"Yes," said he.
She shook her head. "I give you up. In one breath you speak like a
Mohammedan, in the next like--I don't know what."
"With these," said John, his band stretched towards the wall. "With the
type of the Quattrocento."
He got upon his feet, and moved from picture to picture; and a fire,
half indeed of mischief; but half it may be of real enthusiasm,
glimmered in his eyes.
"With these lost ladies of old years; these soft-coloured shadows, that
were once rosy flesh; these proud, humble, innocent, subtle, brave, shy,
pious, pleasure-loving women of the long ago. With them; with their hair
and eyes and jewels, their tip-tilted, scornful, witty little noses,
their 'throats so round and lips so red,' their splendid raiment; with
their mirth, pathos, passion, kindness and cruelty, their infinite
variety, their undying youth. Ah, the pity of it! Their undying
youth--and they so irrevocably dead. Peace be to their souls! See," he
suddenly declaimed, laughing, "how the sun, the very sun in heaven, is
contending with me, as to which of us shall do them the greater homage,
the sun that once looked on their living forms, and remembers--see how
he lights memorial lamps about them," for the sun, reflected from the
polished floor, threw a sheen upon the ancient canvases, and burned
bright in the bosses of the frames. "Give me these," he wound up, "a
book or two, and a jug of the parroco's 'included wine'--my wilderness
is paradise enow."
Lady Blanchemain's eyes, as she listened, had become deep wells of
disappointment, then gushing fountains of reproach.
"Oh, you villain!" she groaned, when he had ended, shaking her pretty
fist. "So to have raised my expectations, and so to dash them!--Do you
_really_ mean," still clinging to a shred of hope, she pleaded, "really,
really mean that there's no--no actual woman?"
"I'm sorry," said John, "but I'm afraid I really, really do."
"And you're not--not really in love with any one?"
"No--not really," he said, with a mien that feigned contrition.
"But at your age--how old are you?" she broke off to demand.
"Somewhere between twenty-nine and thirty, I believe," he laughed.
"And in such a romantic environment, and not on account of a woman! It's
downright unnatural," she declared. "It's flat treason against the
kingly state of youth."
"I'm awfully sorry," said John. "Yet, after all, what's the good of
repining? Nothing could happen even if there were a woman."
Lady Blanchemain looked alarmed.
"Nothing could happen? What do you mean? You're not _married_? If you
are, it must be secretly, for you're put down as single in Burke."
"To the best of my knowledge," John reassured her, laughing, "Burke is
right. And I prayerfully trust he may never have occasion to revise his
statement."
"For mercy's sake," cried she, "don't tell me you're a woman-hater!"
"That's just the point," said he. "I'm an adorer of the sex."
"Well, then?" questioned she, at a loss. "How can you 'prayerfully' wish
to remain a bachelor? Besides, aren't you heir to a peerage? What of the
succession?"
"That's just the point," he perversely argued. "And you know there are
plenty of cousins."
"Just the point! just the point!" fretted Lady Blanchemain. "What's just
the point? Just the point that you aren't a woman-hater?--just the point
that you're heir to a peerage? You talk like Tom o' Bedlam."
"Well, you see," expounded John, unruffled, "as an adorer of the sex,
and heir to a peerage, I shouldn't want to marry a woman unless I could
support her in what they call a manner becoming her rank--and I
couldn't."
"Couldn't?" the lady scoffed. "I should like to know why not?"
"I'm too--if you will allow me to clothe my thought in somewhat homely
language--too beastly poor."
"_You--poor?_" ejaculated Lady Blanchemain, falling back.
"Ay--but honest," asseverated John, to calm her fears.
She couldn't help smiling, though she resolutely frowned.
"Be serious," she enjoined him. "Doesn't your uncle make you a suitable
allowance?"
"I should deceive you," answered John, "if I said he made me an
_un_suitable one. He makes me, to put it in round numbers, exactly no
allowance whatsoever."
"The--old--curmudgeon!" cried Lady Blanchemain, astounded, and fiercely
scanning her words.
"No," returned John, soothingly, "he isn't a curmudgeon. But he's a
very peculiar man. He's a Spartan, and he lacks imagination. It has
simply never entered his head that I could _need_ an allowance. And, if
you come to that, I can't say that I positively do. I have a tiny
patrimony--threepence a week, or so--enough for my humble necessities,
though scarcely perhaps enough to support the state of a future peeress.
No, my uncle isn't a curmudgeon; he's a very fine old boy, of whom I'm
immensely proud, and though I've yet to see the colour of his money,
we're quite the best of friends. At any rate, you'll agree that it would
be the deuce to pay if I were to fall in love.
"Ffff," breathed Lady Blanchemain, fanning. "What did I say of an age of
prose and prudence? Yet you don't _look_ cold-blooded. What does money
matter? _Dominus providebit_. Go read Browning. What's 'the true end,
sole and single' that we're here for? Besides, have you never heard that
there are such things as marriageable heiresses in the world?"
"Oh, yes, I've heard that," John cheerfully assented. "But don't they
almost always squint or something? I've heard, too, that there are such
things as tufted fortune-hunters, but theirs is a career that requires a
special vocation, and I'm afraid I haven't got it."
"Then you're no true Marquis of Carabas," the lady took him smartly up.
"You've found me out--I'm only a _faux-marquis_," he laughed.
"Thrrr!" breathed Lady Blanchemain, and for a little while appeared lost
in thought. By-and-by she got up and went to the window, and stood
looking out. "I never saw a lovelier landscape," she said, musingly.
"With the grey hills, and the snow-peaks, and the brilliant sky, with
the golden light and the purple shadows, and the cypresses and olives,
with the river gleaming below there amongst the peach-blossoms,
and--isn't that a blackcap singing in the mimosa? It only needs a pair
of lovers to be perfect--it _cries_ for a pair of lovers. And instead of
them, I find--what? A hermit and celibate. Look here. Make a clean
breast of it. _Are_ you cold-blooded?" she asked from over her shoulder.
John merely giggled.
"It would serve you right," said she, truculently, "if some one were to
rub your eyes with love-in-idleness, to make you dote upon the next
live creature that you see."
John merely chuckled.
"I'll tell you what," she proceeded, "I'm a bit of an old witch, and
I'll risk a soothword. As there isn't already a woman, there'll shortly
be one--my thumbs prick. The stage is set, the scene is too appropriate,
the play's inevitable. It was never in the will of Providence that a
youth of your complexion should pass the springtime in a spot all
teeming with romance like this, and miss a love adventure. A castle in a
garden, a flowering valley, and the Italian sky--the Italian sun and
moon! Your portraits of these smiling dead women too, if you like, to
keep your imagination working. And blackcaps singing in the mimosa. No,
no. The lady of the piece is waiting in the wings--my thumbs prick. Give
her but the least excuse, she'll enter, and ... Good Heavens, my
prophetic soul!" she suddenly, with a sort of catch in her throat, broke
off.
She turned and faced him, cheeks flushed, eyes flashing.
"Oh, you hypocrite! You monstrous fibber!" she cried, on a tone of
jubilation, looking daggers.
"Why? What's up? What's the matter?" asked John, at fault.
"How _could_ you have humbugged me so?" she wailed, in delight,
reverting to the window. "Anyhow, she's charming. She's made for the
part. I couldn't pray for a more promising heroine."
"She? Who?" asked he, crossing to her side.
"Who? Fie, you slyboots!" she crowed with glee.
"Ah, I see," said John.
For, below them, in the garden, just beyond the mimosa (all powdered
with fresh gold) where the blackcap was singing, stood a woman.