"A letter for the Highness and one waits for answer," announced Americo,
with the air of presenting a choice gift, as he bowed to the Princess
over a small silver tray.
She was lying among the red cushions of her favourite hammock on the
loggia. Beside her in a basket chair was Angelo, with a book in his hand
which he did not read, because when Marie was near him everything else
seemed irrelevant. Not far away Mary sat, writing a letter to Vanno
which ought to reach him the next morning. Yesterday at five o'clock she
had seen him off in the Rome express; and before this time he must have
arrived.
"Idina Bland's hand," said Angelo, as his wife took a large gray
envelope from the silver tray. "I wonder----" But he did not finish his
sentence. To do so would have been superfluous, as in a moment he would
know what Idina was writing about; and, besides, Angelo shrank
curiously--perhaps foolishly, he sometimes felt--from speaking of Idina
Bland or even mentioning her name to Marie. He was not superstitious, or
at least, he told himself often that he was not; yet the very thought of
his cousin depressed him as if she were a witch who from any distance
could cast a spell of ill-luck upon a house.
Marie had no suspicion of Angelo's feeling for Miss Bland. She knew from
him that there had been a "boy and girl flirtation" when Idina had first
come to stay at the Duke's country place years ago; and there was enough
malice in her to enjoy the idea of a defeated rival's jealousy. For this
reason she had found a certain pleasure in Idina's few visits to the
Villa Mirasole, though the pale "statue-eyes" had been cold as glass for
her. If Idina disliked her a little, Marie had considered it natural,
and had been secretly amused, saying nothing to Angelo.
"Miss Bland writes that an American friend of hers has come to stay a
day or two only, and she'd like very much to have her meet us and see
the villa," Marie announced, glancing through the short letter. "She
wants to know if we'd mind asking them to lunch to-day. I suppose we
don't mind, do we?" She held the gray sheet out to Angelo, but he did
not take it.
"I suppose not," he answered reluctantly. "But it's a bore having a
stranger thrust on us. Why not be engaged for luncheon and invite them
for tea?"
Marie laughed. "Selfish man! I know what's in your head. You'd go out
and leave Mary and me to entertain your dear cousin and her friend. No,
I won't have Miss Bland think I'm jealous or inhospitable--for of course
she'd blame me. She knows we never go out for luncheon. Unfortunately I
told her. I'll write a line to send back by her messenger, to say lunch
by all means."
"Very well, if you think you must." Angelo spoke with gloomy
resignation.
"Dear Mary, you write," said Marie lazily. "You've got paper and a
stylo, and she doesn't know my hand. I'm too comfortable to move."
Mary put aside her letter to Vanno which must catch the next post, and
scribbled a few lines to Miss Bland.
"Will you sign if I bring you the pen?" she asked.
"No, thanks. I give you leave to forge my name. It will soon be your
own, so you may as well practise writing it," said Marie. "Just put the
initial 'M.'"
The girl obeyed. "M. Della Robbia," she wrote, forming the letters
almost lovingly. How strange to think that before long that would be her
own name! Mary Della Robbia! The sound was very sweet to her, though to
be a princess was of no great importance. If Vanno were a peasant, to
become his wife would make her a queen.
When the answer was ready, Americo received it upon his little tray.
"Two ladies for luncheon, you may tell the _chef_," said Marie.
"All right, Highness. And other Highness, I was to make you know from
the gardener, one fox have bin catched in a trap on the way to eat the
rabbits of the semaphore. If the Highness wish to visit him, he is there
for this morning."
"One would think it was an invitation for an 'At Home,'" laughed Marie
behind the butler's broad back, as he vanished with the letter, through
the window-door. "Fancy, foxes in the woods of Cap Martin, within four
miles of Monte Carlo! They ought to be extra cunning."
"They must be," said Angelo, "to keep out of sight as they do in the
Season, and yet manage to snatch a meal of rabbit or chicken
occasionally. I think I'll stroll over to the semaphore and have a look
at the gentleman, as I could hardly believe our gardener the other day
when he swore there were foxes and hares in the woods."
"Don't get too interested, and forget to come and receive your dear
cousin and her American friend, who for all you know may be the most
fascinating woman in the world," Marie called after her husband as he
walked away.
His smile named the woman who was above all others for him; and though
Marie knew herself his goddess, she never ceased to crave the assurance.
When Angelo had found his Panama and gone down the loggia steps into the
garden, she laughed a soft and happy laugh. "Poor darling!" she said.
"The fox is an excuse. He won't come back till the last minute. One
would think he was afraid of his cousin! It's quite pathetic. Just
because he had an innocent flirtation with her a hundred years ago."
Marie picked up Idina's letter, which lay in the hammock. "I wonder what
a graphologist--if that's the right word--would make of this
handwriting? I'm no expert. But to me the writing expresses the woman
as I see her: heavy, strong, intelligent, lacking all charm of sex, and
selfishly cold."
"Do you think Miss Bland cold?" asked Mary. "I've seen her only once,
and I don't pretend to be a judge of character. Yet I had a queer
thought about her when we met: that she was like a volcano under snow."
The Princess did not answer, for the character of Idina being of little
importance to her, she had already begun to think of something else. She
was comfortably glad to be younger and far, far more attractive than
Miss Bland. She was resolving that, before the two guests arrived, she
would put on a particularly becoming dress in order that the heroine of
the old flirtation might more keenly than ever envy Angelo's wife. This
idea she did not clothe definitely in words, but it floated in her mind.
"Miss Bland must have come down from the Annonciata, to lurk about
Mentone waiting for my answer," she said aloud, having reread the note.
"Otherwise she wouldn't have time to arrive here for lunch at one, after
her messenger got back."
It was now Mary's turn to be inattentive, for she was adding a
postscript to her letter, which but for that addition she had finished.
"Marie dreamed of pigeons last night," she scribbled hastily. "She is
superstitious about them, and says they mean trouble and parting. That
seems rather funny to me, after the hundreds I saw in Monte Carlo and
made friends with, and fed every day. I'm glad I am not superstitious,
especially now that you and I are separated. How glorious it is to feel
quite sure that _our_ parting is only for a few days, instead of
forever, like that of our poor lovers of 'Remember eternal.' It was dear
of you to have those words engraved inside the ring you gave me. I love
the quaint English. And it is like a secret which belongs only to us out
of all the world."
"Well!" exclaimed the Princess, after she had tried in vain to attract
Mary's notice, "as you're so delightfully occupied, I may as well remove
myself and leave you in peace. In less than an hour the fair Idina will
be upon us; and I'm going upstairs now to make myself as pretty as
Angelo thinks me, to do honour to his cousin. By the way, it's our first
luncheon party, not counting you and Vanno and the curé."
She slid out of the red hammock, showing slim ankles that gleamed like
marble through a thin film of bronze-brown silk. As she went into the
house humming some Italian air she had picked up, Mary thought how young
and innocently gay she seemed. It was almost impossible to believe her
the same woman who had sobbed behind a disguising veil in Rose Winter's
drawing-room, begging Mary to swear by Vanno's love never to betray her
secret. And it seemed equally incredible that this mirthful and charming
girl could have such a secret to hide. Mary tried to forget. It was a
kind of treachery to remember those tears, and the reason for them
which Angelo must not know. To change her thoughts, Mary sprang up
swiftly, and, calling Angelo's Persian dog Miro--a lovely white creature
like a floating plume--she went out through the woods with her letter
for Vanno, meaning to take a short cut among the olives, to a branch
post-office not far off.
As she returned a few minutes later, two women walking at a distance
under the great silvery arbour watched her run by with the Persian dog.
"That's the girl I told you about, who is going to marry my cousin
Giovanni, Prince Della Robbia's younger brother," said Idina Bland to
her companion; "the Miss Grant who has been so much talked about here."
Idina had a contralto voice, with tones in it almost as deep as those of
a very young man. It was musical, and gave an effect of careful
training, as if she had studied voice-production and had become
self-conscious through over-practising.
"It's strange, the resemblance in those names," the other woman
murmured, almost as if speaking to herself. She was small and extremely
thin, with insignificant features and sallow, slightly freckled
complexion. But, though she was one of those women who might be of any
age between twenty-eight and forty, her piercing gray eyes under black
eyebrows, her quivering nostrils and slightly pointed chin, gave her a
look of intense vitality. She was like a powerful if small electric
lamp, purposely veiled by a dun-coloured shade. "It's doubly strange,
because"----she went on; then let her voice trail away into silence
rather than break off abruptly. She had a slight accent suggesting the
Middle West of America.
"Because--what?" Miss Bland caught her up with impatience.
The other deliberated before answering. Then she replied: "I'd rather
not say anything more yet. I may be mistaken--very likely am. Wait until
I've seen your Princess and this girl together. Then--probably I shall
know."
Idina Bland glanced at her angrily, and opened her lips, but closed them
again, and in silence began to walk on toward the Villa Mirasole. The
neat little figure of her friend in its khaki-brown tailor-made dress
kept up with her briskly. The bright eyes fixed themselves for an
instant on Miss Bland's sullen profile, and twinkled as they turned
away. It was as if she enjoyed the knowledge that Idina was afraid to
show impatience, as a small, intelligent animal often revels in
dominating one that is larger and more important in its own estimation.
When Mary returned to the loggia to gather up the writing materials she
had left there, the Princess had come back, wearing a gown which Mary
had never seen. It was a silky white taffeta over yellow, and as she
moved light seemed to run through the folds like liquid gold.
"'Clothed in samite, mystic, wonderful,'" Mary quoted.
"This is Angelo's favourite frock," said Marie. "He thinks"--her tone
changed to bitterness--"that I look like a saint in it."
Mary made no comment. She felt that Marie was commanding her to silence.
But it was true: this gleaming dress with its white and golden lights,
and a filmy fichu crossed meekly over the breast, gave Marie a look of
sweet and virginal innocence. Her head, on the long white throat rising
out of the pointed folds, seemed delicately balanced as an aigrette.
"Do you think I shall be able to hold my own against the lovely ladies
who are coming?" she asked lightly, snatching up her sleigh-bell gayety
again.
"I feel sure you will," Mary replied in the same tone. Just then they
faintly heard the electric bell which told that the guests had arrived,
earlier than expected. Afterward Mary often remembered this question of
the Princess' and her own answer.
Americo brought Miss Bland and her friend out to the loggia, which was
the living-room of the family in warm, sunny weather. He announced the
two names with elaborate unintelligibility, but Idina at once introduced
her companion as Miss Jewett of St. Louis. "We met when I was in
America," she explained. "Now she's 'doing' Europe in a few weeks,
cramming in enough sightseeing for an Englishman's year."
"We're very flattered to be included among the sights," Marie said,
smiling, but with something of the "princess" air which--perhaps
unconsciously--she always put on with her husband's cousin. Miss Jewett,
making some polite and formal little answer, gazed with glittering
intentness at her hostess and Mary Grant. Her eyes, in the thin, sallow
face with its pointed chin, were so brilliantly intelligent that they
seemed to have a life and individuality of their own, separate from the
rest of her small body.
"Where's Angelo?" asked Idina, when they had talked for a little while,
and she had apologized for being too early.
"Oh, I'm so sorry he isn't at home!" Marie exclaimed, enjoying the blank
disappointment that dulled Idina's expression. When she had produced her
effect, she added that Angelo would come back in time for luncheon. Miss
Bland turned her face away and looked down at a fountain on the terrace
below the loggia. Fierceness flashed out of her like a knife unsheathed;
but the back of her blond head, with its conventional dressing of the
hair under a neat toque, was almost singularly non-committal.
Marie went on to make conversation about the fox Angelo had gone to see,
laughingly describing the "fauna" of Cap Martin, of which season
visitors knew little. "They say, as soon as everybody's well out of the
way, the most wonderful birds and flowers appear, that only scientific
people can tell anything about," she informed her visitors. Miss Jewett
listened with interest and asked questions; but a curtain seemed to have
been lowered behind Idina's eyes, shutting her mind away from outside
things.
In the yellow drawing-room a clock tinkled out a tune, finishing with
one sharp stroke; and Americo hovered uncertainly at the door-window of
the big hall, seeing that his master was not with the ladies on the
loggia.
"We must wait a few minutes, Americo," Marie said calmly; but at the
same moment Angelo appeared on the fountain terrace, and came quickly up
the loggia steps. He shook hands with Idina and greeted Miss Jewett with
the grave, pleasant courtesy that was not unlike Vanno's, but colder and
more remote, except with those for whom he really cared.
Mary wondered if Miss Bland felt the chill of his manner.
They went in to luncheon, and the conversation was of abstract things.
If once or twice it seemed that Idina wished to turn the talk to old
days which had given memories in common to her and Angelo, the Prince
checked her quietly by asking some question about Ireland or America.
And it struck Mary, who was feeling vaguely sorry for this cousin held
at arm's length, that Miss Jewett watched Idina with interest and even
curiosity, as if she were waiting for her to do or say something in
particular.
At last the Princess rose, smiling at Miss Bland. "Shall we have coffee
on the loggia?" she asked.
"We should both like that, shouldn't we, Miss Jewett?" Idina said, with
almost unnecessary emphasis. As she spoke, she looked at her friend.
Angelo opened the door for them to pass out, and it was evident that he
did not mean to follow at once. Seeing his intention, Idina stopped.
"Aren't you coming with us, Angelo?" she asked.
"I thought of smoking a cigar and joining you later," he answered.
"Please come," she said. "Miss Jewett and I won't be staying long; and
I'm leaving with her to-morrow. I've only been hanging on here for her
to arrive. Nothing else would have kept me so long."
"I will come with pleasure," Angelo said. "My cigar can wait."
"Doesn't your wife let you smoke when you're with her?" Idina asked
sharply.
"Of course I let him!" exclaimed Marie, "though sometimes on the loggia
he won't if the wind blows the smoke in our faces. To-day there's no
wind, and we'll all smoke except Mary, who hates it. I'm sure you're
more modern?"
"I'm afraid I too am old-fashioned," said Idina.
"And I'm too nervous," added her friend.
"I should like to see Angelo smoke to-day," Idina went on. "It will
remind me of old times. There's a balcony at Monte Della Robbia where we
used to sit by moonlight sometimes, and while Angelo smoked I told him
Irish fairy stories which he loved to hear. He was romantic and poetic
in those days. Now I have another story to tell--not a fairy story this
time. Still, it's quite interesting. At least, I think it is, and I want
to see whether you agree with me--especially Angelo."
He gazed at her questioningly as she sat down on a sofa opposite to him.
He stood with his back against a marble pillar, and in his eyes was the
look that comes to the eyes of a lion teased by a boy whom he cannot
reach through the bars of his cage.
"It's a story in which Miss Jewett's been collaborating with me," Idina
continued. "Between us we've brought it to a fine point. I couldn't go
on a step more till she came. You can imagine how tired I was of
waiting, for I wanted to be at work. Now we've gathered up all our
threads."
The baited look faded from Angelo's eyes. "You're writing a novel
together?" he asked, smiling faintly.
"We've been piecing together a plot which might make a novel," said
Idina. "That's why I wanted you to come out with us, instead of smoking
your cigar in the house. I'd like to tell the story and see what you
think of it, because I believe you are a very good judge. And a man's
opinion of such things is always valuable. But please smoke! I won't
begin till you do. I want that reminder of old times to give me
inspiration."
Angelo, entirely at his ease now, though still slightly bored, lit his
cigar. The pillar against which he leaned was close to Marie's red
hammock. He could look down at her while he smoked, and as she swung
back and forth her dress all but brushed his knee.
"Our heroine is an English girl, or perhaps Scottish, we haven't decided
which," Idina began in her deep voice. "She's pretty, fascinating to
men, in fact a man's woman. To other women she is a cat. And she's by
nature as deceitful as all creatures of the cat tribe."
"Why take such a person for your heroine?" Angelo wanted to know.
"She's thrust upon us by the exigencies of the story. And, besides--why,
Angelo, if you could meet the girl as I see her in real life, you'd
admire her beyond anything! She would be exactly your style. You, being
a man, wouldn't know that she was deceitful and a cat."
"I'm sure I should know," he protested, with an involuntary glance at
Marie, so saintlike and virginal in her meekly fichued dress. "You've
just said that you considered me a good judge."
"Not of a woman's character, but of what ought to happen to the heroine
of our story in the end," Idina explained. "That's what I meant. You
must give us the end of the story. But I'll go on. The girl--our
heroine--comes upon the scene first at a convent-school in Scotland."
Idina paused for an instant, as if taking thought how to go on. The
faint creaking of the hammock chains abruptly ceased. Mary glanced
across at her friend, but Princess Della Robbia had stopped swinging
only to lean forward and stroke the beautiful Persian dog Miro, who had
come up the steps. She put an arm round his neck and bent her head over
him. Though he adored his master exclusively, he tolerated the new
member of the family, and yielded himself reservedly to her caress.
"It must be a coincidence about the convent," Mary told herself. Why
should Miss Bland wish to torture Angelo's wife, even if she knew
anything? And she could not know. It was impossible that she should
know. But suddenly the girl remembered Marie's hints about a long-ago
flirtation between the cousins. And Idina's manner had been odd when she
begged Angelo to smoke because of old times. A dreadful idea opened a
door in Mary's mind and leered at her, with the wicked eyes of a face
seen in a nightmare, vague, yet growing larger and drawing inevitably
near. She felt helpless and frozen as in a nightmare too; for she could
do nothing to rescue Marie, if need arose. To stop Idina somehow might
be possible, yet surely that would do more harm than good. To show fear
would be to acknowledge cause for fear. Yet at this moment of suspense
Mary would have given her right hand to be cut off, if that could have
saved her friend.
"Our heroine is the last person who ought to be put into a
convent-school," Idina went on, "for she cares more about flirting and
fun and intrigue than anything else. Being shut up with a lot of girls
and religious women bores her dreadfully, and after she's been there for
a while she looks round for a little amusement. The pupils are allowed
to go out sometimes, and she meets a man who's staying in a big
country-house near by. He looks at her, and she looks back at him. That
settles everything. He contrives to find out her name. Men are clever
about such things. Then he begins smuggling letters for the girl into
the convent. She consents to see him in the garden at night, if he can
climb over the wall, or manage to get in somehow. He does manage it.
All this appeals to her vanity and love of intrigue. She has a new
interest in life--and a secret. They have these night meetings often. By
and by the man begs the girl to run away with him. He says he will marry
her at once, of course. He's good-looking and seems to be rich; and he's
staying in the house of a Lord Somebody or Other, so she thinks he must
be of importance in the world. She herself is--just nobody, with hardly
a penny of her own, and only distant relatives who've put her in the
convent to get rid of the bother she made them. But when our heroine has
escaped in the most romantic fashion with her lover, she soon discovers
that he can't marry her, even if he wished, for he has a wife already.
And it's the wife who owns all the money. They don't live together, but
they are quite good friends, he and his wife, who's a common sort of
person, a beer-heiress or something like that. What do you think of our
story so far, Angelo? Isn't it a good plot?"
Angelo had been smoking continuously as his cousin talked, sending out
little quick puffs of smoke which, to those who knew him, betrayed
annoyance. And Idina knew him well.
"Do you want me to say what I really think, or to pay you compliments?"
he asked.
"What you really think, of course."
"Then, there's nothing new or original in your plot, to excuse
its--unpleasantness."
"But if it happens to be true?"
"Many unpleasant things are true, but why rake them up unless there's
something great in the theme that makes them worth retelling?"
"It's too soon to judge yet. You haven't heard the best part. What do
you think of the story, Princess?"
Marie, who had not ceased caressing the dog, listening with her cheek
pillowed on his silken forehead, lifted her face and returned Idina's
look. As she raised her head, Mary's heart gave a bound which took her
breath away. But it was she whose eyes were dilated, whose face was
feverishly flushed, whose breast rose and fell as if a hammer were
pounding within. The Princess was white, but scarcely whiter than usual.
Her lips were pale, and rather dry, as if she had been motoring in a
chilly wind. She was smiling; and if the smile were slightly strained
and photographic, perhaps only one who watched her in the anxiety of
love would have felt the subtle difference.
"I'm afraid Angelo's right," she said. "It's not a particularly original
plot. And--forgive me--your heroine isn't of a very interesting type, is
she? Intriguing, cold, ambitious, catty. One reads of women who give
themselves to men without love, but--they don't seem natural, at least
to me. I believe you must be mistaken in thinking your plot is a true
story."
"I can prove its truth," said Idina, quietly. "At least Miss Jewett can.
She has been getting the materials. That's her business. She's
celebrated for it in America."
"Then I daresay you can work this up into something worth reading, for a
certain sort of book," Marie answered. "But--just in the telling it
isn't quite--quite--well, Angelo and I can stand it of course, but
Mary--I must think of her, you know. And I don't see how our opinion can
be of much use to you and Miss Jewett. So what is the use----"
"Of going on?" Idina caught her up, in a voice of iron or steel. "But I
particularly want Angelo's opinion as to what the end of the story
should be. It's for a man to judge. If it bores you to listen, and you
don't think it's proper for Miss Grant----" She paused significantly,
and her look flung venom. But she had not fully counted on her cousin's
loyalty to his wife, his indifference, almost amounting to dislike at
last, for herself.
"Don't you feel, Idina," he interposed with a deadly quietness she knew
to be a danger-signal, "that any story which--er--bores my wife had
better be left untold in her house? If you really wish to have my
opinion on this plot of which you think so much, write the rest out for
me, and I'll let you have my verdict."
With a swift movement Idina stood up. For once the statue-white face was
flushed with a dull, disagreeable red which made her almost ugly. She
looked tall and forbidding. "Write!" she repeated in a tone of
suppressed fury, deep as a man's. "Do you think my letter would ever
come to your eyes? _She_ would destroy it before it could get to
you--cunning cat that she is. You fool, it's her story I've been
telling you--your wife's. She lived with that man--went to Russia with
him----"
"Be silent!"
The two words cut short the torrent pouring from Idina's lips, as a
block of ice might dam a rushing stream. But it was the look in Angelo's
eyes, even more than his command, which shocked Idina into silence. She
knew then that as much as he loved his wife, he hated her, Idina, and
that nothing on earth could ever change his hate back into indifference.
She knew that if she were a man he would by this time have killed her.
The knowledge was anguish almost beyond bearing, yet the irrevocability
of what she had done spurred her on after the first instant.
"I'll _not_ be silent!" she panted. "For your father's sake. You've
disgraced him in marrying this woman----"
"Go," Angelo said, "unless you wish to be turned out by my servants, you
and your friend whom you brought here on false pretences."
"I didn't know how she was going to work this thing," Miss Jewett
protested hastily. "If I had, I wouldn't----"
"It does not matter," Angelo said.
"But it does matter. Everything matters," Marie broke in, her quiet,
alert, almost businesslike tone a surprise to her friend. "Don't send
them away yet, Angelo--in justice to me. I know you don't believe things
against me--of course not. Perhaps you would not believe, even if they
could seem to prove anything, which they couldn't do. Things that aren't
true can't be proved really, by the most cruel and malicious people. But
maybe if you sent Miss Bland and her detective friend out of the house
now, you might sometimes think of what you've heard, in spite of
yourself--in the night, when dreadful thoughts seem almost true--and
that would kill me. Besides, these women might spread tales. And that
would distress your father. I must justify myself--not in your eyes;
that isn't needed; but in theirs. I must do it--even at the awful
expense of sacrificing another. Two names very much alike have made this
mischief. Angelo, it was Mary Grant who was at that convent-school in
Scotland, where Miss Jewett must have been spying for your cousin. I'd
have saved poor Mary if I could. But you come first with me--first,
before everything and every one. Ask her if what I say of her is not the
truth."
Mary turned and looked at her friend. She was very still. Her heart,
which had pounded in her bosom, moving the laces of her blouse, might
almost have ceased beating. She appeared hardly to breathe. But through
her large, soft eyes her soul seemed to pour itself out in a crystalline
ray, piercing to the soul of Marie. And to the woman who had used the
heart of her friend for a shield came a sudden and terrible thought. She
remembered a passage in the Gospels where Judas led the Roman soldiers
by night to the garden of Gethsemane, and Jesus, speaking no word,
turned and looked at the betrayer. It was as if she saw a picture of
this betrayal, beside the picture of herself leaning forward in the red
hammock, with Angelo beside her and Mary's clear eyes questioning hers.
She could have cried out aloud, and falling on her knees have confessed
everything, begging God's forgiveness and Angelo's and Mary's. But
instead, because she clung to this one desperate hope of keeping Angelo,
she sat erect and firm, her ice-cold hands tightly grasping the edge of
the hammock, one on either side of her body. If she had let go or tried
to stand up, she knew that she must have collapsed. Grasping the edge of
the hammock seemed to lend strength and power of endurance not only to
her body but to her spirit as well. She gave back Mary's gaze steadily,
and was hardly aware of turning her eyes for an instant from the still,
pure face which had never looked so gentle or so sweet; yet she must
have glanced away, for she warmed slowly with the consciousness that
Idina Bland was confused, and that Miss Jewett too was under the
influence of some new emotion which made her appear less hard, less dry,
more like a human being. Hope ran through the veins of Marie in a vital
tide. The desperate instinct of self-preservation had put the right
weapon in her hand. She must go on and use it mercilessly, for she had
touched the weak spot in her enemy's armour. Those two women did not
know everything, after all. Idina had somehow overreached herself. It
was certain that the allies were pausing to recover strength.
"Are you the woman to whom my cousin refers, Miss Grant?" Angelo asked;
and his voice was the voice of the judge, not the protector.
Mary thought of Vanno. The very likeness between this cold voice and the
dear, warm voice of the absent one made the thought a pang. Her eyes
filled with tears. Still she was silent.
"Am I to take your silence as assent?" Angelo asked again, when he had
waited in vain for her to speak, and the waiting had seemed long to
both.
Mary was sitting almost opposite the hammock, in a chair turned slightly
away from it, so that she faced Angelo more fully than she faced Marie,
unless she moved her head purposely, as she had moved it when her eyes
questioned the eyes of her friend. Her hands were loosely clasped in her
lap; and without answering she slowly bowed her head over them. As she
did so, her eyes fell upon the ring Vanno had slipped on her finger with
a kiss that was a pledge, the ring with "Remember eternal" written
inside. The sight of it was a knock at her heart, like the knock of a
rescuer on the door of a beleaguered castle. She did not speak, in her
own defence, for silence was defence of Marie. And little knowing how
she would be tried, she had sworn to defend her friend, sworn by Vanno's
love and her own love for Vanno. It was a vow she would not break if she
could, lest a curse fall in punishment and kill the love which was her
dearest treasure. Yet through all the echoing confusion in her mind one
note rang clear: she must in the end right herself with Vanno.
It was almost as much for his sake as Marie's, she felt dimly, that she
must keep her promise now and endure this shame, this martyrdom; for
Marie was Angelo's wife, and Angelo was Vanno's beloved brother whose
sorrow would be Vanno's sorrow, whose dishonour would be the family's
dishonour. But as she looked at his ring, through the thick mist of her
tears, Mary comforted herself by saying: "Somehow it must come right. I
can sacrifice myself now, but not for always. In some way I will let
Vanno know."
She thought vaguely, stumblingly, her ideas astray and groping like
blind men in an earthquake, knowing not where to turn for safety. And as
she thought, Miss Jewett was speaking. Mary heard what the American
woman said only as an undertone to the clamour in her own brain; but at
last the sense of the words and what they might mean for herself sprang
out of darkness like the white arm of a searchlight.
"In justice to Princess Della Robbia and to me--though maybe you won't
care much about that--you must hear what I've got to tell you," Miss
Jewett said imperatively to Angelo. "It's true I'm a detective. I'm not
ashamed of it. I've made a reputation that way. But I'm human. I didn't
come here to be a beast. I'd no idea what Miss Bland was up to. I
thought she wanted me to look at the Princess, and know whether I'd seen
her picture at the Convent of St. Ursula-of-the-Lake, in Scotland. I
went there on Miss Bland's business, while she waited here, near your
house, so as to be on the spot when I came along with news. It was in
America she first engaged me to do the work. She said her cousin the
Duke di Rienzi wasn't satisfied with his son's marriage, and wanted to
find out something about the lady. It was all one to me, so long as I
was paid. And I have been paid. But if she offered me twice as much I
wouldn't do the thing over again; and I won't raise a finger for her if
she wants any more done. She can do her own dirty work. She said her
cousin the Duke told her his new daughter-in-law was an artist in
Dresden, and she sent me there. I got off the track a bit, but some
things I heard sent me on to St. Petersburg. There had been a Mary Gaunt
or Grant stopping there once in a hotel, with a man she wasn't married
to; that's certain--and she came with him from Paris. From Paris I
traced her--that is, I traced a Mary Grant--back to Scotland and a
convent-school. The last place I went--while Miss Bland waited here
keeping her eye on you all from a distance, and maybe spying out things
on her own account--was that convent. I raked up old gossip outside, and
I got in easily enough, for the Mother Superior and the nuns are nice to
visitors who seem interested. But the minute I began to ask questions
about a pupil in the school who'd run away, the good ladies shut up like
oysters. I had to leave defeated as far as the last part of my job was
concerned, though I'm not used to fail. One thing I did accomplish,
though: I looked hard at a picture in the reception room, with a lot of
girls in it, pupils of the school, and I memorized every face. _The
Princess was not there_; but this young lady was; and her name I find
now is Mary Grant. Unfortunately she's been a good deal talked about in
Monte Carlo, it seems. Miss Bland knows that. I saw her in the woods but
couldn't be certain at a distance, so I said nothing then to Miss Bland.
Since then she hasn't given me time. And now whatever happens, I wash my
hands of the whole business."
Angelo had listened quietly, after realizing that Miss Jewett's object
was to justify his wife, not to incriminate her. And though Marie needed
no justification in his eyes, it was well that Idina should hear it from
the lips of her own paid employé.
When the self-confessed detective had finished, he turned upon his
cousin eyes of implacable coldness.
"You are punished for your malevolence," he said, "though to my mind no
punishment could be severe enough. Go, with your humiliation, the
knowledge of your failure and my contempt for you. If possible, you have
made me love my wife better than ever. But before you go, understand
this: if you attempt to attack her again--if I hear of any malicious
gossip, as I shall hear, provided you utter it--I shall pursue you with
the law. Without any fear of exposure, since there is nothing to expose,
I will prosecute you for slander, and you will go to prison. This is no
empty threat. It is a warning. And it is all I have to say."
He walked swiftly to the end of the loggia and touched an electric bell
on the house-wall. While Idina Bland and Miss Jewett stood in silence
Americo came, smiling as usual, to the door-window.
"These ladies are going," announced the Prince. "Show them out."
* * * * * * *
When they had gone, he went at once to Marie, and taking her hand,
kissed it tenderly. "My darling, this has been very trying for you," he
said. "You are not strong. Now it is my wish that you go to your room
and lie down. Soon I will come to you, but first I must talk for a
little while with Miss Grant."
Until an hour ago he had called her Mary.
With an arm round her waist, Angelo lifted Marie from the hammock, and
began to lead her toward the door, but she resisted feebly. "Angelo, I
can't go!" she stammered. "I can't leave Mary with you--like this. I
must stay. I----"
"Dear one, I wish you to go," Angelo insisted gently. "It is right for
you to go. Trust me to be neither cruel nor unkind to Miss Grant."
"But----"
"There is no 'but.'" Angelo had her at the door; and resigning herself,
with one backward look at Mary imploring pardon and mercy, the Princess
went out.
Mary saw, though she scarcely troubled to read the look. She pitied
Marie, but pitied her as a coward. The girl meant to be loyal, yet
somehow, in the end, to save her own happiness. But she could not plan
for the future. She felt dazed, broken, as if she had been on the rack
and was now to be tortured again.