Lamberti dined at home that evening, and soon after nine o'clock he was
on his way to the Palazzo Massimo. Though the evening was hot and close
he walked there, for it was easier to think on his feet than leaning
back in a cab. His normal condition was one of action and not of
reflection.
His thoughts also took an active dramatic shape. He did not try to bind
future events together in a connected sequence leading to a result; on
the contrary, he seemed to hear the very words he would soon be
speaking, and Cecilia Palladio's answers to them; he saw her face and
noted her expression, and the interview grew violent by degrees till he
felt the inward coolness stealing through him which he had often known
in fight.
He had written a note to Countess Fortiguerra which he had left at her
door on his way home. He had explained that Guido, being too ill to
move, had begged him to speak to the Contessina, and he expressed the
hope that he might be allowed to see the young lady for a few minutes
alone that evening, in the capacity of the sick man's representative and
trusted friend.
Such a request could hardly be refused, and the Countess had always felt
that Lamberti was one of those exceptional men in whom one may safely
believe, even without knowing them well. She said that Cecilia had
better see him when he came. She herself had letters to write and would
sit in the boudoir.
It was the last thing Cecilia had expected, and the mere thought was
like breaking the promise she had made to herself, never to see Lamberti
again; yet she realised that it was impossible to avoid the meeting. The
course she had taken was so extraordinary that she felt bound to give
Guido a chance to answer her letter in any way he could. In the
afternoon her mother had exhausted every argument in trying to make her
revoke her decision. She did not love Guido; that was her only reply;
but she felt that it ought to be sufficient, and she bowed her head
meekly when the Countess grew angry and told her that she should have
found that out long ago. Yes, she answered, it was all her fault, she
ought to have known, she would bear all the blame, she would tell her
friends that she had broken off the engagement, she would do everything
that could be required of her. But she would not marry Guido d'Este.
The Countess could say nothing more. On her side she was reticent for
once in her life, and told nothing of her own interview with Princess
Anatolie. Whether something had been said which the mother thought unfit
for her daughter's ears, or whether the Princess's words had been of a
nature to hurt Cecilia's pride, the young girl could not guess; and
though her maidenly instinct told her to accept her mother's silence
without question, if it proceeded from the first cause, she could not
help fearing that the Countess had done or said something hopelessly
tactless which might produce disagreeable consequences, or might even do
some harm to Guido.
Her heart was beating so fast when Lamberti entered the drawing-room
that she wondered how she should find breath to speak to him, and she
did not raise her eyes again after she had seen his face at the door,
till he was close to her, and had bowed without holding out his hand.
"I hope you got my note," he said to her mother. "D'Este is ill, and has
given me a verbal message for your daughter."
"Yes," said the Countess. "I will go into the next room and write my
letters."
She was gone and the two stood opposite each other in momentary silence.
Lamberti's voice had been formal, and his face was almost
expressionless.
"Where will you sit?" he asked. "It will take some time to tell you all
that he wishes me to say."
Cecilia led the way to the little sofa in the corner farthest from the
boudoir. It was there that Guido had asked her to be his wife, and it
was there that she had waited for him a few hours ago to tell him that
she could not marry him. She took her accustomed place, but Lamberti
drew forward a light chair and sat down facing her. He felt that he got
an advantage by the position, and that to a small extent it placed him
outside of her personal atmosphere. At such a moment he could not afford
to neglect the least circumstance which might help him. As for what he
should say, he had thought of many speeches while he was in the street,
but he did not remember any of them now, nor even that he had seemed to
hear himself speaking them.
"Why did you write that letter?" he asked, after a moment's pause.
Cecilia looked up quickly, surprised by the direct question, and then
gazed into his face in silence. She had confessed to herself that she
loved him, but she had not known how much, nor what it would mean to sit
so near him and hear him asking the question that had only one answer.
His eyes were steady and brave, when she looked at them, but not so hard
as she had expected. In earlier days she had always felt that they could
command her and even send her to sleep if he chose, but she did not feel
that now. The question had been asked suddenly and directly, but not
harshly. She did not answer it.
"Did Guido show you my letter?" she asked in a low voice.
But she was sure of the reply before it came.
"No. He told me that you broke off your engagement with him very
suddenly. I suppose you have done so because you think you do not care
for him enough to marry him, but he did not tell me so. Is that it?"
Cecilia nodded quickly, folded her hands nervously upon her knees, and
looked across the room.
"Yes," she said. "That is it. I do not love him."
"Yet you like him very much," Lamberti answered. "I have often seen you
together, and I am sure you do."
"I am very fond of him. If I had not been foolish, he might always have
been my best friend."
"I do not think you were foolish. You could hardly do better than marry
your best friend, I think. He is mine, and I know what his friendship is
worth. You will find out, as I have, that if he is sometimes indolent
and slow to make up his mind, he never changes afterwards. You may be
separated from him for a year or two, but you will find him always the
same when you meet him again, always gentle, always true, always the
most honourable of men."
"He is that, and more," Cecilia said softly. "I like everything about
him."
"And he loves you," Lamberti continued. "He loves you as men do not
often love the women they marry, and as you, with your fortune, may
never be loved again."
"I know it. I feel it. It makes it all the harder."
"But you thought you loved him, I am sure. You would not have accepted
him otherwise."
"Yes. Thank you for believing that much of me," Cecilia answered humbly.
"I thought I loved him."
"You sent for him this morning, because you had suddenly persuaded
yourself that you had made a great mistake. When you heard that he could
not come, you wrote the letter, and when it was written you sent it off
as fast as you could, for fear that you would not send it at all. Is
that true?"
"Yes. That is just what happened. How did you know?"
"Listen to me, please, for d'Este's sake. If you had not felt that you
were perhaps making another mistake, should you have been in such a
hurry to send the letter?"
Cecilia hesitated an instant.
"It was a hard thing to do. That is why I made haste to get it over. I
knew it would hurt him, but I thought it was wrong to deceive him for
even a few hours, after I had understood myself."
"It would have been kinder to wait until you could see him, and break it
gently to him. He was ill when he got your letter, and it made him
worse."
"How is he?" Cecilia asked quietly, a little ashamed of not having
enquired already. "It is nothing very serious, is it? Only a little
influenza, he said."
"He is not dangerously ill, but he had a good deal of fever this
afternoon. You will not see him for a week, I fancy. That is the reason
why I am here. I want you to postpone your decision, at least until he
is well and you have talked with him."
"But I have decided already. I shall take all the blame. I will tell my
friends that it is all my fault."
"Is that the only answer you can give me for him?"
"Yes. What can I say? I do not love him. I never shall."
"What if something happens?"
"What?"
"Suppose that I go to him to-morrow morning, and tell him what you say,
and that when I have left him there alone with his servant, as I must in
the course of the day, he locks the door, and in a fit of despair puts a
bullet through his head? What then?"
Cecilia leaned forward, wide-eyed and frightened.
"You do not really believe that he would kill himself?" she cried in a
low voice.
"I think it is more than likely," Lamberti answered quietly enough.
"D'Este is the most good-hearted, charitable, honourable fellow in the
world, but he believes in nothing beyond death. We differ about those
questions, and never talk about them; but he has often spoken of killing
himself when he has been depressed. I remember that we had an argument
about it on the very afternoon when we both first met you."
"Was he so unhappy then?" Cecilia asked with nervous interest.
"Perhaps. At all events I know that he has a bad habit of keeping a
loaded revolver in the drawer of the table by his bed, in case he should
have a fancy to go out of the world, and it is very well known that
people who talk of suicide, and think of it a great deal, often end in
that way. When I left him this afternoon I gave him some hope that you
might at least prolong the engagement for a few months, and give
yourself a chance to grow more fond of him. If I have to tell him that
you flatly refuse, I am really afraid that it may be the end of him."
Cecilia leaned back in the sofa and closed her eyes, confronted by the
awful doubt that Lamberti might be right. He was certainly in earnest,
for he was not the man to say such a thing merely for the sake of
frightening her. She could not reason any more.
"Please, please do not say that!" she said piteously, but scarcely above
her breath.
"What else can I say? It is quite true. You must have some very strong
reason for refusing to reconsider your decision, since your refusal may
cost as much as that."
"But men do not kill themselves for love in real life!"
"I am sorry to say they do," Lamberti answered. "A fellow-officer of
mine shot himself on board the ship I was last with for exactly the same
reason. He left a letter so that there should be no suspicion that he
had done it to escape from any dishonour."
"How awful!"
"I repeat that you must have a very strong reason indeed for not waiting
a couple of months. In that time you may learn to like Guido better--or
he may learn to love you less."
"He may change," Cecilia said, not resenting the rather rough speech; "I
never shall."
Lamberti fixed his eyes on her.
"There is only one reason that could make you so sure about yourself,"
he said. "If I thought you were like most women, I would tell you that
you were heartless, faithless, and cruel, as well as capricious, and
that you were risking a man's life and soul for a scruple of conscience,
or, worse than that, for a passing fancy."
"Oh, please do not say such things of me!" She spoke in great distress.
"I do not. I know that you are honest and true, and are trying to do
right, but that you have made a mistake which you can mend if you will.
Take my advice. There is only one possible reason to account for what
you have done. You think that you love some other man better than
d'Este."
Cecilia started and stared at him.
"You said that Guido did not show you my letter!" She was offended as
well as distressed now.
"No; he did not. But I will not pretend that I have guessed your secret.
As Guido lay on his bed talking to me, I was staring at a crumpled sheet
of a letter that lay on the floor. Before I knew what I was looking at I
had read four words: 'I love another man.' When I realised that I ought
not to have seen even that much, I knew, of course, that it was your
writing. You see how much I know. All the same, if you were not what I
know you are, I would call you a heartless flirt to your face."
Again he looked at her steadily, but she said nothing.
"If you are not that," he continued, "you never loved Guido at all, but
really believed you did, because you did not know what love was, and you
are sure that you love this other man with all your heart."
Cecilia was still silent, but a delicate colour was rising in her pale
face.
"Has the other ever made love to you?" Lamberti asked.
"No, no--never!"
She could not help answering him and forgetting that she might have been
offended. She loved him beyond words, he did not know it, and he was
unconsciously asking her questions about himself.
"Is he younger than Guido? Handsomer? Has he a great name? A great
fortune?"
"Are those reasons for loving a man?"
Cecilia asked the question reproachfully, and as she looked at him and
thought of what he was, and how little she cared for the things he had
spoken of, but how wholly for the man himself, her love for him rose in
her face, against her will.
"There must be something about him which makes you prefer him to Guido,"
he said obstinately.
"Yes. But I do not know what it is. Do not ask me about him."
"Considering that you are endangering the life of my dearest friend for
him, I think I have some right to speak of him."
She was silent, and they faced each other for several seconds with very
different expressions. She was pale again, now, but her eyes were full
of light and softness, and there was a very faint shadow of a smile
flickering about her slightly parted lips, as if she saw a wonderful and
absorbing sight. Lamberti's gaze, on the contrary, was cold and hard,
for he was jealous of the unknown man and angry at not being able to
find out who he was. She did not guess his jealousy, indeed, for she did
not suspect what he felt; but she knew that his righteous anger on
Guido's behalf was unconsciously directed against himself.
"You will never know who he is," she said at last, very gently.
"We shall all know, when you marry him," Lamberti answered with
unnecessary roughness.
"No, I shall never marry him," she said. "I mean never to see him again.
I would not marry him, even if he should ever love me."
"Why not?"
"For Guido's sake. I have treated Guido very badly, though I did not
mean to do it. If I cannot marry Guido, I will never marry at all."
"That is like you," Lamberti answered, and his voice softened. "I
believe you are in earnest."
"With all my heart. But promise me one thing, please, on your word."
"Not till I know whether I may."
"For his sake, not for mine. Stay with him. Do not leave him alone for a
moment till you are sure that he is safe and will not try to kill
himself. Will you promise?"
"Not unless you will promise something, too."
"Do not ask me to pretend that I love him. I cannot do it."
"Very well. You need not pretend anything. Let me tell him that you will
let your engagement continue to all appearance, and that you will see
him, but that you put off the wedding for the reasons you gave in your
letter. Let me tell him that you hope you may yet care for him enough to
marry him. You do, do you not?"
"No!"
"At least let me say that you are willing to wait a few months, in order
to be sure of yourself. It is the only thing you can do for him. Perhaps
you can accustom him by slow degrees to the idea that you will never
marry him."
"Perhaps."
"In any case, you ought to do your best, and that is the best you can
do. See him a few times when he is well enough, and then leave Rome.
Tell him that it will be a good thing to be parted for a month or two,
and that you will write to him. Do not destroy what hope he may have,
but let it die out by degrees, if it will."
Cecilia hesitated. After what had passed between them she could hardly
refuse to follow such good advice, though it was hard to go back to
anything approaching the state of things with which she had broken by
her letter. But that was only obstinacy and pride.
"Let it be distinctly understood that I do not take back my letter at
all," she said. "If I consent to what you ask, it is only for Guido's
sake, and I will only admit that I may be more sure of myself in a few
months than I am now, though I cannot see how that is possible."
"It shall be understood most distinctly," Lamberti answered. "You say,
too, that you mean never to see this other man again."
"I cannot help seeing him if I stay longer in Rome," Cecilia said.
Lamberti wondered who he might be, with growing hatred of him.
"If he is an honourable man, and if he had the slightest idea that he
had unconsciously come between you and Guido, he would go away at once."
"Perhaps he could not," Cecilia suggested.
"That is absurd."
"No. Take your own case. You told me not long ago that you were
unfortunately condemned to stay in Rome, unless you gave up your career.
He might be in a very similar position. In fact, he is."
There was something so unexpected in the bitter little laugh that
followed the last words that Lamberti started. She had kept her secret
well, so far, but she had now given him the beginning of a clew. He
wished, for once, that he possessed the detective instinct, and could
follow the scent. There could not be many men in society who were in a
position very similar to his own.
"I wish I knew his name," he said, only half aloud.
But she heard him, and again she laughed a little harshly.
"If I told you who he is, what would you do to him? Go and quarrel with
him? Call him out and kill him in a duel? I suppose that is what you
would do if you could, for Guido's sake."
"I should like to know his name," Lamberti answered.
"You never shall. You can never find it out, no matter how ingenious you
are."
"If I ever see you together, I shall."
"How can you be so sure of that?"
"You forget something," Lamberti said. "You forget the odd coincidences
of our dreams, and that I have seen you in them when you were in
earnest--not as you have been with Guido, but as you seem to be about
this other man. I know every look in your eyes, every movement of your
lips, every tone of your voice. Do you think I should not recognise
anything of all that in real life?"
"These were only dreams," Cecilia tried to say, avoiding his look. "I
asked you not to speak of them."
"Do you dream of him now?" Lamberti asked the question suddenly.
"Not now--no--that is--please do not ask me such questions. You have no
right to."
"I beg your pardon. Perhaps I have not."
He was not in the least sorry for having spoken, but his anger increased
against the unknown man. She had evidently dreamt of him at one time or
another, as she used to dream of himself.
"You have such an extraordinary talent for dreaming," he said, "that the
question seemed quite natural. I daresay you have seen Guido in your
visions, too, when you believed that you cared for him!"
"Never!" Cecilia could hardly speak just then.
"Poor Guido! that was a natural question too. Since you used to see a
mere acquaintance, like myself, and fancy that you were----"
"Stop!"
"----that you were talking familiarly with him," continued Lamberti
unmoved, "it would hardly be strange that you should often have seen
Guido d'Este in the same way, while you thought you loved him, and it is
stranger that you should not now dream about a man you really love--if
you do!"
"I say that you have no right to talk in this way," said Cecilia.
"I have the right to say a great many things," Lamberti answered. "I
have the right to reproach you----"
"You said that you believed me honest and true."
The words checked his angry mood suddenly. He passed his hand over his
eyes and changed his position.
"I do," he said. "There is no woman alive of whom I believe more good
than I do of you."
"Then trust me a little, and believe, too, that I am suffering quite as
much as Guido. I have agreed to take your advice, to obey you, since it
is that and nothing else----"
"I have no power to give you orders. I wish I had!"
"You have right on your side. That is power, and I obey you. You have
told me what to do, and I shall do it, and be glad to do it. But even
after what I have done, I have some privileges left. I have a secret,
and I am ashamed of it, and it can do no good to Guido to know it, much
less to you. Please let me keep it in my own way."
"Yes. But if you are afraid that I should hurt the man, if I knew his
name, you are mistaken."
"I am not in the least afraid of that," Cecilia answered, and the light
filled her eyes again as she looked at him. "You are too just to hate an
innocent man. It is not his fault that I love him, and he will never
know it. He will never guess that I think him the best, and truest, and
bravest man alive, and that he is all this world to me, now and for
ever!"
She spoke quietly enough, but there was a radiant joy in her face which
Lamberti never forgot. While keeping her secret, she was telling him at
last to his face that she loved him, and it was the first time she had
ever spoken such words out of her dreams. In them indeed they had been
familiar to her lips, as words like them had been to his.
He leaned forward, resting one elbow on his knee, and his chin upon his
closed hand, and he looked at her long in silence. He envied her for
having been able to say aloud what she felt, under cover of her secret,
and he longed to answer her, to tell her that he loved her even better
than she loved that unknown man, to hear himself say it to her only
once, come what might. But for Guido he would have spoken, for as he
gazed at her the instinctive masculine conviction returned stronger than
ever, that if he chose he could make her love him. For a moment he was
absolutely sure of it, but he only sat still, looking at her.
"You believe me now," she said at last, leaning back and turning her
eyes away.
"Poor Guido!" he exclaimed.
He knew indeed that there was no longer any hope for his friend.
"Yes," he added thoughtfully. "It was in your eyes just then, when you
were speaking, just as if that man had been there before you. I shall
know who he is if I ever see you together. It is understood, then," he
went on, changing his tone, "I am to tell him that you wish to put off
the marriage till you are more sure of yourself--that you wrote that
letter under an impulse."
"Yes, that is true. And you wish me to try to make him understand by
degrees that it is all over, and to go away from Rome in a few days,
asking him not to follow me at once."
"I think that is the kindest thing you can do. On my part I will give
him what hope I can that you may change your mind again."
"You know that I never shall."
"I may hope what I please. There is always a possibility. We are human,
after all. One may hope against conviction. May I see you again
to-morrow to tell you how he takes your message?"
To his surprise Cecilia hesitated several seconds before she answered.
"Of course," she said at last. "Or you can write to me or to my mother,
which will save you the trouble of coming here."
"It is no trouble," Lamberti answered mechanically. "But of course it is
painful for you to talk about it all, so unless something unexpected
happens I will write a line to your mother to say that Guido accepts
your decision, and to let you know how he is. If there is anything
wrong, I will come in the evening."
"Thank you. That is the best way."
"Good night." He rose as he spoke.
"Good night. Thank you." She held out her hand rather timidly.
He took it, and she withdrew it precipitately, after the merest touch.
She rose quickly and went towards the door of the boudoir, calling to
her mother as she walked.
"Signor Lamberti is going," she said.
There was a little rustle of thin silk in the distance, and the Countess
appeared at the door and came forward.
"Well?" she asked, as she met Lamberti in the middle of the room.
"Your daughter has decided to do what seems best for everybody,"
Lamberti said. "She will tell you all about it. Let me thank you for
having allowed me to talk it over with her. Good night."
"Do stay and have some tea!" urged the Countess, and she wondered why
Cecilia, standing behind Lamberti, frowned and shook her head. "Of
course, if you will not stay," she added hastily, "I will not try to
keep you. Pray give my best messages to Signor d'Este, and tell him how
distressed I am, and say--but you will know just what to say, I am sure.
Good night."
Lamberti bowed and shook hands. As he turned, he met Cecilia face to
face and bade her good night again. She nodded rather coldly, and then
went quickly to ring the bell for the footman.