Mrs Maxwell confessed herself to Teresa on their way back from church
the next morning. Teresa had a momentary anger, but, as the other had
said, she was very anxious to consider Wilbraham at this time, and
contented herself with a passing outbreak of indignation.
"You are absolutely ridiculous, all of you! Supposing the man to be
what you say, what possible harm can be done by my speaking to him?
I've a great mind to find him out on my own account. I have only to go
to the questura."
"You won't," said Mrs Maxwell confidently.
And she did not. It appeared as if Wilbraham would be annoyed, and for
Sylvia's sake she must walk warily with Wilbraham. Only in the Palace
of the Caesars, that afternoon, she allowed herself a little mockery
towards him.
"So you've been undermining my projects," she said gaily. "Did you
expect me to be so meek as to give in?"
He flushed.
"I expected you to be annoyed," he said.
"Why didn't you tell me yourself?"
"Would that have influenced you?"
"Why not?" returned Teresa, surprised. She went on very gently--"I
hope, if only for Sylvia's sake, that we shall always be friends."
"Did you call me?" said Sylvia, looking round.
Teresa put out her hand to her and smiled.
"I call you now, at any rate," she said. "I was talking about you."
"And when Walter and I are together, he likes to talk of you," said the
girl happily.
Teresa smiled, thinking only that she was found useful to fill up blank
spaces in the conversation. Love might idealise Sylvia, but could
hardly go so far as to conjure interest into her talk. Not looking at
Wilbraham, she was quite unconscious of his embarrassment, and returned
to her subject.
"Mary and you both seem to think Cesare a dangerous man? Now I believe
that sort of wild talk is mere froth."
"I don't know. It may be," said Wilbraham, recovering himself with
difficulty. "I daresay he is not really dangerous, but somehow I don't
like the fellow. I don't care for you to have to do with him--"
He checked himself, and Teresa waited, expecting him to say more. As he
was still silent, she remarked thoughtfully and with a slight
hesitation--
"It is so difficult for us to throw ourselves into these foreign
natures. We insist on judging them by our own standards. Yet,"--she
laughed and broke off--"I find it dreadfully hard to have one standard
for myself and another for other people, don't you?"
It is doubtful whether Wilbraham had ever attempted it. What he did not
approve of he banned. But he was not thinking of this.
"One knows what is right, I'm sure, always," said Sylvia, trying to keep
up with the talk.
"You do, dear, for yourself, I think, always," Teresa returned quickly,
looking at her kindly. "And what is more, you would do it. Now I wish
he would say something nice," she said to herself, glancing at
Wilbraham. He was looking straight ahead, apparently he had not even
heard, and she began to beat her brains, going back to the subject of
characteristics. "When you think of it," she said, "there is something
remarkable in a race of their standing remaining in many ways so
childlike."
"Very remarkable," said Wilbraham grimly. "Last summer they chose to be
affronted because the band in the Colonna played Wagner oftener than
pleased their patriotism, so they just fell on the poor chaps, wrecked
the stand, and tore the music into atoms. Nice sensible proceeding!"
"I think I've heard of just as sensible in London and Paris," retorted
Teresa in a smooth voice. "Would you like me to mention a few
instances?"
He looked at her and they both laughed. More softly still, she put in
one further word--
"Other people's folly is so _very_ foolish!"
"_I_ think some of the books one reads are very foolish," Sylvia
proclaimed.
"They talk about things which couldn't possibly happen, just as if they
were real. So silly!"
Wilbraham quickly looked away.
"It is provoking, sometimes," said Teresa. "One gets mixed, at least I
do."
She glanced at Wilbraham, not at all understanding what was in his mind,
but wishing that he would be more genial, more natural. Certainly she
was getting nervous herself, for she had never been so conscious of
Sylvia's deficiencies. They had never before seemed sufficiently
important to weigh against her beauty and sweetness. Now the little
prosaic vague speeches disturbed her quite unduly.
She put herself yet more on the defensive.
They wandered round that imperial hill where memories jostle each other,
and even under the divinely blue Roman sky great angry ghosts rise and
stare at the petty intruders whom, in life, one hand-wave would have
swept away. They sat on a bank, where, behind them, towered the brick
fragment which may have looked on the trial of an apostle, and, before,
lay that little space of crowded ruin of which each stone holds history.
Teresa, foolish short-sighted Teresa, thinking only how best to shield
and show off another, was at her best and brightest, touched each point
with delicate fancies, twisted Sylvia's inanities into playfulness, was
delightful towards Wilbraham. She was a little surprised at last when
he sprang up.
"I must be off," he said briefly.
"Look here; shall I put you into a carriage, or do you mean to stop
longer?"
"Oh, we will go," answered Teresa, reflecting ruefully that she could
not have been very successful in her valiant attempts to make the
afternoon pleasant to him, when he ended it in such an abrupt fashion.
But Sylvia drove home in excellent spirits.
"I like you to come with us, because Walter likes to talk to you," she
said cheerily. "You understand him better now, don't you? I know he
enjoyed himself this afternoon."
"I expect he always enjoys himself when you are there."
"Yes, of course," the girl answered serenely. "He doesn't say much, but
I talk."
Teresa was silent. Presently her sister began again.
"Teresa, Mary says that people who marry are sometimes very unhappy.
She says you were unhappy."
"Mary!" exclaimed Teresa angrily. "Mary says a great deal!"
"But were you?" Sylvia persisted. "Yes."
The marchesa kept her face turned away.
"Why, I wonder? Did you love him?"
"Yes, at first."
"Did he love you?"
"I thought so," said Teresa with difficulty.
There was a pause.
"I don't think I understand," said Sylvia slowly. "Don't people always
know?"
The carriage rattled over rough stones and tram lines.
"No," said Teresa. "Not always."
"How funny! _I_ know."
"I hope you will be very fortunate, dear," replied her sister, looking
wistfully at her, and again over-estimating the power of the sweet face.
"I think you will."
"Of course," Sylvia answered happily. "You see, Walter told me that he
was fond of me, so I know. I suppose some people only imagine things?
You must have imagined. Poor Teresa; and I wonder how you could! I
think I should have found out."
Donna Teresa that night stood looking from her window. Above the
houses, Orion, brave hunter, strode across the sky, his dog at his
heels, and soft fleecy clouds flying before him. For midwinter the air
was extraordinarily mild. Sylvia's innocent words had stirred gnawing
memories, which never altogether left her. How miserable she had been!
What humiliations she had endured! It had been in a certain measure her
remembrance of this, and her dread lest Sylvia's face should attract
another marchese, which had made her, perhaps, unduly anxious for the
solid, unromantic engagement with Wilbraham to come about. She had
weighed and judged him. She thought him cold, unsympathetic, reserved,
yet was sure he might be trusted, and never had the least doubt that he
knew his own mind, and would keep to it. Why was not this still
sufficient for her? At times it was, land at all times she fell back
upon it for support. But there were moments when she could not convince
herself, when in comparison with other women--never with herself--poor
Sylvia's limitations stared at her. Then she flung herself into the
gap. Then, as this afternoon, she dug into her own stores, brought
forth all her powers, exerted herself, covered Sylvia, and never once
thought that here lay danger. On the contrary, she believed that she
often failed, and laughed ruefully at the remembrance of Wilbraham's
sudden movement of escape.
But if it were all in vain! If he were beginning to realise a dreadful
mistake! If before Sylvia there lay long unloved years, and before
Wilbraham the heavyweight of weary disappointment--what then?
And all Teresa's reflections ended in this. _If_--what then?