansa’s poison had been lurking far down in her mind. “Someone doubted it, and as it was important to me to know, I intended to ask you.”
“In that case,” said the manager, “I feel it’s my duty to tell you the stone’s an imitation.”
Elsie grew rigid and cold from amazement and rising horror.
“A good imitation,” continued the manager, intent upon the stone, “but unquestionably not genuine. The setting makes it additionally deceptive.”
“How much is the ring worth?” she asked, gathering herself together heroically.
“Well—the stone, of course, is worthless—a few dollars. But the setting is old and quite beautiful. It might bring a hundred or so from a collector if it hit his fancy and had an authentic history. If the stone were genuine, the ring would be worth about—five thousand, I should say, as a rough guess.”
“Fortunately, I haven’t bought it yet,” she saidcarelessly. And she took it from him and put it—in her pocketbook. “The stone seems to have been undisturbed in that setting for a long time,” she added, as she closed the pocketbook.
“Oh, there’s no telling as to that. It was manufactured by the newest process. It has been only two or three years, I believe, since they learned to put in the flaws so cleverly. They make them very well in New York now.”
“Thank you so much, Mr. Macready,” said Elsie. “You won’t say anything about it, will you?”
“You needn’t have asked that, Miss Pope,” answered Macready with a reproachful smile.
“Thank you again,” she said. It was not until she was driving away, that her cheeks began to burn fiercely and the hot tears of shame and anger to scald her eyes.