When her husband and brother-in-law had left her, Princess Della Robbia
began to go upstairs very slowly. She mounted with her hand on the
balusters, as if she were weak or tired. At last, when she had reached
the étage of the Winters' flat, she paused, and rested for several
minutes before the door which displayed the chaplain's card. She was
breathing rather fast, which was but natural perhaps, as she had
ascended three flights of stairs, was wearing an immensely long and wide
ermine stole, and carrying a huge muff to match. Before she touched the
electric bell she pulled her large hat forward a little over her face,
and adjusted the thick veil, which had a pattern like a spider's web.
Then she opened a gold vanity box suspended from her wrist by a chain,
and looked at herself in the small mirror it contained. Her face was so
shadowed by the hat and disguised by the veil that at a little distance
it might be difficult for any one not very familiar with her features
and figure to recognize her at all.
When she had shut the vanity box with a sharp snap, she pressed the
electric bell, and waited with her head bowed. She kept it bowed when
the beautiful Storm-cloud opened the door, and still while she inquired
in French for Miss Grant.
There was no one in the pretty American-looking drawing-room when
Nathalie ushered her in. Throwing a quick glance around, the Princess
chose a chair so placed that her back was turned not only to the window
but to a table with an electric lamp on it, which would in all
probability soon be lighted. Hardly was she seated, when the door was
thrown open quickly, and Mary came in.
Princess Della Robbia rose, her left arm thrust into her big ermine
muff, so that her right hand might be free if it must be given in
greeting. But she did not step forward as if eager to greet Vanno's
fiancée.
"Princess Della Robbia?" Mary said, rather shyly. "How good of you to
come to see me."
She put out her hand and took that of the Princess. This brought them
close together, and as they were of nearly the same height, they looked
into each other's faces, though the Princess still kept her head
slightly bent, her eyes and forehead in shadow.
"Marie Grant!"
Mary cried out the name sharply.
"Hush!" said the Princess, with a convulsive pressure on the other's
hand. "For God's sake! Don't ruin me!"
Mary, with the last rays of afternoon light full on her face, turned
pale to the lips, and the pupils of her eyes seemed to dilate.
"Oh, Marie, darling!" she faltered. "I wouldn't ruin you for the
world--not to save my life. I--it was only that I was so surprised. I'm
glad--very glad to see you. I've dreamed of you a thousand times--and
just before coming to Monte Carlo, too. I expected some one else when I
came into this room, a Princess Della Robbia----"
"I am Princess Della Robbia," Marie said in a veiled, dead voice.
"You--but I don't understand----"
"I'll tell you. I want to tell you," the Princess broke in quickly, the
words almost jumbled together in her haste. "We must talk before any one
comes. Will any one come?"
"No, no," Marie soothed her. "Mrs. Winter is out. She won't be back till
four. It's only a little after three."
The Princess thrust her arm through her muff so that she could take both
Mary's hands. She pressed them tightly, her fingers jerking as if by
mechanism. "I've come--I've got to throw myself on your mercy," she
said.
"Don't," Mary implored, "use such words to me. Oh, Marie, how
strange--how strange everything is! The night before I left the convent,
Peter--dear Peter, who loves you too, always--said that perhaps my
dreams meant that you thought of me sometimes--that we might meet. Then
I didn't expect to come here. She told me not to come. But she said,
'Anything can happen at Monte Carlo.'"
"Anything can happen anywhere," the Princess answered in a muffled
voice. "It is a terrible world. It's been a terrible world for me since
I saw you. And now--just when it's turned into heaven, you can send me
down to hell."
"It kills me to hear you talk so," Mary said, tears rising in her eyes,
and falling slowly. "_I!_ Why, Marie dearest, didn't you just hear me
say I'd rather die than hurt you? I don't know what you mean."
"Do you understand that I'm married to the brother of the man you're
engaged to marry?"
"Why--yes. You told me that you--that you're the Princess Della Robbia."
"Well, my husband _doesn't know_. Nobody in my life now, knows anything
about--the part that came before. Nobody must know. I'd kill myself
rather than have Angelo find out, or even suspect. He thinks I----" She
stopped, and choked. "He thinks I am----" The sob would come. She broke
down, crying bitterly. "Oh, Mary, I love him so. I worship him. He
thinks I'm everything sweet and good and innocent, that I'd give my soul
to be, for his sake. And now you've come----"
"You don't think I'll tell!"
"Not if you say you won't. But I didn't know. You were always so good.
You might have thought it your duty. Mary--you won't tell Vanno? I
couldn't bear it!"
"I won't tell Vanno, or any one at all."
"You're sure--_sure_ you won't let anything drop, by mistake?"
"Explain to me exactly what you want me to do," Mary said, "and I'll do
it. Are we to have been strangers to each other till to-day--is that
it?"
"Yes, that's the best thing: less complicated. It will save telling
lies."
"I should hate to tell lies," said Mary.
"You needn't. Oh, the hundreds and thousands I've had to tell! The
dreary, uphill work! But now I'm on the hill, the beautiful hill in the
sunshine where my husband lives. And I'm going to stay there if I have
to wade in lies."
Mary shivered a little at the words and the look in Marie's eyes as they
stared behind the spider web veil. But she tried not to show that she
was shocked. She felt she would give her hand to be cut off rather than
hurt this miserable girl who had sinned and suffered, and now stood
desperately at bay.
"Try to be happy; try to trust me," she said. "We used to be such
friends."
"That was my only hope when I found that Vanno was engaged to you, and
that we should have to meet," Marie confessed. "I hated to come, but I
had to brave it out. And I thought it just possible you mightn't
recognize me, after all these years." She pushed up her veil nervously.
"Haven't I changed? Do say I've changed!"
"Your hair looks lighter. There's more red in it, surely," Mary
reflected aloud. "It used to be a dark brown. Now it's almost auburn."
"I bleach it. I began to do that when I first thought of trying to--get
back to things. I wanted to make myself different, so that if any of the
people who saw me when I--was down, came across me again, they mightn't
be sure it was I--they might think it was just a resemblance
to--another woman. I took the name of Gaunt instead of Grant, because it
was so nearly the same, it might seem to have been a very simple
mistake, if any complication came. And I went to live far away from
every one I'd ever known. I chose Dresden. I can hardly tell why, except
that I'd never been there, and I wanted to paint. I stayed at first in a
pension kept by an artist's wife. The artist helped me, and I did very
well with my work. That's what saved me. If I hadn't had that talent,
there would have been only one of two things for me to do: kill myself,
or--worse."
"Let's not think of it, since it's all over," said Mary, gently. She
took Marie by the hand again, and made her sit down on Rose Winter's
chintz covered sofa. Then she sat beside her friend and almost timidly
slid an arm round her waist.
"All over!" the Princess echoed, in a voice so weary and old, so unlike
the bright sleigh-bell gayety Angelo knew, that he would hardly have
recognized his wife. "That's the horrible part--that's the punishment:
never to know whether it's 'all over,' or whether at any minute, just as
one begins to dare feel a little happy and safe, one isn't going to be
found out. For instance, when my husband wanted a villa at Cap Martin.
Once, before I knew we would be coming here, I told him that I'd never
been to the Riviera. It was necessary to tell him that. But, Mary, I had
been. It makes me sick when I think what a short time ago it was. I
came to Monte Carlo with--_him_, and we stopped for weeks at a big
hotel. Every day and all day we were in the Casino. Afterward we went to
Russia, and it was in Russia he left me--in St. Petersburg. Often I go
back there in dreams, and to Monte Carlo too. I suppose you _knew_ about
me, always--you and--Peter?"
"Neither of us knew much. But I know all I want to know--unless you feel
there's anything it would do you good to tell."
"It does me a little good to be able to speak out to some one for the
first time in years, now the worst is over, and I haven't to be afraid
of you. If you could dream what I went through to-day! Mary, are you
sure--sure of yourself--that you won't give me away?"
"Very, very sure," Mary answered steadily. "I think it would have been
better if you'd told the Prince before you married him, and then you'd
have nothing to fear now, but----"
"He wouldn't have married me. One of my great attractions in his eyes
was--what I have not. You don't know that family yet, Mary. I think the
brothers are a good deal alike in some ways, though Angelo is more of a
saint than Vanno. They adore purity in women. I think they both have a
sort of pitying horror for women who aren't--innocent."
Mary was silent. She had reason to believe that the Princess was right.
"And I couldn't give him up," Marie went on. "It was too much even for
God to expect. It was such a beautiful romance--the first true romance
in my life. It seemed to be recreating me. I almost felt as if his love
would _make_ me worthy if I could only take and keep it. It was a
dreadful risk, but--I dared it, and I'd do it again, if I had it to do,
even if I paid by losing my soul. I used to think at first that perhaps
when we'd been married a long time, and I was sure of his love, I might
tell him--a little, not everything. But now I know that I never, never
can. It would be a thousand times worse than before, if he found out. It
would mean my death, that's all. I couldn't look into his eyes, his
dear, beautiful eyes that adore me, that I adore. You haven't seen him
yet. But you know Vanno's eyes, and what it would be to see them turn
cold after they have been--stars of love. That expresses them."
"Yes, that expresses them," Mary almost whispered. She closed her
eyelids for an instant and Vanno's eyes looked into hers, as they had
looked in the curé's garden, after the first kiss. Nothing that Marie
could have said would have made her understand as clearly. If she were
as Marie was, she felt that she could not tell Vanno, now that his eyes
had worshipped her. She would not marry him and _not_ tell, if there
were things that ought to be told; but she would go away, far away,
where the dear eyes might never look at her again.
"You don't know yet what it is to love," Marie went on; and Mary
answered, as if she were speaking to herself, "I almost think I do
know--now."
"If you do, you can understand me."
"I am beginning to understand," Mary said.
"You swear that you've said nothing to Vanno, to make him suspect? When
he told you about his brother and sister-in-law, did he mention my name
as--as a girl?"
"He said your name was Marie Gaunt----"
"Oh! And then?"
"I believe I talked about having a friend once with a name rather like
yours, but not quite. That's all, truly. I had no idea that Marie
Gaunt----"
"Did you speak about the convent?"
"I told him and the curé that I'd been brought up at a convent school,
but I didn't say where it was, or anything about it at all. There was no
time or chance then. I meant to tell Vanno lots of things when we were
alone; but there was only our walk down the mountain together, and we
had so much to say to each other about the present and future, I forgot
about the past, and I think he did, too. The only thing I've had time to
say about myself is that I've no relatives except a very disagreeable
aunt and cousin. There was nothing, not a word, that you need be afraid
of."
"Thank God!" exclaimed Marie, with a sigh as of one who wakes to
consciousness free of pain, after an operation which might have opened
the door of death. "And you'll swear to me that never will you tell
Angelo, or Vanno, or any one else at all, that you'll not even confess
to a priest that I was Marie Grant, a girl you knew at the convent of
St. Ursula-of-the-Lake."
"I'll swear it, if that will make you happier."
"It will--it does. Swear that nothing can tempt you to break your word."
"Nothing shall tempt me to break my word."
"Swear by your love for Vanno, and his for you."
"I swear by my love for Vanno and his love for me."
Marie bent down suddenly, seized Mary's hand, and kissed it.
"Thank you," she said. "Now I can be at peace, for a little while. Now I
can be glad that you're engaged to Vanno. And we may see each other, and
all four be happy together. The ordeal's over."