Urania asked Cornélie to come in, because it was not healthy out of
doors now, at sunset, with the misty exhalations from the lake. The
marchesa bowed coldly and stiffly, pinched her eyes together and
pretended not to remember Cornélie very well.
"I can understand that," said Cornélie, smiling acidly. "You see
different boarders at your _pension_ every day and I stayed for a much
shorter time than you reckoned on. I hope that you soon disposed of
my rooms again, marchesa, and that you suffered no loss through my
departure?"
The Marchesa Belloni looked at her in mute amazement. She was here, at
San Stefano, in her element as a marchioness; she, the sister-in-law
of the old prince, never spoke here of her foreigners' boarding-house;
she never met her Roman guests here: they sometimes visited the
castle, but only at fixed hours, whereas she spent the weeks of her
summer _villeggiatura_ here. And here she laid aside her plausible
manner of singing the praises of a chilly room, her commercial habit
of asking the most she dared. She here carried her curled leonine
head with a lofty dignity; and, though she still wore her crystal
brilliants in her ears, she also wore a brand-new spencer around her
ample bosom. She could not help it, that she, a countess by birth,
she, the Marchesa Belloni--the late marquis was a brother of the
defunct princess--possessed no personal distinction, despite all
her quarterings; but she felt herself to be, as indeed she was, an
aristocrat. The friends, the _monsignori_ whom she did sometimes meet
at San Stefano, promoted the Pension Belloni in their conversation and
called it the Palazzo Belloni.
"Oh, yes," she said, at last, very coolly, blinking her eyes with an
aristocratic air, "I remember you now ... although I've forgotten your
name. A friend of the Princess Urania, I believe? I am glad to see you
again, very glad.... And what do you think of your friend's marriage?"
she asked, as she went up the stairs beside Cornélie, between Mino da
Fiesole's marble candelabra.
Gilio, still angry and flushed and not at all calmed by the kiss, had
moved away. Urania had run on ahead. The marchesa knew of Cornélie's
original opposition, of her former advice to Urania and she was certain
that Cornélie had acted in this way because she herself had had views
on Gilio. There was a note of triumphant irony in her question.
"I think it was made in Heaven," Cornélie replied, in a bantering tone.
"I believe there is a blessing on their marriage."
"The blessing of his holiness," said the marchesa, naively, not
understanding.
"Of course: the blessing of his holiness ... and of Heaven."
"I thought you were not religious?"
"Sometimes, when I think of their marriage, I become very religious.
What peace for the Princess Urania's soul when she became a Catholic!
What happiness in life, to marry _il caro Gilio!_ There is still peace
and happiness left in life."
The marchesa had a vague suspicion that she was mocking and thought her
a dangerous woman.
"And you, has our religion no charm for you?"
"A great deal! I have a great feeling for beautiful churches and
pictures. But that is an artistic conception. You will not understand
it perhaps, for I don't think you are artistic, marchesa? And marriage
also has charms for me, a marriage like Urania's. Couldn't you help
me too some time, marchesa? Then I will spend a whole winter in your
_pension_ and--who knows?--perhaps I too shall become a Catholic.
You might give Rudyard another chance, with me; and, if that didn't
succeed, the two _monsignori_. Then I should certainly become
converted.... And it would of course be lucrative."
The marchesa looked at her haughtily, white with rage:
"Lucrative?..."
"If you get me an Italian title, but accompanied by money, of course it
would be lucrative."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, ask the old prince, marchesa, or the two _monsignori_."
"What do you know about it? What are you thinking of?"
"I? Nothing!" Cornélie answered, coolly. "But I have second sight. I
sometimes suddenly see a thing. So keep on friendly terms with me and
don't pretend again to forget an old boarder.... Is this the Princess
Urania's room? You go in first, marchesa; after you...."
The marchesa entered all aquiver: she had thoughts of witchcraft.
How did that woman know _anything_ of her transactions with the old
prince and the _monsignori_? How did she come to suspect that Urania's
marriage and her conversion had enriched the marchesa to the tune of a
few ten thousand lire?
She had not only had a lesson: she was shuddering, she was frightened.
Was that woman a witch? Was she the devil? Had she the _mal'occhio_?
And the marchesa made the sign of the _jettatura_ with her little
finger and fore-finger in the folds of her dress and muttered:
"Vade retro, Satanas...."
In her own drawing-room, Urania poured out tea. The three pointed
windows of the room overlooked the town and the ancient cathedral,
which in the orange reflection of the last gleams of sunset shot up
for yet a moment out of its grey dust of ages with the dim huddle
of its saints, prophets and angels. The room, hung with handsome
tapestries--an allegory of _Abundance_: nymphs outpouring the contents
of their cornucopias--was half old, half modern, not always perfect in
taste and pure in tone, with here and there a few hideously commonplace
modern ornaments, here and there some modern comfort that clashed with
the rest, but yet cosy, inhabited and Urania's home. A young man rose
from a chair and Urania introduced him to Cornélie as her brother.
Young Hope was a strongly built, fresh-looking boy of eighteen; he
was still in his bicycling-suit: it didn't matter, said his sister,
just to drink a cup of tea. Laughing, she stroked his close-cropped
round head and, with the ladies' permission, gave him his tea first:
then he would go and change. He looked so strange, so new and so
healthy as he sat there with his fresh, pink complexion, his broad
chest, his strong hands and muscular calves, with the youthfulness of
a young Yankee farmer who, notwithstanding the millions of "old man
Hope," worked on his farm, way out in the Far West, to make his own
fortune; he looked so strange in this ancient San Stefano, within view
of that severely symbolical cathedral, against this background of old
tapestries. And suddenly Cornélie was impressed still more strangely
by the new young princess Her name--her American name of Urania--had
a first-rate sound: "the Princess Urania" sounded unexpectedly well.
But the little wife, a trifle pale, a trifle sad, with her clipping
American accent, suddenly struck Cornélie as somewhat out of place amid
the faded glories of San Stefano. Cornélie was continually forgetting
that Urania was Princess of Forte-Braccio: she always thought of her
as Miss Hope. And yet Urania possessed great tact, great ease of
manner, a great power of assimilation. Gilio had entered; and the few
words which she addressed to her husband were, quite naturally, almost
dignified ... and yet carried, to Cornélie's ears, a sound of resigned
disillusionment which made her pity Urania. She had from the beginning
felt a vague liking for Urania; now she felt a fonder affection. She
was sorry for this child, the Princess Urania. Gilio behaved to her
with careless coolness, the marchesa with patronizing condescension.
And then there was that awful loneliness around her, of all that ruined
magnificence. She stroked her young brother's head. She spoilt him, she
asked him if his tea was all right and stuffed him with sandwiches,
because he was hungry after his bicycle-ride. She had him with her now
as a reminder of home, a reminder of Chicago; she almost clung to him.
But for the rest she was surrounded by the depressing gloom of the
immense castle, the neglected glory of its ancient stateliness, the
conceit of that aristocratic pride, which could do without her but not
without her millions. And for Cornélie she had lost all her absurdity
as an American _parvenue_ and, on the contrary, had acquired an air of
tragedy, as of a young sacrificial victim. How alien they were as they
sat there, the young princess and her brother, with his muscular calves!
Urania displayed her portfolio of drawings and designs: the ideas
of a young Roman architect for restoring the castle. And she became
excited, with a flush in her cheeks, when Cornélie asked her if so much
restoration would really be beautiful. Urania defended her architect.
Gilio smoked cigarettes with an air of indifference; he was in a bad
temper. The marchesa sat like an idol, with her leonine head and the
crystals sparkling in her ears. She was afraid of Cornélie and promised
herself to be on her guard. A major-domo came and announced to the
princess that dinner was served. And Cornélie recognized old Giuseppe
from the Pension Belloni, the old archducal major-domo, who had once
dropped a spoon, according to Rudyard's story. She looked at Urania
with a laugh and Urania blushed:
"Poor man!" she said, when Giuseppe was gone. "Yes, I took him from
my aunt. He was so hard-worked at the Palazzo Belloni! Here he has
very little to do and he has a young butler under him. The number of
servants had to be increased in any case. He is enjoying a pleasant
old age here, poor dear old Giuseppe.... There, Bob, now you haven't
dressed!"
"She's a dear child," thought Cornélie, while they all rose and Urania
gently reproached her brother, as she would a spoiled boy, for coming
down to dinner in his knickerbockers.