II

John was in a state of mind that perplexed and rather annoyed him. Until

the day before yesterday, his detachment here at Sant' Alessina from

ordinary human society, the absence of people more or less of his own

sort, had been one of the elements of his situation which he had

positively, consciously, rejoiced in,--had been an appreciable part of

what he had summarized to Lady Blanchemain as "the whole blessed thing."

He had his castle, his pictures, his garden, he had the hills and

valley, the birds, the flowers, the clouds, the sun, he had the Rampio,

he had Annunziata, he even had Annunziata's uncle; and with all this he

had a sense of having stepped out of a world that he knew by heart, that

he knew to satiety, a world that was stale and stuffy and threadbare,

with its gilt rubbed off and its colours tarnished, into a world where

everything was fresh and undiscovered and full of savour, a great cool

blue and green world that from minute to minute opened up new

perspectives, made new promises, brought to pass new surprises. And this

sense, in some strange way, included Time as well as space. It was as if

he had entered a new region of Time, as if he had escaped from the

moving current of Time into a stationary moment. Alone here, where

modern things or thoughts had never penetrated, alone with the earth and

the sky, the mediæval castle, the dead ladies, with Annunziata, and the

parroco, and the parroco's Masses and Benedictions--to-day, he would

please himself by fancying, might be a yesterday of long ago that had

somehow dropped out of the calendar and remained, a fragment of the Past

that had been forgotten and left over. The presence of a person of his

own sort, a fellow citizen of his own period, wearing its clothes,

speaking its speech, would have broken the charm, would have seemed as

undesirable and as inappropriate as the introduction of an English

meadow into the Italian landscape.

Yet now such a person had come, and behold, her presence, so far from

breaking the charm, merged with and intensified it,--supplied indeed

the one feature needed to perfect it. A person of his own sort? The

expression is convenient. A fellow citizen, certainly, of his period,

wearing its clothes, speaking its speech. But a person, happily, not of

his own sex, a woman, a beautiful woman; and what her presence supplied

to the poetry of Sant' Alessina, making it complete, was, if you like,

the Eternal Feminine. As supplied already by the painted women on the

walls about him, this force had been static; as supplied by a woman who

lived and breathed, it became dynamic. That was all very well; if he

could have let it rest at that, if he could have confined his interest

in her, his feeling about her, to the plane of pure æsthetics, he would

have had nothing to complain of. But the mischief was that he couldn't.

The thing that perplexed and annoyed him,--and humiliated him too, in

some measure,--was a craving that had sprung up over-night, and was now

strong and constant, to get into personal touch with her, to make her

acquaintance, to talk with her; to find out a little what manner of soul

she had, to establish some sort of human relation with her. It wasn't

in the least as yet a sentimental craving; or, if it was, John at any

rate didn't know it. In its essence, perhaps, it was little more than

curiosity. But it was disturbing, upsetting, it destroyed the peace and

the harmonious leisure of his day. It perplexed him, it was outside his

habits, it was unreasonable. "Not unreasonable to think it might be fun

to talk to a pretty woman," he discriminated, "but unreasonable to yearn

to talk to her as if your life hung in the balance." And in some

measure, too, it humiliated him: it was a confession of weakness, of

insufficiency to himself, of dependence for his contentment upon

another. He tried to stifle it; he tried to fix his mind on subjects

that would lead far from it. Every subject, all subjects, subjects the

most discrepant, seemed to possess one common property, that of leading

straight back to it. Then he said, "Well, if you can't stifle it, yield

to it. Go down into the garden--hunt her up--boldly engage her in

conversation." Assurance was the note of the man; but when he pictured

himself in the act of "boldly engaging her in conversation," his

assurance oozed away, and he was conscious of a thrice-humiliating

shyness. Why? What _was_ there in the woman that should turn a brave man

shy?

However, the stars were working for him. That afternoon, coming home

from a stroll among the olives, he met her face to face at the gate of

the garden, whither she had arrived from the direction of the village.

Having made his bow, which she accepted with a smile, he could do no

less than open the gate for her; and as their ways must thence lie

together, up the long ilex-shaded avenue to the castle, it would be an

awkward affectation not to speak. And yet (he ground his teeth at having

to admit it) his heart had begun to pound so violently, (not from

emotion, he told himself,--from a mere ridiculous sort of nervous

excitement: what _was_ there in the woman that should excite a sane man

like that?) he was afraid to trust his voice, lest it should quaver and

betray him. But fortunately this pounding of the heart lasted only a few

seconds. The short business of getting the gate open, and of closing it

afterwards, gave it time to pass. So that now, as they set forwards

towards the house, he was able to look her in the eye, and to observe,

with impressiveness, that it was a fine day.

She had accepted his bow with a smile, amiable and unembarrassed; and at

this, in quite the most unembarrassed manner, smiling again,--perhaps

with just the faintest, just the gentlest shade of irony, and with just

the slightest quizzical upward tremor of the eyebrows,--"Isn't it a day

rather typical of the land and season?" she inquired.

It was the first step that had cost. John's assurance was coming swiftly

back. Her own air of perfect ease in the circumstances very likely

accelerated it. "Yes," he answered her. "But surely that isn't a reason

for begrudging it a word of praise?"

By this he was lucky enough to provoke a laugh, a little light gay

trill, sudden and brief like three notes on a flute.

"No," she admitted. "You are right. The day deserves the best we can say

of it."

"Her voice," thought John, availing himself of a phrase that had struck

him in a book he had lately read, "her voice is like ivory and white

velvet." And the touch, never so light, of a foreign accent with which

she spoke, rendered her English piquant and pretty,--gave to each

syllable a crisp little clean-cut outline. They sauntered on for a

minute or two in silence, with half the width of the road-way between

them, the shaded road-way, where the earth showed purple through a thin

green veil of mosses, and where irregular shafts of sunlight, here and

there, turned purple and green to red and gold. The warm air, woven of

garden-fragrances, hung round them palpable, like some infinitely

subtile fabric. And of course blackbirds were calling, blackcaps and

thrushes singing, in all the leafy galleries overhead. A fine day

indeed, mused John, and indeed worthy of the best that they could say.

His nervousness, his excitement, had entirely left him, his assurance

had come completely back; and with it had come a curious deep

satisfaction, a feeling that for the moment at any rate the world left

nothing to be wished for, that the cup of his desire was full. He didn't

even, now that he might do so, wish to talk to her. To walk with her was

enough,--to enjoy her companionship in silence. Yes, that was

it--companionship. He caught at the word. "That is what I have been

unconsciously needing all along. I flattered myself that I was

luxuriating in the very absence of it. But man is a gregarious animal,

and I was deceived." So he could refer the effect of her propinquity to

the mere gregarious instinct, not suspecting that a more powerful

instinct was already awake. Anyhow, his sense of that propinquity,--his

consciousness of her, gracefully moving beside him in the sweet weather,

while her summery garments fluttered, and some strange, faint, elusive

perfume was shaken from them,--filled him with a satisfaction that for

the moment seemed ultimate. He had no wish to talk. Their progress side

by side was a conversation without words. They were getting to know each

other, they were breaking the ice. Each step they took was as good as a

spoken sentence, was a mutual experience, drawing them closer, helping

to an understanding. They walked slowly, as by a tacit agreement.

Silence, however, couldn't in the nature of things last for ever. It was

she who presently broke it.

"I owe you," she said, in her ivory voice, with her clean-cut

enunciation, "a debt of thanks." And still again she smiled, as she

looked over towards him, her dark eyes glowing, her dark hair richly

drooping, in the shadow of a big hat of wine-coloured straw.

John's eyes were at a loss. "Oh--?" he wondered.

"For a pleasure given me by our friend Annunziata," she explained. "This

morning she told me a most interesting parable about Death. And she

mentioned that it was you who had suggested to her to tell it me."

"Oh," said John, laughing, while the pink of his skin deepened a shade.

"She mentioned that, did she? I'm glad if you don't feel that I took a

good deal upon myself. But she had just told the same parable to me, and

it seemed a pity it shouldn't have a larger audience."

Then, after a few more paces taken again in silence, "What a marvellous

little person she is, Annunziata!" said Maria Dolores.

"She's to a marvellous degree the right product of her milieu," said

John.

Maria Dolores did not speak, but her eyes questioned, "Yes? How do you

mean?"

"I mean that she's a true child of the presbytery," he replied, "and at

the same time a true child of this Italy, where Paganism has never

perfectly died. She has been carefully instructed in her catechism, and

she has fed upon pious legends, she has breathed an ecclesiastical

atmosphere, until the things of the Church have become a part of her

very bone. She sees everything in relation to them, translates

everything in terms of them. But at the same time odd streaks of

Paganism survive in her. They survive a little--don't they?--in all

Italians. Wherever she goes her eye reads omens. She will cast your

fortune for you with olive-stones. The woods are peopled for her by

fauns and dryads. When she takes her walks abroad, I've no doubt, she

catches glimpses of Proteus rising from the lake, and hears old Triton

blow his wreathed horn."

Maria Dolores looked interested.

"Yes," she said, slowly, thoughtfully, and meditated for an interval.

By-and-by, "You know," she recommenced, "she's a sort of little person

about whom one can't help feeling rather frightened." And her eyes

looked to his for sympathetic understanding.

But his were interrogative. "No? Why should one feel frightened about

her?"

"Oh," said Maria Dolores, with a movement, "it isn't exactly easy to

tell why. One's fears are vague. But--well, for one thing, she thinks so

much about Death. Death and what comes after,--they interest her so

much. It doesn't seem natural, it makes one uneasy. And then she's so

delicate-looking. Sometimes she's almost transparent. In every way she

is too serious. She uses her mind too much, and her body too little. She

ought to have more of the gaiety of childhood, she ought to have other

children to romp with. She's too much like a disembodied spirit. It all

alarms one."

John, as she spoke, frowned, pondering. When she had done, his frown

cleared, he shook his head.

"I don't think it need," he said. "Her delicacy, her frailness, have

never struck me as indicating weakness,--they seem simply the proper

physical accompaniments of her crystalline little soul,--she's made of a

fine and delicate clay. She thinks about Death, it is true, but not in a

morbid way,--and that's a part of her ecclesiastical tradition; and she

thinks quite as much about life,--she thinks about everything. I agree

with you, it's a pity she has no other children. But she isn't by any

means deficient in the instincts of childhood. She can enjoy a chocolate

cigar, for instance, as well as another; and as for marchpane, I have

her own word that she adores it."

Maria Dolores gave another light trill of laughter.

"Yes, I'm aware of her passion for marchpane. She confided it to me this

morning. And as, in reply to her questions, I admitted that I rather

liked it myself, she very generously offered to bring me some this

afternoon,--which, to be sure, an hour ago, she did."

She laughed again, and John laughed too.

"All the same" she insisted, "I can't help that feeling of uneasiness

about her. Sometimes, when I look at her, I can almost see her wings.

What will be her future, if she grows up? One would rather not think of

her as married to some poor Italian, and having to give herself to the

prosaic sort of existence that would mean."

"The sordid sort of existence," augmented John. "No, one would decidedly

rather not. But she will never marry. She will enter religion. Her

uncle has it all planned out. He destines her for the Servites."

"Oh? The Servites--the Mantellate? I am glad of that," exclaimed Maria

Dolores. "It is a most beautiful order. They have an especial devotion

to Our Lady of Sorrows."

"Yes," said John, and remembered it was for Our Lady of Sorrows that she

who spoke was named.

Slow though their march had been, by this time they had come to the end

of the avenue, and were in the wide circular sweep before the castle.

They stopped here, and stood looking off over the garden, with its

sombre cypresses and bright beds of geranium, down upon the valley, dim

and luminous in a mist of gold. Great, heavy, fantastic-shaped clouds,

pearl-white with pearl-grey shadows, piled themselves up against the

scintillant dark blue of the sky. In and out among the rose-trees near

at hand, where the sun was hottest, heavily flew, with a loud

bourdonnement, the cockchafers promised by Annunziata,--big, blundering,

clumsy, the scorn of their light-winged and business-like competitors,

the bees. Lizards lay immobile as lizards cast in bronze, only their

little glittering, watchful pin-heads of eyes giving sign of life. And

of course the blackcaps never for a moment left off singing.

They stood side by side, within a yard of each other, in silent

contemplation of these things, during I don't know how many long and,

for John, delicious seconds. Yes, he owned it to himself; it was

delicious to feel her standing there beside him, in silent communion

with him, contemplating the same things, enjoying the same

pleasantnesses. Companionship--companionship: it was what he had been

unconsciously needing all along! ... At last she turned, and,

withdrawing her eyes lingeringly from the landscape, looked into his,

with a smile. She did not speak, but her smile said, just as explicitly

as her lips could have done, "What a scene of beauty!"