Vanno's way of atonement for continuing to live at Monte Carlo was to lunch or dine each day at the Villa Mirasole. On the first morning of his great happiness he was due there for luncheon at one o'clock, but having news to tell, he decided to go early. There was little danger of finding Marie and Angelo out, for they walked after an early breakfast, and generally spent the rest of the morning in their own garden, or on the covered loggia of the villa, which looked toward the sea. In the afternoon they sometimes took excursions in their motor-car, but they made no social engagements and never went to Monte Carlo, not even to the opera or concerts. This had struck Vanno as being odd; but soon he had taken it for granted that they cared for no society except each other's, which was after all quite natural.
Of late, Vanno's habit had been to dash over to Cap Martin at the last minute in a taxi and back again in the same hurried way, in order to give himself as much time as possible in the Casino; but this morning the Casino had seemed of no more importance to him than the railway station. It was as the curé had prophesied, for Vanno as for Mary: the absorbing new interest had pushed out the old, fromhearts in which there was room only for love. The other obsession was gone as if it had never been, as a cloud which broods darkly over a mountain top is carried away by a fresh gust of wind, leaving no trace on the mountain steeped in sunshine.
Instead of lying in bed until time to bathe and dress for the Casino, Vanno rose early, according to his old custom. It was as if he opened a neglected book at a page where a marker had been placed, and began to read again with renewed and increased interest. By nine o'clock he was at the Villa Bella Vista, asking for Mary, who had promised to see him. They had arranged that he was to tell Lord and Lady Dauntrey not only of their engagement, but of Mary's decision to leave their house for a visit to Mrs. Winter. She, however, had summoned unexpected courage and had already broken the news. It had seemed treacherous, she explained to Vanno, to go to bed and say nothing; so on an impulse she had told them all; and both had been kind.
Lady Dauntrey, who seldom appeared before ten o'clock—Casino opening time—was not only dressed but had breakfasted when Vanno came. She broke in upon Mary and the Prince in the drawing-room, seemed surprised to find them there, apologized laughingly, and with an attempt at tact congratulated Vanno. "I've got awfully fond of this dear girl," she said, looking Vanno straight in the eyes, a way of hers when people had to be impressed by a statement. "I think there's nobody likeher, and I—we—will miss her horribly. But you've a right to take her away. You can see her more comfortably, and everything will be better at the chaplain's than here. Quite a different atmosphere, I dare say! Only I hope she won't forget us. I've tried to do my best for her."
As she said this, a mist softened her hard eyes, and she ingeniously pushed the beginnings of tears back whence they came, with the lace edge of her handkerchief, fearing damage to her lashes. As she did this, Vanno noticed that her hands were extraordinarily secretive in shape and gesture. It seemed to him that they contradicted the expression of her decorative face, whose misty eyes and quivering lips had begun to disarm him, even to make him wonder if he had partly misjudged her. The hands, large and pale rather than white, appeared to curve themselves consciously in an effort to look small, pretty, young, and aristocratic, though they were in reality worn by nervousness, as if disappointments and harsh, perhaps terrible, experiences had kept them thin and made them old, though face and body had contrived to remain young. It was as if things the woman had known and endured had determined to betray themselves in some way, and had seized upon her hands. Suddenly it was as if Vanno had been given a key, and had heard a whisper: "This unlocks the secret of a woman's nature"; and he was almost ashamed of having used the key, even for an instant, as if he had peeped into a room where some one in torment was writhing insilent passion. He said nothing of this, afterward, but he could not forget; and when Mary half guiltily praised Lady Dauntrey's warmth of heart and real affection, he was even more glad than before to take the girl away. He was glad, too, that Angelo and Marie would meet her for the first time at the Winters', not in the Dauntrey ménage.
To-day he did not dash off in a taxi to Cap Martin; but having taken Mary and a small instalment of her luggage to the Winters' apartment, sheer joy of life urged him to walk to his brother's. He was so happy that he felt like a mountain spring let loose in wind and sunshine, after being long pent up underground.
A short cut through the glimmering olive grove of the Cap led toward the Villa Mirasole, and plunging into the gray-green gloom he came suddenly upon the curé and two little acolytes, the boys robed in white and scarlet. Their figures moving under the arbour of old trees were like red and silver poppies blown by the wind, or wonderful tropical birds astray in the woods: and a glint of sunshine striking the censer was a thin chain of gold linking it to the sky.
To meet this little procession astonished Vanno, but the curé turned to smile at him without surprise. "Well met!" he said. "We are on our way to bless the villa. Last night after you went I received a letter from the Princess asking us to come this morning, as they are now quite settled. So here we are, these children and I. And I hopedthat you would be lunching with your brother and sister-in-law, for it is a pretty ceremony, the blessing. You will tell them to-day—what has happened?"
The curé slackened his pace, for a talk with his Prince, and the acolytes walked ahead, two brilliant little figures, whose robes sent out faint whiffs of incense-perfume.
"Yes. I've come early on purpose to tell," said Vanno. "But the first business is the blessing of the house. That will put them in a good mood. I hope you are going to lunch with us afterward?"
"Yes. The Princess has been so kind as to ask me, and I will stay. If you like, I can say good things of Mademoiselle, your charming fiancée."
"That is what I was thinking!" Vanno admitted. "Do you know, Father, I've been incredibly stupid. You will hardly believe it when I tell you—but I have not yet found out her Christian name."
"Tiens!" exclaimed the curé. "You did not ask? But, my Principino, it is impossible. What did you call her?"
"If you must know, I called her 'Angel,' and 'Darling,' and perhaps a few other things like that. Any other name seemed quite unimportant at the time: but after I'd left her this morning at Mrs. Winter's (where she is going to visit, thank heaven!) it flashed into my mind that I'd never heard her name. It begins with 'M,' that's all I know. I couldn't very well rush back, ring the door bell, and inquire. I must find out somehow now withoutasking, as it's too absurd, when we've been engaged since yesterday afternoon."
Talking, they came near the edge of the olive wood, where a narrow lane divided the olives from a sea of pines. The white main road in the distance was empty, and silent with the digestive silence of Riviera thoroughfares at noon, when all the world, from millionaire to peasant, begins to think of the midday meal. Even motors were at rest, comfortably absorbing petrol and leaving the roads to sleep in peace. Far off among the trees Vanno caught a glimpse of two men picnicking, cabdrivers eating their bread and meat and drinking the rough red wine of the country, while their littlevoituresstood a few yards away, the horses well in shade, their faces buried in nose-bags, and a miniature wolf-like dog asleep on the back of one. As Vanno and the priest drew nearer both men got up respectfully, wiping their smiling mouths. They seemed not at all astonished to see the figures in scarlet and white, with the swinging censer. And indeed it was a common enough sight in these woods, and elsewhere, the brilliant little procession for the blessing of houses, or for the last sacrament. The curé knew both men, for his parish extended from the old village of Roquebrune down to the outskirts of Mentone on one side and to St. Roman on the other. He asked one after a new wife, and of the other inquired for the health of his tiny dog, Pomponette. Nothing would do but the microscopic animal must be fetched from her ample bed on thehorse's back, and displayed proudly. Her master, a very large dark man, stuck the dog into the breast of his coat, whence her miniature head protruded like a peculiar orchid.
"C'est un bon garçon," remarked the curé, when the bowings and politenesses were over, and they had got away. "A strange world this! He is the last of one of the greatest and oldest families of Southern France. For generations they have been in ruin, reduced to the life of peasants. Jacques cares not at all, and hardly remembers that he has in his veins blood nobler than some kings can boast. What would you? It is as well for him. We are not snobs, we southerners, Principino. And he is quite happy, with his little cab, his little white horse, and his little dog. He will marry a peasant—I think I know who, for she has embroidered a blanket for Pomponette. At one time he was conductor on the trams; but he wastristebecause few of the passengers said good morning or good evening to him—and he is a friendly fellow. So he gave up his position on the trams. One would not find that in the north. They have their faults, these people, but I love them."
The woods of Cap Martin seemed to be populated by the curé's friends. As he and Vanno walked away from the picnickers, a woman, bareheaded, carrying a large basket, came toward them, followed by a very old man with his arms full of bundles. She too was of the peasant class, a noble creature past her youth, with the face of a middle-aged Madonna, and the bearing of a Roman matron of distinction. Theold man, whose profile was clear as that of a king on a copper coin, was deeply lined and darkly sunburnt. His head, bald no doubt, was tied up in a crimson handkerchief that gave him the value of a rare picture by the hand of some old master. Seeing the curé, the pair stopped under an immense olive tree, a tree so twisted, so contorted that it seemed to have settled down to treehood only after the wild whirl of a mænad dance. Now in its old age, which had been youth in Cæsar's day, it was more like a gray, ruined tower than an olive tree. It had divided itself into a few crumbling, leaning walls with sad oriel windows and a broken ornamentation of queer gargoyles. Behind the woman with the basket and the old man with the red handkerchief was the distant background of the Prince's garden, like a drop curtain at a theatre: a wall overgrown with flowering creepers; the delicate tracery of wrought-iron gates between tall pillars; bare branches of peach and plum trees, pink as children's fingers held close before the fire, or the hands of Arab girls after the henna-staining; and two cypresses, close together, rising against the blue sky with pure architectural value. As they hurried along, the man and woman crushed under foot, without knowing what they did, the sheeny brown curves of wild orchids, "Jacks in the pulpit," that were like little hooded snakes rearing heads in rage, to guard the baby violets sprouting in the grass.
"This is Filomena, the cook I myself secured for your brother's house," said the curé; "the best cookand one of the best women on the coast. See, she is carrying our luncheon in her big basket. That shows how early you are, Principino. She is just back from the market at Mentone, where I'll warrant she was delayed by some nice bit of gossip. They love the marketing, these good creatures."
The woman, smiling charmingly, reached out a brown and shapely hand, rather workworn, which the curé shook, and proceeded to make her known to the Prince. Without hesitation or embarrassment she put out her hand to him also. In his, it felt hard and rough, yet glowing with health. It was quite a matter of course to Filomena to be introduced to the Prince, the brother of her new, exalted master, whom she had not until now had the pleasure of seeing, although she had cooked for him already many times. She remarked on this fact, with her bright, engaging smile. Her manner was perfectly respectful, yet free from servility. It would not have occurred to her that any one could have considered her little conversational outburst a liberty; and she proceeded to introduce the old man as her father.
"He has eighty-two years," she said, with a glance from the Prince to the curé, "yet he thinks little of walking down from our old home far, far away in the mountains in Italy, to pay me a visit. It was a surprise this time, his coming. I met him near the market, and profited by getting him to help with my parcels. Will Messieurs the Prince and Curé figure to themselves, he married my motherwhen their two ages together would not make thirty-five, and there in the mountains they brought up eight of us. But, after the marriage, they were still children. It was necessary for the priest to explain to my father why it is that the good God ordained marrying. And look at him now!"
She laughed gayly, and the old man, who could speak only apatoisfrom over the frontier, cackled without understanding what his daughter said. He guessed well that he was the subject of the conversation, and jokingly he reproved the middle-aged Madonna with a few toothless mutterings more like Latin than Italian, more Arabic than either.
"And now, Messieurs," Filomena finished, "we must be hurrying on, or thedéjeunerwill be late. That would make me so angry, I should poison all the fishes if I were thrown into the sea! How Monsieur the Prince is handsome, and like mypatron—yet different, too! Ah, it does seem to me, begging Monsieur the Curé's pardon, that now-a-days the good God is becoming more experienced and therefore fashioning finer men. When He first began, He was but young and had no practice, so it is not strange if He made mistakes."
"You people of this country are very free with the great name of your Creator," remarked the curé, but not too sternly. "Think, Principino, I have heard this very Filomena saying that after Christmas it is safe to sin a little, for the enfant Jesus is so very small He takes no notice; and between Good Friday and Easter He is dead, so then again there isa chance. It is well that I know you mean no sacrilege, Filomena, or I should have to scold—and to-day that would be a pity, for it is a day of good omen for us all."
"Ah, yes," agreed Filomena. "Monsieur the Curé is to bless the house."
"Not only that, but his Highness here has come with great news to tell. He is going to marry a beautiful young lady."
"Then is the blessing a double one. I am sure the young lady must indeed be beautiful if she is worthy; perhaps even as beautiful as the Princess, my mistress."
"Quite as beautiful, Filomena. But you are the first one to have the news. You must not go and tell. Leave that to the Prince."
"Indeed, Monsieur the Curé need have no fear. I've mydéjeunerto cook. And I shall make something extra in honour of the great occasion." So, with a flash of white teeth and a bow no duchess could have bettered, Filomena went off about her business, followed by that aged patriarch, her father.
Three minutes after the pair had disappeared through theporte de service, Vanno and the curé arrived at the great gate, which was a famous landmark at Cap Martin, the Villa Mirasole having been built years ago for a Russian grand duke. Since he had been killed by a bomb in his own country, the house he loved had passed into other hands. Now it belonged to an English earl who had lost a fortune at the Casino: and it was owing to his lossesthat the villa was let this season to Prince Della Robbia.
Much of the furniture, which was of great value, had been sold, and the house was so denuded that it had practically to be redecorated and refurnished, to suit Angelo's ideas of fitness for his wife; because he wished to keep it on year after year. Only to-day was everything finished to his satisfaction.
The villa, whose exterior copied the Petit Trianon, had a large entrance hall of marble which opened to the roof, and was surrounded by a gallery. This hall was coldly beautiful, with its few bronzes and gilded seventeenth-century chairs, its tall vases of orange blossoms and tea roses, its faded Persian rugs and mosaic tables. But it made an extraordinarily impressive background or frame for a lovely woman, and Marie Della Robbia was a lovely woman. Vanno had seen her many times now in many different dresses since New Year's eve, when he had met her with Angelo, at the Mentone railway station; but she had never struck him as being a beauty, until to-day. As she came forward to greet her two visitors, he said to himself for the first time that she was beautiful.
She and Angelo had evidently just entered from the garden. Her right hand was full of roses, which she hastily changed into her left, and she wore a softly folding white dress, with a great cart-wheel of a Leghorn hat, drooping in all the right places, and wreathed with pink roses. She was a tall woman with a long neck, therefore could well wear such ahat; and it framed her head like an immense halo of dull gold. Her hair was brown with red lights in it, and her eyes were of exactly the same shade, the colour of ripe chestnuts. She had a beautiful short, rather square face, of a creamy paleness; a square, low forehead, straight dark brows, drawn very low over the long eyes; a short, straight nose, and a short, curved upper lip, fitting so charmingly into the full squareness of the under lip that her mouth looked like two pieces of pink coral cleverly carved one upon another. Her short, square chin was deeply cleft, and her long yet solid-looking white throat was like one of those slender marble columns which divide the arch of a Moorish window. At first sight, before she spoke, she would be taken for a woman of sensuous temperament, lazy, luxury-loving, not talkative, and the gay smile which flashed over her face at sight of Vanno and the curé seemed somehow unsuited to it, giving almost the effect of electric light suddenly turned upon a still pool, covered with the waxen weight of white water-lilies. Her manner, too, was a contradiction of her type. It had a light, sleigh-bell gayety, bringing thoughts of sparkling snows and iced sunshine. There was charm in it, yet it was oddly remote and cold, as if she, the woman herself, had gone away on an errand, leaving some other woman's spirit in temporary charge of her body. She looked to be twenty-five or six, and was meant by nature to be more dignified than she chose to be. She had elected to be light and girlish; and whatevershe was, it was evident that in her husband's eyes she was perfect. He watched her admiringly, adoringly, as she welcomed her brother-in-law and the curé. The love in his eyes was pathetic, and would have been tragic if it had not been a happy love, fully returned, and culminating in a perfect marriage.
Angelo was delighted to see his brother, and especially to see him come in with their old friend the curé. This meant, he hoped, that the good man had found a chance to talk to Vanno, and perhaps to persuade him to stay at the Villa Mirasole.
The two young men shook hands cordially, with an affectionate grip, as if they had not seen each other for some time, though it was really no more than twenty-four hours since they had parted.
They were very much alike, and yet, as Filomena had shrewdly noticed at first glance, utterly different. Angelo was five years older than Vanno and looked more, because he wore a short pointed beard, cut almost close to the long oval of his cheeks, like the beards of many Italian naval officers. He was dark, but not so dark as Vanno's face had been painted by the desert; and whereas Vanno was both man of action and dreamer, Angelo had the face of a poet whose greatest joy is in his dreams. He seemed less Roman, more Italian than Vanno, and his profile was less salient, more perfect, being so purely cut that people who had seen him seldom, would think of him in profile, as one thinks always of a sword. Vanno would dream, and strenuously work out hisdream. Angelo would dream on, and let others work; consequently the elder was not so vital, not so magnetic as the younger. He showed no trace of those battles with himself which gave Vanno's face strength and his eyes fire; yet it was clear that Angelo was a man of high ideals, and would be lost in losing them; whereas Vanno would fight on without ideals, only becoming harder. All this the curé had known since Angelo was a big boy and Vanno a little one, and he had learned it after an acquaintance of but a few days, for it was a theory of his that character is like the scent of various plants. It must so distil itself that it cannot in any way be hidden for long; and those who cannot recognize character for what it is are like people who have lost their sense of smell, and can detect no difference in the odour of flowers.
Almost at once the Princess proposed that the curé should begin to bless the house. He had brought with him a small olive branch which he had gathered in the woods; and with this he sprinkled each room with holy water, while the acolytes accompanied him, one holding a bowl, the other swinging the censer which sent clouds of perfume through the house. All the servants had been called together, even the Princess' English maid, who had left England for the first time to come to the Riviera. They followed the family from room to room, grave and deeply interested, Filomena in a large white apron exhaling a faint odour of spices and good things of the kitchen. When the ceremony was finished and not a room unvisited, Filomena flew back to duty,and carefully, but not anxiously, lifted the lid of eachmarmiteon the huge stove. She had possessed her soul in perfect confidence that the patron saint of the household would look after her dishes during her absence, and she would have been not only surprised but indignant if anything had been burnt.
Now had come the moment for Vanno to speak.
The curé had sent away the acolytes. It still wanted half an hour of luncheon time, and the Princess led the way to a wide window-door on to the loggia. This was very broad, like an American veranda, with a roof of thick, dull greenish glass which softened the glare of sunlight, and did not darken the rooms inside. Roses garlanded the marble pillars, and Indian rugs were spread on the marble floor. There were basket chairs and tables, and a red hammock piled with cushions was suspended on bars arranged after a plan of Angelo's. Marie Della Robbia in her white dress made a picture among the crimson cushions, and it was scarcely possible for her not to know that the three men who grouped round her found the picture charming.
Vanno's heart was thumping. He had thought it would be easy and delightful to tell the news of his engagement, but it struck him suddenly that these two, Angelo and Marie, were utterly absorbed in each other. Perhaps they would not care as much as he had hoped. Or Angelo might disapprove. Not that any disapproval would matter now, not even their father's; but Vanno wanted sympathy and interest. As he searched for the right word to begin,groping for it, ashamed of his shyness, the butler appeared at the window, a Mentonnais-Italian who prided himself passionately upon his English. He too had been found for the house by the friendly offices of the curé—an eager, intelligent man with glittering eyes and a laughable tendency to blushing. He had learned his English in three months at a Bloomsbury boarding-house where, apparently, conversations had been carried on entirely in slang. If he were addressed by an English-speaking person in any other language, his feelings were so deeply wounded that he turned a rich purple.
"Highnesses please," he announced, "a French mister has come to appear. It is a Stereo-Mondaine and he have a strong want to prend some photographs of the garden and peoples which is done from colours already, very rippin'."
Angelo frowned slightly. And when he frowned his long oval face looked cold and proud, the face of an aristocrat who believed that the world was made for him and his kind. "Tell the man that we cannot allow him to take photographs here," he said.
The butler hesitated. "Highness, it is necessary that this man vivre. I think he has not too much oof.C'est dure, la publicité!"
"I can't help that, Americo," Angelo persisted. "You can offer him food if you think he is poor, but we do not want him to take photographs."
Vanno saw that Marie was looking at her husband intently, with a peculiar, almost frightened expression, as if she were studying him wistfully, and finding out something new which she had not wholly understood.
"Angelo," she ventured, in a small, beguiling voice, "perhaps this poor man has his pride of an artist. You see, I have a fellow feeling!" She smiled pleadingly, yet mischievously, and turned an explanatory glance on the curé. "I was an artist, and I should so love to know what is a Stereo-Mondaine."
Vanno had never before liked her so much.
Angelo's face changed and softened. "If you want him, it is different!" he returned. "But you've seemed always to have a horror of snapshotters."
"He might take the garden," she suggested.
"Bring the fellow, Americo," said Prince Della Robbia.
The butler flushed furiously with joy. "Rightho, my good Highnesses," he exclaimed; and the three who understood why he was funny stifled laughter till he was out of earshot. "His English is a constant delight to us," said Marie, instantly picking up again her sleigh-bell gayety of manner, like a dropped, forgotten garment. "It's as wonderful as my English maid's French, which she's earnestly studying, though she finds that a language where meat is feminine and milk masculine simply doesn't appeal to her reason. She's learned to call Wednesday 'Murcreedy' and Saturday 'Samdy.' When she goes to Mentone to buy me something at Aux Dames de France, she says she's bought it atthe 'Ox Daimes.' But she reached her grandest height this morning. I walked into my room, to hear her groaning at a window that looks toward Monte Carlo. 'Oh, those poor, poor men committing suicide! I can't get them out of my head,' she moaned when I asked if she were ill. 'That day when I went over there sightseeing. It was too awful, walking on the terrace, to hear those poor creatures blowing out their brains every two minutes down under the Casino. I couldn't stand it, so I had to come away, but nobody else seemed to mind, and some of 'em was hanging over the wall to see what was going on!' I couldn't imagine what she meant, for a minute. Then I knew it must be the pigeon-shooters."
Angelo laughed. "Of course. But what doyouknow of the pigeon-shooters, Marie mia? You have sternly refused to let me take you to Monte Carlo."
Marie blushed, a sudden bright blush. "Oh, you have told me about them—how they shoot under the terrace. That's one reason why I love staying here at Cap Martin, or taking excursions where everything is purely beautiful, and nothing to make one sad."
"I don't remember telling you about the pigeon-shooting," Angelo said.
"Well, if you didn't tell me, somebody else must have, mustn't they—else how could I know?"
"Highnesses, Mister the Stereo-Mondaine."
A frail wisp of a man was ushered by the butler on to the loggia: a man very shabby, very thin, veryproud, with a camera out of proportion to his size and strength, hugged under one arm. He would have been known as a Frenchman if found dressed in furs at the North Pole.
He explained passionately that, had he been a mere photographer, he would not have ventured to intrude upon such distinguished company; but he was unique in his profession, a Stereo-Mondaine, a traveller who knew his world and had amétiervery special. He was, in short, an artist in colour photography; and before asking the privilege that he desired, he would beg to show a sample of his most successful work at Monte Carlo.
"Here, for instance," he went on hurriedly in his French of the Midi, "is a treasure of artisticness; a marvel of a portrait, a poem!" And he displayed a large glass plate, neatly bound round the edges with gilt paper. His thin hand, on which veins rose in a bas relief, held the plate up tremulously against the light. All bent forward with a certain interest, for none of the three had seen many specimens of colour photography. Vanno and the curé both gave vent to slight exclamations. They were looking at a picture of Mary Grant, dressed in pale blue, with a blue hat. She was standing in thePlaceof the Casino at Monte Carlo, feeding pigeons.
It seemed to Vanno that his sister-in-law also uttered a faint, "Oh!" But turning to her, he saw that she was leaning back among the cushions of the hammock, having ceased to take an interest in the prettily coloured photograph. She met his eyes."I thought I heard Americo coming to call us to luncheon," she said. "It must be nearly time. But it wasn't he, after all. Yes, indeed, it is a charming photograph." Breaking from English into French, she complimented the Stereo-Mondaine.
"Will you sell me that picture?" Vanno asked.
"But, Monsieur, it is my best. I should have to demand a good price; for it could be produced in a journal, and I would be well paid. When the plate of a coloured photograph is gone—biff!allis gone. There is an end."
"I will give you three louis."
The Stereo-Mondaine accepted at once, lest the Monsieur should change his mind; and Vanno having taken the plate from him, he proceeded to produce others.
"Nothing more, thanks—unless you have any of the same lady."
"No, unfortunately, Monsieur. She would have posed again, for she was a most sympathetic as well as beautiful personality. But the crowd closed around us. I may induce her to stand again, however."
"I hardly think that is likely to happen," Vanno muttered.
"Let him go into the garden, and take half a dozen of the prettiest views—things we should like to carry away with us," the Princess said, hastily, as if she were anxious now to be rid of her protégé. "When they are ready, he can send them to us—and the bill."
The Stereo-Mondaine was disposed of, while Angelo took the glass plate from Vanno, and looked at the picture.
"Do you know the lady, by any chance," he asked lightly, "or did you buy merely as an admirer of beauty?"
"I—am going to marry her, I hope," said Vanno. "We have been engaged since last night. I came over early to tell you."
There was a pause. Each one seemed waiting for another to break the silence. Then the curé stepped into the breach.
"I speak from knowledge when I say that the Principino's fiancée is as good as beautiful—a most rare lady. He is to be congratulated."
"Of course we congratulate him!" Angelo said cordially. He got up and shook hands warmly with his brother, like an Englishman: then he patted him affectionately on the shoulder. "Dear boy," he added, "you have given us a great surprise. But I am sure it is a happy one. And we can feel for you because of our own happiness, which is so new: though I think it always will be new. Can we not sympathize, Marie mia?"
"Yes," said the Princess. "Yes, of course. I congratulate you." There was a different quality in her voice. It did not ring quite true; and Vanno was disappointed. He thought that to please Angelo and him she was affecting more interest than she was able to feel.
Angelo still had the coloured photograph on the glass plate, but now he handed it to his wife. "What a lovely girl!" he exclaimed. "I don't believe that in your artist days, dearest, you ever had a prettier model."
"No, never," said Marie. She took the plate that Angelo held out, and looked at it with a slight quivering of the eyelids as if the sun, which was very bright, shone too strongly. Then, quickly, she sprang up, leaving the photograph in the hammock. "An awfully pretty girl," she went on. "Vanno must tell us all about her, at luncheon. Here comes Americo to announce it."
She hurried to the door, smiling at the three men over her shoulder. The sun had given her a bright colour. Even her ears were rose-pink. Vanno, in following, retrieved the glass plate from among the cushions. He was not sure whether or no his announcement had been a success, but the method of it seemed to have been thrust on him by Fate.
For a few minutes after they were seated at the table Marie chatted of other things, talking very fast about aBlinis au caviarfor which she had given Filomena the recipe. "I tasted it first in Russia," she remarked, immediately adding "when I was very young." Then abruptly she jumped back to the subject of Vanno's great news. "Tell us abouther," she commanded, giving her brother-in-law a charming smile. But as he began, rather jerkily, to supply the information asked for, the Princess looked down at her plate, eating slowly and daintily,as a child eats when it wishes to make some delicious food last as long as possible. Not once did she raise her thick, straight eyelashes, as Vanno said that the girl was a Miss Grant, now staying with the wife of the chaplain at Monte Carlo. Her first question seemed to have satisfied the Princess' curiosity, for all those that followed were asked by her husband.
"Miss Grant!" he echoed, deeply interested in his brother's love affair, though still puzzled by its suddenness, and a little uneasy. He felt that it would not be well for both the Duke's sons to marry women unknown socially; and almost unconsciously he was influenced by a selfish consideration. Vanno was expected to make his, Angelo's, peace with the father, who worshipped the younger, tolerated the elder, of his sons. It was Vanno's duty to describe Marie in glowing terms, to induce the Duke to feel that despite her social unimportance she was a pearl among women. But if Vanno had his own peace to make, his own pearl to praise, other interests might suffer. "Miss Grant! It is odd, isn't it, that we should choose girls of names so much alike? Marie Gaunt, and—but what is your Miss Grant's Christian name?"
Vanno had to confess ignorance; and this forced him to explain that he had known Miss Grant for a very short time. "But I felt from the beginning that I'd known her always," he added bravely. "It was—love at first sight. You—I think you'll understand when you see her. The curé sees. Andthat's what I want to ask. Will you both go to call upon her with me—and be kind?"
"Of course," said Angelo. "It can't be too soon. When shall we go?"
"Well," said Vanno, almost shamefacedly, "I thought if you could manage it this afternoon——"
Angelo laughed a pleasant but teasing laugh. "He doesn't want any grass to grow between Cap Martin and Monte Carlo before our motor-car has rushed us to his lady's bower. We can go this afternoon, I'm sure, can't we, Marie?"
The eyes of the three men were turned upon the Princess, who was still delicately eating herBlinis au caviar, though the others had finished. For an instant she did not answer. Then she looked up suddenly, first at Angelo, her glance travelling to Vanno almost pleadingly before she spoke. "I should love to go," she said to him, emphatically. "Only, I do think it would be so much more proper and better in every way for me to call on—on Miss Grant first alone, without either of you. Do let me. It will be far more of a compliment, I assure you. And she will prefer it."
"I don't quite see that," observed Angelo.
"Because you are a man! Why, she can talk to me, and tell me little confidential things that she will love telling, and couldn't so much as mention before you. Vanno says she has no relatives with her, but is staying with friends; and I will try to make her feel as if I were a sister."
"Marie, youaregood!" exclaimed Vanno, hiseyes warm with gratitude. After all, his sister-in-law was not disapproving, as he had begun to fear. "She's perfectly right, Angelo. It will be splendid of her to go alone."
"I begin to see the point of view," said Angelo. "I might have known. She's always right."
Marie smiled at him sweetly and softly; and as her husband's eyes met hers a beautiful look of love and understanding flashed from the hidden soul of the woman to the soul of the man. Vanno saw it, and thrilled. So would it be with him and the girl he loved.
The motor was ordered for the Princess at a quarter to three. She wished to arrive early at Mrs. Winter's, in order to have her chat with Miss Grant before tea time. Her idea was to ask only for the guest, not for the hostess, and be ready to leave before the hour when extraneous and irrelevant guests might be expected to invade the chaplain's drawing-room. There was, it appeared, a telephone in the apartment-house where the Winters lived, and Vanno, getting into communication with Mary after numerous difficulties, begged her to be in, and if possible alone, for a visit from his sister-in-law. It was arranged that the curé, who had never been in a motor-car, should be dropped at the foot of a convenient short cut to Roquebrune, and Angelo and Vanno would go on with Marie to Monte Carlo. Having left her at the Winters' door, Angelo meant to walk with Vanno to his hotel, expecting later to pick up his wife again. When the curé had bidden them goodbye, however, Marie proposed a modification of the plan.
"Poor Angelo has been pining for Monte Carlo, I'm sure," she said, laughing, her bright eyes and unusually pink cheeks alluring and mysterious, under the thickly patterned black veil she had put on witha large black velvet hat. "He's concealed his feelings well, I must say, out of compliment to me, because I was so good about the villa. At first I didn't want to have a house at Cap Martin. From all I'd heard, I thought the Riviera must be so sophisticated—and somehow I've always detested the idea of Monte Carlo. But you know, Vanno, how Angelo fell in love with the Villa Mirasole when he visited the Grand Duke years ago. He must have written you how he set his heart, even then, on having it for his honeymoon if he married. I gave up my objections provided he would promise that I needn't go to Monte Carlo, and that he wouldn't be always running over there himself. Now, I'm glad, for I love the villa. And you see, I'm on the way to Monte Carlo of my own accord! The next thing is to tell Angelo he may play about there as long as he likes. I shall keep the motor waiting while I'm at Miss Grant's, and go back in it alone whenever I feel inclined. You needn't come to fetch me. I'd rather not."
Both men looked disappointed: Vanno because he wanted to hear Marie's impressions of his adored one without delay, confident that they would be favourable; Angelo, because since their marriage he and his wife had not been parted for a single hour. This was the first sign Marie had shown of wishing to assert independence.
"Are you sure you're not saying this for my sake?" Angelo inquired anxiously. "I don't want to hang about Monte Carlo. I——"
"It will do you good to have a little change," she said. Then she flashed him a meaning, intimate glance which he thought that he interpreted, and therefore raised no more objections. Her eyes seemed to say: "I have a reason. I'll explain to you when we're alone. It has something to do with your brother."
"Come and dine with us if you care to, Vanno," she went on. "Or if you have an engagement with Miss Grant, spin over in a taxi for coffee and a few minutes' chat afterward. That is, if you'd like to hear how beautiful and altogether perfect I think she is—and make some plan about bringing her to Cap Martin—sooner or later."
Vanno explained that he was to dine at the Winters, but would accept for the "chat," with great pleasure. Dinner was early at the chaplain's. He would leave at eight-thirty, and then go back again for a quarter of an hour, to bid Miss Grant farewell.
He leaned suddenly from the window just in time to direct his brother's chauffeur, and the car pulled up before the ugly square building which Rose Winter called a "quadrupedifice." Angelo sprang out, helping Marie to alight with as much care and tenderness as if she might break with a rough touch. Next came the parting at the door; and Vanno smiled to see how Marie lingered with her hand in her husband's. They had as many last words to say to each other as if Angelo were to be absent for three days, although he was assuring her—withneedless insistence—that even if he looked into the Casino he would certainly be back long before dinner.
The two men watched the Princess begin to mount the stairs, before they turned away. Then, leaving the car at the door as Marie had wished, they walked off together in the direction of the Hôtel de Paris.
"Idina Bland called yesterday on Marie," Angelo said abruptly, with a slight suggestion of constraint in his voice. "It was—rather a surprise to me. I supposed she was in America."
"Diavolo! She is still here, then?"
"Still? Did you know she was on the Riviera?"
"I knew she came—weeks ago. She went up to Roquebrune to see the curé. She'd heard he was an old friend of ours—and she inquired for you—wouldn't say who she was. That was before I arrived."
"How do you know it was Idina, if she didn't give her name?"
"The curé's description. There was no mistaking it. He said at a little distance her eyes looked white, like a statue's."
"Ah—that was good! They are like that. Curious eyes. Curious woman. Why didn't you tell me before about her visit to the curé?"
"I meant to. But you put off coming so long. And I—well, I confess I forgot."
"You're excusable in the circumstances, my dear boy. After all, it's of no importance."
"No. And then, as I never saw her anywhere about, there was reason to suppose she'd left. If I thought of her at all, I thought she'd gone."
"It seems she's been staying for weeks at the Annonciata—I fancy she called it—a hotel on a little mountain close to Mentone. She says the air's very fine—and she's been ordered south by an American doctor. Had pneumonia in the autumn."
"What about the distant cousin over there who was going to leave her money?"
"He's dead, and she's got the money. She is wearing a kind of second mourning—gray and black. It made her look rather hard, I thought."
"She always did look hard, except——"
"Except? What's the rest, Vanno?"
"I was going to say, 'Except for you.'"
"I—er—she seems to have got over that nonsense now. I must confess it gave me rather a start when I came in from a smoke in the garden yesterday, and found her sitting with Marie in the yellow salon. For a minute I was afraid—well, I hardly know of what."
"Dio! You didn't think she'd try to do Marie a mischief?"
"No. Hardly that. But it passed through my mind that she might try to make trouble between us. Not that she could."
"Did you—don't answer unless you care to—ever tell Marie about Idina?"
"Not till yesterday, after her call. It never occurred to me. Idina had gone out of my lifebefore Marie came into it, and she was never anything to me."
"I know. It was the other way round. But—you were good to her, and cousinly, and I suppose she misunderstood a little."
"I never realized that, until she was going to America, and she hinted—er—that she wouldn't care about getting the money if it weren't for—well, you know. Or you can guess."
"She thought father would approve of a marriage between you if she became an heiress."
"Partly that, and partly she seemed to believe that I'd have spoken to her of love if she hadn't been a kind of dependent on my father. I tried to make her understand without putting it into brutal words, that I did love her of course, but only as a cousin. It's the devil having to tell a woman you don't want her! I'm not sure she did entirely understand, for she wrote me a letter afterward—it followed me to Dresden, and came the day after Marie had promised to be my wife. I didn't answer. I thought when Idina heard of my marriage she'd see why I hadn't replied, and why it was kinder not to write. I knew she would hear through father, for she corresponds with him. He is very punctilious about answering letters; and suspecting nothing he would tell the news. When I found her with Marie yesterday—but I see now I was a fool. These melodramatic things don't happen. And after all, Idina's a cold woman."
"I wonder?"
"Well, anyhow, she was very civil to me and pleasant to Marie, whom I questioned afterward about what Idina had said before I came in. It seems there was nothing—but I explained to my wife that there'd been a boy and girl friendship between Idina and me, a sort of cousinly half flirtation, nothing more. And really therewasnothing more."
"Certainly not," Vanno agreed, emphatically. "But it's just as well to tell Marie, so that in case Idina should do something—one of those things women call 'catty'—she'd be prepared."
"Yes, it is better to have no concealments," said Angelo. "Luckily I have no other complications in my past. Nothing to dread. And Marie is an angel. She would forgive me anything, I believe, if there were anything I had to ask her to forgive."
"As you would her," Vanno added, impulsively.
"With her, there could be nothing to forgive," Angelo replied, stiffening. "She is an angel. And now, enough of my affairs. Let us talk about yours."
When her husband and brother-in-law had left her, Princess Della Robbia began to go upstairs very slowly. She mounted with her hand on the balusters, as if she were weak or tired. At last, when she had reached the étage of the Winters' flat, she paused, and rested for several minutes before the door which displayed the chaplain's card. She was breathing rather fast, which was but natural perhaps, as she had ascended three flights of stairs, was wearing an immensely long and wide ermine stole, and carrying a huge muff to match. Before she touched the electric bell she pulled her large hat forward a little over her face, and adjusted the thick veil, which had a pattern like a spider's web. Then she opened a gold vanity box suspended from her wrist by a chain, and looked at herself in the small mirror it contained. Her face was so shadowed by the hat and disguised by the veil that at a little distance it might be difficult for any one not very familiar with her features and figure to recognize her at all.
When she had shut the vanity box with a sharp snap, she pressed the electric bell, and waited with her head bowed. She kept it bowed when the beautiful Storm-cloud opened the door, and still while she inquired in French for Miss Grant.
There was no one in the pretty American-looking drawing-room when Nathalie ushered her in. Throwing a quick glance around, the Princess chose a chair so placed that her back was turned not only to the window but to a table with an electric lamp on it, which would in all probability soon be lighted. Hardly was she seated, when the door was thrown open quickly, and Mary came in.
Princess Della Robbia rose, her left arm thrust into her big ermine muff, so that her right hand might be free if it must be given in greeting. But she did not step forward as if eager to greet Vanno's fiancée.
"Princess Della Robbia?" Mary said, rather shyly. "How good of you to come to see me."
She put out her hand and took that of the Princess. This brought them close together, and as they were of nearly the same height, they looked into each other's faces, though the Princess still kept her head slightly bent, her eyes and forehead in shadow.
"Marie Grant!"
Mary cried out the name sharply.
"Hush!" said the Princess, with a convulsive pressure on the other's hand. "For God's sake! Don't ruin me!"
Mary, with the last rays of afternoon light full on her face, turned pale to the lips, and the pupils of her eyes seemed to dilate.
"Oh, Marie, darling!" she faltered. "I wouldn't ruin you for the world—not to save my life. I—it was only that I was so surprised. I'm glad—very glad to see you. I've dreamed of you a thousand times—and just before coming to Monte Carlo, too. I expected some one else when I came into this room, a Princess Della Robbia——"
"I am Princess Della Robbia," Marie said in a veiled, dead voice.
"You—but I don't understand——"
"I'll tell you. I want to tell you," the Princess broke in quickly, the words almost jumbled together in her haste. "We must talk before any one comes. Will any one come?"
"No, no," Marie soothed her. "Mrs. Winter is out. She won't be back till four. It's only a little after three."
The Princess thrust her arm through her muff so that she could take both Mary's hands. She pressed them tightly, her fingers jerking as if by mechanism. "I've come—I've got to throw myself on your mercy," she said.
"Don't," Mary implored, "use such words to me. Oh, Marie, how strange—how strange everything is! The night before I left the convent, Peter—dear Peter, who loves you too, always—said that perhaps my dreams meant that you thought of me sometimes—that we might meet. Then I didn't expect to come here. She told me not to come. But she said, 'Anything can happen at Monte Carlo.'"
"Anything can happen anywhere," the Princess answered in a muffled voice. "It is a terrible world. It's been a terrible world for me since I saw you.And now—just when it's turned into heaven, you can send me down to hell."
"It kills me to hear you talk so," Mary said, tears rising in her eyes, and falling slowly. "I!Why, Marie dearest, didn't you just hear me say I'd rather die than hurt you? I don't know what you mean."
"Do you understand that I'm married to the brother of the man you're engaged to marry?"
"Why—yes. You told me that you—that you're the Princess Della Robbia."
"Well, my husbanddoesn't know. Nobody in my life now, knows anything about—the part that came before. Nobody must know. I'd kill myself rather than have Angelo find out, or even suspect. He thinks I——" She stopped, and choked. "He thinks I am——" The sob would come. She broke down, crying bitterly. "Oh, Mary, I love him so. I worship him. He thinks I'm everything sweet and good and innocent, that I'd give my soul to be, for his sake. And now you've come——"
"You don't think I'll tell!"
"Not if you say you won't. But I didn't know. You were always so good. You might have thought it your duty. Mary—you won't tell Vanno? I couldn't bear it!"
"I won't tell Vanno, or any one at all."
"You're sure—sureyou won't let anything drop, by mistake?"
"Explain to me exactly what you want me to do," Mary said, "and I'll do it. Are we to have been strangers to each other till to-day—is that it?"
"Yes, that's the best thing: less complicated. It will save telling lies."
"I should hate to tell lies," said Mary.
"You needn't. Oh, the hundreds and thousands I've had to tell! The dreary, uphill work! But now I'm on the hill, the beautiful hill in the sunshine where my husband lives. And I'm going to stay there if I have to wade in lies."
Mary shivered a little at the words and the look in Marie's eyes as they stared behind the spider web veil. But she tried not to show that she was shocked. She felt she would give her hand to be cut off rather than hurt this miserable girl who had sinned and suffered, and now stood desperately at bay.
"Try to be happy; try to trust me," she said. "We used to be such friends."
"That was my only hope when I found that Vanno was engaged to you, and that we should have to meet," Marie confessed. "I hated to come, but I had to brave it out. And I thought it just possible you mightn't recognize me, after all these years." She pushed up her veil nervously. "Haven't I changed? Do say I've changed!"
"Your hair looks lighter. There's more red in it, surely," Mary reflected aloud. "It used to be a dark brown. Now it's almost auburn."
"I bleach it. I began to do that when I first thought of trying to—get back to things. I wanted to make myself different, so that if any of the people who saw me when I—was down, came across me again, they mightn't be sure it wasI—they might think it was just a resemblance to—another woman. I took the name of Gaunt instead of Grant, because it was so nearly the same, it might seem to have been a very simple mistake, if any complication came. And I went to live far away from every one I'd ever known. I chose Dresden. I can hardly tell why, except that I'd never been there, and I wanted to paint. I stayed at first in a pension kept by an artist's wife. The artist helped me, and I did very well with my work. That's what saved me. If I hadn't had that talent, there would have been only one of two things for me to do: kill myself, or—worse."
"Let's not think of it, since it's all over," said Mary, gently. She took Marie by the hand again, and made her sit down on Rose Winter's chintz covered sofa. Then she sat beside her friend and almost timidly slid an arm round her waist.
"All over!" the Princess echoed, in a voice so weary and old, so unlike the bright sleigh-bell gayety Angelo knew, that he would hardly have recognized his wife. "That's the horrible part—that's the punishment: never to know whether it's 'all over,' or whether at any minute, just as one begins to dare feel a little happy and safe, one isn't going to be found out. For instance, when my husband wanted a villa at Cap Martin. Once, before I knew we would be coming here, I told him that I'd never been to the Riviera. It was necessary to tell him that. But, Mary, I had been. It makes me sick when I think what a short time ago it was.I came to Monte Carlo with—him, and we stopped for weeks at a big hotel. Every day and all day we were in the Casino. Afterward we went to Russia, and it was in Russia he left me—in St. Petersburg. Often I go back there in dreams, and to Monte Carlo too. I suppose youknewabout me, always—you and—Peter?"
"Neither of us knew much. But I know all I want to know—unless you feel there's anything it would do you good to tell."
"It does me a little good to be able to speak out to some one for the first time in years, now the worst is over, and I haven't to be afraid of you. If you could dream what I went through to-day! Mary, are you sure—sure of yourself—that you won't give me away?"
"Very, very sure," Mary answered steadily. "I think it would have been better if you'd told the Prince before you married him, and then you'd have nothing to fear now, but——"
"He wouldn't have married me. One of my great attractions in his eyes was—what I have not. You don't know that family yet, Mary. I think the brothers are a good deal alike in some ways, though Angelo is more of a saint than Vanno. They adore purity in women. I think they both have a sort of pitying horror for women who aren't—innocent."
Mary was silent. She had reason to believe that the Princess was right.
"And I couldn't give him up," Marie went on. "It was too much even for God to expect. It wassuch a beautiful romance—the first true romance in my life. It seemed to be recreating me. I almost felt as if his love wouldmakeme worthy if I could only take and keep it. It was a dreadful risk, but—I dared it, and I'd do it again, if I had it to do, even if I paid by losing my soul. I used to think at first that perhaps when we'd been married a long time, and I was sure of his love, I might tell him—a little, not everything. But now I know that I never, never can. It would be a thousand times worse than before, if he found out. It would mean my death, that's all. I couldn't look into his eyes, his dear, beautiful eyes that adore me, that I adore. You haven't seen him yet. But you know Vanno's eyes, and what it would be to see them turn cold after they have been—stars of love. That expresses them."
"Yes, that expresses them," Mary almost whispered. She closed her eyelids for an instant and Vanno's eyes looked into hers, as they had looked in the curé's garden, after the first kiss. Nothing that Marie could have said would have made her understand as clearly. If she were as Marie was, she felt that she could not tell Vanno, now that his eyes had worshipped her. She would not marry him andnottell, if there were things that ought to be told; but she would go away, far away, where the dear eyes might never look at her again.
"You don't know yet what it is to love," Marie went on; and Mary answered, as if she were speaking to herself, "I almost think I do know—now."
"If you do, you can understand me."
"I am beginning to understand," Mary said.
"You swear that you've said nothing to Vanno, to make him suspect? When he told you about his brother and sister-in-law, did he mention my name as—as a girl?"
"He said your name was Marie Gaunt——"
"Oh! And then?"
"I believe I talked about having a friend once with a name rather like yours, but not quite. That's all, truly. I had no idea that Marie Gaunt——"
"Did you speak about the convent?"
"I told him and the curé that I'd been brought up at a convent school, but I didn't say where it was, or anything about it at all. There was no time or chance then. I meant to tell Vanno lots of things when we were alone; but there was only our walk down the mountain together, and we had so much to say to each other about the present and future, I forgot about the past, and I think he did, too. The only thing I've had time to say about myself is that I've no relatives except a very disagreeable aunt and cousin. There was nothing, not a word, that you need be afraid of."
"Thank God!" exclaimed Marie, with a sigh as of one who wakes to consciousness free of pain, after an operation which might have opened the door of death. "And you'll swear to me that never will you tell Angelo, or Vanno, or any one else at all, that you'll not even confess to a priest that I wasMarie Grant, a girl you knew at the convent of St. Ursula-of-the-Lake."
"I'll swear it, if that will make you happier."
"It will—it does. Swear that nothing can tempt you to break your word."
"Nothing shall tempt me to break my word."
"Swear by your love for Vanno, and his for you."
"I swear by my love for Vanno and his love for me."
Marie bent down suddenly, seized Mary's hand, and kissed it.
"Thank you," she said. "Now I can be at peace, for a little while. Now I can be glad that you're engaged to Vanno. And we may see each other, and all four be happy together. The ordeal's over."