“The prettiest girl I ever sawWas sipping cider through a straw-aw-haw!”
In that horrifying basket, scrambling for a foothold while it swung through arcs that were gulfs, I believed that my sorrows approached a sudden conclusion, but finding myself again upon the secure earth, I decided to come to an understanding with the young man.
Accordingly, on the following morning, I entered his apartment and addresses myself to Poor Jr. as severely as I could (for, truthfully, in all his follies I had found no ugliness in his spirit—only a good-natured and inscrutable desire of wild amusement) reminding him of the authority his father had deputed to me, and having the venturesomeness to hint that the son should show some respect to my superior age.
To my consternation he replied by inquiring if I had shaved my head as yet that morning. I could only drop in a chair, stammering to know what he meant.
“Didn’t you suppose I knew?” he asked, elevating himself slightly on his elbow from the pillow. “Three weeks ago I left my aged parent in London and ran over here for a day. I saw you at the Cafe’ de la Paix, and even then I knew that it was shaved, not naturally bald. When you came here I recognized you like a shot, and that was why I was glad to accept you as a guardian. I’ve enjoyed myself considerably of late, and you’ve been the best part of it,—I think you are a wonderation! I wouldn’t have any other governess for the world, but you surpass the orchestra when you beg me to respect your years! I will bet you four dollars to a lead franc piece that you are younger than I am!”
Imagine the completeness of my dismay! Although he spoke in tones the most genial, and without unkindness, I felt myself a man of tatters before him, ashamed to have him know my sorry secret, hopeless to see all chance of authority over him gone at once, and with it my opportunity to earn a salary so generous, for if I could continue to be but an amusement to him and only part of his deception of Lambert R. Poor, my sense of honour must be fit for the guillotine indeed.
I had a little struggle with myself, and I think I must have wiped some amounts of the cold perspiration from my absurd head before I was able to make an answer. It may be seen what a coward I was, and how I feared to begin again that search for employment. At last, however, I was in self-control, so that I might speak without being afraid that my voice would shake.
“I am sorry,” I said. “It seemed to me that my deception would not cause any harm, and that I might be useful in spite of it—enough to earn my living. It was on account of my being very poor; and there are two little children I must take care of.—Well, at least, it is over now. I have had great shame, but I must not have greater.”
“What do you mean?” he asked me rather sharply.
“I will leave immediately,” I said, going to the door. “Since I am no more than a joke, I can be of no service to your father or to you; but you must not think that I am so unreasonable as to be angry with you. A man whom you have beheld reduced to what I was, at the Cafe’ de la Paix, is surely a joke to the whole world! I will write to your father before I leave the hotel and explain that I feel myself unqualified—”
“You’re going to write to him why you give it up!” he exclaimed.
“I shall make no report of espionage,” I answered, with, perhaps, some bitterness, “and I will leave the letter for you to read and to send, of yourself. It shall only tell him that as a man of honour I cannot keep a position for which I have no qualification.”
I was going to open the door, bidding him adieu, when he called out to me.
“Look here!” he said, and he jumped out of bed in his pajamas and came quickly, and held out his hand. “Look here, Ansolini, don’t take it that way. I know you’ve had pretty hard times, and if you’ll stay, I’ll get good. I’ll go to the Louvre with you this afternoon; we’ll dine at one of the Duval restaurants, and go to that new religious tragedy afterwards. If you like, we’ll leave Paris to-morrow. There’s a little too much movement here, maybe. For God’s sake, let your hair grow, and we’ll go down to Italy and study bones and ruins and delight the aged parent!—It’s all right, isn’t it?”
I shook the hand of that kind Poor Jr. with a feeling in my heart that kept me from saying how greatly I thanked him—and I was sure that I could do anything for him in the world!
Three days later saw us on the pretty waters of Lake Leman, in the bright weather when Mont Blanc heaves his great bare shoulders of ice miles into the blue sky, with no mist-cloak about him.
Sailing that lake in the cool morning, what a contrast to the champagne houpla nights of Paris! And how docile was my pupil! He suffered me to lead him through the Castle of Chillon like a new-born lamb, and even would not play the little horses in the Kursaal at Geneva, although, perhaps, that was because the stakes were not high enough to interest him. He was nearly always silent, and, from the moment of our departure from Paris, had fallen into dreamfulness, such as would come over myself at the thought of the beautiful lady. It touched my heart to find how he was ready with acquiescence to the slightest suggestion of mine, and, if it had been the season, I am almost credulous that I could have conducted him to Baireuth to hear Parsifal!
There were times when his mood of gentle sorrow was so like mine that I wondered if he, too, knew a grey pongee skirt. I wondered over this so much, and so marvellingly, also, because of the change in him, that at last I asked him.
We had gone to Lucerne; it was clear moonlight, and we smoked on our little balcony at the Schweitzerhof, puffing our small clouds in the enormous face of the strangest panorama of the world, that august disturbation of the earth by gods in battle, left to be a land of tragic fables since before Pilate was there, and remaining the same after William Tell was not. I sat looking up at the mountains, and he leaned on the rail, looking down at the lake. Somewhere a woman was singing from Pagliacci, and I slowly arrived at a consciousness that I had sighed aloud once or twice, not so much sadly, as of longing to see that lady, and that my companion had permitted similar sounds to escape him, but more mournfully. It was then that I asked him, in earnestness, yet with the manner of making a joke, if he did not think often of some one in North America.
“Do you believe that could be, and I making the disturbance I did in Paris?” he returned.
“Yes,” I told him, “if you are trying to forget her.”
“I should think it might look more as if I were trying to forget that I wasn’t good enough for her and that she knew it!”
He spoke in a voice which he would have made full of ease—“off-hand,” as they say; but he failed to do so.
“That was the case?” I pressed him, you see, but smilingly.
“Looks a good deal like it,” he replied, smoking much at once.
“So? But that is good for you, my friend!”
“Probably.” He paused, smoking still more, and then said, “It’s a benefit I could get on just as well without.”
“She is in North America?”
“No; over here.”
“Ah! Then we will go where she is. That will be even better for you! Where is she?”
“I don’t know. She asked me not to follow her. Somebody else is doing that.”
The young man’s voice was steady, and his face, as usual, showed no emotion, but I should have been an Italian for nothing had I not understood quickly. So I waited for a little while, then spoke of old Pilatus out there in the sky, and we went to bed very late, for it was out last night in Lucerne.
Two days later we roared our way out of the gloomy St. Gotthard and wound down the pass, out into the sunshine of Italy, into that broad plain of mulberries where the silkworms weave to enrich the proud Milanese. Ah, those Milanese! They are like the people of Turin, and look down upon us of Naples; they find us only amusing, because our minds and movements are too quick for them to understand. I have no respect for the Milanese, except for three things: they have a cathedral, a picture, and a dead man.
We came to our hotel in the soft twilight, with the air so balmy one wished to rise and float in it. This was the hour for the Cathedral; therefore, leaving Leonardo and his fresco for the to-morrow, I conducted my uncomplaining ward forth, and through that big arcade of which the people are so proud, to the Duomo. Poor Jr. showed few signs of life as we stood before that immenseness; he said patiently that it resembled the postals, and followed me inside the portals with languor.
It was all grey hollowness in the vast place. The windows showed not any colour nor light; the splendid pillars soared up into the air and disappeared as if they mounted to heights of invisibility in the sky at night. Very far away, at the other end of the church it seemed, one lamp was burning, high over the transept. One could not see the chains of support nor the roof above it; it seemed a great star, but so much all alone. We walked down the long aisle to stand nearer to it, the darkness growing deeper as we advanced. When we came almost beneath, both of us gazing upward, my companion unwittingly stumbled against a lady who was standing silently looking up at this light, and who had failed to notice our approach. The contact was severe enough to dislodge from her hand her folded parasol, for which I began to grope.
There was a hurried sentence of excusation from Poor Jr., followed by moments of silence before she replied. Then I heard her voice in startled exclamation:
“Rufus, it is never you?”
He called out, almost loudly,
“Alice!”
Then I knew that it was the second time I had lifted a parasol from the ground for the lady of the grey pongee and did not see her face; but this time I placed it in her own hand; for my head bore no shame upon it now.
In the surprise of encountering Poor Jr. I do not think she noticed that she took the parasol or was conscious of my presence, and it was but too secure that my young friend had forgotten that I lived. I think, in truth, I should have forgotten it myself, if it had not been for the leaping of my heart.
Ah, that foolish dream of mine had proven true: I knew her, I knew her, unmistaking, without doubt or hesitancy—and in the dark! How should I know at the mere sound of her voice? I think I knew before she spoke!
Poor Jr. had taken a step toward her as she fell back; I could only see the two figures as two shadows upon shadow, while for them I had melted altogether and was forgotten.
“You think I have followed you,” he cried, “but you have no right to think it. It was an accident and you’ve got to believe me!”
“I believe you,” she answered gently. “Why should I not?”
“I suppose you want me to clear out again,” he went on, “and I will; but I don’t see why.”
Her voice answered him out of the shadow: “It is only you who make a reason why. I’d give anything to be friends with you; you’ve always known that.”
“Why can’t we be?” he said, sharply and loudly. “I’ve changed a great deal. I’m very sensible, and I’ll never bother you again—that other way. Why shouldn’t I see a little of you?”
I heard her laugh then—happily, it seemed to me,—and I thought I perceived her to extend her hand to him, and that he shook it briefly, in his fashion, as if it had been the hand of a man and not that of the beautiful lady.
“You know I should like nothing better in the world—since you tell me what you do,” she answered.
“And the other man?” he asked her, with the same hinting of sharpness in his tone. “Is that all settled?”
“Almost. Would you like me to tell you?”
“Only a little—please!”
His voice had dropped, and he spoke very quietly, which startlingly caused me to realize what I was doing. I went out of hearing then, very softly. Is it creible that I found myself trembling when I reached the twilit piazza? It is true, and I knew that never, for one moment, since that tragic, divine day of her pity, had I wholly despaired of beholding her again; that in my most sorrowful time there had always been a little, little morsel of certain knowledge that I should some day be near her once more.
And now, so much was easily revealed to me: it was to see her that the good Lambert R. Poor Jr., had come to Paris, preceding my patron; it was he who had passed with her on the last day of my shame, and whom she had addressed by his central name of Rufus, and it was to his hand that I had restored her parasol.
I was to look upon her face at last—I knew it—and to speak with her. Ah, yes, I did tremble! It was not because I feared she might recognize her poor slave of the painted head-top, nor that Poor Jr. would tell her. I knew him now too well to think he would do that, had I been even that other of whom he had spoken, for he was a brave, good boy, that Poor Jr. No, it was a trembling of another kind—something I do not know how to explain to those who have not trembled in the same way; and I came alone to my room in the hotel, still trembling a little and having strange quickness of breathing in my chest.
I did not make any light; I did not wish it, for the precious darkness of the Cathedral remained with me—magic darkness in which I beheld floating clouds made of the dust of gold and vanishing melodies. Any person who knows of these singular things comprehends how little of them can be told; but to those people who do not know of them, it may appear all great foolishness. Such people are either too young, and they must wait, or too old—they have forgotten!
It was an hour afterward, and Poor Jr. had knocked twice at my door, when I lighted the room and opened it to him. He came in, excitedly flushed, and, instead of taking a chair, began to walk quickly up and down the floor.
“I’m afraid I forgot all about you, Ansolini,” he said, “but that girl I ran into is a—a Miss Landry, whom I have known a long—”
I put my hand on his shoulder for a moment and said:
“I think I am not so dull, my friend!”
He made a blue flash at me with his eyes, then smiled and shook his head.
“Yes, you are right,” he answered, re-beginning his fast pace over the carpet. “It was she that I meant in Lucerne—I don’t see why I should not tell you. In Paris she said she didn’t want me to see her again until I could be—friendly—the old way instead of something considerably different, which I’d grown to be. Well, I’ve just told her not only that I’d behave like a friend, but that I’d changed and felt like one. Pretty much of a lie that was!” He laighed, without any amusement. “But it was successful, and I suppose I can keep it up. At any rate we’re going over to Venice with her and her mother to-morrow. Afterwards, we’ll see them in Naples just before they sail.”
“To Venice with them!” I could not repress crying out.
“Yes; we join parties for two days,” he said, and stopped at a window and looked out attentively at nothing before he went on: “It won’t be very long, and I don’t suppose it will ever happen again. The other man is to meet them in Rome. He’s a countryman of yours, and I believe—I believe it’s—about—settled!”
He pronounced these last words in an even voice, but how slowly! Not more slowly than the construction of my own response, which I heard myself making:
“This countryman of mine—who is he?”
“One of your kind of Kentucky Colonels,” Poor Jr. laughed mournfully. At first I did not understand; then it came to me that he had sometimes previously spoken in that idiom of the nobles, and that it had been his custom to address one of his Parisian followers, a vicomte, as “Colonel.”
“What is his name?”
“I can’t pronounce it, and I don’t know how to spell it,” he answered. “And that doesn’t bring me to the verge of the grave! I can bear to forget it, at least until we get to Naples!”
He turned and went to the door, saying, cheerfully: “Well, old horse-thief” (such had come to be his name for me sometimes, and it was pleasant to hear), “we must be dressing. They’re at this hotel, and we dine with them to-night.”
How can I tell of the lady of the pongee—now that I beheld her? Do you think that, when she came that night to the salon where we were awaiting her, I hesitated to lift my eyes to her face because of a fear that it would not be so beautiful as the misty sweet face I had dreamed would be hers? Ah, no! It was the beauty which was in her heart that had made me hers; yet I knew that she was beautiful. She was fair, that is all I can tell. I cannot tell of her eyes, her height, her mouth; I saw her through those clouds of the dust of gold—she was all glamour and light. It was to be seen that everyone fell in love with her at once; that the chef d’orchestre came and played to her; and the waiters—you should have observed them!—made silly, tender faces through the great groves of flowers with which Poor Jr. had covered the table. It was most difficult for me to address her, to call her “Miss Landry.” It seemed impossible that she should have a name, or that I should speak to her except as “you.”
Even, I cannot tell very much of her mother, except that she was adorable because of her adorable relationship. She was florid, perhaps, and her conversation was of commonplaces and echoes, like my own, for I could not talk. It was Poor Jr. who made the talking, and in spite of the spell that was on me, I found myself full of admiration and sorrow for that brave fellow. He was all gaieties and little stories in a way I had never heard before; he kept us in quiet laughter; in a word, he was charming. The beautiful lady seemed content to listen with the greatest pleasure. She talked very little, except to encourage the young man to continue. I do not think she was brilliant, as they call it, or witty. She was much more than that in her comprehension, in her kindness—her beautiful kindness!
She spoke only once directly to me, except for the little things one must say. “I am almost sure I have met you, Signor Ansolini.”
I felt myself burning up and knew that the conflagration was visible. So frightful a blush cannot be prevented by will-power, and I felt it continuing in hot waves long after Poor Jr. had effected salvation for me by a small joke upon my cosmopolitanism.
Little sleep visited me that night. The darkness of my room was luminous and my closed eyes became painters, painting so radiantly with divine colours—painters of wonderful portraits of this lady. Gallery after gallery swam before me, and the morning brought only more!
What a ride it was to Venice that day! What magical airs we rode through, and what a thieving old trickster was time, as he always becomes when one wishes hours to be long! I think Poor Jr. had made himself forget everything except that he was with her and that he must be a friend. He committed a thousand ridiculousnesses at the stations; he filled one side of the compartment with the pretty chianti-bottles, with terrible cakes, and with fruits and flowers; he never ceased his joking, which had no tiresomeness in it, and he made the little journey one of continuing, happy laughter.
And that evening another of my foolish dreams came true! I sat in a gondola with the lady of the grey pongee to hear the singing on the Grand Canal;—not, it is true, at her feet, but upon a little chair beside her mother. It was my place—to be, as I had been all day, escort to the mother, and guide and courier for that small party. Contented enough was I to accept it! How could I have hoped that the Most Blessed Mother would grant me so much nearness as that? It was not happiness that I felt, but something so much more precious, as though my heart-strings were the strings of a harp, and sad, beautiful arpeggios ran over them.
I could not speak much that evening, nor could Poor Jr. We were very silent and listened to the singing, our gondola just touching the others on each side, those in turn touching others, so that a musician from the barge could cross from one to another, presenting the hat for contributions. In spite of this extreme propinquity, I feared the collector would fall into the water when he received the offering of Poor Jr. It was “Gra-a-az’, Mi-lor! Graz’!” a hundred times, with bows and grateful smiles indeed!
It is the one place in the world where you listen to a bad voice with pleasure, and none of the voices are good—they are harsh and worn with the night-singing—yet all are beautiful because they are enchanted.
They sang some of our own Neapolitan songs that night, and last of all the loveliest of all, “La Luna Nova.” It was to the cadence of it that our gondoliers moved us out of the throng, and it still drifted on the water as we swung, far down, into sight of the lights of the Ledo:
“Luna d’ar-gen-to fal-lo so-gnar—Ba-cia-lo in fron-te non lo de-star....”
Not so sweetly came those measures as the low voice of the beautiful lady speaking them.
“One could never forget it, never!” she said. “I might hear it a thousand other times and forget them, but never this first time.”
I perceived that Poor Jr. turned his face abruptly toward hers at this, but he said nothing, by which I understood not only his wisdom but his forbearance.
“Strangely enough,” she went on, slowly, “that song reminded me of something in Paris. Do you remember”—she turned to Poor Jr.—“that poor man we saw in front of the Cafe’ de la Paix with the sign painted upon his head?”
Ah, the good-night, with its friendly cloak! The good, kind night!
“I remember,” he answered, with some shortness. “A little faster, boatman!”
“I don’t know what made it,” she said, “I can’t account for it, but I’ve been thinking of him all through that last song.”
Perhaps not so strange, since one may know how wildly that poor devil had been thinking of her!
“I’ve thought of him so often,” the gentle voice went on. “I felt so sorry for him. I never felt sorrier for any one in my life. I was sorry for the poor, thin cab-horses in Paris, but I was sorrier for him. I think it was the saddest sight I ever saw. Do you suppose he still has to do that, Rufus?”
“No, no,” he answered, in haste. “He’d stopped before I left. He’s all right, I imagine. Here’s the Danieli.”
She fastened a shawl more closely about her mother, whom I, with a ringing in my ears, was trying to help up the stone steps. “Rufus, I hope,” the sweet voice continued, so gently,—“I hope he’s found something to do that’s very grand! Don’t you? Something to make up to him for doing that!”
She had not the faintest dream that it was I. It was just her beautiful heart.
The next afternoon Venice was a bleak and empty setting, the jewel gone. How vacant it looked, how vacant it was! We made not any effort to penetrate the galleries; I had no heart to urge my friend. For us the whole of Venice had become one bridge of sighs, and we sat in the shade of the piazza, not watching the pigeons, and listening very little to the music. There are times when St. Mark’s seems to glare at you with Byzantine cruelty, and Venice is too hot and too cold. So it was then. Evening found us staring out at the Adriatic from the terrace of a cafe’ on the Ledo, our coffee cold before us. Never was a greater difference than that in my companion from the previous day. Yet he was not silent. He talked of her continually, having found that he could talk of her to me—though certainly he did not know why it was or how. He told me, as we sat by the grey-growing sea, that she had spoken of me.
“She liked you, she liked you very much,” he said. “She told me she liked you because you were quiet and melancholy. Oh Lord, though, she likes everyone, I suppose! I believe I’d have a better chance with her if I hadn’t always known her. I’m afraid that this damn Italian—I beg your pardon, Ansolini!—”
“Ah, no,” I answered. “It is sometimes well said.”
“I’m afraid his picturesqueness as a Kentucky Colonel appeals to her too much. And then he is new to her—a new type. She only met him in Paris, and he had done some things in the Abyssinian war—”
“What is his rank?” I asked.
“He’s a prince. Cheap down this way; aren’t they? I only hope”—and Poor Jr. made a groan—“it isn’t going to be the old story—and that he’ll be good to her if he gets her.”
“Then it is not yet a betrothal?”
“Not yet. Mrs. Landry told me that Alice had liked him well enough to promise she’d give him her answer before she sailed, and that it was going to be yes. She herself said it was almost settled. That was just her way of breaking it to me, I fear.”
“You have given up, my friend?”
“What else can I do? I can’t go on following her, keeping up this play at second cousin, and she won’t have anything else. Ever since I grew up she’s been rather sorrowful over me because I didn’t do anything but try to amuse myself—that was one of the reasons she couldn’t care for me, she said, when I asked her. Now this fellow wins, who hasn’t done anything either, except his one campaign. It’s not that I ought to have her, but while I suppose it’s a real fascination, I’m afraid there’s a little glitter about being a princess. Even the best of our girls haven’t got over that yet. Ah, well, about me she’s right. I’ve been a pretty worthless sort. She’s right. I’ve thought it all over. Three days before they sail we’ll go down to Naples and hear the last word, and whatever it is we’ll see them off on the ‘Princess Irene.’ Then you and I’ll come north and sail by the first boat from Cherbourg.
“I—I?” I stammered.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m going to make the aged parent shout with unmanly glee. I’m going to ask him to take me on as a hand. He’ll take you, too. He uses something like a thousand Italians, and a man to manage them who can talk to them like a Dutch uncle is what he has always needed. He liked you, and he’ll be glad to get you.”
He was a good friend, that Poor Jr., you see, and I shook the hand that he offered me very hard, knowing how great would have been his embarrassment had I embraced him in our own fashion.
“And perhaps you will sail on the ‘Princess Irene,’ after all,” I cried.
“No,” he shook his head sadly, “it will not happen. I have not been worth it.”
That Naples of mine is like a soiled coronet of white gems, sparkling only from far away. But I love it altogether, near or far, and my heart would have leaped to return to it for its own sake, but to come to it as we did, knowing that the only lady in the world was there.... Again, this is one of those things I possess no knowledge how to tell, and that those who know do know. How I had longed for the time to come, how I had feared it, how I had made pictures of it!
Yet I feared not so much as my friend, for he had a dim, small hope, and I had none. How could I have? I—a man whose head had been painted? I—for whom her great heart had sorrowed as for the thin, beaten cab-horses of Paris! Hope? All I could hope was that she might never know, and I be left with some little shred of dignity in her eyes!
Who cannot see that it was for my friend to fear? At times, with him, it was despair, but of that brave kind one loves to see—never a quiver of the lip, no winking of the eyes to keep tears back. And I, although of a people who express everything in every way, I understood what passed within him and found time to sorrow for him.
Most of all, I sorrowed for him as we waited for her on the terrace of the Bertolini, that perch on the cliff so high that even the noises of the town are dulled and mingle with the sound of the thick surf far below.
Across the city, and beyond, we saw, from the terrace, the old mountain of the warm heart, smoking amiably, and the lights of Torre del Greco at its feet, and there, across the bay, I beheld, as I had nightly so long ago, the lamps of Castellamare, of Sorrento; then, after a stretch of water, a twinkling which was Capri. How good it was to know that all these had not taken advantage of my long absence to run away and vanish, as I had half feared they would. Those who have lived here love them well; and it was a happy thought that the beautiful lady knew them now, and shared them. I had never known quite all their loveliness until I felt that she knew it too. This was something that I must never tell her—yet what happiness there was in it!
I stood close to the railing, with a rambling gaze over this enchanted earth and sea and sky, while my friend walked nervously up and down behind me. We had come to Naples in the late afternoon, and had found a note from Mrs. Landry at our hotel, asking us for dinner. Poor Jr. had not spoken more than twice since he had read me this kind invitation, but now I heard a low exclamation from him, which let me know who was approaching; and that foolish trembling got hold of me again as I turned.
Mrs. Landry came first, with outstretched hand, making some talk excusing delay; and, after a few paces, followed the loveliest of all the world. Beside her, in silhouette against the white window lights of the hotel, I saw the very long, thin figure of a man, which, even before I recognized it, carried a certain ominousness to my mind.
Mrs. Landry, in spite of her florid contentedness, had sometimes a fluttering appearance of trivial agitations.
“The Prince came down from Rome this morning,” she said nervously, and I saw my friend throw back his head like a man who declines the eye-bandage when they are going to shoot him. “He is dining with us. I know you will be glad to meet him.”
The beautiful lady took Poor Jr.‘s hand, more than he hers, for he seemed dazed, in spite of the straight way he stood, and it was easy to behold how white his face was. She made the presentation of us both at the same time, and as the other man came into the light, my mouth dropped open with wonder at the singular chances which the littleness of our world brings about.
“Prince Caravacioli, Mr. Poor. And this is Signor Ansolini.”
It was my half-brother, that old Antonio!
Never lived any person with more possession of himself than Antonio; he bowed to each of us with the utmost amiability; and for expression—all one saw of it was a little streak of light in his eye-glass.
“It is yourself, Raffaele?” he said to me, in the politest manner, in our own tongue, the others thinking it some commonplace, and I knew by his voice that the meeting was as surprising and as exasperating to him as to me.
Sometimes dazzling flashes of light explode across the eyes of blind people. Such a thing happened to my own, now, in the darkness. I found myself hot all over with a certain rashness that came to me. I felt that anything was possible if I would but dare enough.
“I am able to see that it is the same yourself!” I answered, and made the faintest eye-turn toward Miss Landry. Simultaneously bowing, I let my hand fall upon my pocket—a language which he understood, and for which (the Blessed Mother be thanked!) he perceived that I meant to offer battle immediately, though at that moment he offered me an open smile of benevolence. He knew nothing of my new cause for war; there was enough of the old!
The others were observing us.
“You have met?” asked the gentle voice of Miss Landry. “You know each other?”
“Exceedingly!” I answered, bowing low to her.
“The dinner is waiting in our own salon,” said Mrs. Landry, interrupting. She led the way with Antonio to an open door on the terrace where servants were attending, and such a forest of flowers on the table and about the room as almost to cause her escort to stagger; for I knew, when I caught sight of them, that he had never been wise enough to send them. Neither had Poor Jr. done it out of wisdom, but because of his large way of performing everything, and his wish that loveliest things should be a background for that lady.
Alas for him! Those great jars of perfume, orchids and hyacinths and roses, almost shut her away from his vision. We were at a small round table, and she directly in opposition to him. Upon her right was Antonio, and my heart grew cold to see how she listened to him.
For Antonio could talk. At that time he spoke English even better than I, though without some knowledge of the North-American idiom which my travels with Poor Jr. had given me. He was one of those splendid egoists who seem to talk in modesty, to keep themselves behind scenes, yet who, when the curtain falls, are discovered to be the heroes, after all, though shown in so delicate a fashion that the audience flatters itself in the discovery.
And how practical was this fellow, how many years he had been developing his fascinations! I was the only person of that small company who could have a suspicion that his moustache was dyed, that his hair was toupee, or that hints of his real age were scorpions and adders to him. I should not have thought it, if I had not known it. Here was my advantage: I had known his monstrous vanity all my life.
So he talked of himself in his various surreptitious ways until coffee came, Miss Landry listening eagerly, and my poor friend making no effort; for what were his quiet United States absurdities compared to the whole-world gaieties and Abyssinian adventures of this Othello, particularly for a young girl to whom Antonio’s type was unfamiliar? For the first time I saw my young man’s brave front desert him. His mouth drooped, and his eyes had an appearance of having gazed long at a bright light. I saw that he, unhappy one, was at last too sure what her answer would be.
For myself, I said very little—I waited. I hoped and believed Antonio would attack me in his clever, disguised way, for he had always hated me and my dead brother, and he had never failed to prove himself too skilful for us. In my expectancy of his assault there was no mistake. I comprehended Antonio very well, and I knew that he feared I might seek to do him an injury, particularly after my inspired speech and gesture upon the terrace. Also, I felt that he would, if possible, anticipate my attempt and strike first. I was willing; for I thought myself in possession of his vulnerable point—never dreaming that he might know my own!
At last when he, with the coffee and cigarettes, took the knife in his hand, he placed a veil over the point. He began, laughingly, with the picture of a pickpocket he had helped to catch in London. London was greatly inhabited by pickpockets, according to Antonio’s declaration. Yet, he continued, it was nothing in comparison to Paris. Paris was the rendezvous, the world’s home, for the criminals, adventurers, and rascals if the world, English, Spanish, South-Americans, North-Americans,—and even Italians! One must beware of people one had met in Paris!
“Of course,” he concluded, with a most amiable smile, “there are many good people there also. That is not to be forgotten. If I should dare to make a risk on such a trifle, for instance, I would lay wager that you”—he nodded toward Poor Jr.—“made the acquaintance of Ansolini in Paris?”
This was of the greatest ugliness in its underneath significance, though the manner was disarming. Antonio’s smile was so cheerful, his eye-glass so twinkling, that none of them could have been sure he truly meant anything harmful of me, though Poor Jr. looked up, puzzled and frowning.
Before he could answer I pulled myself altogether, as they say, and leaned forward, resting my elbows upon the table. “It is true,” and I tried to smile as amiably as Antonio. “These coincidences occur. You meet all the great frauds of the world in Paris. Was it not there”—I turned to Mrs. Landry—“that you met the young Prince here?”
At this there was no mistaking that the others perceived. The secret battle had begun and was not secret. I saw a wild gleam in Poor Jr.‘s eyes, as if he comprehended that strange things were to come; but, ah, the face of distress and wonder upon Mrs. Landry, who beheld the peace of both a Prince and a dinner assailed; and, alas! the strange and hurt surprise that came from the lady of the pongee! Let me not be a boastful fellow, but I had borne her pity and had adored it—I could face her wonder, even her scorn.
It was in the flash of her look that I saw my great chance and what I must try to do. Knowing Antonio, it was as if I saw her falling into the deep water and caught just one contemptuous glance from her before the waves hid her. But how much juster should that contempt have been if I had not tried to save her!
As for that old Antonio, he might have known enough to beware. I had been timid with him always, and he counted on it now, but a man who has shown a painted head-top to the people of Paris will dare a great deal.
“As the Prince says,” replied Mrs. Landry, with many flutters, “one meets only the most agreeable people in Paris!”
“Paris!” I exclaimed. “Ah, that home of ingenuity! How they paint there! How they live, and how they dye—their beards!”
You see how the poor Ansolini played the buffoon. I knew they feared it was wine, I had been so silent until now; but I did not care, I was beyond care.
“Our young Prince speaks truly,” I cried, raising my voice. “He is wise beyond his years, this youth! He will be great when he reaches middle age, for he knows Paris and understands North America! Like myself, he is grateful that the people of your continent enrich our own! We need all that you can give us! Where should we be—any of us” (I raised my voice still louder and waved my hand to Antonio),—“where should we be, either of us” (and I bowed to the others) “without you?”
Mrs. Landry rose with precipitousness, and the beautiful lady, very red, followed. Antonio, unmistakably stung with the scorpions I had set upon him, sprang to the door, the palest yellow man I have ever beheld, and let the ladies pass before him.
The next moment I was left alone with Poor Jr. and his hyacinth trees.
For several minutes neither of us spoke. Then I looked up to meet my friend’s gaze of perturbation.
A waiter was proffering cigars. I took one, and waved Poor Jr.‘s hand away from the box of which the waiter made offering.
“Do not remain!” I whispered, and I saw his sad perplexity. “I know her answer has not been given. Will you present him his chance to receive it—just when her sympathy must be stronger for him, since she will think he has had to bear rudeness?”
He went out of the door quickly.
I dod not smoke. I pretended to, while the waiters made the arrangements of the table and took themselves off. I sat there a long, long time waiting for Antonio to do what I hoped I had betrayed him to do.
It befell at last.
Poor Jr. came to the door and spoke in his steady voice. “Ansolini, will you come out here a moment?”
Then I knew that I had succeeded, had made Antonio afraid that I would do the thing he himself, in a panic, had already done—speak evil of another privately.
As I reached the door I heard him call out foolishly, “But Mr. Poor, I beg you—”
Poor Jr. put his hand on my shoulder, and we walked out into the dark of the terrace. Antonio was leaning against the railing, the beautiful lady standing near. Mrs. Landry had sunk into a chair beside her daughter. No other people were upon the terrace.
“Prince Caravacioli has been speaking of you,” said Poor Jr., very quietly.
“Ah?” said I.
“I listened to what he said; then I told him that you were my friend, and that I considered it fair that you should hear what he had to say. I will repeat what he said, Ansolini. If I mistake anything, he can interrupt me.”
Antonio laughed, and in such a way, so sincerely, so gaily, that I was frightened.
“Very good!” he cried. “I am content. Repeat all.”
“He began,” Poor Jr. went on, quietly, though his hand gripped my shoulder to almost painfulness,—“he began by saying to these ladies, in my presence, that we should be careful not to pick up chance strangers to dine, in Italy, and—and he went on to give me a repetition of his friendly warning about Paris. He hinted things for a while, until I asked him to say what he knew of you. Then he said he knew all about you; that you were an outcast, a left-handed member of his own family, an adventurer—”
“It is finished, my friend,” I said, interrupting him, and gazed with all my soul upon the beautiful lady. Her face was as white as Antonio’s or that of my friend, or as my own must have been. She strained her eyes at me fixedly; I saw the tears standing still in them, and I knew the moment had come.
“This Caravacioli is my half-brother,” I said.
Antonio laughed again. “Of what kind!”
Oh, he went on so easily to his betrayal, not knowing the United-Statesians and their sentiment, as I did.
“We had the same mother,” I continued, as quietly as I could. “Twenty years after this young—this somewhat young—Prince was born she divorced his father, Caravacioli, and married a poor poet, whose bust you can see on the Pincian in Rome, though he died in the cheapest hotel in Sienna when my true brother and I were children. This young Prince would have nothing to do with my mother after her second marriage and—”
“Marriage!” Antonio laughed pleasantly again. He was admirable. “This is an old tale which the hastiness of our American friend has forced us to rehearse. The marriage was never recognized by the Vatican, and there was not twenty years—”
“Antonio, it is the age which troubles you, after all!” I said, and laughed heartily, loudly, and a long time, in the most good-natured way, not to be undone as an actor.
“Twenty years,” I repeated. “But what of it? Some of the best men in the world use dyes and false—”
At this his temper went away from him suddenly and completely. I had struck the right point indeed!
“You cammorrista!” he cried, and became only himself, his hands gesturing and flying, all his pleasant manner gone. “Why should we listen one second more to such a fisherman! The very seiners of the bay who sell dried sea-horses to the tourists are better gentlemen than you. You can shrug your shoulders! I saw you in Paris, though you thought I did not! Oh, I saw you well! Ah! At the Cafe de la Paiz!”
At this I cried out suddenly. The sting and surprise of it were more than I could bear. In my shame I would even have tried to drown his voice with babblings but after this one cry I could not speak for a while. He went on triumphantly:
“This rascal, my dear ladies, who has persuaded you to ask him to dinner, this camel who claims to be my excellent brother, he, for a few francs, in Paris, shaved his head and showed it for a week to the people with an advertisement painted upon it of the worst ballet in Paris. This is the gentleman with whom you ask Caravacioli to dine!”
It was beyond my expectation, so astonishing and so cruel that I could only look at him for a moment or two. I felt as one who dreams himself falling forever. Then I stepped forward and spoke, in thickness of voice, being unable to lift my head:
“Again it is true what he says. I was that man of the painted head. I had my true brother’s little daughters to care for. They were at the convent, and I owed for them. It was also partly for myself, because I was hungry. I could find not any other way, and so—but that is all.”
I turned and went stumblingly away from them.
In my agony that she should know, I could do nothing but seek greater darkness. I felt myself beaten, dizzy with beatings. That thing which I had done in Paris discredited me. A man whose head-top had borne an advertisement of the Folie-Rouge to think he could be making a combat with the Prince Caravacioli!
Leaning over the railing in the darkest corner of the terrace, I felt my hand grasped secondarily by that good friend of mine.
“God bless you!” whispered Poor Jr.
“On my soul, I believe he’s done himself. Listen!”
I turned. That beautiful lady had stepped out into the light from the salon door. I could see her face shining, and her eyes—ah me, how glorious they were! Antonio followed her.
“But wait,” he cried pitifully.
“Not for you!” she answered, and that voice of hers, always before so gentle, rang out as the Roman trumpets once rang from this same cliff. “Not for you! I saw him there with his painted head and I understood! You saw him there, and you did nothing to help him! And the two little children—your nieces, too,—and he your brother!”
Then my heart melted and I found myself choking, for the beautiful lady was weeping.
“Not for you, Prince Caravacioli,” she cried, through her tears,—“Not for you!”