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 that _this_ isn'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 their _fiasco_,
"but why?"
"Why? Why? Because you're lowering yourself."
"I do not stand so high. No, let _me_ speak 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 comparing
_il nostro Gilio_ with 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 what _is_ it?..."
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 for _him_ was 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, there _are_ many 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.