IV

Under a gnarled old olive, by the river's brim, Annunziata sat on the

turf, head bowed, so that her curls fell in a tangle all about her

cheeks, and gazed fixedly into the green waters, the laughing, dancing,

purling waters, green, and, where the sun reached them, shot with seams

and cleavages of light, like fluorspar. In the sun-flecked,

shadow-dappled grass near by, violets tried to hide themselves, but were

betrayed by their truant sweetness. The waters purled, a light breeze

rustled the olive-leaves, and birds were singing loud and wild, as birds

will after rain.

Maria Dolores, coming down the path that followed the river's windings,

stood for a minute, and watched her small friend without speaking. But

at last she called out, "_Ciao_, Annunziata. Are you dreaming dreams and

seeing visions?"

Annunziata started and looked up. "Sh-h!" she whispered, with an

admonitory gesture. She stole a wary glance roundabout, and then spoke

as one fearful of being overheard. "I was listening to the music of

Divopan," she said.

Maria Dolores, who had come closer, appeared at a loss. "The music

of--what?" she questioned.

"Sh-h!" whispered Annunziata. "I would not dare to say it aloud. The

music of Divopan."

"Divopan?" Maria Dolores puzzled, compliantly guarding her tone. "What

is that?"

"Divo--Pan," said Annunziata, dividing the word in two, and always with

an air of excessive caution.

But Maria Dolores helplessly shook her head. "I'm afraid I don't

understand. What is Divo--Pan?"

"Don't you know what a _divo_ is?" asked Annunziata, her clear grey eyes

surprised.

"Oh, a _divo?_" said Maria Dolores, getting a glimmer of light. "Ah,

yes, a divo is a saint, I think?

"Not exactly," Annunziata discriminated, "but something like one. The

saints, you see, are always very good, and _divi_ are sometimes bad.

But they are powerful, like saints. They can do anything they wish. Divo

Pan is the divo who makes all the music that you hear out of doors,--the

music of the wind and the water and the bird-songs. But you must be

careful never to praise his music aloud, lest Divo Apollone should hear

you. He is the divo that makes all the music you hear on instruments--on

harps and violins and pianos. He is very jealous of Divo Pan, and if he

hears you praising him, will do something to you. You know what he did

to King Mida, don't you?"

"What did he do?" asked Maria Dolores.

Annunziata stole another wary glance about.

"Once upon a time," she recounted, always in her lowest voice, "many

years ago, hundreds of years ago, the King of this country was named

Mida. And he loved very much the music of Divo Pan. He loved to sit by

the river here, and to listen to the music of the water, and of the

leaves, and of the birds. I love to do it too, and I think he was quite

right. But one day, in his house, there came a musician with a harp, and

began to play to him. And the King listened for a while, and then he

told the musician to stop. 'Your music is very good,' he said, 'but now

I am going into the fields and by the river, where I can hear a music I

like better.' But the musician with the harp was really Divo Apollone

himself; disguised. And this made him very angry and jealous. And to

punish King Mida he changed his ears to long hairy ears, like an ass's.

So, if you love the music of Divo Pan, you must be very careful not to

let Divo Apollone hear you praise it, or he will do something to you."

And to drive home this application of her theme, she held up a warning

finger.

Maria Dolores had listened, smiling. Now she gave a gay little laugh,

and then for a moment mused. "That is a very curious bit of history,"

she said, in the end. "How ever did it come to your knowledge?"

Annunziata shrugged. "Oh," she answered, "everybody knows that. I have

known it for years. My grandmother who lived in Milan told it to me.

Doesn't the water look cool and pleasant?" was her abrupt digression, as

she returned her gaze to the Rampio. "When it is hot like this, I

should like to lie down in the water, and go to sleep. Wouldn't you?"

"I'm not so sure," said Maria Dolores. "I should rather fear I might be

drowned."

"Oh, but that wouldn't hurt," said Annunziata, with security. "To be

drowned in such beautiful green water, among all those beams of light,

would be nice."

"Perhaps you are not aware," said Maria Dolores, "that when people are

drowned they die?"

"Oh, yes, I know that," said Annunziata. "But"--she raised calm pellucid

eyes--"wouldn't you like to die?"

"Certainly not," said Maria Dolores, a shadow on her face.

"I would," said Annunziata, stoutly. "It must be lovely to die."

"Hush," Maria Dolores rebuked her, frowning. "You must not say such

things."

"Why not say them, if you think them?" asked Annunziata.

"You mustn't think them either," said Maria Dolores.

"Oh, I can't help thinking them," said Annunziata, with a movement. "It

surely must be lovely to die and go to Heaven. If I were perfectly sure

I should go to Heaven, I would shut my eyes and die now. But I should

probably have to wait some time in Purgatory. And, of course, I might go

to Hell."

Maria Dolores' face was full of trouble. "You must not talk like that,"

she said. "You must not. It is wicked of you."

"Then, if I am wicked, I _should_ go to Hell?" inquired Annunziata,

looking alertly up.

Maria Dolores looked about her, looked across the river, down the

valley, as one in distress scanning the prospect for aid. "Of course you

would not," she said. "My dear child, can't we find something else to

talk of?"

"Do you think I shall have a very long and hard Purgatory?" asked

Annunziata.

Maria Dolores threw a despairing glance at the horizon.

"No, no, dear," she answered uneasily. "You will have a very short and

gentle one. Anyhow, you'll not have to consider that for years to come.

Now shall we change the subject?"

"Well," said Annunziata, with an air of deliberation, "if you are

perfectly sure I shall not go to Hell, and that my Purgatory will not

be long and hard, I think I will do what I said. I will lie down in the

water and go to sleep, and the water will drown me, and I shall die."

Maria Dolores' face was terrified. "Annunziata!" she cried. "You don't

know what you are saying. You are cruel. You won't do anything of the

sort. You must give me your solemn word of honour that you won't do

anything of the sort. It would be a most dreadful sin. Come. Come with

me now, away from here, away from the sight of the river. You must never

come here alone again. Give me your hand, and come away."

Annunziata got up, gave her hand, and moved off at Maria Dolores' side,

towards the Castle. "Of course," she said, "if I want to die, I don't

need to lie down in the water. I can die at any moment I wish, by just

shutting my eyes, and holding my breath, and telling my heart seven

times to stop beating. Heart, stop beating; heart, stop beating;--that

way, seven times."

"For the love of Mercy," wailed poor Maria Dolores, almost writhing in

her misery.... Then, suddenly, she breathed a deep sigh of relief, and

fervently exclaimed, "Thank God." John was advancing towards them, down

the rugged pathway.

"Do please come and help me with this perverse and maddening child," she

called to him, in English. "She's frightening me half out of my wits by

threatening to die. She even threatened to drown herself in the Rampio."

"Children of her complexion can't die," said John, in Italian, (and

Annunziata pricked up her ears). "They can only turn into monkeys, and

then they have to live in the forests of Africa, where it is always

dark, and all the men and women are negro savages, and all the other

animals (except the mosquitos and the snakes) are lions and tigers.

Besides, if Annunziata were to turn into a monkey, she couldn't have the

sugared chestnuts that somebody or other has brought her from Roccadoro.

On the chest of drawers in my room there has mysteriously appeared a box

of sugared chestnuts. I thought they were for her, but they're not,

unless she will promise never to turn into a monkey."

Annunziata's eyes had clouded.

"Of course I won't turn into a monkey," she said, in accents at once of

disillusion and disdain. "I did not know there was any such danger. I

should hate to be a monkey." Then her eyes brightened again. "May I go

and get them now?" she asked, wistful and impatient.

"Yes," said John; "be off with you." And she went running lightly up the

hill.

He turned to Maria Dolores. Her face (clear-cut, with its dark hair,

against the red background of her sunshade) was white and drawn with

pain. But she smiled, rather wanly, as her gaze met his, and said, in a

weak voice, "Oh, I am so glad you came. I can't tell you how she was

frightening me." And all at once her eyes filled with tears.

I needn't say whether John was moved, whether it was his impulse to take

her in his arms and dry her tears with kisses. He did actually, on that

impulse, give a perceptible start towards her, but then he restrained

himself. "The child ought to be whipped," he broke out angrily. "You

must not take her prattle so seriously."

"But _she_ was so serious," said Maria Dolores. "Oh, when she

threatened to lie down in the river, and let herself be drowned--!" Her

voice failed her, as at the inexpressible.

"No fear of that," said John. "The first touch of the cold water (and

icy-cold it is, a glacier-stream, you know) would bring her to her

senses. But come! You must not think of it any more. You have had a bad

shock, but no bones are broken, and now you must try to banish it all

from your mind."

"What an unaccountable child she is!" said Maria Dolores. "Surely it is

unnatural and alarming for a child to have her head so teeming with

strange freaks and fancies. Oh, I pray God to grant that nothing may

happen to her."

"The most serious evil that's likely to happen to her for the present,"

said John, "will be an indigestion of marrons glacés."

Maria Dolores' tears had gone now. She smiled. But afterwards she looked

grave again. "Oh, I wish I could get the dread of something happening to

her out of my heart. I wish she wasn't so pale and fragile-looking," she

said. Then there came a gleam in her eyes. "But you were going for a

walk, and I am detaining you."

"The object of my walk has been accomplished," said John.

"Oh?" questioned she.

"I was walking in the hope, on the chance, that I might meet you," he

hardily explained. "It's such an age since I've seen you. Are you making

for the garden? I pray you to be kind, and let me go with you. I've been

an exile and a wanderer--I've been to Roccadoro."

She had rebegun her ascension of the hill. The path was steep, as well

as rugged. Sometimes John had to help her over a hard bit. The touch of

her hand, soft and warm, and firm too, in his; the sense of her

closeness; the faint fragrance of her garments, of her hair,--these

things, you may be sure, went to his head, went to his heart. The garden

lay in a white blaze of sunshine, that seemed almost material, like an

incandescent fluid; but the entrance to the avenue was dark and

inviting. "Let us," he proposed, "go and sit on a marble bench under the

glossy leaves of the ilexes, in the deep, cool shade; and let's play

that it's a thousand years ago, and that you're a Queen (white Queen

Blanche, like a queen of lilies), and that I'm your minstrel-man."

"What song will you sing me?" asked she gaily, as they took their places

on the marble bench. It was semicircular, with a high carved back,

(carved with the armorials of the Sforzas), and of course it was

lichen-stained, grey and blue and green, yellow and scarlet.

"_White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,

Fairer and dearer than dearest and fairest,

To hear me sing, if it her sweet will is,--

Sing, minstrel-man, of thy love, an thou darest_,"

trolled John, in his light barytone, to a tune, I imagine, improvised

for the occasion. "But if it's a thousand years ago," he laughed, "that

song smacks too much perhaps of actuality, and I had best choose

another."

Maria Dolores joined in his laugh. "I did not know you sang," she said.

"Let me hear the other."

"A song," reflected he, "that I could sing with a good deal of feeling

and conviction, would be 'Give her but the least excuse to love me.'"

Maria Dolores all at once looked sober.

"Oughtn't you to be careful," she said, "to give her no excuse at all to

love you, if you are really resolved never to ask her to be your wife?"

"That is exactly what I have given her," answered John, "no excuse at

all. I should sing in a spirit purely academic,--my song would be the

utterance of a pious but hopeless longing, of the moth's desire for the

star."

"But she, I suppose, isn't a star," objected Maria Dolores. "She's

probably just a weak human woman. You may have given her excuses without

meaning to." There was the slightest quaver in her voice.

John caught his breath; he turned upon her almost violently. But she was

facing away from him, down the avenue, so that he could not get her

eyes.

"In that case," she said, "wouldn't you owe her something?"

"I should owe myself a lifetime's penance with the discipline," John on

a solemn tone replied, hungrily looking at her cheek, at the little

tendrils of dark hair about her brow. "God knows what I should owe to

her."

"You would owe it to her," said Maria Dolores, always facing away, "to

tell her your love straightforwardly, and to ask her to marry you."

John thrilled, John ached. His blue eyes burned upon her. "What else do

you think I dream of, night and day? But how could I, with honour? You

know my poverty," he groaned.

"But if she has enough, more than enough, for two?" softly urged Maria

Dolores.

"Ah, that's the worst of it," cried he. "If we were equals in penury, if

she had nothing, then I might honourably ask her, and we could live on

herbs together in a garret, and I could keep her respect and my own. Oh,

garret-paradise! But to marry a woman who is rich, to live in luxury

with her, and to try to look unconscious while she pays the bills,--she

would despise me, I should abhor myself."

"Why should she despise you?" asked Maria Dolores. "The possession of

wealth is a mere accident. If people are married and love each other, I

can't see that it matters an atom whether their money belonged in the

first place to the man or to the woman,--it would belong henceforward to

them both equally."

"That is a very generous way of looking at it, but it is a woman's way.

No decent man could accept it," said John.

"Up to a certain point," said Maria Dolores, slowly, "I understand your

scruples. I understand that a poor man might feel that he would not like

to make the advances, if the woman he loved was rich. But suppose the

woman loved him, and knew that he loved her, and knew that it was only

his poverty which held him back, then _she_ might make the advances. She

might put aside her pride, and go halfway to meet him, and to remove his

difficulties and embarrassments. If, after that, he still did not ask

her, I think his scruples would have become mere vanity,--I think it

would show that he cared more for his mere vanity than for her

happiness."

Her voice died out. John could see that her lip quivered a little. His

throat was dry. The pulses were pounding in his temples. His brain was

all a confusion. He hardly knew what had befallen him, he hardly knew

what she had said. He only knew that there was a great ball of fire in

his breast, and that the pain of it was half an immeasurable joy.

"God forgive me," the absurd and exaggerated stickler for the dignity of

his sex wildly cried. "God knows how I love her, how I care for her

happiness. But to go to her empty-handed,--but to put myself in the

position of being kept by a woman,--God knows how impossible it is."

Maria Dolores stood up, still looking away from him.

"Well, let us hope," she said, changing her tone to one of unconcerned

detachment, "that we have been discussing baseless suppositions. Let us

hope that her heart is quite untouched. And for both your sakes," she

concluded, her head in the air, "let us hope that you and she will never

meet again. Good-bye."

She gave him a curt little nod, and walked lightly, rapidly up the

avenue.

John's brain was all a confusion. He looked after her helplessly. He

only knew that there was a great ball of fire in his breast, and that

the pain of it was now unmixed.

V

Maria Dolores tripped into Frau Brandt's sitting-room, merrily singing a

snatch of song.

"_Gardez vous d'être sévère

Quand on vous park d'amour_,"

she carolled. Then she stopped singing, and blithely laughed.

Frau Brandt raised her good brown face from her knitting, and her good

brown eyes looked anxiously upwards, slantwise over her

tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles.

"What is the matter now?" she asked. "What has happened to vex you now?"

"To vex me!" cried Maria Dolores, in apparent astonishment. "Wasn't I

singing aloud from sheer exuberance of high spirits?"

"No," said Frau Brandt, with a very positive shake of her white-capped

head. "You were singing to conceal your low spirits. What has

happened?"

"Ah, well, then, if you know so much and must know all," said Maria

Dolores, "I've just proposed to the man I'm in love with, and been sent

about my business."

"What do you mean?" asked Frau Brandt, phlegmatic. "What nonsense is

this?"

"I mean my cobbler's son," Maria Dolores answered. "I, a Princess of the

Empire, humbly offered him, a cobbler's son, my hand, heart, and

fortune,--and the graceless man rejected them with scorn."

"That is a likely story," said Frau Brandt, wagging her chin. Her blunt

brown fingers returned to their occupation. "I see your Serene Highness

offering her hand."

"At all events, will you kindly tell Josephine to pack our boxes.

To-morrow we'll be flitting," her Serene Highness in a casual way

announced.

"What say you?" cried Frau Brandt, dropping her knitting into her lap.

"Yes--to Mischenau, to my brother," the Princess pursued. "Of course

you'll have to come with us, poor dear. You can't let me travel alone

with Josephine."

"No," said Frau Brandt. "I will go with you."

"And you can remain for my wedding," Maria Dolores added. "I am going

home to meet my brother's wishes, and to marry my second cousin, the

high and mighty Maximilian, Prince of Zelt-Zelt."

"Herr Gott!" said Frau Brandt, glancing with devotion at the ceiling.