It was the first day of Carnival. The determination to enjoy herself
was so strong in Mae, that her face fairly shone with her “good time
coming.” She popped her head out of the doorway, and flung a big handful
of confetti right at Eric, but he dodged, and Norman Mann caught it in
his face. Then, seeing a try-to-be-dignified look creeping upon Mae, he
seized the golden moment, gathered up such remnants of confetti as were
tangled in his hair and whiskers, and flung them back again, shouting:
“Long live King Pasquino! So his reign has begun, has it?”
“Yes; King Pasquino is lord, now, for ten whole days,” and she slowly
edged her right hand about, to take aim again at Norman. He saw her, and
frustrated the attempt by catching it and emptying the contents out
upon the floor. The little white balls rolled off to the corners and the
little hand fell slowly by Mae’s side. “Why not go down to the Corso,
you and I, and see the beginning of the fun?” suggested Norman.
“Come along,” cried Mae, “you, too, Eric,” and the three started off
like veritable children, in a delightful, familiar, old-time way.
Arrived at their loggia, they found an old woman employed in filling,
with confetti, a long line of boxes, fastened to the balustrade of the
balcony. Little shovels, also, were provided, for dealing out the tiny
missals of war upon the heads below. There were masks in waiting, some
to be tied on, while others terminated in a handle, by a skilful use of
which they could be made as effective as a Spanish lady’s fan. Mae chose
one of these latter.
The Corso was alive with vendors of small bouquets and bon-bons and
little flying birds tied in live agony to round yellow oranges. The
fruit in turn was fastened to a long pole and so thrust up to the
balconies as a tempting bait. If bought, the birds and flowers were
tossed together into the streets to a passing friend. As Mae was gazing
rapturously over the balcony, laughing at the few stragglers hurrying
to the Piazza del Popolo, admiring the bannered balconies and gay
streamers, several of these little birds were thrust up to her face,
some of them peeping piteously and flapping their poor wings. She put up
her hands and caught the oranges, one--two--three--four. In a moment
she had freed the fluttering birds and tossed the fruit back into the
street. “Pay them, Eric,” she cried indignantly; “Why, what is this?”
for one of the little creatures, after vainly flapping its wings, had
fallen on the balcony. Mae picked it up. It half opened its eyes at her
and then lay still in her hands.
“It is dead,” said Mae, quietly, going up to Norman. “Oh! Mr. Mann, I
thought Carnival meant real fun, not cruelty. Isn’t there anywhere in
this big world where we can get free from such dreadful things? Well!”
she added, impatiently, as Norman paused.
“Give a slow fellow who likes the world better than you do, time to
apologize for it,” replied Norman, as familiarly as Eric would have
done. The tone pleased Mae. She looked up and laughed lightly. “At any
rate,” suggested he, “let’s forget the cruelty now and take the fun.
Three of them are safe and very likely this scrap,” and he touched
the dead bird in her hand, “is flying to rejoin his brothers in
hunting-grounds that are stocked with angle-worms, and such game. We are
to have a good time to-day, you and I.”
At this moment Eric rushed up. “Say, Mann,” he cried, “here they come.
They have taken the balcony just opposite, after all. And Miss Hopkins
looks perfectly in a white veil. And oh! here are the rest of our own
party.”
Mae lifted her eyes to the opposite side of the street, but they did not
fall to the level of the Hopkins-Rae party, being stopped by something
above. At a high, fourth-story window, beyond the circle of flying fun
and frolic, confetti and flowers, Mae saw a wonderful woman’s face, a
face with great dark eyes and raven hair. A heavily-figured white lace
veil was pulled low over her brow, and fell in folds against her cheeks.
Her skin was white, the scarlet of her face concentrating in her lips.
There was a strange consonance between the creamy heavy lace and its
flowing intertwined figures, and the face it encircled. A mystery, a
grace, a subtle charm, that had the effect of a vivid dream, in its
combination of clearness and unreality. There was life, with smothered
passion and pride and pain in it, Mae was sure. So near to her that her
voice could have arched the little distance easily, and yet so far away
from her life and all that touched it.
A gentleman attending the lady whispered to her. She bent her eyes on
Mae, and met her glance with a smile, and Mae smiled rapturously back.
Mae had been looking for Bero all that afternoon. She felt sure he would
be there, and very soon she saw him among a crowd of officers sauntering
slowly down the Corso. He looked up at the window opposite. The veiled
lady leaned slightly forward and bowed and waved her white hand. Bero
bowed. So did the other officers.
Norman Mann and Eric excused themselves long enough to dash over to
welcome their friends and then stayed on for a little chat. These young
women were quite gorgeous in opera cloaks and tiny, nearly invisible,
American flags tucked through their belts. They tossed confetti down on
every one’s heads, and shouted--a little over-enthusiastically, but one
can pardon even gush if it is only genuine. That was the question in
this case.
The horse race came; and Mae went fairly wild. When it was over, every
body prepared to go home. King Pasquino had virtually abdicated in favor
of the Dinner Kings. Mae unclasped her tightly strained hands, clambered
down from a chair she had perched herself on, smiled a good-bye at the
veiled lady, and came away. She rode home quietly with a big bouquet of
exquisite blue violets in her hand. There was a rose on top and a fringe
of maiden’s hair at the edge, and the bouquet was flung from Bero’s own
hand up at the side window on the quiet Jesu e Maria, when everyone else
but Mae was out on the Corso balcony.
“It is dreadful to grow old,” said Mae, breaking silence, as the
carriage clattered over the stony streets.
“My dear,” expostulated Edith, “you surely don’t call yourself old. What
do you mean?”
“I fancied I could take the Carnival as a child takes a big bonbon and
just think with a smack of the lips, ‘My! how good this is.’ But here
I am, wondering what my candy is made of all the time, and forgetting,
except at odd moments, to enjoy myself for trying to separate false from
true, and gold from gilt. Still, what is the use of this stuff now! I’ll
remember that horse race, for there I did forget myself and everything
but motion. How I would like to be a horse!” And the volatile Mae seized
the stems of her bouquet for whip and bridle and gave a little inelegant
expressive click-click to her lips as if she were spurring that
imaginary steed herself.
Norman smiled. “We can’t keep children for ever, even--”
“The silliest of us?”
“Even the freshest and blithest.”
“O, dear, that is like a moral to a Sunday-school book,” said Mae;
“don’t be goody-goody to-night.”
“What bad thing shall I do to please your majesty, my lady Pasquino?”
“Waltz,” said Mae. So, after dinner, Edith and Eric sang, and Norman and
Mae took to the poetry of motion as ducks take to water, and outdanced
the singers.
“Thank you,” said Mae, smiling up at him. “This has done me good.” She
pushed the brown hair back from her forehead and drew some deep breaths
and leaned back in her chair, still tapping her eager, half-tired foot
against the floor, while Norman fanned her with his handkerchief.
This time Bero and the strange, veiled lady and Miss Hopkins and
every other confusing thought floated off, and left them quite happy
for--well--say for ten minutes.
And ten minutes consecutive enjoyment is worth waiting for, old and
cynical people say.
* * * * *
The next morning brought back all her troubles, with variations and
complications, on account of some more misunderstood words.
“I think,” said Mae, as she paused to blot the tenth page of a home
letter, “that likes and dislikes are very similar, don’t you, Edith?”
Then, as Edith did not reply, she glanced up, and saw that her friend’s
chair was occupied by Norman Mann. He looked up also and smiled.
“I am not Edith, you see, but I am interested in your theory all the
same. Only, as I am a man, I shall require you to show up your reasons.”
“Well, I find that people who affect me very intensely either way, I
always feel intuitively acquainted with. I know what they will think and
how they will act under given conditions, and I believe we are driven
into friendship or strong dislikes more by the force of circumstances
than by--”
“Elective affinities or any of that nonsense,” suggested Norman Mann.
“Yes,” said Mae, nodding her head, and repeating her original
statement under another form, as a sort of conclusion and proof to the
conversation. “Yes, a natural acquaintance may develop into your best
friend or your worst foe.” She started on page number eleven of her
letter, dipping her pen deep into the ink-stand and giving such a
particular flourish to her right arm, as to nearly upset the bouquet of
flowers at her side. It was Bero’s gift. Norman Mann put out his hand
to save it. His fingers fell in among the soft flowers and touched
something stiff. It felt like a little roll of paper. Indignantly and
surprisedly he pulled it out. “What is this?” he cried.
Mae sprang forward, her cheeks aflame. “It is mine,” she said.
“Did you put it here?” asked Norman.
“No.”
“Then how do you know it is yours? Is not this a carnival bouquet, idly
tossed from the street to the balcony?”
Mae straightened to her utmost height which wasn’t lofty then and said
hastily: “Mr. Mann, this is utterly absurd, and more. I am not a child,
and if I catch an idly flung bouquet that holds idle secrets, I
surely have a right to them.” She laughed hurriedly. “Come, give me my
note,--some Italian babble, I dare say.”
Norman looked at her for a minute with a struggle in his heart and a
flash of half scorn, Mae thought, on his face. What was he thinking?
That the child was in danger. He had no doubt in his own mind now that
the flowers and the note came from Bero and that Mae knew it. He held
the paper crushed in his hand, while he looked at her.
“I presume you will never forgive me,” he said, “but I must warn you,
not as a mentor or even as a friend,” noticing her annoyed air, “but as
one soul is bound to warn another soul, seeing it in danger. Take care
of yourself, and there!” And taking the crushed note between his two
hands, he deliberately tore it asunder and threw the halves on the table
before her.
“And there, and there, and there!” cried Mae, tearing the fragments
impetuously, and scattering the sudden little snow flakes before him.
Then, with a look of supreme contempt, she left the room.
Norman looked down on the white heap that lay peacefully at his feet. “I
am a fool,” he thought.
“Little Mae Madden, little Mae Madden, I am so sorry for you,” repeated
that excited bit of womankind to herself in the silence of her own room.
“What won’t they drive you to yet? How dreadful they think you are? And
only last night we thought things were all coming around beautifully!”
And she looked at herself pityingly in the glass. A mirror is a
dangerous thing for a woman who has come to pity herself. She sees the
possibilities of her face too clearly. And Mae, looking into the mirror
then, realized to an extent she never had before, that her eyes and
mouth might be powerful friends to herself and foes to Norman Mann,
if she so desired. And to-day she did so desire, and went down to the
Carnival with as reckless and dangerous a spirit as good King Pasquino
could have asked.
The details of this day were very like those of the last. Norman and
Eric vibrated between the Madden and Hopkins balconies; the crowd was
great; confetti and flowers filled the air; and up above it all,
circled by her crown of misty, heavy lace-work, shone out the beautiful,
wonderful face of the strange lady. She dropped smiles from under her
long black lashes and from the corners of the rare, sweet mouth over
the heads of the idlers to Mae, who looked up to catch them. There was
a resting, almost saving influence, Mae’s excited soul believed, in
the strange face; and her eyes sought it constantly. She had been quite
oblivious to the friends about this beautiful stranger, but once, as
her eyes sought the Italian’s, she saw her arise with a sudden flash of
light on her face, and hold out a white hand. A head bent over it, and
as it lifted itself slowly, Mae saw once more the well-known features of
the Signor Bero.
She looked down toward the street quickly and a sharp pain filled her
heart.
She had lost her only friend in Rome, so the silly girl said to herself.
If he knew that wonderful woman, and if she flashed those weary, great
eyes for him, how could he see or think of any other? Moreover, it was
very vexatious to have him there. If she smiled up at the girl, Bero
might think she was watching him, trying to attract his notice. So Mae
appeared very careless and played she did not see him at all, at all.
Yet she could not resist looking up now and then for one of the rare
smiles. They seemed like very far between “nows and thens” to Mae,
averaging possibly a distance of four minutes apart. But that is as one
counts time by steady clock-ticks, and not by heart-beats.
Meanwhile, what could she do with her eyes? They would wander once in a
while over to the opposite balcony, at just such moments as when Norman
Mann was picking up Miss Rae’s fan and receiving her thanks for it from
under her drooped eyelids, or choosing a flower for himself, “the very,
very prettiest, Mr. Mann,” before she threw the rest to the winds and
the passing gallants.
As Mae grew reckless her eyes grew bright. There were few passers-by who
were not attracted by the flash of those eyes. The sailor lads, as they
trundled past in their ship on wheels, left the barrels of lime from
which they had been pelting the pleasure-seekers to throw whole
handfuls of flowers up to the Jesu e Maria balcony; a set of hale young
Englishmen picked out their prettiest bonbons for the same purpose;
and one elderly, pompous man, who drove unmasked and with staring opera
glasses up and down the Corso, quite showered her with bouquets, which
he threw so poorly, and with such a shaky old hand, that the street
gamins caught them all except such as he craftily flung so that they
might assuredly tumble back to the carriage again. And Mae, though she
had felt the pleased gaze of a good many eyes before, had never quite
put its meaning plainly to herself. She was apt, on such occasions, to
feel high-spirited, excited, joyous, but now she realized well that she
was being admired, and she led on for victory ardently.
She tossed back little sprays of flowers, or quiet bonbons, or now and
then mischievously let drop a sprinkling of confetti balls through her
half-closed fingers. To do this she drooped her hand low over among
the balcony trimmings, following the soft shower with her eyes, as
some straight soldier would wipe the tiny minie balls from his face and
glance up to see where they came from. If he looked up once, he never
failed to look again, and generally darted around the nearest corner
to return with his offering, in the shape of flowers or other pretty
carnival nonsense. Mae rather satisfied her conscience, which was
tolerably fast asleep for the time being, at any rate, with the fact
that she didn’t smile at these strangers--she only looked!
Her pleasure was heightened by the knowledge that she was watched. If
she glanced across quickly, Miss Rae’s eyes were invariably fixed on her
and Norman Mann would be gazing in the opposite direction in the most
suspicious manner. From above her strange friend leaned over admiringly
and once, as Mae looked joyously upwards, clapped her white hands softly
together, while beyond her a tall figure stood motionless, Mae had
pretended not to see Bero yet, but as the Italian applauded her in this
gentle manner, her eyes sought his involuntarily. He was gazing very
fixedly and rapturously down on her, without any apparent thought of the
beautiful girl by his side. After that, Mae looked up often, in a glad,
childlike way, for spite of this first lesson in wholesale coquetry, and
the new conflict of emotions within her mind, she was enjoying herself
with the utter abandon of her glad nature.
Toward the close of the afternoon, the Italian was suddenly surrounded
by a great mass of flowers, over which she waved her hand caressingly
and pointed down at Mae. “For you,” the gesture seemed to say. The
veiled lady appeared to summon several of her friends, for a number of
gentlemen left the other window and its group of girls, and began the
difficult task of attempting to toss the bouquets from their height down
to Mae. This was rendered the more difficult as the Madden balcony was
covered, and the best shots succeeded in landing their trophies on this
awning, where they were speedily captured and drawn in by the occupants
of the next flat, an ogre of an old woman and her hook-nosed daughter,
who wore an ugly green dress and was otherwise unattractive.
The entire Madden party became interested and stood looking on with
the most encouraging smiles. The very last bouquet was vainly thrown,
however, and gathered in by the ogre, when Bero suddenly appeared, a
little behind the party in the window. The flowers in his hand were of
the same specimens as those he had given Mae the day before, although
different in arrangement. He lifted the bouquet quickly to his lips,
so quickly that perhaps only Mae understood the motion, and flung it
lightly forward. Mae leaned over the balcony, reaching out her eager
hands, and caught it in her very finger tips. The party above bowed and
applauded, as she raised the flowers triumphantly to her face.
So the second day of the Carnival was a success, till they turned their
backs on the Corso. In the carriage Mrs. Jerrold spoke gently but firmly
to Mae. “Be a little more careful, dear; don’t let your spirits carry
you quite away during these mad days.” Mae smiled, but was silent.
“What a strangely beautiful girl that was in the gallery opposite,”
Edith said, a moment later. “I wonder if she is engaged to that superb
man; I fancied I had seen him before. Why, Mae, what in the world are
you blushing at?” For Mae’s face was scarlet. “Why, nothing,” replied
Mae, redder yet; “nothing at all. What do you mean?”
The same thought occurred to Edith and Albert. The officer was Mae’s
chance acquaintance. They both looked grave, and Albert remarked: “It is
as well to be careful before getting up too sudden an acquaintance with
your Italian girl. Take care of your eyes.”
“Has it come to this?” cried Mae, half jestingly, half bitterly. “Are
nor my very eyes my own? I shall feel, Albert, as if you were trying to
bind me in that chain you threatened,” and Mae started: her fingers had
felt another scrap of paper among the flowers, but she did not drop it
from the carriage, as her first impulse was; she held it tight and close
in her warm right hand until she was fairly at home and safe in her own
room. Then she opened and read in an Italian hand, “To my little Queen
of the Carnival.”
Could he have written that as he stood by the wonderful veiled lady,
with her white mysterious beauty, with the purple shadows about her dark
eyes, while she--and Mae looked in her glass again. What did she see?
Certainly a different picture, but a picture for all that. Life and
color and youth, a-tremble and a-quiver in every quick movement of her
face, in the sudden lifting of the eyelids, the swift turn of the lips,
the litheness and carelessness of every motion; above and beyond all,
the picture possessed that rare quality which some artist has declared
to be the highest beauty, that picturesque charm which shines from
within, that magnetic flash and quiver which comes and goes “ere one can
say it lightens.”
The veiled lady’s face was stranger, more mysterious, to an artistic or
an imaginative mind; but youth, and intense life, and endless variety
usually carry the day with a man’s captious heart, and so Bero called
Mae
“My little Queen of the Carnival.”