"Who told me what?"
The Prince shrugged his shoulders, then nodded slightly in the direction
of the Casino, which, through the big windows of the hall, could be seen
sparkling with light. "That I've taken to amusing myself--over there.
But it's no use scolding, Father. It's very good of you to feel an
interest in your old pupil, though whoever has been telling tales
oughtn't to have put you to this trouble. I must 'dree my ain weird,' as
the Scots have it. I can translate it only by saying that I must go to
the devil in my own way."
"I have not come to scold you for gambling, if that is what you mean,"
the curé said mildly. "Angelo has told me nothing. Nobody sent me to
you. I have to reproach you for something quite different. I have seen
Miss Grant, Principino. How you could suspect for a moment that there
was anything but a pure soul behind those eyes, I cannot understand."
Vanno grew pale. He was obliged to be silent for an instant, in defence
of his self-control. "I know very little of women's eyes, and of their
souls nothing at all," he answered, harshly.
"So much the better, perhaps, because you can learn only good of the sex
from Miss Grant's," said the curé.
"She will let me learn no lesson from her--unless, that there is no
forgiveness for one mistake."
"That is because she cared so much that you hurt her cruelly. She did
not tell me so, though we have spoken of you, but I saw how it was.
There is no question of a mistake this time. And when you have talked
together in my garden to-morrow afternoon, she will forgive and
understand everything."
"Is she going to your place?"
"At three o'clock she will be there. You had better come a little
earlier."
"I shall not come at all," Vanno blazed out, with violence. "She
believes already that I've persecuted her. I won't give her reason to
think it."
"Poor child, she is very unhappy," the curé sighed, meekly.
"At least, it isn't I who have made her so."
"Perhaps it is herself, and that is sadder--to have only herself to
blame. You say you must be allowed to go to the devil in your own way.
Well, you are a man. You do not want another man, even if he be a
priest, to try and save you. But she needs a man to save her, a strong
man who loves her well. She is drifting, without a rudder. She told me
to-day--with such a look in her eyes!--that she has 'gambler's blood' in
her veins. Only one thing can save her now, for she has got the idea in
her head that she is the victim of Fate. The one thing is: an interest
ten million times greater than gambling--Love."
The blood rushed to Vanno's face.
"I'm not fit----" he stammered.
"The soul that's in you is fit to do God's work, for love is part of
God. 'Thy soul must overflow, if thou another's soul would reach.' Now,
my son, I won't keep you any longer. At two-thirty to-morrow in my
garden."
He did not remember until he was halfway up the mule path that he had
meant to speak of Idina Bland.