“Under the Porticoes,” in the thronged fashionable heart of Turin,
two men met by appointment before the city was well awake. Their
encounter was sharp, to the point, and made nothing of superfluous
courtesies.
“By your favour, Mr Trix,” opened one, “we will eschew idle discussion
of coincidences. All roads lead to Rome. I am here; you are here; he
is here; and we have gravitated naturally into each other’s company.
What have you done with him?”
“Why do you want to know, friend Bonito?”
“Is not that rather amusing? I encounter him; we renew an intimacy; in
the middle of it you appear, and appropriate him to your exclusive
possession.”
“I undertook at the same time to answer to you for my claim. I named
the place and hour: I am here to vindicate myself: everything is
convenient for a settlement.”
“Bah! will you never learn my indifference to such gasconade? If you
had struck me in the face, I would not fight you.”
“No; you would have procured an assassin to murder me, I expect.”
“Certainly I should. My life and reputation are of infinitely more
importance than yours. Men of sense have to consider these things.
Only fools argue with swords. What a miserable self-confession! You
had better call yourself a fool at once.”
“Well, I’m not sure but you are right.”
“Then, if you see it, you are no fool. No more am I. If you admit
that, you admit also that you are only withholding from me information
which I can, with a little trouble, procure elsewhere. You really may
as well tell me what you have done with M. Saint-Péray.”
“Perhaps I will tell you, then; but I should just as really like to be
convinced of your reason for wishing to know.”
“For one thing, I am his agent to the lottery, and answerable to him
for an investment which, in less than a week, is to bring us both
certain fortune.”
“Holy Mother! You are there, are you? I thought, from the look of his
face, that you had been painting it with moonshine.”
“You are very welcome to a share of the gilding. If you wish, for old
friendship’s sake I will place you too in possession of the winning
numbers.”
“No, I think not, thank you. You have put me a little out of conceit
with the stars.”
“How! What have I done?”
“Why, I think sometimes they get to depend too much on the human
agencies which interpret them--act up to arbitrary prophecies; or
anyhow are made to seem to.”
“O?”
“Besides, apart from myself, I fail to see your interest in making M.
Saint-Péray’s fortune for him.”
“Things have altered with you, certainly. Did we not once discuss his
eligibility as a suitor?”
“Well?”
“What was enough for Mademoiselle de France is less than worth the
consideration of the Marchesa di Rocco.”
“What! You propose proportionately to restore to him his eligibility.”
“That’s it exactly.”
“What advantage would success bring _you_?”
“I don’t know if I mentioned that I was his agent.”
“O! I see, I see. I beg your pardon--his matrimonial agent, of course.
That reassures me. I confess at first I was sceptical of such
altruism. But here’s my Bonito. Well, we are one there, if from
different sentiments. And does he know of your intentions towards
him?”
“The Fates forbid!”
“I understand you. It is quite plain that he wants nursing,
reassuring, coaxing back into a measure of self-confidence. He is a
desponding spirit, that’s the truth, and determined to read his scrap
of purgatory into utter damnation.”
“Well, I have answered you. Will you tell me where he is?”
“Certainly I will, your sentiments being what they are. I have
persuaded him to place himself under the healing care of the virtuous
Signorina Brambello.”
“Your--!”
Bonito exclaimed and grinned.
“You are certainly very silly or very deep,” he said. “How do you
propose to speed his recovery that way?”
“She is a very good and sensible girl.”
“No doubt. And a very pretty.”
“I must use my instruments. They do not comprise many Madonnas.”
“But why--?”
“A woman’s arguments are everything in these matters. She will
convince his diffidence, if any can.”
“Of what?”
“That Fortune has been very obliging to him.”
“How? In giving him such a confessor?”
“Well; if you were worth my steel!”
“I am not, I assure you. I wish her the last success, naturally. If
she encourages him to the venture, and, better, if he prospers in it,
there will be none better pleased than I. Fate, certainly, has already
interfered very opportunely in his behalf. It would be criminal to
forego that advantage. Believe me, I shall do nothing, for my part, to
balk the Signorina.”
“What goodness! But it is not always necessary to give Fate the credit
for opportuneness. In this case, for example, one might suggest more
than one explanation of a mystery.”
“Of di Rocco’s death, you mean? It is quite true. We should consider
the evidence of motives first, perhaps. There is none more powerful
than revenge.”
“Or, with an astrologer, the wish to verify the reading of his
astrolabes. He had certainly done you a great unkindness, my friend.”
“And you no less, my friend.”
“What! do you suggest that _I_ killed him?”
“With a reason quite as plausible as yours in accusing me.”
“I have not accused you.”
“Nor I you.”
“No more you have. There was no need. He died plainly of an
accident--of the treachery of the elements. I shall hope to call the
elements to account for it some day. Well, if we have no quarrel, seer
Bonito--_addio!_”
He went off, singing lightly. Bonito stood a moment, looking after
him, wintry and caustic.
“He thinks I did it,” he muttered. “The fool, not to know me better!
Let him beware, if he once goads me to reprisals!”