That night seemed the longest in all Cecilia's young life. She was worn
out with fatigue, and could have slept ten hours, yet she dreaded to
fall asleep lest she should dream of Lamberti, and speak to him in her
dream as she meant never to speak to any man now. Just when she was
losing consciousness, she roused herself as one does who fears a
horrible nightmare that comes back again and again. She was afraid to be
alone in the dark with her fear, and she had left one light burning
where it could not shine into her eyes. If she did not sleep before
daylight, she might not dream after that. When she shut her eyes she saw
Lamberti looking at her.
She rose and bathed her face and temples. The water was not very cold in
July, after standing in the room half the night, but it cooled her brows
a little and she lay down again, and tried to repeat things she knew by
heart. She knew all the fourteenth canto of the "Paradise," for
instance, and said it over, and tried to see what it described as she
had seen it all in the church of Santa Croce. While she whispered the
words she looked forward to those she loved best, the ones that bade her
rise and get the victory, and she went on with intense anticipation.
Before she reached them she lost herself, and they formed themselves on
her lips unnoticed as she saw Lamberti's face again.
It was unbearable. She sat up on the edge of the bed and stared into the
shadow, and presently she grasped her left arm above the elbow and tried
to force her nails into the flesh, with the instinctive idea that pain
must bring peace after it. But she could hardly hurt herself at all in
that way. Again she rose, and she went and looked at her reflection in
the tall glass.
There was not much light in the room, but she could see that she was
very pale, and that her eyes had a strange look in them, more like
Lamberti's than her own. It was a possession; she found him everywhere.
Behind her image in the glass she saw the door of the room, the only one
there was, which she had so often heard closed softly just as her dream
ended. She shivered, for the Palazzo Massimo is a ghostly place at
night, and her nerves were unstrung by what she had suffered. She knew
that she was dizzy for a moment, and the glass grew misty and then
clear, and reflected nothing to her sight, nothing but the whole door,
as if she herself were not standing there, all in white, between it and
the mirror.
It was going to open, she felt sure. It was going to open softly, though
she knew it was locked, and then some one would enter. She shivered
again, and felt her loose hair rising on her head, as if lifted by a
cool breeze. It was a moment of agony, and her teeth chattered. He was
coming, and she was paralysed, helpless to move, rooted to the spot. In
one second more she must hear the slipping of the latch bolt, and he
would be behind her.
No, nothing came. Gradually she began to see herself in the glass again,
a faint ashy outline, then a transparent image, like the wraith of her
dead self, with staring eyes and dishevelled colourless hair. Her terror
was gone; she vaguely wondered where she had been, and looked curiously
at her reflected face.
"I think I am going mad," she said aloud, but quite quietly, as she
turned away from the mirror.
She lay down again on her back, her arms straightened by her sides, and
she looked at the ceiling. Since she must think of something, she would
try to think out what she was to say and do on the morrow. She would
telephone to Guido in the morning to come and see her, of course, and in
twenty minutes he would be sitting beside her on the little sofa in the
drawing-room. Then she would tell him everything, just as she had
confessed it all to herself that evening. She would throw herself upon
his mercy, she would say that she was irresistibly drawn to his friend;
but she would promise never to see Lamberti again, since that was to be
the punishment of her fault. There was clearly nothing else to do, if
she had any self-respect left, any modesty, any sense of decency. It
would be hard in the beginning, but afterwards it would grow easier.
Poor Guido! he would not understand at first, and he would look at her
as if he were dazed. She would give anything to save him the pain of it
all, but he must bear it, and in the end it would be much better. Of
course, the cowardly way would be to make her mother tell him.
She had not thought of her mother till then, but she had grown used to
directing her, and to feeling that she herself was the ruling spirit of
the two. Her mother would accept the decision, though she would protest
a good deal, and cry a little. That was to be regretted, but it did not
really matter since this was a question of absolute right or absolute
wrong, in which there was no choice.
She would not see Lamberti again, not even to say good-bye. It would be
wicked to see him, now that she knew the truth. But it was right to own
bravely that she loved him. If she hesitated in that, there would be no
sense in what she meant to do. She loved him with all her heart, with
everything in her, with every thought and every instinct, as she had
loved long ago in her vision. And as she had overcome then, for the sake
of a vow from which she was really freed, so she would conquer again for
the sake of the promise she had given to Guido d'Este, and was going to
revoke to-morrow.
A far cry echoed through the silent street, and there was a faint grey
light between the slats of the blinds. The darkness was ended at last,
and perhaps she might allow herself to sleep now. She tried, but she
could not, and she watched the dawn growing to cold daylight in the
room, till the single lamp hardly glimmered in the corner. She closed
her lids and rested as well as she could till it was time to get up.
She was very pale, and there were deep violet shadows under her eyes and
below the sharp arches of her brows, but Petersen was very near-sighted,
and noticed nothing unusual. Cecilia told her to telephone to Guido,
asking him to come at ten o'clock. When the maid returned, Cecilia bade
her arrange her hair very low at the back and to make it as smooth as
possible. There was not the slightest conscious desire for effect in the
order; when a woman has made up her mind to humiliate herself she always
makes her hair look as unobtrusive as possible, just as a
conscience-stricken dog drops his tail between his legs and hangs down
his ears to avert wrath. We men are often very unjust to women about
such things, which depend on instincts as old as humanity. Eastern
mourners do not strew ashes on their heads because it is becoming to
their appearance, and a woman's equivalents for ashes and sackcloth are
to do her hair low and wear grey, if she chances to dislike that colour.
"Are you going to confession, my dear?" asked the Countess in some
surprise when they met.
"No," Cecilia answered. "I could not sleep last night. I have telephoned
to Guido to come at ten." The Countess looked at her and instantly
understood that there was trouble.
"You are as white as a sheet," she said, with caution. "You had better
let him come after luncheon to-day."
"No. I must see him at once."
"Something has happened," the Countess said nervously. "I know something
has happened."
"I will tell you by-and-by. Please do not ask me now."
Her mother's look of anxiety turned slowly to an expression of real
fear, her eyes opened wide, she grew pale, and her jaw fell as her lips
parted. She looked suddenly old and grey.
"You are not going to marry him after all," she said, after a breathless
little silence.
Some seconds passed before Cecilia answered, and then her voice was sad
and low.
"How can I? I do not love him."
The Countess was horror-struck now, for she knew her daughter well. She
began to speak rather incoherently, but with real earnestness, imploring
Cecilia to think of what she was doing before it was too late, to
consider Guido's feelings, her own, everybody's, to reflect upon the
view the world would take of such bad faith, and, finally, to give some
reason for her sudden decision.
It was in vain that she pleaded. Cecilia, grave and suffering, answered
that she had taken everything into consideration and knew that she was
doing right. The world might call it bad faith to break an engagement,
but it would be nothing short of a betrayal to marry Guido since she had
become sure that she could never love him. That was reason enough, and
she would give no other. It was better that Guido should suffer for a
few days than be made to suffer for a lifetime. She had not consulted
any one, she said, when her mother questioned her; she would have done
so if this had been a matter needing judgment and wisdom, but it was
merely one of right and wrong, and she knew what was right, and meant to
do it.
The Countess began to cry, and when Cecilia tried to soothe her, she
pushed the girl aside and left the room in tears. A few minutes later
Petersen telephoned for the carriage, and in less than half an hour the
Countess was on her way to see Princess Anatolie, entirely forgetful of
the fact that Cecilia would be quite alone when Guido came at ten
o'clock.
Cecilia sat quite still in the drawing-room waiting for him. She was
very tired and pale, and her eyes smarted for want of sleep, but her
courage was not likely to fail her. She only wished that all might be
over soon, as condemned men do when they are waiting for execution.
She sat still a long time and she heard the little French clock on her
mother's writing table in the boudoir strike its soft chimes at the
third quarter, and then ring ten strokes at the full hour. She listened
anxiously for the servant's step beyond the door, and now and then she
caught her breath a little when she thought she heard a sound. It was
twenty minutes past ten when the door opened. She expected the man to
stand still, and announce Guido, and she looked away; but the footsteps
came nearer and nearer and stopped beside her. The man held out a small
salver on which lay a note addressed in Guido's hand. It was like a
reprieve after the long tension, for something must have happened to
prevent him from coming, something unexpected, but welcome, though she
would not own it.
In answer to her question, the man said that the messenger had gone
away, and he left the room. She tore the envelope with trembling
fingers.
Guido was ill. That was the substance of the note. He had felt ill when
he awoke early in the morning, but had thought it nothing serious,
though he was very uncomfortable. Unknown to him, his man had sent for a
doctor, who had come half an hour ago, after Cecilia's message had been
received and answered. The doctor had found him with high fever, and
thought it was a sharp attack of influenza; at all events he had ordered
Guido to stay in bed, and gave him little hope of going out for several
days.
The note dropped on Cecilia's knees before she had read the words of
loving regret with which it closed, and she found herself wondering
whether Lamberti would have been hindered from coming by a mere touch of
fever, under the same circumstances. But she would not allow herself to
dwell on that long, for it gave her pleasure to think of Lamberti, and
all such pleasure she intended to deny herself. It was quite bad enough
to know that she loved him with all her heart. She went back to her own
room.
There was nothing to be done but to write to Guido at once, for she
would not allow the day to pass without telling him what she meant to
do. She sat down and wrote as well as she could, weighing each sentence,
not out of caution, but in fear lest she should not make it clear that
she was altogether to blame for the mistake she had made, and meant to
bear all the consequences in the eyes of the world. She was truly and
sincerely penitent, and asked his forgiveness with touching humility.
She did not mention Lamberti, but she confessed frankly that since she
had been in Rome she had begun to love another man, as she ought to have
loved Guido, a man whom she rarely saw, and who had never shown the
least inclination to make love to her.
That was the substance of what she wrote. She read the words over, to be
sure that they said what she meant, and she told Petersen to send a man
at once with the letter. There was no answer, he was not to wait. She
gave the order rather hurriedly, for she wished her decision to become
irrevocable as soon as possible. It was a physical relief, but not a
mental one, to feel that it was done and that she could never recall the
fatal words. After reading such a letter there could be nothing for
Guido to do but to accept the situation and tell his friends that she
had broken the engagement. As for the immediate effect it might have on
him, she did not even take his slight illness into consideration. The
fact that he could not come and see her might even make it easier for
him to bear the blow. Of course, if he came, she should be obliged to
receive him, but she hoped that he would not. It would hurt her to see
how much he was hurt, and she was suffering enough already. In time she
trusted that he and she might be good friends, as young girls have an
unreasonable inclination to hope in such cases.
When the Countess came back from her visit to the Princess Anatolie she
was a little flushed, and there was a hard look in her face which
Cecilia had never seen before, and which made her expect trouble. To her
surprise, her mother kissed her affectionately on both cheeks.
"That old woman is a harpy," she said, as she left the room.