'Shall I see you down to the street? There is no one there.'
'Yes—come down with me.'
She looked about her a little hesitatingly.
'Have you forgotten anything?' asked Andrea.
She was looking at the flowers, but she answered, 'Ah—yes—my card-case.'
Andrea sprang to fetch it from the table. 'A stranger here?' he read as he handed it to her.
'No, my dear, a friend——'
Her answer was quick, her voice eager. Then suddenlywith a smile peculiarly her own, half imploring, half seductive, a mixture of timidity and tenderness, she said: 'Give me a rose.'
Andrea went from vase to vase gathering all the roses into one great bunch which he could scarcely hold in his hands—some of them shed their petals.
'They were for you—all of them,' he said without looking at her.
Elena hung her head and turned to go in silence followed by Andrea. They descended the stairs still in silence. He could see the nape of her neck so fair and delicate where the little dark curls mingled with the gray-blue fur.
'Elena!' he cried her name in a low voice, incapable any longer of fighting against the passion that filled his heart to bursting.
She turned round to him with a finger on her lips—a gesture of agonised entreaty—but her eyes burned through the shadow. She hastened her steps, flung herself into the carriage and felt rather than saw him lay the roses in her lap.
'Good-bye! Good-bye!'
And when the carriage turned away she threw herself back exhausted and burst into a passion of sobs, tearing the roses to pieces with her poor frenzied hands.
So she had come, she had come! She had re-entered the rooms in which every piece of furniture, every object must retain some memory for her, and she had said—'I am yours no more, can never be yours again, never!' and—'Could you suffer to share me with another?'—Yes, she had dared to fling those words in his face, in that room, in sight of all these things!
A rush of pain—atrocious, immeasurable, made up of a thousand wounds, each distinct from the other and one more piercing than the other, came over him and goaded him to desperation. Passion enveloped him once more in a thousand tongues of fire, re-kindling in him an inextinguishable desire for this woman who belonged to him no more, re-awakening in his memory every smallest detail of past caresses and all the sweet mad doings of those days. And yet through it all, there persisted the strange difficulty in identifying that Elena with the Elena of to-day, who seemed to him altogether another woman, one whom he had never known, never held in his arms. The torture of his senses was such that he thought he must die of it. Impurity crept through his blood like a corroding poison.
The impurity whichthenthe winged flame of the soul had covered with a sacred veil, had surrounded with a mystery that was half divine, appearednowwithout the veil and without the mystery as a mere carnal lust, a piece of gross sensuality. He knew that the ardour he had felt to-day in her presence was not Love—had nothing in common with Love—for when she had cried—'Could you suffer to share me with another?'—Why, yes, he could suffer it perfectly.
Nothing therefore—nothing in him had remained intact. Even the memory of his grand passion was now corrupted, sullied, debased. The last spark of hope was extinct. He had reached his lowest level, never to rise again.
He was seized by a terrible and frenzied desire to overthrow the idol that still persistently rose up lofty and enigmatic before his imagination, do what he would to abase it. With cynical cruelty, he set himself to insult, to undermine, to mutilate it. The destructive analysis he had already employed upon himself, he now turned upon Elena. To those dubious problems which, at one time, he had resolutely put away from him, he now sought the answer; of all the suspicions which had formerly presented themselves to him only to disappear without leaving a trace, he now studied the origin, found them justified and obtained their confirmation. But whereas he thought to find relief in this furious work of demolition, he only increased his sufferings, aggravated his malady and deepened his wounds.
What had been the true cause of Elena's departure two years before? There were many conflicting rumours at the time, and again when she married Humphrey Heathfield; but the actual truth of the matter was what he heard, quite by chance, among other scraps of society gossip, from Giulio Musellaro one evening as they left the theatre together, nor did Andrea doubt it for a moment. Donna Elena had been obliged to leave Rome for pecuniary reasons, to work some 'operation' which should extricate her from the serious embarrassments into which her outrageous extravagance had plunged her. The marriage with Humphrey Heathfield, who was Marquis of Mount Saint Michael and Earl of Broadford, and besides possessing a considerable fortune was related to the highest nobility of Great Britain, had saved her from ruin. Donna Elena had managed matters with the utmost adroitness and succeeded marvellously in steering clear of the threatening peril. It was not to be denied that the interval of her three years of widowhood had been none too chaste aprelude to a second marriage—neither chaste nor prudent—nevertheless, there was also no denying that Elena Muti was a great lady——
'Ah, my boy, a grand creature!' said Musellaro, 'as you very well know.'
Andrea said nothing.
'But take my advice,' his friend went on, throwing away the cigarette which had gone out while he talked, 'do not resume your relations with her. It is the same with love as with tobacco—once out, it will not bear relighting. Let us go and get a cup of tea from Donna Giulia Moceto. They tell me one may go to her house after the theatre—it is never too late.'
They were close by the Palazzo Borghese.
'You can,' answered Andrea, 'I am going home to bed. I am rather tired after to-day's run with the hounds. My regards to Donna Giulia—my blessing go with you!'
Musellaro went up the steps of the palace and Andrea continued on his way past the Borghese fountain towards the Trinità.
It was one of those wonderful January nights, cold and serene, which turn Rome into a city of silver set in a ring of diamonds. The full moon, hanging in mid-sky, shed a triple purity of light, of frost, and of silence.
He walked along in the moonlight like a somnambulist, conscious of nothing but his pain. The last blow had been struck, the idol was shattered, nothing remained standing above the ruins—this was the end!
So it was true—she had never really loved him. She had not scrupled to break with him in order to contract a marriage of convenience. And now she put on the airs of a martyr before him, wrapped herself round with a mantle of conjugal inviolability! A bitter laugh rose to his lips, and then a rush of sullen blind rage against the woman came over him. The memory of his passion went for nothing—all the past was one long fraud, one stupendous, hideous lie; and this man, who throughout his whole life had made a practiceof dissimulation and duplicity, was now incensed at the deception of another, was as indignant at it as at some unpardonable backsliding, some inexcusable and inexplicable perfidy. He was quite unable to understand how Elena could have committed such a crime; he denied her all possibility of justification, and rejected the hypothesis of some secret and dire necessity having driven her to sudden flight. He could see nothing but the bare brutal fact, its baseness, its vulgarity—above all its vulgarity, gross, manifest, odious, without one extenuating circumstance. In short, the whole matter reduced itself to this: a passion which was apparently sincere, which they had vowed was profound and inextinguishable, had been broken off for a question of money, for material interests, for a commercial transaction.
'Oh, you are ungrateful! What do you know of all that has happened, of all I have suffered!'
Elena's words recurred to him with everything else she had said, from beginning to end of their interview—her words of fondness, her offer of sisterly affection, all her sentimental phrases. And he remembered, too, the tears that had dimmed her eyes, her changes of countenance, her tremors, her choking voice when she said good-bye, and he laid the roses in her lap. 'But why had she ever consented to come? Why play this part, call up all these emotions, arrange this comedy? Why?
By this time he had reached the top of the steps, and found himself in the deserted piazza. Suddenly the beauty of the night filled him with a vague but desperate yearning towards some unknown good. The image of Maria Ferrès flashed across his mind; his heart beat fast, he thought of what it would be to hold her hands in his, to lean his head upon her breast, to feel that she was consoling him without words, by her pity alone. This longing for pity, for a refuge, was like the last struggle of a soul that will not be content to perish. He bent his head and entered the house without turning again to look at the night.
Terenzio was waiting up for him and followed him to the bedroom, where there was a fire.
'Will the Signor Conte go to bed at once?' he asked.
'No, Terenzio, bring me some tea,' replied his master, sitting down before the fire and stretching out his hands to the blaze.
He was shivering all over with a little nervous tremor.
'The Signor Conte is cold?' asked Terenzio, hastening with affectionate interest to stir up the fire and put on fresh logs.
He was an old servant of the house of Sperelli, having served Andrea's father for many years, and his devotion for the son reached the pitch of idolatry. No human being seemed to him so handsome, so noble, so worthy of devotion. He belonged to that ideal race which furnished faithful retainers to the romance writers of old, but differed from the servants of romance in that he spoke little, never offered advice, and concerned himself with no other business than that of carrying out his master's orders.
'That will do very nicely,' said Andrea, trying to repress the convulsive trembling of his limbs and crouching closer over the fire.
The presence of the old man in this hour of misery and distress moved him singularly. It was an emotion somewhat similar to that which, in the presence of some very kind and sympathetic person, affects a man determined upon suicide. Never before had the old man brought back to him so strongly the recollection of his father, the memory of the beloved dead, his grief for the loss of a great and good friend. Never so much as now had he felt the want of that comforting voice, that paternal hand. What would his father say could he see his son thus crushed under the weight of a nameless distress? How would he have sought to relieve him—what would he have done?
His thoughts turned to the dead father with boundless yearning and regret. And he had not the shadow of a suspicion that in the very teachings of that father lay the primary cause of his wretchedness.
Terenzio brought the tea. He then proceeded slowly toarrange the bed with a care and solicitude that were almost womanly, forgetting nothing, as if he wished to ensure to his master refreshing and unbroken slumbers till the morrow.
Andrea watched him with growing emotion. 'Go to bed now, Terenzio,' he said. 'I shall not want anything more.'
The old man retired and left him alone before the fire—alone with his heart, alone with his misery. Tortured by his inward agitation, he rose and began to pace the room. He was haunted by a vision of Elena, and each time he came as far as the window and turned, he fancied he saw her and started violently. His nerves were in such an overstrung condition that they only increased the disorder of his imagination. The hallucination grew more distinct. He stood still and covered his face with his hands for a moment to control his excitement, and then returned to his seat by the fire.
This time another image rose before him—that of Elena's husband.
He knew him better now. That very evening in a box at the theatre, Elena had introduced them to one another, and he had seized that opportunity to examine him attentively in detail with the keenest curiosity, as though he hoped to obtain some revelation, to draw some secret from him. He could still hear the man's voice—a voice of very peculiar tone, somewhat harsh and strident, with an interrogative inflection at the end of each sentence. Again he saw those pale, pale eyes under the great prominent forehead, eyes that at times assumed a hideous, glassy, dead look, and at others lit up with an indefinable gleam that savoured of madness. Those hands too, he saw—white and smooth and thickly covered with sandy yellow down, and with something obscene in their every movement; their way of raising the opera-glass, of unfolding a handkerchief, of reclining on the cushion in front of the box or turning over the pages of the libretto—hands instinct with vice.
Oh, horror! he saw those hands touching Elena, profaning her with their odious caresses.
The torture became insupportable. He rose once more,went to the window, opened it, shivered under the biting breeze and shook himself. The Trinità de' Monti glittered in the deep blue sky, sharply outlined as if sculptured in faintly tinted marble. Rome, spread out beneath him, had a sheen as of crystal, like a city cut in a glacier.
The calm and sparkling cold brought his mind back to the realities of life and enabled him to recognise the true condition of his mind. He closed the window and sat down again. Once more the enigmatical aspect of Elena's character occupied him, questions crowded in upon him tumultuously, persistently. But he had the strength of mind to co-ordinate them, to attack them one by one, with singular lucidity. The deeper he went in his analysis the more lucid became his mental vision, and he worked out his psychological revenge with cruel relish. At last he felt that he had laid bare a soul, penetrated a mystery. It seemed to him, that thus he made Elena infinitely more his own than in the days of their passion.
What, after all, was this woman?—An unbalanced mind in a sensually inclined body. As with all who are greedy of pleasure, the foundation of her moral being was overweening egotism. Her dominant faculty, her intellectual axis, so to speak, was imagination—an imagination nourished upon a wide range of literature, connected with her sex and perpetually stimulated by neurotic excitement. Possessed of a certain degree of intellectual capacity, brought up in all the luxury of a princely Roman house—that papal luxury which is made up of art and history—she had received a thin coating of æsthetic varnish, had acquired a graceful taste, and, having thoroughly grasped the character of her beauty, sought by skilful simulation and a sapient use of her marked histrionic talents to enhance its spirituality by surrounding it with a delusive halo of ideality.
Into the comedy of human life she thus brought some highly perilous elements, and was thereby the occasion of more ruin and disaster than if she had been ademi-mondaineby profession.
Under the glamour of her imagination, every caprice assumed an appearance of pathos. She was the woman of fulminating passions, of suddenly blazing desire. She covered the lusts of the flesh with a mantle of ethereal flame, and could transform into a noble sentiment what was merely a base appetite.
Such was the scathing judgment brought by Andrea against the woman he had once adored. At the root of every action, every expression of Elena's love he now discovered studied artifice, an admirable natural gift for carrying out a pre-arranged scheme, for playing a dramatic part or organising a striking scene. He did not spare their most memorable episodes—neither the first meeting at the Ateletas' dinner, nor the Cardinal Immenraet's sale, nor the ball at the French Embassy, nor the sudden offer of her love in the red room at the Barberini palace, nor their farewells out in the country in the biting March blast. The magic draught which had intoxicated him then now seemed but an insidious poison.
Yet, in spite of it all, certain points perplexed him, as if in penetrating Elena's soul he had penetrated his own, and in the woman's perfidy had seen a reflection of his own. There was much affinity between their two natures. Therefore heunderstood, and little by little, his contempt changed to ironical indulgence. He was so thoroughly conversant with his own mode of procedure.
Then with cold lucidity, he mapped out his plan of campaign. He reviewed every detail of the interview that had taken place on New Year's Eve—more than a week ago—and it pleased him to re-construct the scene, but without the slightest indignation or excitement, only smiling cynically both at Elena and himself. Why had she come?—Simply because this impromptutête-à-têtewith a former lover, in the well-known place, after a lapse of two years, had tempted a spirit always on the look-out for fresh emotions, had inflamed her imagination and her curiosity. She thirsted to see into what new situations, new intrigues the dangerous game would lead her. She was perhaps attracted by the novelty of aplatonic affection with a person who had already been the object of her sensual passion. As ever, she had thrown herself into the new part with a certain imaginative fervour. Also it was quite possible that, for the moment, she believed what she said, and that this illusory sincerity had furnished her with that deep tenderness of accent, those despairing attitudes, those tears. How well he knew it all! She had a sentimental hallucination as other people have a physical one. She forgot that she was acting a lie, was no longer conscious whether she were living in a world of truth or falsehood, of fiction or reality.
Now this was precisely the moral phenomenon which so constantly took place in himself. Therefore he could not reproach her without injustice. But the discovery very naturally deprived him of the hope of deriving any pleasure from her other than sensual ones. In any case, mistrust would poison all the sweetness of abandon, all soulful rapture. To deceive a confiding and faithful heart, dominate a soul by artifice, possess it wholly and make it vibrate like an instrument—habere non haberi—all this, doubtless, gives intense pleasure; but to deceive, and know that one is being deceived in return, is a stupid and fruitless labour, a tiresome and aimless pursuit.
He must therefore work upon Elena to renounce the sisterly scheme and to return to his arms once more. He must regain possession of this beautiful woman, extract the utmost possible pleasure from her beauty and free himself for ever of this passion by reaching the point of satiety. But it was a task demanding prudence and patience. In that first interview, his ardour had availed him nothing. Obviously, she had founded her plan of impeccability on the grand phrase—'Could you endure to share me with another?' The mainspring of the great platonic business was a virtuous horror of divided possession. For the rest, it was just within the bounds of possibility that this horror was not feigned. Most women addicted to the practice of free love, if they do eventually marry, affect, during the early days of theirmarriage, a savage virtue, and make professions of conjugal fidelity with the most honest determination. Perhaps, therefore, Elena had been affected by this common scruple, in which case, nothing would be more ill-advised than to show his hand too boldly and offend against her new-found virtue. The better plan would be to second her spiritual aspirations, accept her as 'the fondest of sisters, the truest of friends,' intoxicate her with the ideal, be skilfully platonic and then make her glide imperceptibly from frank sisterly relations to a more passionate friendship, and from thence to the complete surrender of her person. In all probability these transitions would occur very rapidly. It all depended upon a wise adjustment of circumstances——
Thus Andrea Sperelli reasoned, sitting in front of the fire which had glowed upon Elena, laughing among the scattered rose leaves. A boundless lassitude weighed upon him, a lassitude which did not invite sleep, a sense of weariness, so empty, so disconsolate as to be almost a longing for death; while the fire died out on the hearth and the tea grew cold in the cup.
He waited in vain during the days that followed for the promised note to tell him when he might see Elena again——So she did intend to make another appointment with him; the question was—where? At the Casa Zuccari again? Would she risk such an imprudence a second time? This uncertainty kept him on the rack. He passed whole hours in searching for some way of meeting her, of seeing her again. He went several times to the Hotel Quirinal in the hope of being received, but never once did he find her at home. One evening, he saw her again in the theatre with 'Mumps,' as she called her husband. Though only saying the usual things about the music, the singers, the ladies, he infused a supplicating melancholy into his gaze. She seemed greatly taken up by the arrangement of their house. They were going back to the Palazzo Barberini, her old quarters, but were having them much enlarged, and she was for ever occupied with upholsterers and decorators, giving orders and superintending the placing of the furniture.
'Are you going to stay long in Rome?' asked Andrea.
'Yes,' she answered—'Rome will be our winter residence.' Then, after a moment's pause—'You could give us some very good advice about the furniture. Come to the palace one of these days. I am always there from ten to twelve.'
He took advantage of a moment when Lord Heathfield was talking to Giulio Musellaro, who had just entered the box, to say to her, looking her full in the eyes.
'To-morrow?'
'By all means,' she replied with perfect simplicity, as if she had not noticed the tone of his question.
The next morning, about eleven, he set off on foot to the Palazzo Barberini through the Via Sistina. It was a road he had often traversed before—and, for a moment, the impressions of those days seemed to come back to him, and his heart swelled. The fountain of Bernini shone curiously luminous in the sunshine, as if the dolphins and the Triton with his conch-shell had, by some interrupted metamorphose transformed themselves into a more diaphanous material—not stone, nor yet quite crystal. The noise of the building of new Rome filled all the piazza and the adjoining streets; country children ran in and out between the carts and horses offering violets for sale.
As he passed through the gate and entered the garden, he felt that he was beginning to tremble. 'Then Idolove her still?' he thought to himself—'Is she still the woman ofmy dreams?'
He looked at the great palace, radiant under the morning sun, and his spirit flew back to the days when, in certain chill and misty dawns, this same palace had assumed for him a look of enchantment. That was in the early times of his happiness, when he came away warm from her kisses and full of his new-found bliss; the bells of Trinità de' Monti, of San Isidoro and the Cappuccini rang out the Angelus into the dawning day, with a muffled peal as if out of the far distance—at the corner of the street, fires glowed red round cauldrons of boiling asphalt—a little herd of goats stood against the white wall of the slumbering house——
These forgotten sensations rose up once more out of the depths of his consciousness, and, for an instant, a wave of the old love swept over his soul, for one moment he tried to imagine that Elena was still the Elena of those days, that his happiness had endured till now, that none of these miserable things were true. As he crossed the threshold of the palace, all this illusory ferment died away on the instant, for Lord Heathfield came forward to greet him with his habitual and somewhat ambiguous smile.
With that his torture began.
Elena appeared, and shaking hands cordially with him in her husband's presence, she said—'Bravo, Andrea! Come and help us, come and help us!'
She talked and gesticulated with much vivacity and looked very girlish in a close-fitting jacket of dark-blue cloth, trimmed round the high collar and the cuffs with black astrachan and fine black braiding. She kept one hand in her pocket in a graceful attitude, and with the other pointed out the various wall-hangings, the pictures, the furniture, asking his advice as to their most advantageous disposal.
'Where would you put these two chests? Look—Mumps picked them up at Lucca. These pictures are your beloved Botticelli's.—Where would you hang these tapestries?'
Andrea recognised the four pieces of tapestry from the Immenraet sale representing the Story of Narcissus. He looked at Elena, but could not catch her eye. A profound sense of irritation against her, against her husband, against all these things took possession of him. He would have liked to go away, but politeness demanded that he should place his good taste at the service of the Heathfields; it also obliged him to submit to the archæological erudition of 'Mumps,' who was an ardent collector and was anxious to show him some of his finds. In one cabinet Andrea caught sight of the Pollajuolo helmet, and in another of the rock-crystal goblet which had belonged to Niccolo Niccoli. The presence of that particular goblet in this particular place moved him strangely and sent a flash of mad suspicion through his mind.
So it had fallen into the hands of Lord Heathfield! The famous competition between the Countesses having come to nothing, nobody troubled themselves further about the fate of the goblet, and none of the party had returned to the sale after that day. Their ephemeral zeal had languished and finally died out and passed away, like everything else in the world of fashion, and the goblet had been abandoned to the competition of other collectors. The thing was perfectlynatural, but at that moment it appeared to Andrea most extraordinary.
He purposely stopped before the cabinet and gazed long at the precious goblet on which the story of Venus and Anchises glittered as if cut in a pure diamond.
'Niccolo Niccoli!' said Elena, pronouncing the name with an indefinable accent in which the young man seemed to catch a note of sadness.
The husband had just gone into another room to open a cabinet.
'Remember—remember!' murmured Andrea, turning towards her.
'I do remember.'
'Then when may I see you?'
'Ah, when?'
'But you promised me——'
Lord Heathfield returned. They passed on into an adjoining room, making the tour of the apartments. Everywhere they met workmen hanging papers, draping curtains, carrying furniture. Each time Elena asked his opinion, Andrea had to make an effort before answering her, in order to disguise his ill-humour and his impatience. At last, he managed to seize a moment when her husband was occupied with one of the men to say to her in a low voice, unable any longer to conceal his chagrin—
'Why inflict this torture upon me? I expected to find you alone.'
Passing through one of the doors, Elena's hat caught in the portière and was dragged out of place. She laughed and called to Mumps to come and unfasten her veil. And Andrea was forced to look on while those odious hands touched the hair of the woman he desired, ruffling the little curls at the back of her neck, those curls which under his caresses had seemed to breathe out a mysterious perfume, unlike any other, and sweeter and more intoxicating than all the rest.
He hurriedly took his leave under pretext of being due at lunch with some one else.
'We shall move in here on the 1st of February,' Elena said to him, 'and then I hope you will be one of ourhabitués.'
Andrea bowed.
He would have given worlds not to be obliged to touch Lord Heathfield's hand. He went away filled with rancour, jealousy and disgust.
At a late hour that same evening, happening to look in at the Club, where he had not been for a long time, whom should he see at one of the card-tables but Don Manuel Ferrès y Capdevila. Andrea greeted him with effusion and inquired after Donna Maria and Delfina—whether they were still at Sienna—when they were coming to Rome.
Don Manuel, who remembered to have won several thousand lire from the young Count during the last evening at Schifanoja, and had recognised in Andrea Sperelli a player of the best form and perfect style, responded with the utmost courtesy and cordiality.
'They have been here some days already; they arrived on Monday,' he answered. 'Maria was much disappointed not to find the Marchesa d'Ateleta in town. I am sure it would give her the greatest pleasure if you would call on her. We are in the Via Nazionale. Here is the exact address.'
He handed one of his cards to Andrea and then returned to the game.
The Duke di Beffi, who was standing with a knot of gentlemen, called Andrea over to them.
'Why did you not come to Cento Celli this morning?' asked the duke.
'I had another appointment,' Andrea replied without reflecting.
'At the Palazzo Barberini perhaps?' said the duke with a shy laugh, in which he was joined by the others.
'Perhaps.'
'Perhaps, indeed?—why, Ludovico saw you go in.'
'And where were you, may I ask?' said Andrea turning to Barbarisi.
'Over the way, at my Aunt Saviano's.'
'Ah!'
'I don't know if you had better luck than we had,' Beffi went on, 'but we had a run of forty-two minutes and got two foxes. The next meet is on Thursday at the Three Fountains.'
'You understand—at theThreeFountains, not at theFour,' Gino Bomminaco admonished him with comic gravity.
The others burst into a roar of laughter which Andrea could not help joining. He was by no means displeased at their gibes; on the contrary, now that there was no truth in their suspicions, it flattered him for his friends to think he had renewed his relations with Elena. He turned away to speak to Giulio Musellaro, who had just come in. From a few strays words that reached his ear, he found that the group behind him were discussing Lord Heathfield.
'I knew him in London six or seven years ago,' Beffi was saying. 'He was Gentleman of the Bed-chamber to the Prince of Wales as far as I remember——'
The duke lowered his voice, he was evidently retailing the most appalling things. Andrea caught scraps here and there of a highly-spiced nature and, once or twice, the name of a newspaper famous in the annals of London scandal. He longed to hear more; a terrible curiosity took possession of him. His imagination conjured up Lord Heathfield's hands before him—so white, so significant, so expressive, so impossible to forget. Musellaro was still talking, and now said—
'Let us go—I want to tell you——'
On the stairs they encountered Albonico, who was coming up. He was in deep mourning for Donna Ippolita, and Andrea stopped to ask for details of the sad event. He had heard of her death when he was in Paris in November from Guido Montelatici, a cousin of Donna Ippolita.
'Was it really typhus?'
The wan and pale-eyed widower grasped at an occasion for pouring out his griefs, for he made a display of his bereavement as, at one time, he had made a display of his wife's beauty. He stammered and grew lachrymose and his colourless eyes seemed bulging from his head.
Seeing that the widower's elegy threatened to be somewhat long drawn out, Musellaro said to Andrea—
'If we don't take care, we shall be late.'
Andrea accordingly took leave of Albonico, promising to hear the rest of the funeral oration very shortly, and went away with Musellaro.
The meeting with Albonico had re-awakened the singular emotion—partly regret, partly a certain peculiar satisfaction—which he had experienced for several days after hearing the news of this death. The image of Donna Ippolita, half obliterated by his illness and convalescence, by his love for Maria Ferrès, by a variety of incidents, had reappeared to him then as in the dim distance, but invested with a nameless ideality. He had received a promise from her which, though it was never fulfilled, had procured to him the greatest happiness that can befall a man: the victory over a rival, a brilliant victory in the presence of the woman he desired. Later on, between desire and regret another sentiment grew up—the poetic sentiment for beauty idealised by death. It pleased him that the adventure should end thus for ever. This woman who had never been his, but to gain whom he had nearly lost his life, now rose up noble and unsullied before his imagination in all the sublime ideality of death.Tibi, Hippolyta, semper!
'But where are we going to?' asked Musellaro, stopping short in the middle of the Piazza de Venezia.
At the bottom of all Andrea's perturbation and all his varying thoughts, was the excitement called up in him by his meeting with Don Manuel Ferrès and the consequent thought of Donna Maria; and now, in the midst of these conflicting emotions, a sort of nervous longing drew him to her house.
'I am going home,' he answered; 'we can go through the Via Nazionale. Come along with me.'
He paid no heed to what his friend was saying. The thought of Maria Ferrès occupied him exclusively. Arrived in front of the theatre, he hesitated a moment, undecided which side of the street he had better take. He would find out the direction of the house by seeing which way the numbers ran.
'What is the matter?' asked Musellaro.
'Nothing—go on,—I am listening.'
He looked at one number and calculated that the house must be on the left hand side, somewhere about the Villa Aldobrandini. The tall pines round the villa looked feathery light against the starry sky. The night was icy but serene; the Torre delle Milizie lifted up its massive bulk, square and sombre among the twinkling stars; the laurels on the wall of Servius slumbered motionless in the gleam of the street lamps.
A few numbers more and they would reach the one mentioned on Don Manuel's card. Andrea trembled as if he expected Donna Maria to appear upon the threshold. He passed so close to the great door that he brushed against it; he could not refrain from looking up at the windows.
'What are you looking at?' asked Musellaro.
'Nothing—give me a cigarette and let us walk a little faster; it is awfully cold.'
They followed the Via Nazionale as far as the Four Fountains in silence. Andrea's preoccupation was patent.
'You must decidedly have something serious on your mind,' said his friend.
Andrea's heart beat so fast that he was on the point of pouring his confidences into his friend's ear, but he restrained himself. Memories of Schifanoja passed across his spirit like an exhilarating perfume, and in the midst of them beamed the figure of Maria Ferrès with a radiance that almost dazzled him. But most distinctly and more luminously than all the rest, he saw that moment in the wood at Vicomile, when shehad flung those burning words at him. Would he ever hear such words from her lips again? What had she been doing—what had been her thoughts—how had she spent the days since they parted? His agitation increased with every step. Fragments of scenes passed rapidly before him like the phantasmagoria of a dream—a bit of country, a glimpse of the sea, a flight of steps among the roses, the interior of a room, all the places in which some sentiment had had its birth, round which she had diffused some sweetness, where she had breathed the charm of her person. And he thrilled with profound emotion at the idea that perchance she still carried in her heart that living passion, had perhaps suffered and wept, had dreamed and hoped.
'Well?' said Musellaro, 'and how is your affair with Donna Elena progressing?'
They happened to be just in front of the Palazzo Barberini. Behind the railings and the great stone pillars of the gates stretched the garden, dimly visible through the gloom, animated by the low murmur of the fountains and dominated by the massive white palace where in the portico alone was light.
'What did you say?' asked Andrea.
'I asked how you were getting on with Donna Elena.'
Andrea glanced up at the palace. At that moment he seemed to feel a blank indifference in his heart, the absolute death of desire—the final renunciation.
'I am following your advice. I have not tried to relight the cigarette.'
'And yet, do you know, in this one instance, I believe it would be worth while. Have you noticed her particularly? It seems to me that she has become more beautiful. I cannot help thinking there is something—how shall I express it?—something new, something indescribable about her. No,newis not the word. She has gained intensity without losing anything of the peculiar character of her beauty; in short, she ismore Elenathan the Elena of two years ago—the quintessence of herself. It is, most likely, the effect of hersecond spring, for I should fancy she must be hard on thirty. Don't you think so?'
As he listened, Andrea felt the dull ashes of his love stir and kindle. Nothing revives and excites a man's desire so much as hearing from another the praises of a woman he has loved too long or wooed in vain. A love in its death-throes may thus be prolonged as the result of the envy or the admiration of another; for the disgusted or wearied lover hesitates to abandon what he possesses or is struggling to possess in favour of a possible successor.
'Don't you think so?' Musellaro repeated. 'And, besides, to make a Menelaus of that Heathfield would in itself be an unspeakable satisfaction.'
'So I think,' answered Andrea, forcing himself to adopt his friend's light tone. 'Well, we shall see.'
'Maria, grant me this one moment of unalloyed sweetness! Let me tell you all that is in my heart.'
She rose. 'Forgive, me,' she said gently, without anger or bitterness and with an audible quiver of emotion in her voice. 'Forgive me but I cannot listen to you. You pain me very much.'
'Well, I will not say anything—only stay—I implore you.'
She seated herself once more. It was like the days of Schifanoja come back again. The same matchless grace of the delicate head drooping under the masses of hair as under some divine chastisement, the same deep and tender shadow, a fusion of diaphanous violet and soft blue, surrounding the tawny brown eyes.
'I only wanted,' Andrea went on humbly, 'I only wanted to remind you of the words I spoke, the words you listened to that morning in the park under the shadow of the trees, in an hour that will always remain sacred in my memory.'
'I have not forgotten them.'
'Since that day my unhappiness has become ever deeper, darker, more poignant. I can never tell you all I have suffered, all the abject misery of that time: can never tell you how often in spirit I have called upon you as if my last hour had come, nor describe to you the thrill of joy, the upward bound of my whole soul towards the light of hope, if, for one moment, I dared to think that the remembrance of me still lived in your heart.'
He spoke in the accents of that morning long ago; heseemed to have regained the same passionate rapture: all his vaguely felt happiness rose to his lips. And she sat motionless, listening with drooping head, almost in the same attitude as on that day; and round her lips, those lips which she vainly sought to keep firm, there played the same expression of dolorous rapture.
'Do you remember Vicomile? Do you remember our ride through the wood on that evening in October?'
Donna Maria bent her head slightly in sign of assent.
'And the words you said to me?' the young man went on in a lower voice, but in a tone of suppressed passion and bending down to look into the eyes she kept steadfastly fixed upon the ground.
She raised them now to his—those sweet, patient, pathetic eyes.
'I have forgotten nothing,' she replied, 'nothing, nothing! Why should I hide my heart from you? You are good and noble-minded, and I have absolute trust in your generosity. Why should I act towards you like an ordinary foolish woman? I told you that evening that I loved you. Your question implies another one, I see that very well—you want to ask me if I love you still.'
She faltered for a moment and her lips quivered. 'I love you.'
'Maria!'
'But you must give up all claim upon my love, you must keep away from me. Be noble, be generous, and spare me the struggle which frightens me. I have suffered much, Andrea, I have borne much; but the thought of having to struggle with you, to defend myself against you, fills me with a nameless terror. You do not know at the cost of what sacrifices I have at last gained peace of heart; you do not know what lofty and cherished ideals I have been obliged to bid farewell to—poor ideals! I am a changed woman because I could not help it; I have had to place myself on a lower level.'
There was a note of grave, sweet sadness in her voice.
'In those first days after I met you, I abandoned myself to the alluring sweetness, let myself drift with eyes closed to the distant peril. I thought—he shall never know anything from me, I shall never know anything from him. I had nothing to regret and therefore I felt no fear. But you spoke—you said things to me that no one had ever said before, and then you forced my avowal from me. The danger suddenly appeared before me, unmistakable, imminent. And then I abandoned myself to a fresh dream. Your mental distress touched me to the heart, caused me profound pain. "Impurity has sullied his soul," I thought to myself. "Oh, that I had the power to purify it again! What happiness to offer myself up as a sacrifice for his regeneration!" Your unhappiness attracted mine. I thought I might scarcely be able to console you, but I hoped at least you might find relief in having another soul to answer eternallyAmento all your plaints.'
She uttered the last words with a face so suffused with spiritual exaltation that Andrea felt a wave of half-religious joy sweep over him, and his one desire, at that moment, was to take those dear and spotless hands in his and breathe upon them the ineffable rapture of his soul.
'But it cannot—it may not be.' she went on, shaking her head in sad regret. 'We must renounce that hope for ever. Life is inexorable. Without intending it, you would destroy a whole existence—and more than one perhaps——'
'Maria, Maria! do not say such things!' the young man broke in, leaning over her once more and taking one of her hands with a sort of timid entreaty, as if looking for some sign of permission before venturing on the liberty. 'I will do anything you tell me; I will be humble and obedient, my one thought shall be to carry out your wishes, my one desire, to die with your name upon my lips. In renouncing you, I renounce my salvation, I fall back into irremediable ruin and disaster. I have no words to express my love for you. I have need of you. You alone aretrue—you are Truth itself, for which my soul is ever seeking.All else is vanity—all else is nought. To give you up is like signing my death-warrant. But if this immolation is necessary to your peace of mind, it shall be done—I owe it to you. Do not fear, Maria, I will never do anything to hurt you.'
He held her hand, but he did not press it. His voice had none of the old passionate ardour, it was submissive, disconsolate, heart-broken, full of infinite weariness. And Maria was so blinded by her compassion that she did not draw away her hand, but let it lie in his, abandoning herself for a moment to the unutterable rapture of that light contact—a rapture so subtle as hardly to have any physical origin—as if some magnetic fluid, issuing from her heart, diffused itself through her arm to her fingers and there flowed forth in a wave of ineffable sweetness. When Andrea ceased speaking, certain words of his, uttered on that memorable morning in the park and revived by the recent sound of his voice, returned to her memory—'Your mere presence suffices to intoxicate me—I feel it flowing through my veins like blood, flooding my soul with nameless emotion——'
There was an interval of silence. From time to time, a gust of wind shook the window-panes and bore fitfully with it the distant roar of the city and the rumbling of carriage wheels. The light was cold and limpid as spring water; shadows were gathering thickly in the corners of the room and in the folds of the Oriental curtains; from pieces of furniture, here and there, came gleams of ivory and mother-of-pearl; a great gilded Buddha shone out of the background under a tall palm. Something of the exotic mystery of these things was diffused over the drawing-room.
'And what do you suppose is going to become of me now?' asked Andrea.
She seemed lost in perplexing thought. There was a look of irresolution on her face as if she were listening to two contending voices.
'I cannot describe to you,' she answered, passing her hand over her eyes with a rapid gesture, 'I cannot describeto you the strange foreboding that has weighed upon me for a long time past. I do not know what it is, but I amafraid.'
Then, after a pause—'Oh, to think that you may be suffering, sick at heart,—my poor darling—and that I can do nothing to ease your pain, may not be with you in your hour of anguish—may not even know that you have called me—Mio Dio!'
There was a quiver of tears in her breaking voice. Andrea hung his head but did not speak.
'To think that my spirit will follow you always, always, and yet that it may never, never mingle with yours, will never, never be understood by you!—Alas, poor love!'
Her voice was full of tears and her mouth was drawn with pain.
Ah, do not desert me—do not desert me!' cried the young man, seizing her two hands and half-kneeling at her feet, a prey to overwhelming excitement—'I will never ask anything of you—I want nothing but your pity. A little pity from you is more—far more—to me than passionate love from any other woman—you know it. Your hand alone can heal me, can bring me back to life, can raise me out of the slough into which I have sunk, give me back my faith and free me from the bondage of those shameful things that corrupt me and fill me with horror. Dear—dear—hands!'
He bent over them and pressed his lips to them in a long kiss, abandoning himself with half-closed eyes to the utter sweetness of it.
'I can feel you tremble,' he murmured in an indefinable tone.
She rose abruptly, trembling from head to foot, giddy, paler still than on the morning when they walked together beneath the flower-laden trees. The wind still shook the panes; there was a dull clamour in the distance as of a riotous crowd. The shrill cries borne on the wind from the Quirinal increased her agitation.
'Go, Andrea—please go—you must not stay here any longer. You shall see me some other time—whenever you like, but go now, I entreat you——'
'Where shall I see you again?'
'At the concert to-morrow—good-bye.'
She was as perturbed and agitated as if she had been guilty of some grave fault. She accompanied him to the door of the room. When she found herself alone, she hesitated, not knowing what to do next, still under the sway of her terror. Her temples throbbed, her cheeks and her eyes burned with fierce intensity, while cold shivers ran through her limbs. But on her hands she still felt the pressure of that beloved mouth, a sensation so surpassingly sweet that she wished it might remain there for ever indelible like some divine impress.
She looked about her. The light was fading, things looked shapeless in the shadows, the great Buddha gleamed with a weird pale light. The cries came up from the street fitfully. She went over to a window, opened it and leaned out. An icy wind blew through the street; in the direction of the Piazza dei Termini, they were already lighting the lamps. Across the way, at the Villa Aldobrandini, the trees swayed to and fro, their tops touched with a faint red glow. A huge crimson cloud hung solitary in the sky over the Torre delle Milizie.
The evening struck her as strangely lugubrious. She withdrew from the window and seated herself again where she had just had her conversation with Andrea. Why had Delfina not returned yet? She earnestly desired to escape from her thoughts, and yet she weakly allowed herself to linger in the place where, only a few minutes ago, Andrea had breathed and spoken, had sighed out his love and his unhappiness. The struggles, the resolutions, the contrition, the prayers, the penances of four months had been wiped out, made utterly unavailing in one second of time, and she sank down more weary and vanquished than ever, without the will or the power to fight against the foes that beset her in her ownheart, against the feelings that were upheaving her whole moral foundations. And while she gave way to the anguish and despair of a conscience which feels all its courage oozing from it, she still had the feeling that something ofhimlingered in the shadows of the room and enveloped her with all the sweetness of a passionate caress.
The next day, she arrived at the Palazzo dei Sabini, her heart beating fast under a bunch of violets.
Andrea was looking out for her at the door of the concert-hall.
'Thanks,' he said, and pressed her hand.
He conducted her to a seat and sat down beside her.
'I thought the anxiety of waiting for you would have killed me,' he murmured. 'I was so afraid you would not come. How grateful I am to you! Late last night,' he went on, 'I passed your house. There was a light in one window—the third looking towards the Quirinal—I would have given much to know if you were up there. Who gave you those violets?' he asked abruptly.
'Delfina,' she answered.
'Did Delfina tell you of our meeting this morning in the Piazza di Spagna?'
'Yes—all.'
The concert began with a Quartett by Mendelssohn. The hall was already nearly full, the audience consisting, for the most part, of foreign ladies—fair-haired women very quietly and simply dressed, grave of attitude, religiously silent, as in some sacred spot. The wave of music passing over these motionless heads spread out into the golden light, a light that filtered from above through faded yellow curtains and was reflected from the bare white walls. It was the old hall of the Philharmonic concerts. The whiteness of the walls was unbroken by any ornament, with only here and there a trace of former frescoes and its meagre blue portièresthreatening to come down at any moment. It had all the air of a place that had been closed for a century and opened again that day for the first time. But just this faded look of age, the air of poverty, the nakedness of the walls lent a curious additional flavour to the exquisite enjoyment of the audience, making their delight seem more absorbing, loftier, purer by contrast. It was the 2nd of February; at Montecitorio the Parliament was disputing over the massacre of Dogali; the neighbouring streets and squares swarmed with the populace and with soldiers.
Musical memories of Schifanoja came back to the lovers, a reflected gleam from those fair autumn days illumined their thoughts. Mendelssohn's Minuet called up before them a vision of the villa by the sea, of rooms filled with the perfume of the terraced garden, of cypresses lifting their dark heads into the soft sky, of flaming sails upon a glassy sea.
Bending towards his companion, Andrea whispered softly: 'What are you thinking about?'
With a smile so faint that he hardly caught it, she answered:
'Do you remember the 22nd of September?'
Andrea had no very clear recollection of this date, but he nodded his head.
The Andante, calm, broad and solemn, dominated by a wonderful and pathetic melody, had ended in a sudden outburst of grief. The Finale lingered in a certain rhythmic monotony full of plaintive weariness.
'Now comes your favourite Bach,' said Donna Maria.
And when the music commenced they both felt an instinctive desire to draw closer to each other. Their shoulders touched; at the end of each part Andrea leant over her to read the programme which she held open in her hands, and in so doing pressed against her arm, inhaling the perfume of her violets, and sending a wild thrill of ecstasy through her. The Adagio rose with so exultant a song, soared with so jubilant a strain to the topmost summits of rapture, and flowed wide into the Infinite, that it seemed like the voice of some celestial being pouring out the joy of a deathlessvictory. The spirits of the audience were borne along on that irresistible torrent of sound. When the music ceased, the tremor of the instruments continued for a moment in the hearers. A murmur ran from one end of the hall to the other. A moment later and the applause broke forth vehemently.
The lovers turned simultaneously and looked at one another with swimming eyes.
The music continued; the light began to fade; a gentle warmth pervaded the air, and Donna Maria's violets breathed a fuller fragrance. Seeing nobody near him whom he knew, Andrea almost felt as if he were alone with her.
But he was mistaken. Turning round in one of the pauses, he caught sight of Elena standing at the back of the hall with the Princess of Ferentino. Instantly their eyes met. As he bowed to her, he seemed to catch a singular smile on Elena's lips.
'To whom are you bowing?' asked Donna Maria, turning round too, 'who are those ladies?'
'Lady Heathfield and the Princess of Ferentino.'
She noticed a tremor of annoyance in his voice.
'Which of them is the Princess of Ferentino?'
'The fair one.'
'The other is very beautiful.'
Andrea said nothing.
'But is she English?' she asked again.
'No, she is a Roman. She was the widow of the Duke of Scerni, and now married again to Lord Heathfield.'
'She is very lovely.'
'What is coming next?' Andrea asked hurriedly.
'The Brahms Quartett in C minor.'
'Do you know it?'
'No.'
'The second movement is marvellous.'
He went on speaking to hide his embarrassment.
'When shall I see you again?' he asked.
'I do not know.'
'To-morrow?'
She hesitated. A cloud seemed to have come over her face.
'To-morrow,' she answered, 'if it is fine I shall take Delfina to the Piazza di Spagna about twelve o'clock.'
'And if it is not fine?'
'On Saturday evening I shall be at the Countess Starnina's——'
The music began once more. The first movement expressed a sombre and virile struggle, the Romance a memory full of passionate but sad desire, followed by a slow uplifting, faltering and tentative, towards the distant dawn. Out of this a clear and melodious phrase developed itself with splendid modulations. The sentiment was very different from that which animated Bach's Adagio; it was more human, more earthly, more elegiacal. A breath of Beethoven ran through this music.
Andrea's nervous perturbation was so great that he feared every moment to betray himself. All his pleasure was embittered. He could not exactly analyse his discomfort; he could neither gather himself together and overcome it, nor put it away from him; he was swayed in turn by the charm of the music and the fascination exercised over him by each of these women without being really dominated by any of the three. He had a vague sensation as of some empty space, in which heavy blows perpetually resounded followed by dolorous echoes. His thoughts seemed to break up and crumble away into a thousand fragments, and the images of the two women to melt into and destroy one another without his being able to disconnect them or to separate his feeling for the one from his feeling for the other. And above all this mental disturbance was the anxiety occasioned by the immediate circumstances, by the necessity for adopting some practical line of action. Donna Maria's slight change of attitude had not escaped him, and he seemed to feel Elena's gaze riveted upon him. What course should he pursue? He could not make up his mind whether toaccompany Donna Maria when she left the concert, or to approach Elena, nor could he determine where this incident would be favourable to him or otherwise with either of the ladies.
'I am going,' said Donna Maria, rising at the end of the movement.
'You will not wait till the end?'
'No, I must be home by five o'clock.'
'Do not forget—to-morrow morning——'
She held out her hand. It was perhaps the air of the close room that sent a flush to her pale cheek. A velvet mantle of a dull leaden shade, with a deep border of chinchilla, covered her to her feet, and amid the soft gray fur the violets were dying exquisitely. As she passed out, she moved with such a queenly grace that many of the ladies turned to follow her with their eyes. It was the first time that in this spiritual creature, the pure Siennese Madonna, Andrea also beheld the elegant woman of the world.
The third movement of the Quartett began. The daylight had diminished so much that the yellow curtains had to be drawn back. Several other ladies left. A low hum of conversation was audible here and there. The fatigue and inattention which invariably marks the end of a concert began to make itself apparent in the audience. By one of those strange and abrupt manifestations of moral elasticity, Andrea experienced a sudden sense of relief, not to say gaiety. In a moment, he had forgotten his sentimental and passionate pre-occupations, and all that now appealed to him—to his vanity, to his corrupt senses—was the licentious aspect of the affair. He thought to himself that in granting him these little innocent rendezvous, Donna Maria had already set her foot on the gentle downward slope of the path at the bottom of which lies sin, inevitable even to the most vigilant soul; he also argued that doubtless a little touch of jealousy would do much towards bringing Elena back to his arms and that thus the one intrigue would help on the other—was it not a vague fear, a jealous forebodingthat had made Donna Maria consent so quickly to their next meeting? He saw himself, therefore, well on the way to a two-fold conquest, and he could not repress a smile as he reflected that in both adventures the chief difficulty presented itself under the same guise: both women professed a wish to play the part of sister to him; it was for him to transform these sisters in something closer. He remarked upon other resemblances between the two—That voice! How curiously like Elena's were some tones in Donna Maria's voice! A mad thought flashed through his brain. That voice might furnish him with the elements of a study of imagination—by virtue of that affinity, he might resolve the two fair women into one, and thus possess a third, imaginary, mistress, more complex, more perfect, moretruebecause she would be ideal——
The third movement, executed in faultless style, finished in a burst of applause. Andrea rose and approached Elena—
'Oh, there you are, Ugenta! Where have you been all this time?' exclaimed the Princess—'In the "pays du Tendre?"'
'And your incognita?' asked Elena lightly as she pulled a bunch of violets out of her muff and sniffed them.
'She is a great friend of my cousin Francesca's, Donna Maria Ferrès y Capdevila, the wife of the new minister for Guatemala,' Andrea replied without turning a hair—'a beautiful creature and very cultivated—she was at Schifanoja with Francesca last September.'
'And what of Francesca?' Elena broke in—'do you know when she is coming back?'
'I had the latest news from her a day or two ago—from San Remo. Fernandino is better, but I am afraid she will have to stay on there another month at least, perhaps longer.'
'What a pity!'
The last movement, a very short one, began. Elena and the Princess occupied two chairs at the end of the room, against the wall under a dim mirror in which the melancholy hall was reflected. Elena listened with bent head, slowly drawing through her fingers the long ends of her boa.
The concert over, she said to Sperelli: 'Will you see us to the carriage?'
As she entered her carriage after the Princess, she turned to him again—'Won't you come too? We will drop Eva at the Palazzo Fiano, and I can put you down wherever you like.'
'Thanks,' answered Andrea, nothing loath. On the Corso they were obliged to proceed very slowly, the whole roadway being taken up by a seething, tumultuous crowd. From the Piazza di Montecitorio and the Piazza Colonna came a perfect uproar that swelled and rose and fell and rose again, mingled with shrill trumpet-blasts. The tumult increased as the gray cold twilight deepened. Horror at the tragedy enacted in a far-off land made the populace howl with rage; men broke through the dense crowd running and waving great bundles of newspapers. Through all the clamour, the one word Africa rang distinctly.
'And all this for four hundred brutes who had died the death of brutes!' murmured Andrea, withdrawing his head from the carriage window.
'What are you saying!' cried the Princess.
At the corner of the Chigi palace the commotion assumed the aspect of a riot. The carriage had to stop. Elena leaned forward to look out, and her face emerging from the shadows and lighted up by the glare of the gas and the reflection of the sunset seemed of a ghastly whiteness, an almost icy pallor, reminding Andrea of some head he had seen before, he could not say where or when—in some gallery or chapel.
'Here we are,' said the Princess, as the carriage drew up at last at the Palazzo Fiano. 'Good-bye—we shall meet again at the Angelieris' this evening. Ugenta will come and lunch with us to-morrow? You will find Elena and Barbarella Viti and my cousin there——'
'At what time?'
'Half-past twelve.'
'Thanks, I will.'
The Princess got out. The footman stood at the carriage door awaiting further orders.
'Where shall I take you?' Elena asked Sperelli, who had promptly taken the place of the Princess beside her.
'Far, far away——'
'Nonsense—tell me now,—home?' And without waiting for his answer she said—'To the Palazzo Zuccari, Trinità de' Monti.'
The footman closed the carriage door and they drove off down the Via Frattina leaving all the turmoil of the crowd behind them.
'Oh, Elena—after so long——' Andrea burst out, leaning down to gaze at the woman he so passionately desired and who had shrunk away from him into the shadow as if to avoid his contact.
The brilliant lights of the shop windows pierced the gloom in the carriage as they passed, and he saw on Elena's white face a slow alluring smile.
Still smiling thus, with a rapid movement she unwound the boa from her neck and cast it over Andrea's head like a lasso, and with that soft loop, all fragrant with the same perfume he had noticed in the blue fox of her coat, she drew the young man towards her and silently held up her lips to his.
Well did those two pairs of lips remember the rapture of by-gone days, those terrible and yet deliriously sweet meetings prolonged to anguish. They held their breath to taste the sweetness of that kiss to the full.
Passing through the Via due Macelli the carriage drove up the Via dei Tritone, turned into the Via Sistina and stopped at the door of the Palazzo Zuccari.
Elena instantly released her captive, saying rather huskily—
'Go now, good-bye.'
'When will you come?'
'Chi sa!'
The footman opened the door and Andrea got out. The carriage turned back to the Via Sistina and Andrea, still vibrating with passion, a veil of mist before his eyes, stood watching to see if Elena's face would not appear at thewindow; but he saw nothing. The carriage drove rapidly away.
As he ascended the stairs to his apartment, he said to himself—'So she has come round at last!' The intoxication of her presence was still upon him, on his lips he still felt the pressure of her kiss, and in his eyes was the flash of the smile with which she had thrown that sort of smooth and perfumed snake about his neck. And Donna Maria?—Most assuredly it was to her he owed these unexpected favours. There was no doubt that at the bottom of Elena's strange and fantastic behaviour lay a decided touch of jealousy. Fearing perhaps that he was escaping her she sought thus to lure him back and rekindle his passion. 'Does she love me, or does she not?' But what did it matter to him one way or another? What good would it do him to know? The spell was broken irremediably. No miracle that ever was wrought could revive the least little atom of the love that was dead. The only thing that need occupy him now was the carnal body, and that was divine as ever.