XXXIV
ON the following day they lunched at a large restaurant opposite the Bourse, a favourite resort of the two girls; it amused them to watch the keen clever business men of Genoa at their midday meal in leisurely conversation and enjoyment of their excellent food and wine; contrasting them with the American who took five minutes for lunch, achieving dyspepsia instead of nutriment, and possibly accomplishing less than a race which has been commercial and acquisitive since the dawn of its history. There is little real poverty in Genoa and great wealth.
They had come too late to secure one of the tables overlooking the Piazzi Defarrari, and were facing the windows, at one of the longer tables, when Valdobia, who sat opposite, rose with a word of apology and went behind them to greet a man with a pleasant English voice.
“Lord John Mowbray,” whispered Ida. “He’s all right, but, lord, I’ll be glad to get back to a country where a few men are plain mister.”
Nevertheless, as the Englishman bent over her with a delighted word of greeting, she lifted her heavy eyes to his with the expression of one whose long suppressed hopes have blossomed at last.
“I wish I could join you,” he said ruefully, “but I am with a party of friends.”
“Get rid of them after lunch,” murmured Ida, “and come with us. We are going to explore all those interesting little streets down in the gulch—that is to say the ravine, or whatever it was once—and it would be jolly to have you along.”
“I will,” he said, with fervour, “and I know what a gulch is. My brother is ranching in Wyoming, and I may join him there in a few months. I believe he also has interests in Butte.”
“Good! We’ll begin to get friendly right now. Solong.” Valdobia returned to his chair, and she asked, “Is he a brother of your Wyoming friend?”
“He is, and no doubt we’ll go out together. Your Northwest must be the realest thing left in the world.”
“It’s that, all right. And it will be no end of fun having you out there!” She smiled sardonically, and Ora coloured and moved restlessly. She was vaguely aware of a new drama unfolding, and had no wish to analyse it.
Mowbray, to Ida’s satisfaction, not only deserted his friends after luncheon, but permitted them to go on to Rome without him and lingered in Genoa. He was a fair well set-up young Englishman, with a nonchalant manner and an inflammable heart. Ida had met him at a country house and amused herself “landing him,” but as she had left England immediately after, and hunting had claimed all his ardours, she neither had seen nor heard from him since. Although she meant to keep him at her elbow as long as he served her purpose, she knew him to be a shy youth under his natural buoyancy and quick intelligence, and did not disturb her placid mind with visions of “scenes.” On the whole she liked Englishmen better than any of the men she had met in Europe, for they had more pride and self-control where women were concerned; if things went deeper with them they were less likely to offend her cold purity with outbursts of passion: which, she confided to Ora, “made her sick.”
To her delight Valdobia took them one afternoon to call on an elderly relative who lived in one of the great palaces of the Via Garibaldi. They were escorted up to the top floor; the rooms on the otherpianoswere either closed or emitted the chill breath of the tomb. Their destination was a large lofty room, inadequately heated by a stove in one corner; their noble hostess was fortified against the cold by several shawls and a foot-warmer. She had invited three other aristocratic relics in to look at “the Americans,” and, although the principessa and her friends were more polite than they would have been to intruding bourgeoises of their own country, it was apparent that they could find little to say to two young women from a land of which they had a confused and wholly contemptuous apprehension. They knew that its chief title to fame was its original discovery by a Genoese, that the lower classes emigrated to it a good deal, and that many Americanwomen, who spent far too much money on their clothes, visited Europe and occasionally married above them. More than this they neither knew nor cared to know. So far as they were concerned new countries did not exist.
Conversation languished. Ida was suppressed, and divided between a desire to laugh and to scream. Ora, with a heroic effort, talked about the mistake the average American made in seeing so little of Genoa; but, having laid aside her furs out of politeness, she was shivering, and unable to drink the strong coffee which immediately succumbed to the temperature of the room.
She sent an appealing glance to Valdobia, who was smiling to himself. Lord John, who had been honoured by a chair beside his hostess, treated with the consideration due his ancient lineage, was delivering himself of spasmodic clauses, with one eye on Valdobia.
“Jimminy!” whispered Ida, who now felt quite at home with her fellow conspirator, “if you don’t get us out of this quick I’ll have high-strikes, and Ora’ll get a cold and be laid up for a week. I always keep her in bed when she has a cold.”
Valdobia rose instantly. “We have an engagement in half an hour,” he said to his mother’s second cousin. “Perhaps you will permit me to show these ladies over the palace?”
“Oh, do!” exclaimed Mowbray, acting on instinct, for he was too cold and too unnerved to think. “I’d like jolly well to see it myself; must be rippin’.”
The permission was given with some graciousness, and the party bowed themselves out. As they descended the grand staircase, they heard a buzz of voices behind them, as of several elderly ladies talking at once.
“We’d be roasting on red-hot coals this minute if there were any in that refrigerator,” said Ida, “but I don’t care so long as we are going to see the real part of the palace.”
An aged major domo showed them through the magnificent reception rooms, built for entertaining a proud and gorgeous aristocracy in the days when Genoa was known throughout Europe as “La Superba.” They were hung with tapestries or cordova leather, and filled with priceless pictures, porcelains, enamels, gold and silver ware, and massive furniture. Valdobia told them dramas sentimentaland tragic which had been enacted within the walls of the historic house. But they had to stamp about to avoid a chill, and were glad to emerge into the warmer air of even the narrow street.
“Well,” announced Ida, as they walked rapidly out of the Via Garibaldi into the broad sunshine of the Piazza delle Fontane Marose, “if that’s a sample of your ancient aristocracy no more of it in mine. My curiosity is satisfied for good and all. Why on earth don’t they live like human beings?”
“Or steam-heated Americans?” asked Valdobia, smiling. “Console yourself with the assurance that you are the only Americans that have ever crossed that threshold.”
“It doesn’t console me one little bit, and I feel pneumonia coming on. Let’s walk as fast as we know how!” And accompanied by the willing Englishman she started off with a stride that soon left the others far behind.
“It is true,” said Valdobia disgustedly, “that this older generation does not know how to live, not in any sense. They possess the greatest wealth in Italy, and they hoard it as if poverty stared them in the face. They have only to turn on the electric lights once a week and provide a simple supper to make Genoa one of the most delightful cities in Europe, but they won’t even do that. They have the finest jewels in Italy and never wear them except on the rare occasions when the King and Queen visit Genoa and command them to the royal palace. Thank heaven there is a younger set, equally well born, that live in the new apartment houses or in those villas up on the hills, and are neither too economical nor too antiquated in their ideas to enjoy life. Those old people are divided up into intimate little sets and spend their lives gossipping about the rest of Genoa or talking of the past. But I do hope you did not take cold.”
“I didn’t, and I really enjoyed it!” said Ora, smiling mischievously. “I amused myself thinking what would happen if I told our uncomfortable hostess that my father’s sister had married a Roman relative of her husband; but I wouldn’t have relieved the situation for the world. I suppose they are fumigating themselves.”
“I don’t doubt it. They think they are aristocratic and are merely provincial.”
“How different you are!” Ora looked at him admiringly.“One hardly could believe that you belonged to the same race.”
“I don’t. I am a Roman, and a citizen of the world. No doubt you, too, have a root that runs back into the dark ages, but today is all that counts with us. I mean that in more senses than one!” And, although he smiled, he gave her a quick side-glance.
“I hope so. I am well aware that you are enjoying yourself immensely.” Ora felt it quite safe to flirt with him in the open street.
“Do you like me a little better?”
“Rather. Friendly companionship is my chief idea of happiness, now that I am more or less tired of books.”
“Is it? May it be my good fortune to initiate you into a higher! You have everything to learn!”
“Have I? I wonder!”
“What do you mean by that? Have you ever been in love?”
“Not the least little bit!”
“You said that rather too vehemently. It is my turn to wonder.” This time he looked hard at her and his face was grim. He had a way of setting his jaw that reminded her of the man whose haunting memory had made her alternately happy and miserable during many long months. She looked away hastily.
“The kind of love you mean I have not the very least knowledge of. You must believe that.”
“Of what other kind, then?”
“Oh, all women dream, you know,” she said lightly. “They have a sort of ideal that consoles them for missing the realities of life. You come quite close to it,” and once more she sparkled her eyes at him.
“I have no intention of letting you flirt with me,” said Valdobia calmly. “My flirting days are over. I shall remain the best of your friends until you love me or send me to the other end of the world.”
“Well, don’t become serious and spoil everything.”
“I shall not lose my head, if that is what you mean,” he said drily. “I find the present state of affairs very pleasant. Let us overtake the others and go for a drive.”