After this Cecilia no longer avoided Lamberti; on the contrary, she
sought opportunities of seeing him and of talking with him, for she was
sure that she had gained some sort of new strength which could protect
her against her imagination, till all her old illusions should vanish in
the clear light of daily familiarity. For some time she did not dream of
Lamberti, she believed that the spell was broken, and her fear of
meeting him diminished quickly.
She made her mother ask him to dinner, but he wrote an excuse and did
not come. Then she complained to Guido, and Guido reproached his friend.
"They really wish to know you better," he said. "If the Contessina ever
felt for you quite the same antipathy which you felt for her, she has
got over it. I think you ought to try to do as much. Will you?"
The invitation was renewed for another day, and Lamberti accepted it. In
the evening, in order to give his friend a chance of talking with
Cecilia, Guido sat down by the Countess, and began to discuss matters
connected with the wedding. It would have been contrary to all
established custom that the marriage should take place without a
contract, and that alone was a subject about which much could be said.
Guido insisted that Cecilia should remain sole mistress of her fortune,
and the Countess would naturally have made no objection, but the
Princess had told her, and had repeated more than once, that she
expected Cecilia to bring her husband a dowry of at least a million of
francs. Baron Goldbirn thought this too much, but the Countess was
willing to consent, because she feared that the Princess would make
trouble at the last minute if she did not. Cecilia had of course never
discussed the matter with the Princess, but she was altogether of the
latter's opinion, and told her mother so. The obstacle lay in Guido's
refusal to accept a penny of his future wife's fortune, and on this
point the whole obstinacy of his father's race was roused. The Countess
could manifestly not threaten to break off the engagement because Guido
would not accept the dowry, but on the other hand she greatly feared
Guido's aunt. So there was ample matter for discussion whenever the
subject was broached.
It was a hot evening, and all the curtains were drawn back before the
open windows, only the blinds being closed. Cecilia and Lamberti
gravitated, as it were, to the farther end of the room. A piano stood
near the window there.
"Do you play?" Lamberti asked, looking at the instrument.
He thought that she did. All young girls are supposed to have talent for
music.
"No," Cecilia answered. "I have no accomplishments. Do you play the
piano?"
"Only by ear. I do not know a note of music."
"Play me something. Will you? But I suppose the piano is out of tune,
for nobody ever uses it since we stopped dancing."
Lamberti touched the keys, standing, and struck a few soft chords.
"No," he said. "It is not badly out of tune. But if I play, it will be
the end of our acquaintance."
"Perhaps it may be the beginning," Cecilia answered, and their eyes met
for a moment.
"If it amuses you, I will try," said Lamberti, looking away, and sitting
down before the keys. "You must be easily pleased if you can listen to
me," he added, laughing, as he struck a few chords again.
Cecilia sat down in a low chair between him and the window, at the left
of the key-board. Her mother glanced at Lamberti with a little surprise,
and then went on talking with Guido.
Lamberti began to play a favourite waltz, not loud, but with a good deal
of spirit and a perfect sense of time. Cecilia had often danced to the
tune in the spring, and liked it. He broke off suddenly, and made slow
chords again.
"Have you forgotten the rest?" Cecilia asked.
"No. I was thinking of something else. Did you ever hear this?"
He played an old Sicilian melody with one hand, and then took it up in a
second part, and then a third, that made strange minor harmonies.
"I never heard that," Cecilia said, as he looked at her. "I like it. It
must be very ancient. Play it again."
By way of answer, he began to sing the old song, accompanying himself
with the same old harmonies. He had no particular voice, and it was more
like humming than singing, so far as the tone was concerned, but he
pronounced every word distinctly, and imitated the peculiar intonation
of the southern people to perfection.
"Do you understand?" he asked, when he came to the end.
"Not a word." Cecilia asked, "Is it Arabic? It sounds like it."
"No. It is our own beloved Italian," laughed Lamberti, "only it is the
Sicilian dialect. If that sort of thing amuses you, I can go on for
hours."
Many Italians have the facility he possessed, and the good memory for
both words and music, and he had unconsciously developed what talent he
had, in places where time was long and there was nothing to do. He
changed the key and hummed a little Arab melody from the desert.
Cecilia sat quite still and watched the outline of his head against the
light. It was an energetic head, but the face was not a cruel one, and
this evening she had not seen what she called the ruthless look in his
eyes. She was not at all afraid of him now, nor would she have been even
if they had been quite alone in the room. She almost wished to tell him
so, and then smiled at the thought.
So this was the reality of the vision that had haunted her dreams and
had caused her such unutterable suffering until she had found strength
to break the habit of her imagination. The reality was not at all
terrible. She could imagine the man roused to action, fighting for his
life, single-handed against many, as she had been told that he had
fought. He looked both brave and strong. But she could not imagine that
she should ever have cause to be afraid of him again. There he sat,
beside her, humming snatches of songs he remembered from his many
voyages, his hands moving not at all gracefully over the keys; he was
evidently a very simple and good-natured man, willing to do anything
that could amuse her, without the slightest affectation. He was just the
kind of friend for Guido, and it was her duty to like Guido's friend. It
would not be hard, now that she had got out of the labyrinth of absurd
illusions that had made it impossible. She resolutely put aside the
recollection of that afternoon at the Villa Madama. It belonged to the
class of things about which she was determined never to think again.
"Arise and conquer!" She had come back to her real self, and had
overcome.
He stopped singing, but his hands still lay on the keys and he struck
occasional chords; and he turned his face half towards her, and spoke in
an undertone.
"I am very sorry if I offended you by not coming more often to your
house," he said. "Guido told me. I thought perhaps you would understand
why I did not come."
Cecilia looked at him and was silent for a moment, but she felt very
strong and sure of herself.
"Signor Lamberti," she said presently, "I want to ask you to do
something--for me."
There was a little emphasis on the last word. He turned quite towards
her now, but he still made chords on the instrument, for he knew that
the Countess had extraordinary ears. His impulse was to tell her that he
would do anything she asked of him, no matter how hard it might be; but
he controlled it.
"Certainly," he answered. "What is it?"
"Forget that we met in the Forum, and forget what we said to each other
at the garden party. Will you? It was all a coincidence, of course, but
I behaved very foolishly, and I do not like to think that you remember
it. Will you try and forget it all?"
"I will try," Lamberti answered, looking down at the keys. "At all
events, I can promise never to remind you of it, as I did just now."
"That is what I meant," Cecilia said. "Let us never remind each other of
it. Of course we cannot really forget, in our own selves, but we can
begin again from the beginning, this evening, as if it had never
happened. We can be real friends, as we ought to be."
"Can we?" Lamberti asked the question in a doubtful tone, and glanced
uneasily at her.
"I can, if you can," she answered courageously, "and I mean to be."
"Then I can, too," Lamberti said, but his lips shut tightly as if he
regretted the words as soon as they were spoken.
"It will be easy, now," Cecilia went on. "It will be much easier
because----" She stopped.
"Why will it be so much easier?" Lamberti asked, looking down again.
"We were not going to speak of those things again," Cecilia said. "We
had better not begin."
"I only ask that one question. Tell me why it will be easier now. It may
help me to forget."
"It will be easier--because I do not dream of you any more--I mean of
the man who is like you." She was blushing faintly, but she knew that he
would not look at her, and she was sitting in the shadow.
"On what day did you stop dreaming?" he asked, between two chords.
"It was last week. Let me see. It was a Wednesday. On Wednesday night I
did not dream." He nodded gravely over the keys, as if he had expected
the answer.
"Did you ever read anything about telepathy?" he asked. "I did not dream
of you on Wednesday night either. It seemed to me that I tried to find
you and could not."
"Were you trying to find me before?" Cecilia asked, as if it were the
most natural question in the world.
"Yes. In my dreams I almost always found you. There was a break--I
forget when. The old dream about the house of the Vestals stopped
suddenly. Then I missed you and tried to find you. You were always
sitting on that bench by the fountain in the villa. Last Wednesday I
dreamt I was there, but you did not come."
Cecilia shuddered, as if the night air from the open window chilled her.
"Are you cold?" he asked. "Shall I shut the window?"
"No, I was frightened," she answered. "We must never talk about all that
again. Do you know, I think it is wrong to talk about them. There is
some power of evil----"
"I do not deny the existence of the devil at all," Lamberti answered,
with a faint smile. "But I think this is only a strange case of
telepathy. I will do as you wish; though my own belief is, after this
evening, that it is better to talk about it all quite fearlessly, and
grow used to it. We shall be much less afraid of it if we look upon it
as something not at all supernatural, which could easily be explained if
we knew enough about those things."
"Perhaps," Cecilia answered doubtfully. "You may be right. I do not
know."
"You are going to marry my most intimate friend," Lamberti continued,
"and I am unfortunately condemned to stay in Rome for some time, for a
year, I fancy, and perhaps even longer."
"Why do you say that you are 'unfortunately condemned' to stay?"
"Because I did my best to get away. You look surprised. I begged the
Minister to shorten my leave and send me to sea at once, with or without
promotion. Instead, I was named a member of a commission which will sit
a long time. Since we are talking frankly, I wanted to get away from
you, and not to see you again for years. But now that I must stay here,
or leave the service, we cannot help meeting; so I think it is more
sensible not to take any solemn oaths never to allude to these strange
coincidences, or whatever they are, but to talk them out of existence;
all the more so, as they seem to have suddenly come to an end. I only
tell you what would be easier for me; but I will do whatever makes it
most easy for you."
"I prayed that they might stop," said Cecilia, in a very low voice. "I
want you to be my friend, and as long as I dreamt of you--in that way--I
felt that it was impossible."
"Of course," Lamberti answered, without hesitation. Then, with an
attempt at a laugh, he corrected himself. "I apologise for all the
things I said to you in my dreams."
"Please do not laugh about it." Her voice was a little unsteady, and she
was looking down, so that he could not see her face.
"It is better not to take it too seriously," he replied gravely. "Could
anything be more absurd than that two people who were mere acquaintances
then should fall in love with each other in their dreams? It is utterly
ridiculous. Any sane person would laugh at the idea."
"Yes; no doubt. But there is more than that. Call it telepathy, or
whatever you please, it cannot be a mere coincidence. Do you know that,
until last Wednesday, I met you in my dream, just where you dreamed of
meeting me, at the bench in the villa?"
He did not seem surprised, but listened attentively while she continued.
"I am sure that we really met," she went on gravely. "It may be in some
natural way or not. It does not matter. We must never meet again like
that--never. Do you understand? We must promise never to try and find
each other in our dreams. Will you promise?"
"Yes; I promise." Lamberti spoke gravely.
"I promise, too," Cecilia said.
Then they were both silent for a time. It was like a real parting, and
they felt it, and for a few moments each was thinking of the bench by
the fountain in the Villa Madama.
"We owe it to Guido," Lamberti said at last, almost unconsciously.
"Yes," the girl answered; "and to ourselves. Thank you."
With an impulse she did not suspect, she held out her hand to him, and
waited for him to take it. Neither her mother nor Guido could see the
gesture, for Lamberti's seated figure screened her from them; but he
could not have taken her hand in his right without changing his
position, since she was seated low on his other side; so he took it
quietly in his left, and the two met and pressed each the other for a
second.
In that touch Cecilia felt that all her fear of him ended for ever, and
that of all men she could trust him the most, and that he would protect
her, if ever he might, even more effectually than Guido. His hand was
cool, and steady, and strong, and enfolding--the hand of a brave man.
But if she had looked she would have seen that his face was paler than
usual, and that his eyes seemed veiled.
She rose, and he followed her as she moved slowly forward.
"What a charming talent you have!" cried the Countess in an encouraging
tone, when Lamberti was near her.
"Have you made acquaintance at last?" Guido was asking of Cecilia, in an
undertone.
"Yes," she answered gravely. "I think we shall be good friends."