"I am glad to have made an end of _Christina_," remarked Lady Tal,
when they were on Miss Vanderwerf's balcony together. _Christina_ had
been finished, cleaned up, folded, wrapped in brown paper, stringed,
sealing-waxed and addressed to a publisher, a week almost ago. During
the days separating this great event from this evening, the last of Lady
Atalanta's stay in Venice, the two novelists had met but little. Lady
Tal had had farewell visits to pay, farewell dinners and lunches to eat.
So had Jervase Marion; for, two days after Lady Tal's return to her
apartment near the Holy Apostles at Rome, he would be setting out for
that dear, tidy, solitary flat at Westminster.
"I am glad to have made an end of _Christina_," remarked Lady Tal, "it
had got to bore me fearfully."
Marion winced. He disliked this young woman's ingratitude and brutality.
It was ill-bred and stupid; and of all things in the world, the novelist
from Alabama detested ill-breeding and stupidity most. He was angry
with himself for minding these qualities in Lady Tal. Had he not long
made up his mind that she possessed them, _must_ possess them?
There was a pause. The canal beneath them was quite dark, and the room
behind quite light; it was November, and people no longer feared lamps
on account of mosquitoes, any more than they went posting about in
gondolas after illuminated singing boats. The company, also, was
entirely collected within doors; the damp sea-wind, the necessity for
shawls and overcoats, took away the Romeo and Juliet character from
those little gothic balconies, formerly crowded with light frocks and
white waistcoats.
The temperature precluded all notions of flirtation; one must intend
business, or be bent upon catching cold, to venture outside.
"How changed it all is!" exclaimed Lady Tal, "and what a beastly place
Venice does become in autumn. If I were a benevolent despot, I should
forbid any rooms being let or hotels being opened beyond the 15th of
October. I wonder why I didn't get my bags together and go earlier!
I might have gone to Florence or Perugia for a fortnight, instead of
banging straight back to Rome. Oh, of course, it was all along of
_Christina_! What were we talking about? Ah, yes, about how changed
it all was. Do you remember the first evening we met here, a splendid
moonlight, and ever so hot? When was it? Two months ago? Surely more.
It seems years ago. I don't mean merely on account of the change of
temperature, and leaving off cotton frocks and that: I mean we seem to
have been friends so long. You will write to me sometimes, won't you,
and send any of your friends to me? Palazzo Malaspini, Santi Apostoli
(just opposite the French Embassy, you know), after five nearly always,
in winter. I wonder," continued Lady Tal, musingly, leaning her tweed
elbow on the damp balustrade, "whether we shall ever write another novel
together; what do you think, Mr. Marion?"
Something seemed suddenly to give away inside Marion's soul. He saw, all
at once, those big rooms, which he had often heard described (a woman of
her means ought to be ashamed of such furniture, the Roumanian Princess
had remarked), near the Holy Apostles at Rome: the red damask walls, the
big palms and azaleas, with pieces of embroidery wrapped round the pots,
the pastel of Lady Tal by Lenbach, the five hundred photographs dotted
about, and fifteen hundred silver objects of indeterminable shape
and art, and five dozen little screens all covered with odd bits of
brocade--of course there was all that: and the door curtain raised, and
the butler bowing in, and behind him the whitish yellowish curl, and
pinky grey face of Clarence. And then he saw, but not more distinctly,
his writing-table at Westminster, the etchings round his walls, the
collection of empty easy-chairs, each easier and emptier, with its
book-holding or leg-stretching apparatus, than its neighbor. He became
aware of being old, remarkably old, of a paternal position towards this
woman of thirty. He spoke in a paternal tone--
"No!" he answered, "I think not. I shall be too busy. I must write
another novel myself."
"What will your novel be about?" asked Lady Tal, slowly, watching her
cigarette cut down through the darkness into the waters below. "Tell
me."
"My novel? What will my novel be about?" repeated Marion, absently. His
mind was full of those red rooms at Rome, with the screens, and the
palms, and odious tow-coloured head of Clarence. "Why, my novel will
be the story of an old artist, a sculptor--I don't mean a man of the
Renaissance, I mean old in years, elderly, going on fifty--who was silly
enough to imagine it was all love of art which made him take a great
deal of interest in a certain young lady and her paintings----"
"You said he was a sculptor just now," remarked Lady Tal calmly.
"Of course I meant in her statues--modelling--what d'you call it----"
"And then?" asked Lady Tal after a pause, looking down into the canal.
"What happened?"
"What happened?" repeated Marion, and he heard his own voice with
surprise, wondering how it could be his own, or how he could know it
for his, so suddenly had it grown quick and husky and unsteady--"What
happened? Why--that he made an awful old fool of himself. That's all."
"That's all!" mused Lady Tal. "Doesn't it seem rather lame? You don't
seem to have got sufficient _denouement_, do you? Why shouldn't we
write that novel together? I'm sure I could help you to something more
conclusive than that. Let me see. Well, suppose the lady were to answer:
'I am as poor as a rat, and I fear I'm rather expensive. But I _can_
make my dresses myself if only I get one of those wicker dolls, I call
them Theresa, you know; and I _might_ learn to do my hair myself; and
then I'm going to be a great painter--no, sculptor, I mean--and make
pots of money; so suppose we get married.' Don't you think Mr. Marion,
that would be more _modern_ than your _denouement_? You would have to
find out what that painter--no, sculptor, I beg your pardon--would
answer. Consider that both he and the lady are rather lonely, bored,
and getting into the sere and yellow---- We ought to write that novel
together, because I've given you the ending--and also because I really
can't manage another all by myself, now that I've got accustomed to
having my semicolons put in for me----"
As Lady Atalanta spoke these words, a sudden downpour of rain drove her
and Marion back into the drawing-room.