Cornélie now saw no one except Duco. Mrs. van der Staal had broken with her and would not allow her daughters to have any further intercourse with her. A coolness had arisen even between the mother and the son. Cornélie saw no one now except Duco and, at times, Urania Hope. The American girl came to her pretty often and told her about Belloni's, where the people talked about Cornélie and Duco and commented on their relations. Urania was glad to think herself above that hotel gossip, but still she wanted to warn Cornélie. Her words displayed a simple spontaneity of friendship that appealed to Cornélie. When Cornélie, however, asked after the prince, she became silent and confused and evidently did not wish to say much. Then, after the court ball, at which the queen had really worn the dress embroidered with seed-pearls, Urania came and looked Cornélie up again and admitted, over a cup of tea, that she had that morning promised to go and see the prince at his own place. She said this quite simply, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Cornélie was horrified and asked her how she could have promised such a thing.
"Why not?" Urania replied. "What is there in it? I receive his visits. If he asks me to come and see his rooms—he lives in the Palazzo Ruspoli and wants to show me his pictures and miniatures and old lace—why should I refuse to go? Why should I make a fuss about it? I am above any such narrow-mindedness. We American girls go about freely with our men friends. And what about yourself? You go for walks with Mr. Van der Staal, you lunch with him, you go for trips with him, you go to his studio...."
"I have been married," said Cornélie. "I am responsible to no one. You have your parents. What you are thinking of doing is imprudent and high-handed. Tell me, does the prince think of ... marrying you?"
"If I become a Catholic."
"And...?"
"I think ... I shall. I have written to Chicago," she said, hesitatingly.
She closed her beautiful eyes for a second and went pale, because the title of princess and duchess flashed before her sight:
"Only...." she began.
"Only what?"
"I sha'n't have a cheerful life. The prince belongs to the Blacks. They are always in mourning because of the Pope. They have hardly anything in their set: no dances, no parties. If we got married, I should like him to come to America with me. Their home in the Abruzzi is a lonely, tumble-down castle. His father is a very proud, stand-offish, silent person. I have been told so by ever so many people. What am I to do, Cornélie? I'm very fond of Gilio: his name is Virgilio. And then, you know, the title is an old Italian title: Principe di Forte-Braccio, Duca di San Stefano.... But then, you see, that's all there is to it. San Stefano is a hole. That's where his papa lives. They sell wine and live on that. And olive-oil; but they don't make any money. My father manufactures stockinet; but he has grown rich on it. They haven't many family-jewels. I have made enquiries.... His cousin, the Contessa di Rosavilla, the lady-in-waiting to the queen, is nice ... but we shouldn't see her officially. I shouldn't be able to go anywhere. It does strike me as rather boring."
Cornélie spoke vehemently, blazed out and repeated her phrases: against marriage in general and now against this marriage in particular, merely for the sake of a title. Urania assented: it was merely for the title; but then there was Gilio too, of course: he was so nice and she was fond of him. But Cornélie didn't believe a word of it and told her so straight out. Urania began to cry: she did not know what to do.
"And when were you to go to the prince?"
"This evening."
"Don't go."
"No, no, you're right, I sha'n't go."
"Do you promise me?"
"Yes, yes."
"Don't go, Urania."
"No, I sha'n't go. You're a dear girl. You're quite right: I won't go. I swear to you I won't."
The undertaking which Urania had given was so vague, however, that Cornélie felt uneasy and spoke of it to Duco that evening, when she met him at the restaurant. But he was not interested in Urania, in what she did or didn't do; and he shrugged his shoulders indifferently. Cornélie, on the other hand, was silent and absent-minded and did not listen to what he was talking about: a side-panel of a triptych, undoubtedly by Lippo Memmi, which he had discovered in a little shop by the Tiber; the angel of the Annunciation, almost as beautiful as the one in the Uffizi, kneeling with the stir of his last flight yet about him, with the lily-stem in his hands. But the dealer asked two hundred lire for it and he did not want to give more than fifty. And yet the dealer had not mentioned Memmi's name, did not suspect that the angel was by Memmi.
Cornélie was not listening; and suddenly she said: "I am going to the Palazzo Ruspoli."
He looked up in surprise:
"What for?"
"To ask for Miss Hope."
He was dumb with amazement and stared at her open-mouthed.
"If she's not there," Cornélie went on, "it's all right. If she is, if she has gone after all, I'll ask to speak to her on urgent business."
He did not know what to say, thinking her sudden idea so strange, so eccentric, thinking it so unnecessary that her curve should cross the curves of insignificant, indifferent people, that he did not know how to choose his words. Cornélie glanced at her watch:
"It's past half-past nine. If she does go, she will go about this time."
She called the waiter and paid the bill. And she buttoned her coat and stood up. He followed after her:
"Cornélie," he began, "isn't what you are doing rather strange? It'll mean all sorts of worries for you."
"If one always objected to being worried, one would never do a good action."
They walked on in silence, he moving irritably by her side. They did not speak: he thought her intention simply crazy; she thought him wanting in chivalry, not to wish to protect Urania. She was thinking of her pamphlet, of her fellow-women; and she wanted to protect Urania from marriage, from that prince. And they walked through the Corso to the Palazzo Ruspoli. He became nervous, made another attempt to restrain her; but she had already asked the porter:
"Isil signore principeat home?"
The man looked at her suspiciously:
"No," he said, curtly.
"I believe he is. If so, ask if Miss Hope is with his excellency. Miss Hope was not at home; I believe that she was coming to see the prince this evening; and I want to speak to her urgently ... on a matter which will not brook delay. Here: la Signora de Retz...."
She handed him her card. She spoke with the greatest self-possession and referred to Urania's visit calmly and simply, as though it were an everyday occurrence for American girls to call on Italian princes in the evening and as though she were persuaded that the porter knew of this custom. The man was disconcerted by her attitude, bowed, took the card and went away. Cornélie and Duco waited in the portico.
He admired her calmness. He considered her behaviour eccentric; but she carried out her eccentricity with a self-assurance which once more showed her in a new light. Would he never understand her, would he never grasp anything or know anything for certain of that changeful and intangible vagueness of hers? He could never have spoken those few words to that porter in just that tone! Where had she got that tact from, that dignified, serious attitude towards that imposing janitor, with his long cane and his cocked hat? She did it all as easily as she ordered their simple dinner, with a pleasant familiarity, of the waiter at their little restaurant.
The porter returned:
"Miss Hope and his excellency beg that you will come upstairs."
She looked at Duco with a triumphant smile, amused at his confusion:
"Will you come, too?"
"Why, no," he stammered. "I can wait for you here."
She followed the footman up the stairs. The wide corridor was hung with family-portraits. The drawing-room-door was open and the prince came out to meet her.
"Please forgive me, prince," she said, calmly, putting out her hand.
His eyes were small and pinched and gleamed like carbuncles; he was white with rage; but he controlled himself and pressed his lips to the hand which she gave him.
"Forgive me," she went on. "I want to speak to Miss Hope on an urgent matter."
She entered the drawing-room; Urania was there, blushing and embarrassed.
"You understand," Cornélie said, with a smile, "that I would not have disturbed you if it had not been important. A question between women ... and still important!" she continued, jestingly and the prince made an insipid, gallant reply. "May I speak to Miss Hope alone for a moment?"
The prince looked at her. He suspected unfriendliness in her and more, hostility. But he bowed, with his insipid smile, and said that he would leave the ladies to themselves. He went to another room.
"What is it, Cornélie?" asked Urania, in agitation. She took Cornélie's two hands and looked at her anxiously.
"Nothing," said Cornélie, severely. "I have nothing to say to you. Only I had my suspicions and felt sure that you would not keep your promise. I wanted to make certain if you were here. Why did you come?"
Urania began to weep.
"Don't cry!" whispered Cornélie, mercilessly. "For God's sake don't start crying! You've done the most thoughtless thing imaginable...."
"I know I have!" Urania confessed, nervously, drying her tears.
"Then why did you do it?"
"I couldn't help it."
"Alone, with him, in the evening! A man well-known to be a bad lot."
"I know."
"What do you see in him?"
"I'm fond of him."
"You only want to marry him for his title. For the sake of his title you're compromising yourself. What if he doesn't respect you this evening as his future wife? What if he compels you to be his mistress?"
"Cornélie! Don't!"
"You're a child, a thoughtless child. And your father lets you travel by yourself ... to see 'dear old Italy!' You're an American and broad-minded: that's all right; to travel through the world pluckily on your own is all right; but you're not a woman, you're a baby!"
"Cornélie...."
"Come away with me; say that you're going with me ... for an urgent reason. Or no ... better say nothing. Stay. But I'll stay too."
"Yes, you stay too."
"We'll send for him now."
"Yes."
Cornélie rang the bell. A footman appeared.
"Tell his excellency that we are ready."
The man went away. In a little while the prince entered. He had never been treated like this in his own house. He was seething with rage, but he remained very polite and outwardly calm:
"Is the important matter settled?" he asked, with his small eyes and his hypocritical smile.
"Yes; thank you very much for your discretion in leaving us to ourselves," said Cornélie. "Now that I have spoken to Miss Hope, I am greatly relieved by what she has told me. Aha, you would like to know what we were talking about!"
The prince raised his eyebrows. Cornélie had spoken archly, holding up her finger as though in threat, smiling; and the prince looked at her and saw that she was handsome. Not with the striking beauty and freshness of Urania Hope, but with a more complex attractiveness, that of a married woman, divorced, but very young; that of afin-de-sièclewoman, with a faintly perverse expression in her deep grey eyes, moving under very long lashes; that of a woman of peculiar grace in the drooping lines of her tired, lax, morbid charm: a woman who knew life; a woman who saw through him: he was certain of it; a woman who, though disliking him, nevertheless spoke to him coquettishly in order to attract him, to win him, unconsciously, from sheer womanly perversity. And he saw her, in her perverse beauty, and admired her, sensitive as he was to various types of women. He suddenly thought her handsomer and less commonplace than Urania and much more distinguished and not so ingenuously susceptible to his title, a thing which he thought so silly in Urania. He was suddenly at his ease with her, his anger subsided: he thought it fun to have two good-looking women with him instead of one; and he jested in return, saying that he was consumed with curiosity, that he had been listening at the door, but had been unable to catch a word, alas!
Cornélie laughed with coquettish gaiety and looked at her watch. She said something about going, but sat down at the same time, unbuttoned her coat and said to the prince:
"I have heard so much about your miniatures. Now that I have the chance, may I see them?"
The prince was willing, charmed by the look in her eyes, by her voice; he was all fire and flame in a second.
"But," said Cornélie, "my escort is waiting outside in the portico. He would not come up: he doesn't know you. It is Mr. Van der Staal."
The prince laughed as he glanced at her. He knew of the gossip at Belloni's. He did not for a moment doubt the existence of aliaisonbetween Van der Staal and Signora de Retz. He knew that they did not care for the proprieties. And he began to like Cornélie very much.
"But I will send to Mr. Van der Staal at once to ask him to come up."
"He is waiting in the portico," said Cornélie. "He won't like to...."
"I'll go myself," said the prince, with obliging vivacity.
He left the room. The ladies stayed behind. Cornélie took off her coat, but kept on her hat, because her hair was sure to be untidy. She looked into the glass:
"Have you your powder on you?" she asked Urania.
Urania took her little ivory powder-box from her bag and handed it to Cornélie. And, while Cornélie powdered her face, Urania looked at her friend and did not understand. She remembered the impression of seriousness which Cornélie had made on her at their first meeting: studying Rome; afterwards, writing a pamphlet on the woman question and the position of divorced women. Then her warnings against marriage and the prince. And now she suddenly saw her as a most attractive, frivolous woman, irresistibly charming, even more bewitching than actually beautiful, full of coquetry in the depths of her grey eyes, which glanced up and down under the curling lashes, simply dressed in a dark silk blouse and a cloth skirt, but with so much distinction and so much coquetry, with so much dignity and yet with a touch of yielding winsomeness, that she hardly knew her.
But the prince had returned, bringing Duco with him. Duco was nervously reluctant, not knowing what had happened, not grasping how Cornélie had acted. He saw her sitting quietly, smiling; and she at once explained that the prince was going to show her his miniatures.
Duco declared flatly that he did not care for miniatures. The prince suspected from his irritable tone that he was jealous. And this suspicion incited the prince to pay attentions to Cornélie. And he behaved as though he were showing his miniatures only toher, as though he were showingherhis old lace. She admired the lace in particular and rolled it between her delicate fingers. She asked him to tell her about his grandmothers, who used to wear the lace: had they had any adventures? He told her one which made her laugh very much; then he told an anecdote or two, vivaciously, flaming up under her glance, and she laughed. Amid the atmosphere of that big drawing-room, his study—it contained his writing-table—with the candles lighted and flowers everywhere for Urania, a certain perverse gaiety began to reign, a frivolousjoie de vivre. But only between Cornélie and the prince. Urania had fallen silent; and Duco did not speak a word. Cornélie was a revelation to him also. He had never seen her like that: not at the dance on Christmas Day, nor at thetable-d'hôte, nor in his studio, nor on their excursions, nor in their restaurant. Was she a woman, or was she ten women?
And he confessed to himself that he loved her, that he loved her more at each revelation, more with each woman that he saw in her, like a new facet which she made to gleam and glitter. But he could not speak, could not join in their pleasantry, feeling strange in that atmosphere, strange in that atmosphere of buoyant animal spirits, caused by nothing but aimless words, as though the French and Italian which they mixed up together were dropping so many pearls, as though their jests shone like so much tinsel, as though their equivocal playing upon words had the iridescence of a rainbow....
The prince regretted that his tea was no longer fit to drink, but he rang for some champagne. He thought that his plans had partly failed that evening, for, fearing to lose Urania, he had intended to compel her; seeing her hesitation, he had resolved to force the irreparable. But his nature was so devoid of seriousness—he was marrying to please his father and the Marchesa Belloni rather than himself; he enjoyed his life quite as well with a load of debts and no wife as he could hope to do with a wife and millions of money—that he began to consider the failure of his plans highly amusing and had to laugh within himself when he thought of his father, of his aunt the marchesa and of their machinations, which had no effect on Urania, because a pretty, flirtatious woman had objected.
"Why did she object?" he wondered, as he poured out the foaming Monopole, spilling it over the glasses. "Why does she put herself between me and the American stocking-seller? Is she herself in Italy to hunt for a title?"
But he did not care: he thought the intruder charming, pretty, very pretty, coquettish, seductive, bewitching. He fussed around her, neglecting Urania, almost forgetting to fill her glass. And, when it grew late and Cornélie at last rose to go and drew Urania's arm through hers and looked at the prince with a glance of triumph which they mutually understood, he whispered in her ear:
"I am ever so grateful to you for visiting me in my humble abode. You have defeated me: I acknowledge myself defeated."
The words appeared to be merely an allusion to their jesting discussion about nothing; but, uttered between him and her, between the prince and Cornélie, they sounded full of meaning; and he saw the smile of victory in her eyes....
He stayed behind in his room and poured himself out what remained of the champagne. And, as he raised the glass to his lips, he said, aloud:
"O, che occhi! Che belli occhi!... Che belli occhi!..."
Next day, when Duco met Cornélie at theosteria, she was very cheerful and excited. She told him that she had already received a reply from the woman's paper to which she had sent her pamphlet the week before and that her work was not only accepted but would be paid for. She was so proud at earning money for the first time that she was as merry as a little child. She did not speak of the previous evening, seemed to have forgotten Urania, but felt an exuberant need to talk.
She formed all sorts of great plans: to travel about as a journalist, to fling herself into the movement of the great cities, to pursue every reality, to have herself sent by some paper as a delegate to congresses and festivals. The few guilders which she was earning already made her intoxicated with zeal; and she would like to make a lot of money and do a great deal and consider no fatigue. He thought her simply adorable: in the half light of theosteria, as she sat at the little table eating hergnocchi, with in front of her themezzo-fiascoof pale-yellow wine of the country, her usual languor acquired a new vivacity which astonished him; her outline, half-dark on the left, lighted on the right by the sunshine in the street, acquired a modern grace of drawing which reminded him of the French draughtsmen: the rather pale face with the delicate features, lit up by her smile, faintly indicated under the sailor hat, which slanted over her eyes; the hair, touched with gold, or a dark light-brown; the white veil raised into a rumpled mist above; her figure, slender and gracious in the simple, unbuttoned coat, with a bunch of violets in her blouse.
The manner in which she helped herself to wine, in which she addressed thecameriere—the only one, who knew them well, from seeing them daily—with a pleasant familiarity; the vivacity replacing her languor; her great plans, her gay phrases: all this seemed to shine upon him, unconstrained and yet distinguished, free and yet womanly and, above all, easy, as she was at her ease everywhere, with an assimilative tact which for him constituted a peculiar harmony. He thought of the evening before, but she did not speak of it. He thought of that revelation of her coquetry, but she was not thinking of coquetry. She was never coquettish with him. She looked up to him, regarded him as clever and exceptional, though not belonging to his time; she respected him for the things which he said and thought; and she was as matter-of-fact towards him as one chum towards another, who happened to be older and cleverer. She felt for him a sincere friendship, an indescribable something that implied the need of being together, of living together, as though the lines of their two lives should form one line. It was not a sisterly feeling and it was not passion and to her mind it was not love; but it was a great sense of respectful tenderness, of longing admiration and of affectionate delight at having met him. If she never saw him again, she would miss him as she would never miss any one in her life. And that he took no interest in modern questions did not lower him in the eyes of this young modern Amazon, who was about to wave her first banner. It might vex her for an instant, but it did not carry weight in her estimation of him. And he saw that, with him, she was simply affectionate, without coquetry. Yet he would never forget what she had been like yesterday, with the prince. He had felt jealousy and noticed it in Urania also. But she herself had acted so spontaneously in harmony with her nature that she no longer thought of that evening, of the prince, of Urania, of her own coquettishness or of any possible jealousy on their side.
He paid the bill—it was his turn—and she gaily took his arm and said that she had a surprise in store for him, with which he would be very pleased. She wanted to give him something, a handsome, a very handsome keepsake. She wanted to spend on it the money she was going to receive for her article. But she hadn't got it yet. As though that mattered! It would come in due time. And she wanted to give him his present now.
He laughed and asked what it could be. She hailed a carriage and whispered an address to the driver. Duco did not hear. What could it be? But she refused to tell him yet.
Thevetturinodrove them through the Borgo to the Tiber and stopped outside a dark little old-curiosity-shop, where the wares lay heaped up right out into the street.
"Cornélie!" Duco exclaimed, guessing.
"Your Lippo Memmi angel. I'm getting it for you. Not a word!"
The tears came to his eyes. They entered the shop. "Ask him how much he wants for it."
He was too much moved to speak; and Cornélie had to ask the price and bargain. She did not bargain long: she bought the panel for a hundred and twenty lire. She herself carried it to the victoria.
And they drove back to his studio. They carried the angel up the stairs together, as though they were bearing an unsullied happiness into his home. In the studio they placed the angel on a chair. Of a noble aspect, of a somewhat Mongolian type, with long, almond-shaped eyes, the angel had just knelt down in the last stir of his flight; and the gold scarf of his gold-and-purple cloak fluttered in the air while his long wings quivered straight above him. Duco stared at his Memmi, filled with a twofold emotion, because of the angel and because of her.
And with a natural gesture he spread out his arms: "May I thank you, Cornélie?"
And he embraced her; and she returned his kiss.
When she came home she found the prince's card. It was an ordinary civility after yesterday evening, her unexpected visit to the Palazzo Ruspoli, and she did not give it a second thought. She was in a pleasant frame of mind, pleased with herself, glad that her work would appear first as an article inHet Recht der Vrouw[1]—she would publish it as a pamphlet afterwards—and glad that she had made Duco happy with the Memmi. She changed into her tea-gown and sat down by the fire in her musing attitude and thought of how she could carry out her great plans. To whom ought she to apply? There was an International Women's Congress sitting in London; andHet Recht der Vrouwhad sent her a prospectus. She turned over the pages. Different feminist leaders were to speak; there would be numbers of social questions discussed: the psychology of the child; the responsibility of the parents; the influence on domestic life of women's admission to all the professions; women in art, women in medicine; the fashionable woman; the woman at home, on the stage; marriage- and divorce-laws.
In addition, the prospectus gave concise biographies of the speakers, with their portraits. There were American, Russian, English, Swedish, Danish women; nearly every nationality was represented. There were old women and young women: some pretty, some ugly; some masculine, some womanly; some hard and energetic, with sexless boys' faces: one or two only were elegant, with low-cut dresses and waved hair. It was not easy to divide them into groups. What impulse in their lives had prompted them to join in the struggle for women's rights? In some, no doubt, inclination, nature; in an occasional case, vocation; in another, the desire to be in the fashion. And, in her own case, what was the impulse?... She dropped the prospectus in her lap and stared into the fire and reflected. Her drawing-room education passed before her once more, followed by her marriage, by her divorce....
What was the impulse? What was the inducement?... She had come to it gradually, to go abroad, to extend her sphere of vision, to reflect, to learn about art, about the modern life of women. She had glided gradually along the line of her life, with no great effort of will or striving, without even thinking much or feeling much.... She glanced into herself, as though she were reading a modern novel, the psychology of a woman. Sometimes she seemed to will things, to wish to strive, as just now, to pursue her great plans. Sometimes she would sit thinking, as she often did in these days, beside her cosy fire. Sometimes she felt, as she now did, for Duco. But mostly her life had been a gradual gliding along the line which she had to follow, urged by the gentle pressure of the finger of fate.... For a moment she saw it clearly. There was a great sincerity in her: she never posed either to herself or to others. There were contradictions in her, but she recognized them all, in so far as she could see herself. But the open landscape of her soul became clear to her at that moment. She saw the complexity of her being gleam with its many facets.... She had taken to writing, out of impulse and intuition; but was her writing any good? A doubt rose in her mind. A copy of the code lay on her table, a survival of the days of her divorce; but had she understood the law correctly? Her article was accepted; but was the judgement of the editress to be trusted? As her eyes wandered once again over those women's portraits and biographies, she became afraid that her work would not be good, would be too superficial, and that her ideas were not directed by study and knowledge. But she could also imagine her own photograph appearing in that prospectus, with her name under it and a brief comment: writer ofThe Social Position of Divorced Women, with the name of the paper, the date and so on. And she smiled: how highly convincing it sounded!
But how difficult it was to study, to work and understand and act and move in the modern movement of life! She was now in Rome: she would have liked to be in London. But it did not suit her at the moment to make the journey. She had felt rich when she bought Duco's Memmi, thinking of the payment for her article; and now she felt poor. She would much have liked to go to London. But then she would have missed Duco. And the congress lasted only a week. She was pretty well at home here now, was beginning to love Rome, her rooms, the Colosseum lying yonder like a dark oval, like a sombre wing at the end of the city, with the hazy-blue mountains behind it.
Then the prince came into her mind and for the first time she thought of yesterday, saw that evening again, an evening of jesting and champagne: Duco silent and sulky, Urania depressed and the prince small, lively, slender, roused from his slackness as an aristocratic man-about-town and with his narrow carbuncle eyes. She thought him really pleasant; once in a way she liked that atmosphere of coquetry and flirtation; and the prince had understood her. She had saved Urania, she was sure of that; and she felt the content of her good action....
She was too lazy to dress and go to the restaurant. She was not very hungry and would stay at home and sup on what was in her cupboard: a couple of eggs, bread, some fruit. But she remembered Duco and that he would certainly be waiting for her at their little table and she wrote him a note and sent it by the hall-porter's boy....
Duco was just coming down, on his way out to the restaurant, when he met the little fellow on the stairs. He read the note and felt as if he was suffering a grievous disappointment. He felt small and unhappy, like a child. And he went back to his studio, lit a single lamp, threw himself on a broad couch and lay staring in the dusk at Memmi's angel, who, still standing on the chair, glimmered vaguely gold in the middle of the room, sweet as comfort, with his gesture of annunciation, as though he sought to announce all the mystery that was about to be fulfilled....
[1]Women's Rights.
[1]Women's Rights.
A few days later, Cornélie was expecting a visit from the prince, who had asked her for an appointment. She was sitting at her writing-table, correcting the proofs of her article. A lamp on the writing-table cast a soft glow over her through a yellow silk shade; and she wore her tea-gown of whitecrêpe de Chine, with a bunch of violets at her breast. Another lamp, on a pedestal, cast a second gleam from a corner; and the room flickered in cosy intimacy with the third light from the log-fire, falling over water-colours by Duco, sketches and photographs, white anenomes in vases, violets everywhere and one tall palm. The writing-table was littered with books and printed sheets, bearing witness to her work.
There was a knock at the door; and, at her "Come in," the prince entered. She remained seated for a moment, laid down her pen and rose. She went up to him with a smile and held out her hand. He kissed it. He was very smartly dressed in a frock-coat, with a silk hat and pale-grey gloves; he wore a pearl pin in his tie. They sat down by the fire and he paid her compliments in quick succession, on her sitting-room, her dress and her eyes. She made a jesting reply, and he asked if he was disturbing her:
"Perhaps you were writing an interesting letter to some one near your heart?"
"No, I was revising some proofs."
"Proofs?"
"Yes."
"Do you write?"
"I have just begun to."
"A story?"
"No, an article."
"An article? What about?"
She gave him the long title. He looked at her open-mouthed. She laughed gaily:
"You would never have believed it, would you?"
"Santa Maria!" he murmured in surprise, unaccustomed in his own world to "modern" women, taking part in a feminist movement. "Dutch?"
"Yes, Dutch."
"Write in French next time: then I can read it."
She laughed and gave her promise, poured him out a cup of tea, handed the chocolates. He nibbled at them:
"Are you so serious? Have you always been? You were not serious the other day."
"Sometimes I am very serious."
"So am I."
"I gathered that. If I had not come that time, you might have become very serious."
He gave a fatuous laugh and looked at her knowingly:
"You are a wonderful woman!" he said. "Very interesting and very clever. What you want to happen happens."
"Sometimes."
"Sometimes what I want also. Sometimes I also am very clever. When I want a thing. But generally I don't want it."
"You did the other day."
He laughed:
"Yes! You were cleverer than I then. To morrow perhaps I shall be cleverer than you."
"Who knows!"
They both laughed. He nibbled the chocolates in the dish, one after the other, and asked if he might have a glass of port instead of tea. She poured him out a glass.
"May I give you something?"
"What?"
"A souvenir of our first acquaintance."
"It is very charming of you. What is it to be?"
He took something, wrapped in tissue-paper, from his pocket and handed it to her. She opened the little parcel and saw a strip of old Venetian lace, worked in the shape of a flounce, for a low bodice.
"Do accept it," he besought her. "It is a lovely piece. It is such a pleasure to me to give it to you."
She looked at him with all her coquetry in her eyes, as though she were trying to see through him.
"You must wear it like this."
He stood up, took the lace and draped it over her white tea-gown from shoulder to shoulder. His fingers fumbled with the folds, his lips just touched her hair.
She thanked him for his gift. He sat down again:
"I am glad that you will accept it."
"Have you given Miss Hope something too?"
He laughed, with his little laugh of conquest:
"Patterns are all she wants, patterns of the queen's ball-dresses. I wouldn't dare to give you patterns. To you I give old lace."
"But you nearly ruined your career for the sake of that pattern?"
"Oh, well!" he laughed.
"Which career?"
"Oh, don't!" he said, evasively. "Tell me, what do you advise me to do?"
"What do you mean?"
"Shall I marry her?"
"I am against all marriage, between cultivated people."
She wanted to repeat some of her phrases, but thought to herself, why? He would not understand them. He looked at her profoundly, with his carbuncle eyes:
"So you are in favour of free love?"
"Sometimes. Not always. Between cultivated people."
He was certain now, had any doubt still lingered in his mind, that aliaisonexisted between her and Van der Staal.
"And do you think me ... cultivated?"
She laughed provocatively, with a touch of scorn in her voice:
"Listen. Shall I speak to you seriously?"
"I wish you would."
"I consider neither you nor Miss Hope suited for free love."
"So I am not cultivated?"
"I don't mean it in the sense of being civilized. I mean modern culture."
"So I am not modern?"
"No," she said, slightly irritated.
"Teach me to be modern."
She gave a nervous laugh:
"Oh, don't let us talk like this! You want to know my advice. I advise younotto marry Urania."
"Why not?"
"Because you would both of you have a wretched life. She is a dear little Americanparvenue...."
"I am offering her what I possess; she is offering me what she possesses...."
He nibbled at the chocolates. She shrugged her shoulders:
"Then marry her," she said, with indifference.
"Tell me that you don't want me to and I won't."
"And your father? And the marchesa?"
"What do you know about them?"
"Oh ... everything and nothing!"
"You are a demon!" he exclaimed. "An angel and a demon! Tell me, what do you know about my father and the marchesa?"
"For how much are you selling yourself to Urania? For not less than ten millions?"
He looked at her in bewilderment.
"But the marchesa thinks five enough. And a very handsome sum it is: five millions. Which is it, dollars or lire?"
He clapped his hands together:
"You are a devil!" he cried. "You are an angel and a devil! How do you know? Howdoyou know? Do you know everything?"
She flung herself back in her chair and laughed: "Everything."
"But how?"
She looked at him and shook her head tantalizingly.
"Tell me."
"No. It's my secret."
"And you think that I ought not to sell myself?"
"I dare not advise you as regards your own interest."
"And as regards Urania?"
"I advise her not to do it."
"Have you done so already?"
"Once in a way."
"So you are my enemy?" he exclaimed, angrily.
"No," she said, gently, wishing to conciliate him. "I am a friend."
"A friend? To what length?"
"To the length to whichIwish to go."
"Not the length to whichIwish?"
"Oh, no, never!"
"But perhaps we both wish to go to the same length?"
He had stood up, with his blood on fire. She remained seated calmly, almost languidly, with her head thrown back. She did not reply. He fell on his knees, seized her hand and was kissing it before she could prevent him:
"Oh, angel, angel! Oh, demon!" he muttered, between his kisses.
She now withdrew her hand, pushed him away from her gently and said:
"How quick an Italian is with his kisses!"
She laughed at him. He rose from his knees:
"Teach me what Dutchwomen are like, though they are slower than we."
She pointed to his chair, with an imperious gesture:
"Sit down," she said. "I am not a typical Dutchwoman. If I were, I should not have come to Rome. I pride myself on being a cosmopolitan. But we were not discussing that, we were speaking of Urania. Are you thinking seriously of marrying her?"
"What can I do, if you thwart me? Why not be on my side, like a dear friend?"
She hesitated. Neither of these two, Urania nor he, was ripe for her ideas. She despised them both. Very well, let them get married: he in order to be rich; she to become a princess and duchess.
"Listen to me," she said, bending towards him. "You want to marry her for the sake of her millions. But your marriage will be unhappy from the beginning. She is a frivolous little thing; she will want to cut a dash ... and you belong to the Blacks."
"We can live at Nice: then she can do as she pleases. We will come to Rome now and again, go to San Stefano now and again. And, as for unhappiness," he continued, pulling a tragic face, "what do I care? I am not happy as it is. I shall try to make Urania happy. But my heart ... will be elsewhere."
"Where?"
"With the feminist movement."
She laughed:
"Well, shall I be nice to you?"
"Yes."
"And promise to help you?"
What did she care, when all was said?
"Oh, angel, demon!" he cried. He nibbled at a chocolate. "And what does Mr. Van der Staal think of it?" he asked, mischievously.
She raised her eyebrows:
"He doesn't think about it. He thinks only of his art."
"And of you."
She looked at him and bowed her head in queenly assent:
"And of me."
"You often dine with him."
"Yes."
"Come and dine with me one day."
"I shall be delighted."
"To-morrow evening? And where?"
"Wherever you like."
"In the Grand-Hôtel?"
"Ask Urania to come too."
"Why not you and I alone?"
"I think it better that you should invite your future wife. I will chaperon her."
"You are right. You are quite right. And will you ask Mr. Van der Staal also to give me the pleasure of his company?"
"I will."
"Until to-morrow then, at half-past eight?"
"Until half-past eight to-morrow."
He rose to take his leave:
"Propriety demands that I should go," he said. "Really I should prefer to stay."
"Well, then stay ... or stay another time, if you have to go now."
"You are so cold."
"And you don't think enough of Urania."
"I think of the feminist movement."
He sat down.
"I'm afraid you must go," she said, laughing with her eyes. "I have to dress ... to go and dine with Mr. Van der Staal."
He kissed her hand:
"You are an angel and a demon. You know everything. You can do anything. You are the most interesting woman I ever met."
"Because I correct proofs."
"Because you are what you are."
And, very seriously, still holding her hand, he said, almost threateningly:
"I shall never be able to forget you."
And he went away. As soon as she was alone, she opened all her windows. She realized, it was true, that she was something of a coquette, but that lay in her nature: she was like that involuntarily, to some men. Certainly not to all. Never to Duco. Never to men whom she respected. Whereas she despised that little prince, with his blazing eyes and his habit of kissing people.... But he served to amuse her....
And she dressed and went out and reached the restaurant long after the appointed hour; found Duco waiting for her at their little table, with his head in his hands, and at once told him that the prince had detained her.
Duco had at first wished to decline the invitation, but Cornélie said that she would think it pleasanter if he came. And it was an exquisite dinner in the restaurant of the Grand-Hôtel and Cornélie had enjoyed herself exceedingly and looked most charming in an old yellow ball-dress, dating back to the first days of her marriage, which she had altered quickly here and there and draped with the prince's old lace. Urania had looked very handsome, with her clear, fresh complexion, her shining eyes and gleaming teeth, clad in a close-fitting frock in the latest fashion, blue-black spangles on black tulle, as though she were moulded in a cuirass: the prince said, a siren with a mermaid's tail. And the people at the other tables had stared across at theirs, for everybody knew Virgilio di Forte-Braccio; everybody knew that he was going to marry a rich American heiress; and everybody had noticed that he was paying great attention to the slender, fair-haired woman whom nobody knew. She had been married, they thought; she was chaperoning the future princess; and she was very intimate with that young man, a Dutch painter, who was studying art in Italy. They had soon found out all that there was to know.
Cornélie had thought it pleasant that they all looked at her; and she had flirted so obviously with the prince that Urania had become angry. And early next morning, while Cornélie was still in bed, no longer thinking of last night but pondering over a sentence in her pamphlet, the maid knocked, brought in her breakfast and letters and said that Miss Hope was asking to speak to her. Cornélie had Urania shown in, while she remained in bed and drank her chocolate. And she looked up in surprise when Urania at once overwhelmed her with reproaches, burst into sobs, scolded and raved, made a violent scene, said that she now saw through her and admitted that the marchesa had urged her to be careful of Cornélie, whom she described as a dangerous woman. Cornélie waited until she had had her say and replied coolly that she had nothing on her conscience, that on the contrary she had saved Urania and been of service to her as a chaperon, though she did not tell her that the prince had wanted her, Cornélie, to dine with him alone. But Urania refused to listen and went on ranting. Cornélie looked at her and thought her vulgar in that rage of hers, talking her American English, as though she were chewing filberts and at last she answered, calmly:
"My dear girl, you're upsetting yourself about nothing. But, if you like, I will write to the prince that he must pay me no more attentions."
"No, no, don't do that: it'll make Gilio think I'm jealous!"
"And aren't you?"
"Why do you monopolize Gilio? Why do you flirt with him? Why do you make yourself conspicuous with him, as you did yesterday, in a restaurant full of people?"
"Well, if you dislike it, I won't flirt with Gilio again or make myself conspicuous with him again. I don't care twopence about your prince."
"That's an extra reason."
"Very well, dear, that's settled."
Her coolness calmed Urania, who asked:
"And do we remain good friends?"
"Why, of course, my dear girl. Is there any occasion for us to quarrel? I don't see it."
Both of them, the prince and Urania, were quite indifferent to her. True, she had preached to Urania in the beginning, but about a general idea: when afterwards she perceived Urania's insignificance, she withdrew the interest which she took in her. And, if the girl was offended by a little gaiety and innocent flirtation, very well, them should be no more of it. Her thoughts were more with the proofs which the post had brought her.
She got out of bed and stretched herself:
"Go into the sitting-room, Urania dear, and just let me have my bath."
Presently, all fresh and smiling, she joined Urania in the sitting-room. Urania was crying.
"My dear child, why are you upsetting yourself like this? You've achieved your ideal. Your marriage is as good as certain. You're waiting for an answer from Chicago? You're impatient? Then cable out. I should have cabled at once in your place. You don't imagine, do you, that your father has any objection to your becoming Duchess di San Stefano?"
"I don't know yet what I myself want," said Urania, weeping. "I don't know, I don't know."
Cornélie shrugged her shoulders:
"You're more sensible than I thought," she said.
"Are you really my friend? Can I trust you? Can I trust your advice?"
"I won't advise you again. I have advised you. You must know your own mind."
Urania took her hand:
"Which would you prefer, that I accepted Gilio ... or not?"
Cornélie looked her straight in the eyes:
"You're making yourself unhappy about nothing. You think—and the marchesa probably thinks with you—that I want to take Gilio from you? No, darling, I wouldn't marry Gilio if he were king and emperor. I have a bit of the socialist in me: I don't marry for the sake of a title."
"No more would I."
"Of course, darling, no more would you. I never dreamt of suggesting that you would. But you askmewhich I should prefer. Well, I tell you in all sincerity: I don't prefer either. The whole business leaves me cold."
"And you call yourself my friend!"
"So I am, dear, and I will remain your friend. Only don't come overwhelming me with reproaches on an empty stomach!"
"You're a flirt."
"Sometimes. It comes natural to me. But, honestly, I won't be so again with Gilio."
"Do you mean it?"
"Yes, of course. What do I care? He amuses me; but, if it offends you, I'll gladly sacrifice my amusement for your sake. I don't value it so much."
"Are you fond of Mr. Van der Staal?"
"Very."
"Are you going to marry him, Cornélie?"
"No, dear. I sha'n't marry again. I know what marriage means. Are you coming for a little walk with me? It's a fine day; and you have upset me so with your little troubles that I can't do any work this morning. It's lovely weather: come along and buy some flowers in the Piazza di Spagna."
They went and bought the flowers. Cornélie took Urania back to Belloni's. As she walked away, on the road to theosteriafor lunch, she heard somebody following her. It was the prince.
"I caught sight of you from the corner of the Via Aurora," he said "Urania was just going home."
"Prince," she said at once, "there must be no more of it."
"Of what?"
"No more visits, no more joking, no more presents, no more dinners at the Grand-Hôtel, no more champagne."
"Why not?"
"The future princess won't have it."
"Is she jealous?"
Cornélie described the scene to him:
"And you mayn't even walk with me."
"Yes, I may."
"No, no."
"I shall, for all that."
"By the right of the man, of the strongest?"
"Exactly."
"My vocation is to fight against it. But to-day I am untrue to my vocation."
"You are charming ... as always."
"You mustn't say that any more."
"Urania's a bore.... Tell me, what do you advise me to do? Shall I marry her?"
Cornélie gave a peal of laughter:
"You both of you keep askingmyadvice!"
"Yes, yes, what do you think?"
"Marry her by all means!"
He did not observe her contempt.
"Exchange your escutcheon for her purse," she continued and laughed and laughed.
He now perceived it:
"You despise me, perhaps both of us."
"Oh, no!"
"Tell me that you don't despise me."
"You ask me my opinion, Urania is a very sweet, dear child, but she ought not to travel by herself. And you...."
"And I?"
"You are a delightful boy. Buy me those violets, will you?"
"Subito, subito!"
He bought her the bunch of violets:
"You're crazy over violets, aren't you?"
"Yes. This must be your second ... and your last present. And here we say good-bye."
"No, I shall take you home."
"I'm not going home."
"Where are you going?"
"To theosteria. Mr Van der Staal is waiting for me."
"He's a lucky man!
"Why?"
"He needs must be!"
"I don't see why. Good-bye, prince."
"Ask me to come too," he entreated. "Let me lunch with you."
"No," she said, seriously. "Really not. It's better not. I believe...."
"What?"
"That Duco is just like Urania."
"Jealous?... When shall I see you again?"
"Really, believe me, it's better not.... Goodbye, prince. And thank you ... for the violets."
He bent over her hand. She went into theosteriaand saw that Duco had witnessed their leave-taking through the window.
Duco was silent and nervous at table. He played with his bread; and his fingers trembled. She felt that he had something on his mind:
"What is it?" she asked, kindly.
"Cornélie," he said, excitedly, "I want to speak to you."
"What about?"
"You're not behaving properly."
"In what respect?"
"With the prince. You've seen through him and yet ... yet you go on putting up with him, yet you're always meeting him. Let me finish," he said, looking around him: there was no one in the restaurant save two Italians, sitting at the far table, and they could speak without being overheard. "Let me finish," he repeated, when she tried to interrupt him. "Let me say what I have to say. You of course are free to act as you please. But I am your friend and I want to advise you. What you are doing is not right. The prince is a cad, a low, common cad. How can you accept presents from him and invitations? Why did you compel me to come yesterday? The dinner was one long torture to me. You know how fond I am of you: why shouldn't I confess it? You know how high I hold you. I can't bear to see you lowering yourself with him. Let me speak. Lowering, I say. He is not worthy to tie your shoe-strings. And you play with him, you jest with him, you flirt—let me speak—you flirt with him. What can he be to you, a coxcomb like that? What part can he play in your life? Let him marry Miss Hope: what do you care about either of them? What do inferior people matter to you, Cornélie? I despise them and so do you. I know you do. Then why do you cross their lives? Let them live in the vanity of their titles and money: what is it all to you? I don't understand you. Oh, I know, you're not to be understood, all the woman part of you! And I love everything that I see of you: I love you in everything. It doesn't matter whether I understand you. But I do feel thatthisisn't right. I ask you not to see the prince any more. Have nothing more to do with him. Cut him.... That dinner, last night, was a torture to me...."
"My poor boy," she said, gently, filling his glass from theirfiasco, "but why?"
"Why? Why? Because you're lowering yourself."
"I do not stand so high. No, letmespeak now. I do not stand high. Because I have a few modern ideas and a few others which are broader-minded than those of most women? Apart from that I am an ordinary woman. When a man is cheerful and witty, it amuses me. No, Duco, I'm speaking now. I don't consider the prince a cad. I may think him a coxcomb, but I think him cheerful and witty. You know that I too am very fond of you, but you are neither cheerful nor witty. Now don't get angry. You are much more than that. I'm not even comparingil nostro Giliowith you. I won't say anything more about you, or you will become conceited, but cheerful and witty you are not. And my poor nature sometimes feels a need for these qualities. What have I in my life? Nothing but you, you alone. I am very glad to possess your friendship, very happy in having met you. But why may I not sometimes be cheerful? Really, there is a little light-heartedness in me, a little frivolity even. Am I bound to fight against it? Duco, am I wicked?"
He smiled sadly; there was a moist light in his eyes; and he did not answer.
"I can fight, if necessary," she resumed. "But is this a thing to fight against? It is a passing bubble, nothing more. I forget it the next minute. I forget the prince the next minute. And you I do not forget."
He was looking at her radiantly.
"Do you understand that? Do you understand that I don't flirt and fence with you? Shake hands and stop being angry."
She gave him her hand across the table and he pressed her fingers:
"Cornélie," he said, softly. "Yes, I feel that you are loyal. Cornélie, will you be my wife?"
She looked straight in front of her and drooped her head a little and stared before her earnestly. They were no longer eating. The two Italians stood up, bowed and went away. They were alone. The waiter set some fruit before them and withdrew.
They both sat silent for a moment. Then she spoke in a gentle voice; and her whole being displayed so tender a melancholy that he could have burst into sobs and worshipped her where she sat.
"I knew of course that you would ask me that some day. It was in the nature of things. A great friendship like ours was bound to lead to that question. But it can't be, dearest Duco. It can't be, my dear, dear boy. I have my own ideas ... but it's not that. I am against marriage ... but it's not that. In some cases a woman is unfaithful to all her ideas in a single second.... Then whatisit?..."
She stared wide-eyed and passed her hand over her forehead, as though she did not see clearly. Then she continued:
"It is this, that I am afraid of marriage. I have been through it, I know what it means.... I see my husband before me now. I see that habit, that groove before me, in which the subtler individual characteristics are effaced. That is what marriage is: a habit, a groove. And I tell you candidly: I think marriage loathsome. I think passion beautiful, but marriage is not passion. Passion can be noble and superhuman, but marriage is a human institution based upon our petty human morality and calculation. And I have become frightened of those prudent moral ties. I promised myself—and I believe that I shall keep my promise—never to marry again. My whole nature has become unfitted for it. I am no longer the Hague girl going to parties and dinners and looking out for a husband, together with her parents.... My love forhimwas passion. And in my marriage he wanted to restrict that passion to a groove and a custom. Then I rebelled.... I'd rather not talk about it. Passion lasts too short a time to fill a married life.... Mutual esteem to follow,etcetera? One needn't marry for that. I can feel esteem just as well without being married. Of course there is the question of the children, therearemany difficulties. I can't think it all out now. I merely feel now, very seriously and calmly, that I am not fit to marry and that I never will marry again. I should not make you happy.... Don't be sad, Duco. I am fond of you, I love you. And perhaps ... had I met you at the right moment, had I met you before, in my Hague life ... you would certainly have stood too high for me. I could not have grown fond of you. Now I can understand you, respect you and look up to you. I tell you this quite simply, that I love you and look up to you, look up to you, in spite of all your gentleness, as I never looked up to my husband, however much he made his manly privilege prevail. And you are to believe that, very firmly and with great certainty, and you must believe that I am true. I am coquettish ... only with Gilio."
He looked at her through his silent tears. He stood up, called the waiter, paid the bill absent-mindedly, while everything swam and flashed before his eyes. They went out of the door and she hailed a carriage and told the man to drive to the Villa Doria-Pamphili. She remembered that the gardens were open. They drove there in silence, steeped in their thoughts of the future that was opening tremulously before them. Sometimes he heaved a deep breath and quivered all over his body. Once she fervently squeezed his hand. At the gate of the villa they alighted and walked up the majestic avenues. Rome lay in the depths below; and they suddenly saw St. Peter's. But they did not speak; and she suddenly sat down on an ancient bench and began to weep softly and feebly. He put his arm round her and comforted her. She dried her tears, smiled and embraced him and returned his kiss.... Twilight fell; and they went back. He gave the address of his studio. She accompanied him. And she gave herself to him, in all her truthful sincerity and with a love so violent and so great that she thought she would swoon in his arms.
They did not alter their mode of life. Duco, however, after a scene with his mother, no longer slept at Belloni's but in a little room, adjoining his studio, originally filled with trunks and lumber. Cornélie was sorry about the scene: she had always had a liking for Mrs. Van der Staal and the girls. But a certain pride arose in her; and Cornélie despised Mrs. Van der Staal because she was unable to understand either her or Duco. Still, she would have been pleased to prevent this coolness. At her advice Duco went to see his mother again, but she remained cool and sent him away. Thereupon Cornélie and Duco went to Naples. They did not do this by way of an elopement, they did it quite simply: Cornélie told Urania and the prince that she was going to Naples for a little while and that Van der Staal would probably follow her. She did not know Naples and would appreciate it greatly if Van der Staal showed her the town and the surrounding country. Cornélie kept on her rooms in Rome. And they spent a fortnight of sheer, careless and immense happiness. Their love grew spacious and blossoming in the golden sunlight of Naples, on the blue gulfs of Amalfi, Sorrento, Capri and Castellamare, simply, irresistibly and restfully. They glided gradually along the purple thread of their lives, they walked hand in hand down their lines now fused into one path, heedless of the laws and ideas of men; and their attitude was so lofty, their action so serene and so certain of their happiness, that their relations did not degenerate into insolence, although within themselves they despised the world. But this happiness softened all that pride in their soaring souls, as if their happiness were strewing blossoms all around it. They lived in a dream, first among the marbles in the museum, then on the flower-strewn cliffs of Amalfi, on the beach of Capri or on the terrace of the hotel at Sorrento, with the sea roaring at their feet and, in a pearly haze, yonder, vaguely white, as though drawn in white chalk, Castellamare and Naples and the ghost of Vesuvius, with its hazy plume of smoke.
They held aloof from everybody, from all the people and excursionists; they had their meals at a small table; and it was generally thought that they were newly married. If others looked up their names in the visitors' book, they read two names and made whispered comments. But the lovers did not hear, did not see; they lived their dream, looking into each other's eyes or at the opal sky, the pearly sea and the hazy, white mountain-vistas, studded with villages like little specks of chalk.
When their money was almost exhausted, they smiled and went back to Rome and resumed their former lives: she in her rooms and he, now, in his studio; and they took their meals together. But they pursued their dreams among the ruins in the Via Appia, around and near Frascati, beyond the Ponte Molle, on the slopes of the Monte Mario and in the gardens of the villas, among the statues and paintings, mingling their happiness with the Roman atmosphere: he interweaving his new-found love with his love for Rome; she growing to love Rome because of him. And because of that charm they were surrounded by a sort of aura, through which they did not see ordinary life or meet ordinary people.
At last, one afternoon, Urania found them both at home, in Cornélie's room, the fire lighted, she smiling and gazing into the fire, he sitting at her feet and she with her arm round his neck. And they were evidently thinking of so little besides their own love that neither of them heard her knock and both suddenly saw her standing before them, like an unexpected reality. Their dream was over for that day. Urania laughed, Cornélie laughed and Duco pushed an easy chair closer. And Urania, blithe, beautiful and brilliant, told them that she was engaged. Where on earth had they been hiding, she asked, inquisitively. She was engaged. She had been to San Stefano, she had seen the old prince. And everything was lovely and good and dear: the old castle a dear old house, the old man a dear old man. She saw everything through the glitter of her future princess' title. Princess and duchess! The wedding-day was fixed: immediately after Easter, in a little more than three months therefore. It was to be celebrated at San Carlo, with all the splendour of a great wedding. Her father was coming over for it with her youngest brother. She was obviously not looking forward to their arrival. And she never finished talking: she gave a thousand details about her bridal outfit, with which the marchesa was helping her. They were going to live at Nice, in a large flat. She raved about Nice: that was a first-rate idea of Gilio's. And incidentally she remembered and told them that she had become a Catholic. That was a great nuisance! But themonsignorisaw to everything and she allowed herself to be guided by them. And the Pope was to receive her in private audience, together with Gilio. The difficulty was what to wear at the audience: black, of course, but ... velvet, satin? What did Cornélie advise her? She had such excellent taste. And a black-lace veil on her head, with brilliants. She was going to Nice next day, with the marchesa and Gilio, to see their flat.
When she was gone after begging Cornélie to come and admire hertrousseau, Cornélie said, with a smile:
"She is happy. After all, happiness is something different for everybody, Atrousseauand a title would not make me happy."
"These are the small people," he said, "who cross our lives now and again. I prefer to get out of their way."
And they did not say so, but they both thought—with their fingers interlaced, her eyes gazing into his—that they also were happy, but with a loftier, better and nobler happiness; and pride arose within them; and they beheld as in a vision the line of their life winding up a steep hill. But happiness snowed blossoms down upon it; and amid the snowing blossoms, holding high their proud heads, with smiles and eyes of love, they walked on in their dream remote from mankind and reality.