morning a neatly dressed Frenchwoman entered Palazzo Acorari, and was
admitted into the princess's apartment, and the porter informed him that
she was the _principessina's_ governess, who came from nine o'clock till
twelve every day, excepting Sundays and the great _feste_.
Silvio studied Donna Bianca's governess as he had studied her maid.
Mademoiselle Durand was certainly much younger than the latter, and
better looking. Moreover, unlike Bettina, she did not look at Silvio
witheringly when she happened to meet him in or near Palazzo Acorari,
but perhaps a little the reverse. At any rate, after a few mornings on
which bows only were exchanged between them, Silvio felt that he might
venture to remark on the beauty of the spring weather. He spoke French
fluently, though with the usual unmistakable Italian accent, and his
overtures were well received.
Mademoiselle Durand smiled pleasantly. "Monsieur lived in Palazzo
Acorari, did he not? A son of the famous Professor Rossano? Ah,
yes--she had heard him lecture at the Collegio Romano. But perhaps it
would be as well not to say so to Madame la Princesse. Madame la
Princesse did not approve of science"--and Mademoiselle Durand looked at
him, smiling again. Then she colored a little, for her glance had been
one of obvious admiration, though Silvio, full of his own thoughts, was
not aware of it.
After that, the ice once broken, it had been an easy matter to become
fairly intimate with Donna Bianca's instructress. Knowing the precise
hour at which she was accustomed to leave Palazzo Acorari, Silvio
frequently managed to meet her as she crossed the Piazza Campitelli on
her way back to her abode in the Via d'Ara Coeli, where she occupied a
couple of rooms over a small curiosity shop.
Fortunately, probably, for Silvio, Mademoiselle Durand very soon
discovered that it was due to no special interest in herself if this
good-looking young Roman sought her acquaintance. It had scarcely
struck him that his advances might easily be misinterpreted; and,
indeed, for the space of a few days there had been not a little danger
of this misinterpretation actually occurring. The shrewdness of her
race, however, had prevented Mademoiselle Durand from deceiving herself;
and Silvio's questions, which he flattered himself were triumphs of
subtle diplomacy, speedily revealed to her how and where the land lay.
On the whole, the thought of lending herself to a little intrigue rather
commended itself to the Frenchwoman. Life in Rome was not very amusing,
and to be the confidante in a love-affair, and especially in such an
apparently hopeless love-affair, would add an interest to it. Perhaps a
little of the sentimentality, the existence of which in Bettina Silvio
had doubted, entered into the matter. Mademoiselle Durand liked her
pupil, and had always secretly pitied her for the dulness and isolation
of her life; and as for Silvio--well, when he looked at her with his
soft Roman eyes, and seemed to be throwing himself upon her generosity
and compassion, Mademoiselle Durand felt that she would do anything in
the world he asked her to do. The Princess of Montefiano she regarded
as a mere machine in the hands of the Abbe Roux. Though she had only
been a few moments in her present position, Mademoiselle Durand had
fully realized that the Abbe Roux was master in the Montefiano
establishment; and, though she had been highly recommended to the
princess by most pious people, she entertained a cordial dislike to
priests except in church, where, she averred, they were necessary to the
business, and no doubt useful enough.
"It is Monsieur l'Abbe of whom you must beware," she insisted to Silvio,
after she was in full possession of his secret. "The princess is an
imbecile--so engaged in trying to secure a good place in the next world
that she has made herself a nonentity in this. No--it is of the priest
you must think. I do not suppose it would suit him that Donna Bianca
should marry."
"Does he want to put her in a convent, then?" asked Silvio, angrily, on
hearing this remark.
"But no, Monsieur Silvio! Convents are like husbands--they want a
dowry." She looked at Silvio sharply as she spoke, but it was clear to
her that he was quite unconscious of any possible allusion to himself in
her words.
"It is true, mademoiselle," he answered, thoughtfully. "I forgot that.
It is a very unlucky thing that Donna Bianca Acorari has not half a
dozen brothers and as many sisters; for then she would have very little
money, I should imagine, and no titles."
Mademoiselle Durand hesitated for a moment. Then she looked at him
again, and this time her black eyes no longer had the same shrewd,
suspicious expression.
"_Tiens!_" she muttered to herself; and then she said, aloud: "And what
do you want me to do for you, Monsieur Silvio? You have not confided in
me for nothing--_hein_? Am I to take your proposals for Donna Bianca's
hand to Madame la Princesse? It seems to me that monsieur your father
is the fit and proper person to send on such an errand, and not a poor
governess."
"_Per Carita!_" exclaimed Silvio, relapsing in his alarm into his native
tongue. "Of course I do not mean that, mademoiselle. I thought
perhaps--that is to say, I hoped--"
He looked so disconcerted that Mademoiselle Durand laughed outright.
"No, _mon ami_," she replied. "I may call you that, Monsieur Silvio,
may I not, since conspirators should be friends? I promise you I will
not give your secret away. All the same, unless I am mistaken, there is
one person to whom you wish me to confide it--is it not so?"
"Yes," replied Silvio; "there is certainly one person."
"But it will not be easy," continued Mademoiselle Durand, "and it will
take time. Yes," she added, as though to herself--"it will be fairly
amusing to outwit Monsieur l'Abbe--only--only--" and then she paused,
hesitatingly.
"Only?" repeated Silvio, interrogatively.
"_Ma foi_, monsieur, only this," exclaimed his companion, energetically,
"that I like the child, and I do not wish any harm to come to her
through me. Have you thought well, Monsieur Silvio? You say that you
love her, and that she can learn to love you; you will marry her if she
be twenty times Princess of Montefiano. Well, I believe that you love
her; and if a good countenance is any proof of a good heart, your love
should be worth having. But if you make her love you, and are not
strong enough to break down the barriers which will be raised to prevent
her from marrying you, will you not be bringing on her a greater
unhappiness than if you left her to her natural destiny?"
Silvio was silent for a moment. Was this not what Giacinta had said to
him more than once? Then a dogged expression came over his face--his
eyes seemed to harden suddenly, and his lips compressed themselves.
"Her destiny is to be my wife," he said, briefly.
Mademoiselle Durand shot a quick glance of approval at him.
"_Diable!_" she exclaimed, "but you Romans have wills of your own even
in these days, it seems. And suppose the girl never learns to care for
you--how then, Monsieur Silvio? Will you carry her off as your
ancestors did the Sabine women?"
Silvio shrugged his shoulders. "She will learn to care for me," he
said, "if she is properly taught."
Mademoiselle Durand laughed. "_Tiens!_" she murmured again. "And I am
to give her a little rudimentary instruction--to prepare her, in short,
for more advanced knowledge? Oh, la, la! Monsieur Silvio, you must
know that such things do not come within the province of a daily
governess."
"But you see her for three hours every day," returned Silvio, earnestly.
"In three hours one can do a great deal," he continued.
"A great deal too much sometimes!" interrupted Mademoiselle Durand
rapidly, under her breath.
"And when it is day after day," proceeded Silvio, "it is much easier. A
word here, and a word there, and she would soon learn that there is
somebody who loves her--somebody who would make her a better husband
than some brainless idiot of her own class, who will only want her money
and her lands. And then, perhaps, if we could meet--if she could hear
it all from my lips, she would understand."
Mademoiselle Durand gave a quick little sigh. "Oh," she said, "if she
could learn it all from your lips, I have no doubt that she would
understand very quickly. Most women would, Monsieur Silvio."
"That is what I thought," observed Silvio, naively.
The Frenchwoman tapped her foot impatiently on the ground.
"Well," she said, after a pause, "I will see what I can do. But you must
be patient. Only, do not blame me if things go wrong--for they are
scarcely likely to go right, I should say. For me it does not matter.
I came to Rome to learn Italian and to teach French--and other things.
I have done both; and in any case, when my engagement with Madame la
Princesse is over, I shall return to Paris, and then perhaps go to
London or Petersburg--who knows? So if my present engagement were to
end somewhat abruptly, I should be little the worse. Yes--I will help
you, _mon ami_--if I can. Oh, not for money--I am not of that sort--but
for--well, for other things."
"What other things?" asked Silvio, absently.
Mademoiselle Durand fairly stamped her foot this time.
"_Peste!_" she exclaimed, sharply. "What do they matter--the other
things? Let us say that I want to play a trick on the princess; to
spite the priest--by-the-way, Monsieur l'Abbe sometimes looks at me in a
way that I am sure you never look at women, Monsieur Silvio! Let us say
that I am sorry for that poor child, who will lead a stagnant existence
till she is a dried-up old maid, unless somebody rescues her. All these
things are true, and are they not reasons enough?"
And Silvio was quite satisfied that they were so.
*VI*
Bianca Acorari was sitting by herself in the room devoted to her own
especial use, where she studied in the mornings with Mademoiselle
Durand, and, indeed, spent most of her time. It was now the beginning
of June--the moment in all the year, perhaps, when Rome is the most
enjoyable; when the hotels are empty, and the foreigners have fled
before the imaginary spectres of heat, malaria, and other evils to which
those who remain in the city during the late spring and summer are
popularly supposed to fall victims.
Entertainments, except those of an intimate character, being at an end,
the American invasion has rolled northward. The gaunt English spinsters,
severe of aspect, and with preposterous feet, who have spent the winter
in the environs of the Piazza di Spagna with the double object of
improving their minds and converting some of the "poor, ignorant Roman
Catholics" to Protestantism, have gone northward too, to make merriment
for the inhabitants of Perugia, or Sienna, of Venice, and a hundred
other hunting-grounds. Only the German tourists remain, carrying with
them the atmosphere of the _bierhalle_ wherever they go, and generally
behaving themselves as though Italy were a province of the fatherland.
In the summer months Rome is her true self, and those who know her not
then know her not at all.
To Bianca Acorari, however, all seasons of the year were much the same,
excepting the three months or so that she passed in the villa near
Velletri. To these months she looked forward with delight. The dull
routine of her life in Rome was interrupted, and any variety was
something in the nature of an excitement. It was pleasanter to be able
to wander about the gardens and vineyards belonging to the villa than to
drive about Rome in a closed carriage, waiting perhaps for an hour or
more outside some convent or charitable institution while her
step-mother was engaged in pious works. At the Villa Acorari, she could
at all events walk about by herself, so long as she did not leave its
grounds. But these grounds were tolerably extensive, and there were many
quiet nooks whither Bianca was wont to resort and dream over what might
be going on in that world around her, of which she supposed it must be
the natural lot of princesses to know very little. The absence of
perpetual supervision, the sense of being free to be alone out-of-doors
if she chose to be so, was a luxury all the more enjoyable after eight
months spent in Palazzo Acorari.
But within the last few weeks Bianca Acorari had become vaguely
conscious of the presence of something fresh in her life, something as
yet indefinable, but around which her thoughts, hitherto purely
abstract, seemed to concentrate themselves. The world was no longer
quite the unknown realm peopled with shadows that it had till recently
appeared to her to be. It held individuals; individuals in whom she
could take an interest, and who, if she was to believe what she was
told, took an interest in her. That it was a forbidden interest--a
thing to be talked about with bated breath, and that only to one
discreet and sympathizing friend, did not by any means diminish its
fascination.
It had spoken well for Mademoiselle Durand's capabilities of reading the
characters of her pupils that she had at once realized that what Bianca
Acorari lacked in her life was human sympathy. This the girl had never
experienced; but, all the same, it was evident to any one who, like
Mademoiselle Durand, had taken the trouble to study her nature, that she
was unconsciously crying out for it. There was, indeed, not a person
about her with whom she had anything in common. The princess, wrapped
up in her religion and in her anxiety to keep her own soul in a proper
state of polish, was an egoist, as people perpetually bent upon laying
up for themselves treasure in heaven usually are. And Bianca
practically had no other companion than her stepmother except servants,
for the few people she occasionally saw at rare intervals did not enter
in the smallest degree into her life.
Mademoiselle Durand had very soon discovered Bianca's desire to know the
girl who lived in the apartment above her, and her annoyance that she
had not been allowed to make any acquaintance with the Signorina
Rossano. This very natural wish on her pupil's part to make friends
with some one of her own sex, and more nearly approaching her own age
than the people by whom she was surrounded, had afforded Mademoiselle
Durand the very opening she required in order to commence her campaign
in Silvio Rossano's interests. As she had anticipated, it had proved no
difficult matter to sing the praises of the brother while apparently
conversing with Bianca about the sister, and it must be confessed that
she sang Silvio's praises in a manner by no means half-hearted. Nor did
Mademoiselle Durand find that her efforts fell upon altogether unwilling
ears. It was evident that in some way or another Bianca's curiosity had
been already aroused, and that she was not altogether ignorant of the
fact that the heretical professor's good-looking son regarded her with
some interest.
Mademoiselle Durand, indeed, was somewhat surprised at the readiness
displayed by her pupil to discuss not only Giacinta, but also Giacinta's
brother, and she at first suspected that things were a little further
advanced than Silvio had pretended to be the case.
She soon came to the conclusion, however, that this was not so, and that
Bianca's curiosity was at present the only feeling which had been
aroused in her.
Mademoiselle Durand was not particularly well-read in her Bible; but she
did remember that curiosity in woman had, from the very beginning of
things, been gratified by man, and also that the action of a third party
had before now been necessary in order to bring the desired object
within the reach of both. She was aware that the action of the third
party had not been regarded as commendable; nevertheless, she quieted
any qualms of conscience by the thought that, after all, circumstances
in this case were somewhat different.
On this particular June afternoon Bianca Acorari was free to amuse
herself in-doors as she chose until five o'clock, at which hour the
princess had ordered the carriage, and Bianca would have to accompany
her to visit an orphanage outside the Porta Pia. She was not at all
sorry for those orphans. An orphan herself, she had always thought
their life must be certainly more amusing than her own, and she had once
ventured to hint as much, to the manifest annoyance of her step-mother,
who had reproved her for want of charity.
The afternoon was warm, and Bianca, tired of reading, and still more
tired of a certain piece of embroidery destined to serve as an
altar-frontal for a convent-chapel, sat dreaming in the subdued light
coming through closed _persiennes_. Through the open windows she could
hear the distant noise of the traffic in the streets, the monotonous cry
of _Fragole! Fragole!_ of the hawkers of fresh strawberries from Nemi
and the Alban Hills, and now and again the clock of some neighboring
church striking the quarters of the hour.
In a little more than a fortnight, Bianca was saying to herself with
satisfaction--when St. Peter's day was over, before which festival the
princess would never dream of leaving Rome--she would be at the Villa
Acorari, away from the dust and the glare of the city, passing those hot
hours of the day in the deep, cool shade of the old ilex-trees, and
listening to the murmur of the moss-grown fountains in the quiet
grounds, half garden and half wilderness, that surrounded the house.
The view from the ilex avenue seemed to unfold itself before her--the
vine-clad ridges melting away into the plain beneath, Cori, Norma, and
Sermoneta just visible, perched on the distant mountain-sides away
towards the south; and, rising out of the blue mist, with the sea
flashing in the sunlight around it, Monte Circeo, the scene of so many
mysterious legends both in the past and in the present. Far away over
the Campagna the hot summer haze quivered over Rome. Bianca could see
it all in her imagination as she sat with her hands clasped behind her
tawny mass of curling hair; though, in reality, her eyes were fastened
upon an indifferent painting of a Holy Family, in which St. Joseph
appeared more conscious than usual of being _de trop_.
The three hours of studies with Mademoiselle Durand that morning had
been frequently interrupted by conversation. Of late, indeed, this had
often been the case. Bianca had been delighted when she learned that
Mademoiselle Durand was intimate with the Rossano family, and the
governess had not thought it necessary to explain that Silvio was the
only member of it with whom she was on speaking terms.
The fact was that Silvio had been becoming impatient lately, and
Mademoiselle Durand's task grew more difficult in consequence. To
afford him any opportunity of meeting Bianca, or of interchanging even a
single word with her, appeared to be impossible. The girl was too well
guarded. Mademoiselle Durand had once suggested to her that she should
take her some morning to the galleries in the Vatican which Bianca had
never seen. The princess's permission had, of course, to be obtained,
and Bianca broached the subject one day at breakfast. For a moment her
step-mother had hesitated, and seemed disposed to allow her to accept
Mademoiselle Durand's proposition. Unfortunately, however, Monsieur
l'Abbe was present, and, true to her practice, the princess appealed to
him as to whether there could be any objections.
Apparently there were objections, although the Abbe Roux did not specify
them. But Bianca knew by his manner that he disapproved of the idea,
and was not surprised, therefore, when the princess said it could not
be--adding that she would herself take her through the Vatican some day.
It was but another instance, Bianca thought, of the priest's
interference in her life, and she resented it accordingly. Latterly she
had become much more friendly with Mademoiselle Durand, who had at first
confined herself almost entirely to lessons during the hours she was at
Palazzo Acorari.
Nevertheless, after it became evident that she would never be allowed to
go out under her escort, Bianca thought it prudent not to let it be
supposed that Mademoiselle Durand talked with her on any other subject
but those she was engaged to talk about, lest she should be dismissed
and a less agreeable woman take her place.
Whether it was that Mademoiselle Durand was urged to stronger efforts by
Silvio Rossano's increasing impatience, or whether she considered the
time arrived when she could safely venture to convey to her pupil that
Giacinta Rossano's good-looking brother was madly in love with her, the
fact remained on this particular morning that never before had she
spoken so much or so openly of Silvio, and of the happiness that was in
store for any girl sensible enough to marry him.
Bianca Acorari sat listening in silence for some time.
"He is certainly very handsome," she observed, presently--"and he looks
good," she added, meditatively.
"Handsome!" ejaculated Mademoiselle Durand. "There is a statue in the
Vatican--a Hermes, they call it-- Well, never mind--of course he is
handsome. And as to being good, a young man who is a good son and a
good brother makes a good husband--if he gets the wife he wants. If
not, it does not follow. I am sorry for that poor boy--truly sorry for
him!" she added, with a sigh.
Bianca pushed away a French history book and became suddenly more
interested.
"Why, mademoiselle?" she asked.
Mademoiselle Durand pursed up her lips.
"Because I fear that he will certainly be very unhappy. _Enfin_, he _is_
very unhappy, so there is no more to be said."
"He did not look it when I saw him," observed Bianca, tranquilly.
Mademoiselle Durand glanced at her. Like Princess Montefiano, she was
never quite sure how much might be concealed beneath Bianca's quiet
manner. But, like most of her race, she was quick to seize a point in
conversation and use it to advance her own argument.
"Of course he did not look it--when you saw him," she repeated, "or when
he saw you," she added, significantly.
Bianca knitted her brows. "If he is unhappy," she said, "and I am very
sorry he should be unhappy--I do not see how a person he does not know
can make him less so."
"That," said Mademoiselle Durand, "all depends on who the person is. It
is certainly very sad--poor young man!" and she sighed again.
"I suppose," Bianca said, thoughtfully, "that he is in love with
somebody--somebody whom he cannot marry."
"Yes," returned Mademoiselle Durand, dryly, "he is in love with
somebody. He could marry her, perhaps--"
"Then why doesn't he?" Bianca asked, practically.
Mademoiselle Durand was a little taken aback at the abruptness of the
question.
"I will tell you," she replied, after hesitating for a moment or two.
"He has no opportunity of seeing the girl, except sometimes as she is
driving in her carriage, or well, in church. By-the-way, I believe he
first saw her in a church, and fell in love with her. That was odd, was
it not? But what is the use of seeing people if you can never speak to
them?"
"He could speak to her parents," said Bianca, who apparently knew what
was proper under such circumstances.
Mademoiselle Durand shrugged her shoulders.
"Scarcely," she said, "since they are in heaven. Besides, he would not
be allowed to ask for this girl's hand in any case. She is like you, of
noble birth; and, like you again, she is rich. Those about her, I dare
say, are not very anxious that she should marry at all. It is
possible."
Bianca Acorari did not speak for a few moments. At length she said,
slowly: "I wonder what you would do, mademoiselle, if you knew somebody
was in love with you, and you were not allowed to see or speak to that
person?"
Mademoiselle Durand looked at her critically.
"It entirely depends," she replied.
"And upon what?"
"Upon what? Oh, upon something very simple. It would depend upon
whether I were in love with him."
"I don't think it is at all simple," observed Bianca. "How would you
know if you were in love with him or not?"
Mademoiselle Durand laughed outright. Then she became suddenly grave.
"Well," she replied, after hesitating a moment, "I will tell you. If I
thought I did not know--if I were not sure--I should say to myself:
'Marie, you are in love. Why? Because, if you are not, you would be
sure of the fact--oh, quite sure!'"
"And supposing you were in love with him?" demanded Bianca. She looked
beyond Mademoiselle Durand as she spoke.
"Ah--if I were, then--well, then I should leave the rest to him to
manage. Between ourselves, I believe that to be what is troubling the
poor young Rossano. He does not know if the girl he loves has any idea
that he does so, and still less if she could ever return his love. It
is very sad. If I were that girl, I should certainly find some means of
letting him know that I cared for him--"
"But you say she cannot--that she would never be allowed--"
Mademoiselle Durand sang the first few bars of the _habanera_ in
"Carmen" to herself. "When two people are in love," she observed, "they
do not always stop to think of what is allowed. But, if you please,
Donna Bianca, we will go on with our history--I mean, our French
history, not that of Monsieur Silvio Rossano," and Mademoiselle Durand
suddenly reassumed her professional demeanor.
It was of this little interlude in her morning's studies that Bianca
Acorari was meditating as she sat waiting for the hour when she would
have to accompany her step-mother in her afternoon drive. She wished
that Mademoiselle Durand would have been more communicative. It was
certainly interesting to hear about Giacinta Rossano's brother. Silvio!
Yes, it was a nice name, decidedly--and somehow, she thought, it suited
its owner. It must be an odd sensation--that of being in love. Perhaps
one always saw in the imagination the person one was in love with. One
saw a well-built figure and a sun-tanned face with dark, curling hair
clustering over a broad brow, and a pair of dark-blue eyes that
looked--but, how they looked! as though asking a perpetual question....
How pleasant it would be there in the gardens of Villa Acorari!--so
quiet and cool in the deep shade of the ilex-trees, with the sound of
the water falling from the fountains. But it was a little dull to be
alone--always alone. What a difference if she had had a brother, as
Giacinta Rossano had. He would have wandered about with her sometimes,
perhaps, in these gardens ... and he and she would have sat and talked
together by the fountains where the water was always making a soft music
of its own. What was the story she had heard the people tell of some
heathen god of long ago who haunted the ilex grove? How still it
was--and how the water murmured always ... and the eyes looked at her,
always with that question in their blue depths--and the graceful head
with its short, close curls bent towards her ... the god, of
course--they said he often came--and how his sweet curved lips smiled at
her as he stood in that chequered ray of sunlight slanting through the
heavy foliage overhead....
And with a little sigh Bianca passed from dreaming into sleep; her face,
with its crown of tawny gold hair, thrown into sharp relief by the red
damask cushions of the chair on which she was sitting, and her lips
parted in a slight smile.
*VII*
"Bianca is certainly a strange child," the Princess Montefiano was
saying. "I confess I do not understand her; but then, I never did
understand children."
Baron d'Antin looked at his sister, and then he smiled a little
satirically.
"After all," he replied, "the fact is not surprising. You married too
late in your life--or, shall we say, too late in your husband's
life--but it does not matter! No, Bianca is decidedly not like other
girls of her age, in certain ways. But I think, Jeanne, that you make a
mistake in regarding her as a child. She seems to me to be a fairly
well-developed young woman."
"Physically so, perhaps," returned the princess.
Her brother smiled again--not a very pleasant smile. Monsieur d'Antin
was scarcely middle-aged, being a good many years younger than his
sister. He was tall for a Belgian, and tolerably handsome, with
well-cut, regular features, and iron-gray hair as yet fairly plentiful.
But he was a man who looked as though he had "lived." His eyes had a
worn, faded expression, which every now and then turned to a hard
glitter when they became animated; and his small, well-shaped hands were
apt to move restlessly, as though their owner's nerves were not always
in the best of order.
"Physically?" he repeated. "Precisely, my dear Jeanne. Physically, your
step-daughter is--well, no longer a child, we will suppose. Some young
man will probably suppose the same thing one of these days; and he will
presumably not wish to confine himself to suppositions," and Monsieur
d'Antin blinked his eyes interrogatively at his sister.
During the last couple of years, Baron d'Antin had abandoned Brussels
and Paris, where he had hitherto passed the greater part of his time,
for Rome. He had certainly not chosen Rome as a place of residence on
account of its worldly attractions, and its other claims to interest did
not particularly appeal to him. As a matter of fact, Monsieur d'Antin
found Rome exceedingly dull, as a city. It is, indeed, scarcely the
capital that a man of pleasure would elect to live in. Now Monsieur
d'Antin had certainly been a man of pleasure while his constitution and
years had allowed him to be so, and he still liked amusing himself and
being amused. Unfortunately, however, when necessity obliged him to
pursue other pastimes with greater moderation, he had given way more and
more to a passion for gambling, and he had left the larger portion of
his patrimony in clubs, both in his own capital, in Paris, and in Nice.
It was not unnatural, perhaps, that, on financial disaster overtaking
him, he should have remembered his sister, the Princess of Montefiano,
and have been seized with a desire to pass a season or two in Rome; and
it had never, somehow or other, been quite convenient to return to
Belgium or to Paris since.
He had come to Rome, he told his acquaintances, to economize; which, in
plainer language, meant to say that he had come there to live upon his
sister. The princess, indeed, was not unconscious of the fact; but her
brother carried out his intention with such unfailing tact and
consideration that she had no excuse for resenting it.
Monsieur d'Antin did not often invade the austere seclusion of Palazzo
Acorari. It would, no doubt, have been more economical to breakfast and
dine at his sister's table, when not bidden elsewhere, than to eat at a
restaurant or club. But Monsieur d'Antin liked to be independent; and,
moreover, the pious atmosphere of Palazzo Acorari did not at all appeal
to him.
His sister bored him, and her entourage bored him still more. It was
infinitely more convenient every now and then to borrow sums of money
from her to meet current expenses, on the tacit understanding that such
loans would never be repaid, than to take up his abode in Palazzo
Acorari, as the princess had at first more than once suggested he should
do.
Monsieur d'Antin was an egoist, pure and simple, but he could be a very
agreeable egoist--so long as he was supplied with all he wanted.
Fortunately, perhaps, for his popularity, his egoism was tempered by an
almost imperturbable good-humor, which, as a rule, prevented it from
ruffling the nerves of others.
There are some men, and a great many women, who invariably succeed in
obtaining what they want out of daily life. Their needs are trifling,
possibly, but then life is made up of trifles--if one chooses to live
only for the present. But to be a really successful egoist, it is
necessary at all events to acquire a reputation for good-humor.
Monsieur d'Antin had acquired this reputation in Rome, as he had
acquired it elsewhere; and he was shrewd enough to make it one of his
most useful possessions. Indeed, it was almost a pleasure to lose money
to Monsieur d'Antin at cards, or to place at his disposal any
convenience of which he might momentarily be in need, such was his
invariable _bonhomie_ in society. He had very soon made a place for
himself in the Roman world, and in this it must be confessed that he had
shown remarkable ingenuity. Had he arrived in the Eternal City
possessed of ready money, it would have made no difference whether he
was a Belgian gentleman or an English or American "bounder," for all
Rome would have willingly allowed him to entertain it at the Grand Hotel
or elsewhere, provided he got the right society women to "run him." But
Baron d'Antin had arrived in Rome with no reputation at all, beyond that
of being an elderly _viveur_ who happened to be the brother of the
Principessa di Montefiano. He had studied his ground, however, and it
had not taken him long to come to the conclusion that an unofficial
foreigner, to be a social success in modern Rome, must usually be either
an adventurer or a snob, and that the two almost invariably went
together. Being a gentleman in his own country, albeit in somewhat
straitened circumstances, Monsieur d'Antin had at first been amazed at
the apparent inability of the average Romans of society to distinguish
between a foreigner, man or woman, who was well-bred and one who was
not. Finally, he had come to the conclusion that good-breeding was not
expected from the unofficial foreigner, nor, indeed, any other of the
usual passports to society--but merely a supply of ready money and a
proper appreciation of the condescension on the part of the Roman
nobility in allowing it to be spent on their entertainment. This,
however, was not a condition of affairs that suited Monsieur d'Antin's
plans. He had come to Rome not to be lived upon by the society he found
there, but to make that society useful to him. That he had done so was
entirely due to his own social talents, and to his apparently amiable
disposition. He had no need of the Palazzo Acorari, so far as his
society and his food were concerned, for there were few evenings of the
week during the winter and spring that he had not a dinner invitation;
and if by any chance he had no engagement for that meal, there were
various methods at his disposal of supplying the deficiency.
Altogether, Baron d'Antin had become _persona grata_ in Roman society,
and in his good-humored, careless way he had deliberately laid himself
out to be so, even waiving his prejudices and suppressing a certain
nervous irritation which the Anglo-Saxon race generally produced in him,
sufficiently to dine with its Roman members in their rented palaces.
"My dear Jeanne," he would say to his sister, "you have no sense of
humor--absolutely none at all. I dined the other night with some of my
Anglo-Saxon friends--I should rather say that I passed some hours of the
evening in eating and drinking with them. The wines were
execrable--execrable!--and the man who poured them out told us their
supposed dates. Some of them, I believe, had been purchased when Noah
sold off his cellar after the subsidence of the flood--although, if I
remember rightly, he liked his wine, and his--well, sacred history is
more in your line than mine, Jeanne. In any case, it was very
amusing--and when one looked at the fine old rooms--the _mise en scene_
of the comedy, you know--it was more amusing still."
But Monsieur d'Antin was much too shrewd to laugh at any of the
component parts of the society he had determined to exploit. Had he
wanted nothing out of it, as he frequently told himself, he could have
afforded to laugh a good deal; and, being possessed of a very keen sense
of humor, he would probably have done so. As it was, however, he
concealed his amusement, or, at the most, allowed himself to give it
rein when calling upon his sister, who was unable to appreciate his
sarcasms, living as she did, completely apart from the cosmopolitan
society in which her brother preferred to move.
Monsieur d'Antin had been paying the princess one of his occasional
visits, which he did at regular intervals. To say the truth, he did not
by any means approve of the compatriot he as often as not would find
sitting with his sister when he was announced. He was well aware that
Jeanne was a very pious woman; and very pious women, especially those
who had reached a certain age, liked to have a priest at their beck and
call. This, Monsieur d'Antin considered, was very natural--pathetically
natural, indeed. All the same, he wished that the Abbe Roux had been an
Italian, and not a Belgian priest. When Monsieur d'Antin had first
appeared upon the scene in Rome, he had instantly felt that the director
of his sister's spiritual affairs was not over well pleased at his
coming. Accustomed as he was to study those with whom he was likely at
any time to be brought much into contact, Baron d'Antin had at once
arrived at the conclusion that the abbe probably did not confine himself
to the direction of Princess Montefiano's spiritual concerns only;
otherwise the advent of her brother would have left him profoundly
indifferent. A sudden instinct told Monsieur d'Antin that he and the
priest must clash--and then he had reflected, not without some humor,
that, after all, there might be such a thing as honor among thieves. He
had done his best to conciliate the Abbe Roux whenever they had chanced
to meet at Palazzo Acorari, but the priest had not responded in any way
to his advances. Monsieur d'Antin knew that the late Prince Montefiano
had left as much as the law allowed him to leave in his wife's hands,
and that she was his daughter's sole guardian until the girl should
marry or come of age. The princess, however, had never written to her
brother concerning her affairs--neither had there been any particular
reason why she should do so. Rome had absorbed her, and even for some
years before her marriage she had practically become Roman in everything
but in name. There are many, both women and men, whom Rome has absorbed
in a similar way; nor can an explanation of her magnetic attraction
always be found in religion or in art, since the irreligious and the
inartistic are equally prone to fall under her spell. Rather, perhaps,
is the secret of her power to be found in the mysterious sense of
universal motherhood which clings around her name--in the knowledge, at
once awe-inspiring and comforting, that there is no good and no evil, no
joy and no sorrow which humanity can experience, unknown to her; and
that however heavily the burden may bear upon our shoulders as we walk
through her streets, multitudes more laden than we have trod those
stones before us, and have found--rest.
It could hardly be supposed, however, that the burden borne by Princess
Montefiano was of a nature requiring the psychological assistance of
Rome to lighten it. So far as she was concerned--and in this she
differed in no respect from many other pious people of both sexes--Rome
merely suggested itself to her as a place offering peculiar facilities
for the keeping of her soul in a satisfactory state of polish.
As he saw more of his sister in her home life, Monsieur d'Antin became
convinced that the Abbe Roux, as he had at once suspected, by no means
confined himself to directing her spiritual affairs. It was very
evident that the Abbe managed Palazzo Acorari, and this was quite
sufficient to account for his distant attitude towards a possible
intruder. As a matter of fact, Monsieur d'Antin had no great desire to
intrude. He intended to benefit by the accident of having a sister who
was also a Roman princess with a comfortable dowry, and he had very
quickly made up his mind not to attempt to interfere with the Abbe Roux
so long as that ecclesiastic did not attempt to interfere with him.
During the last few months, Monsieur d'Antin had often found himself
wondering what his sister's position would be should her step-daughter
marry. In any case, scarcely four years would elapse before Donna
Bianca Acorari must enter into absolute possession of the Montefiano
estates, and yet it was evident that the princess regarded her as a mere
child who could be kept in the background. It had not escaped his
notice that it was clearly his sister's wish that Donna Bianca should
not receive any more attention than would naturally be paid to a child.
Nevertheless, when Monsieur d'Antin looked at the girl, he would say to
himself that Jeanne was shutting her eyes to obvious facts, and that at
some not very distant day they would probably be opened unexpectedly.
He had tried to make friends with Bianca, but the princess had markedly
discouraged any such efforts; and latterly he had observed that his
sister almost invariably sent her step-daughter out of the room if she
happened to be in it when he was announced.
Bianca Acorari herself had shown no disinclination to be friendly with
her newly arrived step-uncle. Anybody who was not the Abbe Roux was
welcome in her eyes. When Monsieur d'Antin had first come to Rome,
before he had realized the monotony of domestic life in Palazzo Acorari,
he had been in the habit of coming there more frequently than was now
the case, and had repeatedly dined with his sister Bianca, and
occasionally the Abbe Roux, making a little _partie carree_.
It had amused him to address no small part of his conversation to his
step-niece during these little dinners, and Bianca had talked to him
readily enough. She was pleased, possibly, at having the opportunity to
show the Abbe Roux that she could talk, if there was anybody she cared
to talk with. Perhaps Monsieur d'Antin, with his accustomed
penetration, had already guessed that the relations between the girl and
her step-mother's spiritual director were those of a species of armed
neutrality, at all events upon Bianca's side. However this might be, he
had affected not to perceive the obvious disapproval with which his
sister regarded his endeavors always to draw Bianca into the
conversation, nor the offended demeanor of the priest at being sometimes
left out of it.
To say the truth, Monsieur d'Antin was by no means insensible to Bianca
Acorari's physical attractions. He flattered himself that he had an eye
for female beauty in its developing stages; and he had arrived at an age
when such stages have a peculiar fascination for men of a certain
temperament. Perhaps the observant eyes of the Abbe Roux detected more
warmth in his lay compatriot's glance, as the latter laughed and talked
with the girl, than altogether commended itself to his priestly sense of
what was due to innocence. In any case it was certain that on the last
two occasions on which Monsieur d'Antin had proposed himself to dinner
at Palazzo Acorari, Bianca had presumably dined in her own apartment;
for she did not appear, and when Monsieur d'Antin inquired after her,
the princess had said dryly that her step-daughter was scarcely old
enough to dine with grown-up people.
Monsieur d'Antin felt this banishment to be due to clerical suggestion;
and so, it must be confessed, did Bianca herself. He was bound to
admit, however--and he admitted it with decided complacency--that his
sister was right in safeguarding her step-daughter from premature
masculine admiration. He reflected, too, that in Italy--as, indeed, in
Belgium, or other Catholic countries--uncles and nieces were permitted
to marry under dispensations comparatively easy to obtain; and that in
the case of a step-uncle, no consanguinity existed. The reflection had
been a pleasant one to Monsieur d'Antin, and he looked upon the
uneasiness he had apparently inspired in the mind of the Abbe Roux as a
proof that he might still consider himself as dangerous to female peace
of mind--whereby he showed himself to possess to the full that peculiar
form of male vanity supposed to be inherent in the Gallic races.
*VIII*
"Yes," continued Monsieur d'Antin, as his sister gazed at him in a
slightly bewildered manner, "Bianca has only got to be seen, and to see
a few men who do not cover their legs with a cassock, and she will very
soon find out, Jeanne, that she is no child."
"Really, Philippe!" expostulated Princess Montefiano.
"There is no necessity to be shocked," proceeded Monsieur d'Antin,
tranquilly. "I know what I am talking about. There are certain
temperaments--female temperaments--one has come across them, you know.
_Bien_, your step-daughter is one of these, unless I am much mistaken.
Mark my words, Jeanne, if you keep her as though she were going to be a
nun, everything will go on quietly for a time, and then one fine day you
will discover that she has had an affair with the footman. What would
you have?" and Monsieur d'Antin shrugged his shoulders philosophically.
Princess Montefiano appeared thoroughly alarmed.
"Do you really think so?" she asked, hurriedly. "I have always looked
upon Bianca as--well, as quite a child still in all these ways, you
know. I wonder," she added, suddenly, looking at her brother, "what
makes you think she is not."
"Ah," repeated Monsieur d'Antin, meditatively, "what makes me think she
is not?"
His meditations seemed to afford him some pleasure, for he did not hurry
himself to answer the question. "Well, really," he continued, at
length, with a little chuckle, "I could hardly explain what it is that
makes me think so, my dear Jeanne--not to you, at all events, for I do
not at all suppose you would understand. But all the same, I think
so--oh yes--I certainly think so!" and, rising from his chair, Monsieur
d'Antin began to walk up and down the room, gently rubbing his hands
together the while.
The princess looked perplexed. "After all, Philippe," she said, "Bianca
is only just seventeen. Of course she is tall for her age, and, as you
say--er--well developed. I suppose men only judge by what they see--"
"Precisely," interrupted Monsieur d'Antin; "it is the only way we have
of forming an idea of--what we do not see."
"I have thought only of her mind--her nature," continued the princess.
"I suppose," she added, "that is what you mean? I cannot say that I
understand her. I find her silent--apathetic. She seems to me to
interest herself in nothing."
"Probably because you do not provide her with sufficient material."
"I try to do my duty by her," returned the princess, a little stiffly.
"A step-mother is always placed in a difficult position. Of course,
Bianca being, as it were, like an only son, and everything going to her,
does not make things easier."
Monsieur d'Antin looked at his sister curiously. She had very rarely
spoken to him of family affairs, and he had very little idea how the
Montefiano property was settled, beyond a natural conclusion that the
old prince would have left the bulk of it to his only child and
representative.
"But of course," he observed, "you are always well provided for--in the
event of Bianca marrying, I mean--or, as she must do before very long,
taking over the estates into her own hands?"
"There is my jointure, certainly," said the princess, "but it is not
large. I do not understand business matters very well, but naturally,
so long as Bianca is a minor and unmarried, I must be better off than I
shall be afterwards. A great deal will depend upon Bianca's husband.
That is what Monsieur l'Abbe always says to me--that we must not be in a
hurry to marry Bianca. She must not marry a man who simply wants her
titles and money to use them for his own purposes."
"Monsieur l'Abbe is perfectly right," said Baron d'Antin, with a dry
little laugh.
The princess glanced at him. "You do not like him," she said.
Monsieur d'Antin hesitated for a moment. Then he laughed again, easily.
"Not like him?" he repeated. "But, my dear Jeanne, I like him very
much. I am not fond of priests as a rule. They are not--well, not what
I am accustomed to, you know. But your tame abbe, I should say that he
was a most estimable person, and, no doubt, to a woman in your position,
a most useful adviser."
The princess sighed. "Oh, most useful!" she exclaimed. "He is a good
man of business, too," she continued. "I feel that he acts as a kind of
intermediary between me, as Bianca's representative, and the agents and
people. After all, Philippe, I am a foreigner, you know--though I
scarcely feel myself to be one--and Bianca is not. So I am doubly glad
of Monsieur l'Abbe's advice sometimes."
"But he is as much a foreigner as you are, Jeanne," remarked Monsieur
d'Antin.
"Oh, but then he is a priest!" exclaimed the princess. "That makes such
a difference. You see, he was brought up in Rome, and went through his
studies here."
"An admirable training," said Monsieur d'Antin, suavely.
"Yes, admirable," assented the princess. "It gives such a grasp of,
such an insight into, human nature. That is one of the strange things
about Bianca, for instance," she added, suddenly.
"That she has an insight into human nature?" demanded Monsieur d'Antin.
"If she has, Jeanne, it must be a miraculous gift, for she can have seen
little enough of it."
"No, no! I mean that she cannot bear Monsieur l'Abbe. Would you believe
it, Philippe, that notwithstanding all his kindness, that child
positively refuses to go to confession to him? She refused years ago,
and now I never mention the subject."
"_Tiens!_" observed Monsieur d'Antin.
"It is incredible," continued his sister, "but nevertheless it is true."
Monsieur d'Antin shrugged his shoulders.
"It appears," he said, enigmatically, "that your step-daughter also has
studied in Rome."
The princess dropped her voice mysteriously.
"I believe," she said, "that the mother, my blessed husband's first
wife, you know, was an odd woman--or child, rather--for she was little
more. There was some story--she was in love with some other man who was
not thought a good enough match for her, and her family obliged her to
marry my poor husband. It was not a happy marriage."
"That," observed Monsieur d'Antin, "was no doubt his reason for marrying
again. He was determined to find happiness."
"Ah, well!" Princess Montefiano replied, with a sigh--"he needed rest.
His life had been a troubled one, and he needed rest."
Monsieur d'Antin smiled sympathetically. He had heard it remarked in
Rome that the late Montefiano had indeed worn himself out at a
comparatively early period in life.
"I do not wonder," he said, presently, "that you feel the responsibility
of selecting a suitable husband for Bianca. All the same," he added, "I
think you will be wise to contemplate the possibility of her not
remaining a child indefinitely. If you do not, I should be inclined to
regard the footmen as a perpetual source of anxiety."
"Philippe!" exclaimed the princess. "You are really perfectly
scandalous! One does not allude to such things, even in jest. But I
see what you mean, although I must say that I think you put it rather
grossly. I will consult Monsieur l'Abbe about the advisability of
gradually letting Bianca see a few more people. I don't want it to be
supposed that I am keeping her from marrying when the proper time comes
for her to do so; and my only object would be to find her a suitable
husband. Of course, as Monsieur l'Abbe says her marriage must almost
certainly alter my own circumstances, but one must not allow one's self
to think of that."
"Ah," said Monsieur d'Antin, thoughtfully, "Monsieur l'Abbe says so,
does he?"
"It is natural that he should look at the matter from all points of
view," returned the princess.
"Perfectly natural--from all points of view," repeated Monsieur d'Antin;
"and," he added to himself, "more particularly from his own, I imagine.
Well," he continued, "I must leave you, Jeanne. I should consult
Monsieur Roux, by all means. He looks as though he knew something about
feminine development--your little abbe; and you tell me that he has
studied in Rome. _Au revoir_, my dear Jeanne--_a bientot_! Ah,
by-the-way, there is one little matter I had nearly forgotten. Could
you without inconvenience--but absolutely without inconvenience--lend me
a thousand francs or so? Two thousand would be more useful--I do not
say no. In a few weeks my miserable rents must come in, and then we
will settle our accounts--but, in the mean time, it would be a great
convenience."
The princess looked uneasy. "I will try," she said; "but, to say the
truth, it is not a very favorable moment--"
Monsieur d'Antin waved his hands.
"Not a word--not a word more, I beg of you, my dear Jeanne!" he
exclaimed. "You will think the matter over; and if two thousand is not
convenient, I must make one thousand suffice. In the mean time, _di
nuovo_, as the Italians say," and he kissed his sister affectionately
and hurried from the room.
As he walked from the Palazzo Acorari to his little apartment in the
Ludovisi quarter of the city, Monsieur d'Antin was unusually
preoccupied, and more than once he chuckled to himself. His sister
Jeanne was certainly not gifted with a sense of humor, but he found
himself wondering whether she was quite as incompetent to look after her
own affairs as she wished him to believe. Experience taught him that
while piety and humor seldom went together, piety and a shrewd eye to
worldly advantage were by no means unfrequently to be found working very
harmoniously side by side.
Somebody in Palazzo Acorari, Monsieur d'Antin felt convinced, had an
interest in maintaining the _status quo_, so far as the existing
constitution of the Montefiano establishment was concerned. Jeanne
might be a bad woman of business, but, when all was said and done, at
thirty-five or so, with no money--with nothing, in short, except a local
reputation for holiness--she had succeeded in marrying a man who had
been able to give her a very substantial position in the world, and who
had had the tact to leave her a good many years in which to enjoy its
full advantages without the incubus of his company.
But it was more likely that Jeanne allowed herself to be swayed by the
counsels of the priest whom, according to her own account, she always
consulted. It was conceivable, nay, it was even probable, that Monsieur
l'Abbe Roux might desire that Donna Bianca Acorari should remain as much
as possible secluded from the world for reasons of his own. So long as
she remained unmarried, so long would she, no doubt, be content that the
Montefiano properties should be managed more or less as they had been
hitherto managed; and who could tell how much benefit the Abbe Roux
might not, directly or indirectly, gain from the present system of
management.
And Bianca Acorari? Monsieur d'Antin allowed his thoughts to dwell upon
her dreamy face, with its eyes that seemed always to be looking into an
unexplored distance, upon the curved mouth and firm, rounded throat,
upon the graceful lines of the figure just melting into womanhood, and
came to the conclusion that Jeanne and her abbe were a couple of fools.
Why, the girl had something about her that stirred even his well-worn
passions--and how would it not be with a younger man? She had some
idea, too, of her own power, of her own charm, unless he was very much
mistaken. It was a vague, undefined consciousness, perhaps, but none
the less fascinating on that account. A child? Nonsense! A peach
almost ripe for the plucking.
*IX*
It was very still in the ilex grove of the Villa Acorari. The air was
sultry, and not a leaf stirred; yet angry-looking clouds occasionally
drifted across the sky from the sea, and cast moving patches of purple
shadow on the plain stretching away from below Velletri to the coast.
The sunbeams glanced here and there through the heavy foliage. They
threw quaint, checkered patterns on the moss-grown flag-stones
surrounding a group of fountains, and flashed upon the spray falling
over sculptured nymphs and river-gods wantoning in cool green beds of
arum leaves and water-lilies.
A gentle, drowsy murmur of insects filled the air, and the splashing of
the fountains--otherwise deep silence reigned. Lizards, green and
golden-brown, darted out of the crevices in the old stone seats, paused
abruptly with little heads poised in a listening attitude, and darted
away again; while blue dragon-flies hawked over the waters of the
fountains, now giving mad chase to a fly, now resting--jewels set in
green enamel--on a lily leaf.
It was not to be wondered at if the gardens of the Villa Acorari were
reputed to be haunted by spirits of the old gods. On this July
afternoon some mysterious influence, infinitely peaceful but infinitely
sad, seemed to brood over them. All the glamour of a mighty past seemed
to enfold them--such a past as many an old villa in the neighborhood of
Rome has witnessed, in which every passion, good and bad, has played its
part; in which scenes of love and hate, of joy and sorrow, of highest
virtue and foulest crime have succeeded each other through the
centuries.
Tradition declared that a shrine sacred to the rites of the _Lupercalia_
once stood in the midst of this ilex grove, on the very spot where the
fountains now murmured and the water-lilies lifted their pure whiteness
to the hot caress of the sunbeams.
If this were so, it was certainly as well that times had changed; that
lizards and dragon-flies had usurped the place of the _Luperci_, and
that lascivious Pan slept with the rest of the joyous company of
Olympus; else had Bianca Acorari, quietly reading her book in the deep
shadows of the ilex-trees, run grievous risk of receiving the sacred
blow from the thong of some lustful votary of the god.
St. Peter's festival had come and gone, and Bianca, to her great
satisfaction, had already been some days at the Villa Acorari. It was
an untold relief to her to feel that for at least three months she was
free to wander about these old gardens instead of driving through the
hot, dusty streets of Rome. This year, too, she would not be quite so
much alone as she had usually been. The princess had consented to a
scheme whereby Mademoiselle Durand was to continue giving her lessons,
at any rate for another month; and it had been duly arranged that she
should come to the villa three times a week from Albano, where, it
appeared, she was going to pass the remainder of the summer. The
proposition had come from Mademoiselle Durand herself. She had other
pupils, she had informed the princess, who would be in _villeggiatura_
at Albano and Ariccia, and it would be very easy for her to come over to
the Villa Acorari if the princess wished it.
Somewhat to her step-mother's surprise, Bianca jumped eagerly at the
idea. There could be no objection, the princess thought, to the girl
pursuing her studies with Mademoiselle Durand for a few more weeks; and
she saw, moreover, that Bianca welcomed the thought of occasionally
having the governess as a companion. She would not have wished Bianca
to walk with Mademoiselle Durand in Rome, certainly; but at the villa it
was a very different thing; and, after all, it was better for her than
being perpetually alone, or merely having Bettina's society.
Mademoiselle Durand had already been over twice, and Bianca had shown
her all her favorite walks, and the places where she liked to sit and
read or work during the heat of the afternoons.
It had struck Bianca that the Frenchwoman displayed considerable
curiosity as to her movements. Mademoiselle Durand insisted upon being
taken all over the grounds of the villa, and almost appeared as though
she were studying the topography of the spots which Bianca pointed out
as being her usual resorts.
They had talked of many things only a couple of days ago--things which,
it must be confessed, had nothing whatever to do with Bianca's
education. In the course of the last few weeks the girl had lost much
of the reserve she had formerly displayed towards her governess. The
Rossano family had been, as it were, a sympathetic link between
Mademoiselle Durand and Bianca, a subject to which it was refreshing to
both to turn after wrestling with French history or German poetry.
Mademoiselle Durand had talked of Silvio on this very spot where Bianca
was now giving herself up to the pleasant feeling of drowsiness induced
by the murmur of the fountains and the fragrant warmth of the July
afternoon, and she had shaken her head sadly and significantly.
That young man, she assured Bianca, was breaking his heart and ruining
his health. It did not at the moment strike either her or her listener
that Silvio could hardly do the one without doing the other. It was
certainly very sad, and Bianca had confided to Mademoiselle Durand that
she wished she could do something to avert such a catastrophe.
"Perhaps," the Frenchwoman said, tentatively, "if you were to make his
acquaintance, he might become more reasonable," and Bianca had gazed at
her with a startled air.
"You know, mademoiselle," she said, a little impatiently, "that I can
never make his acquaintance."
"Never is a long time," returned Mademoiselle Durand, smiling.
"Supposing--I only say supposing--you met him somewhere, on one of your
walks, for instance, and that he spoke to you, would you not try
to--well, to give him some good advice--to be kind to him?"
"He probably would not ask me for my advice," replied Bianca, laughing.
Mademoiselle Durand looked at her and hesitated for a moment.
"I think he would," she said, slowly. "You see, Donna Bianca, there is
such a close resemblance between your own position and that of the girl
with whom the poor boy is so madly in love."
Bianca was silent.
"I wonder," persisted Mademoiselle Durand, "what you would do. It would
be very interesting to know."
"You mean--" began Bianca.
"I mean," interrupted Mademoiselle Durand, "if by any chance you
happened to meet Monsieur Silvio and he asked you for your advice, as,
_du reste_, he has asked me. You would not run away--no?"
"No," said Bianca, thoughtfully, "I don't think I should run away. I
think I should try to help him if I could. I am very sorry for him."
Mademoiselle Durand suddenly sprang up with a little scream.
"A scorpion!" she exclaimed. "I am sure I saw a scorpion! It ran in
there--into that hole close to my foot."
"I dare say," said Bianca, indifferently. "It is the time of year when
one finds them, but I have never seen one just here. It is too damp for
them, I think."
Mademoiselle Durand had made no further allusion after this either to
Silvio Rossano or to the scorpion. Indeed, she turned the conversation
into professional channels with some abruptness, and shortly afterwards
she returned to the house preparatory to going back to Albano.
Mademoiselle's question returned to Bianca's mind as she sat under her
ilex-tree. It was all nonsense, of course, for how could she meet
Silvio Rossano and talk to him about his love-affair? Mademoiselle
Durand knew perfectly well that there could be no question of such a
thing. But still it would be very interesting to hear all about this
mysterious girl with whom he was so hopelessly in love. And, yes, she
would certainly like to meet him and talk to him. It was odd how well
she remembered his features, though she had never dared to look at him
very much. Nevertheless, since that Christmas night in the Sudario they
had seemed to be impressed upon her mind. And that other girl, the one
he was in love with, whose name Mademoiselle Durand declared she was
bound in honor not to mention, did she think much about him--remember
the look of his eyes and the expression of his mouth? Perhaps she never
thought about him at all.
At this stage of her reflections Bianca suddenly found herself becoming
angry. She had just paused to ask herself why this should be, when a
soft, pattering sound which was not that of the fountains fell upon her
ear. Looking up, she became aware that the sunlight had faded, and that
the shade around her had grown suddenly deeper. The air felt heavier
and more stifling, and the pattering noise that had at first attracted
her attention seemed to come nearer and nearer as the light grew more
dim. From somewhere in the underwood a frog began to croak contentedly:
"Or s'ode su tutta la fronda
crosciare
l'argentea pioggia
che monda,
il croscio che varia
secondo la fronda
piu folta, men folta
Ascolta.
La figlia del aria
e muta; ma la figlia
del limo lontana,
la rana,
canta nell'ombra piu fonda,
chi sa dove, chi sa dove!"[#]
[#] _Le laudi; (Pioggia nel Pineto) Gabriele d'Annunzio._
Bianca rose hurriedly and looked at the sky. The _campagna_ below, and
even the vineyards on the slopes of the hill immediately beneath the
park of the Villa Acorari, still lay bathed in sunshine. The light rain
that was falling was evidently only a passing summer-shower, and not, as
she had for a moment feared, the immediate precursor of one of those
violent hail-storms that sometimes sweep over the Alban hills,
devastating in a few minutes the crops of a whole district, and turning
smiling vineyards, laden with fruit, into brown and barren wildernesses.
Bianca picked up her neglected book and made her way towards a little
casino which stood at the end of the ilex avenue, inside which she
proposed to shelter herself until the shower should have passed over.
She had scarcely taken a few steps under the sombre green branches when
she started back with a little cry. A man stepped from behind one of
the gnarled trunks and stood before her, bare-headed. In an instant she
recognized him. He was not the god--no. For a second she had almost
thought that he might be. Then she looked at him again. Not the
god--no; but surely the god could scarcely be fairer.
She turned aside hesitatingly.
"Donna Bianca!"
The low voice, very gentle, very pleading, seemed to mingle its tones
with the murmur of the fountains and the _croscio_ of the rain-drops
among the ilex-leaves.
Silvio Rossano stood and looked at her. Bianca put her hand up to her
throat. Something seemed to rise in it and choke back her words.
"You!" she exclaimed.
He smiled a little. "I, Silvio," he said, simply. "Donna Bianca," he
continued hurriedly, as though anxious not to give her time to say more,
"if you tell me to go, I will go, and you shall never see me again."
And then he waited.
A great silence seemed to follow his words, as though all the sylvan
deities in their lurking-places were listening for her answer.
Only the frog croaked:
"Chi sa dove, chi sa dove!"
Presently Bianca Acorari spoke.
"I do not tell you to go," she said.
Then Silvio moved a few steps nearer to her.
Suddenly Bianca started, as though rousing herself from a dream.
"What am I saying?" she exclaimed. "Of course you must go! You should
never have come here. If they were to find you--alone with me--"
Silvio's eyes flashed.
"Yes," he said; "alone with you--at last!"
Bianca drew back from him.
"At last!" she repeated. Then she smiled. "Of course," she continued,
"you wished to talk to me. Mademoiselle Durand told me--though I do not
understand what I can do."
Silvio looked at her in bewilderment.
"You knew!" he exclaimed; "and yet--you do not understand what you can
do? Donna Bianca," he added, earnestly, "please do not laugh at me.
Surely you understand that you can do--everything--for me?"
Bianca shook her head. "I do not laugh at you," she said slowly. "I am
sorry for you. I would help you if I could; but how can I?"
She moved towards the casino as she spoke.
"Listen!" she added, "the rain is coming on more heavily. Do you not
hear it on the leaves? And it grows darker again."
He followed her to the summer-house, but as she pushed open the door he
drew back, and glanced at her hesitatingly.
"I will remain here," he said. "Afterwards, when the shower is over, if
you will let me speak to you--"
Bianca Acorari looked at him. "Come," she said, briefly.
It was an unheard of proceeding. Verily, as Monsieur d'Antin had said,
Bianca was no child--unless, indeed, she was more childish than her
years warranted. Any behavior more diametrically opposed to all the
rules and customs that so strictly regulate the actions of a young girl
in Italy could scarcely be conceived.
Silvio Rossano himself was taken aback at her confidence in him. Her
demeanor was so natural, however, and her manner, after the first
surprise of seeing him had passed, had become so self-possessed, that he
never for an instant misunderstood her.
Bianca seated herself upon a dilapidated chair--the only one, indeed,
having its full complement of legs that the casino contained.
"Mademoiselle Durand said that if I--if we ever met, you would perhaps
ask me for my advice," she said, gravely. "I cannot understand why you
should think any advice of mine could help you. Perhaps she made a
mistake, and you are here by accident."
Silvio almost laughed at her gravity, but she spoke with a certain
dignity of manner which contrasted very charmingly with her fresh,
girlish beauty.
"No," he said quietly, "I am not here by accident, Donna Bianca. I am
here to see you--to tell you--"
"Ah, yes, I know!" interposed Bianca, hurriedly. "It is very sad, and,
believe me, I am very sorry for you--very sorry."
Silvio's bronze face grew suddenly white.
"Sorry!" he exclaimed. "That means you can give me no hope--that you
think me presumptuous--"
Bianca glanced at him. "I can give no opinion," she replied; "but I
think--" and she paused, hesitatingly.
"Yes?" asked Silvio, eagerly. "What do you think, Donna Bianca?"
"That if I were a man," returned Bianca, slowly, "I would marry whom I
chose, no matter how many difficulties stood in my way--that is to say,"
she added, "if I knew the woman whom I cared for cared for me."
"Ah," exclaimed Silvio, quickly, "but supposing you didn't know?"
"Then I should ask her," said Bianca Acorari, bluntly.
Silvio started violently. Then he came and stood beside her.
"Donna Bianca," he said, in a low, eager voice, "do you know what you
are saying?"
Bianca looked at him a little wonderingly. She could not but notice his
agitation. "Certainly I do," she replied. "You see, Monsieur Silvio,"
she added, and then stopped in confusion. "I beg your pardon," she
said, blushing violently. "I am very rude--but I have so often heard
Mademoiselle Durand speak of you as 'Monsieur Silvio,' that I fear--I am
afraid--"
Silvio Rossano's head began to swim. He looked at her and said nothing.
Then he swore at himself for being a fool and losing his opportunities.
"You see," proceeded Bianca, picking up the train of her thoughts again,
"I am afraid I am not like other girls. I have lived most of my life
alone, and I suppose I have odd ideas. When I am of age, I shall
certainly please myself--but until then, I have to please other people.
Of course, I know that a man is obliged to speak to a girl's parents
before he can tell her that he loves her. But I am quite sure that if I
were a man and wanted to know if my love were returned, I should ask the
person I loved."
Silvio looked at her curiously.
"And is that your advice to me, Donna Bianca?" he said. "You advise me
to ask the girl I love--whom I have loved ever since I first saw her
seven months ago, though I have scarcely spoken to her in my
life--whether she returns my love?"
"If I were in your place--yes," returned Bianca. "Why not, Mons--Signor
Rossano?"
Silvio drew a long breath.
"It is what I came here this afternoon to do," he said, quietly.
Bianca looked at him with a bewildered expression. The blood left her
face and she became very pale.
"What--you came here to do?" she repeated, slowly--"here? I do not
understand."
"Ah, no? You do not understand? Then I will take your advice--I will
make you understand." The words came to his lips fast enough now.
"Dear," he burst out, "you shall understand. I love you! Do you know
what it means--love? I have loved you ever since that night--that
Christmas night--when you looked into my eyes with yours. Do you
understand now? I know I have no right to love you--no right to ask you
to be my wife--for you are Donna Bianca Acorari, Princess of Montefiano,
and I am--nobody. But this is what I have come to ask you--only
this--whether you love me? If you do, I swear by God and by the Son of
God that I will marry you, or I will marry no woman. If you do not love
me, or will not love me, send me away from you--now, at once."
Bianca Acorari sprang up from her chair.
"Me?" she exclaimed. "You love me? Ah, but it is absurd--how can you
love me? You are mad--or dreaming. You have forgotten. It is she you
love--that other one--"
Silvio seized her hand almost roughly.
"Bianca!" he said, hoarsely, "what, in God's name, do you mean? I love
you--you only. I have never looked at another woman--I never knew what
love meant till I saw you."
Suddenly Bianca began to tremble violently. In a moment Silvio's arms
were round her, and he was pressing hot, passionate kisses to her lips.
"Bianca!" he exclaimed. "Tell me--for God's sake, tell me--"
With a quick gesture she yielded herself wholly to him, drawing his face
to hers and running her hands through his close, curly hair.
"Silvio," she whispered, "ah, Silvio! And it was I all the time! I
thought--Mademoiselle Durand pretended that it was somebody else--some
girl like me--and all the time I wondered why I cared--why I was
angry--"
His arms were round her again, and he crushed her to him, while his lips
blinded her eyes.
"Ah, Silvio _mio_," she sighed, "it is too much--you hurt me--ah, but it
is sweet to be hurt by you--"
Suddenly she wrenched herself from him, crimson and trembling.
"God!" she exclaimed. "What have I done--what must you think of me? I
did not know love was like that. It--hurts."
Silvio laughed aloud in the very intoxication of his joy.
"Beloved," he said, "that is only the beginning."
But Bianca shook her head. "I must be very wicked," she said. "I did
not know I was quite so wicked. Silvio," she added, looking at him,
shyly, "for the love of God, go! It is getting late. At any moment they
may be coming to look for me. No--not again--"
"But I must speak with you here to-morrow--the day after," urged Silvio.
"Yes," said Bianca, hurriedly. "I must think," she added. "We must
confide everything now to Mademoiselle Durand. Ah, Silvio, you should
not have loved me--I shall bring you unhappiness."
Silvio looked at her gravely. "If we are true to each other," he said,
"everything must come right. Even if we have to wait till you are of
age and free to do as you choose, that is not a very long time."
They had left the casino as Silvio was speaking, and Bianca glanced
uneasily down the avenue. Not a soul was visible. The rain had cleared
away, and the sun, sinking westward, was streaming into the darkest
recesses of the ilex grove. No sound broke the stillness except the
splashing of the fountains, and now and again the notes of birds
announcing that the hot hours were passed and the cool of evening was
approaching.
Bianca turned and laid her hands on Silvio's. "Go, beloved," she said.
"We must not be seen together--yet."
Silvio drew her to him once more. "Do you know," he said, "that you
have never told me whether you will marry me or not?"
Bianca Acorari looked at him for a moment. Then she answered, simply:
"If I do not marry you, Silvio, I will marry no man. I swear it! Now
go," she added, hastily--"do not delay a moment longer. I will
communicate with you through Mademoiselle Durand."
"After all," said Silvio, "even if we have to wait three years--"
Bianca stamped her foot on the turf.
"Silvio," she exclaimed, "if you do not go, now--at once--I will not
marry you for six years."
She turned away from him and sped down the avenue, while Silvio vanished
through the undergrowth.
And the ilex grove was left in possession of the spirits of Pan and his
_Luperci_; also in that of Monsieur d'Antin, who, with a little chuckle,
stepped from behind the casino and emerged into the sunlight.
*X*
"You do not congratulate me, Giacinta."
Silvio and his sister were sitting alone together after a late dinner
which was practically merely a supper. In the summer months in Rome, to
be compelled by fashion to sit down to a meal at the pleasantest hour in
all the twenty-four is a weariness to the flesh and a vexation to the
spirit. Entirely in opposition to all the orthodox ideas inculcated by
the guide-books and received by the British tourist, the Romans do not
labor under the delusion that death stalks abroad with the sunset, and
that deadly diseases dog the footsteps of those who wander through the
streets or gardens when the shadows of evening are beginning to fall.
Those whose duties or inclinations keep them in Rome during the summer
months do not, as a rule, complain of their lot, knowing full well that
of all the larger Italian cities, and, indeed, of all southern capitals,
it is on the whole by far the coolest and healthiest.
The Rossano family, like the majority of Romans, adapted their hours to
the various seasons, and dinner, which was at any time from half-past
seven to half-past eight in winter, became supper at nine or so in
summer.
This evening the professor, as was his usual habit on fine nights at
this season of the year, had gone out immediately after supper to smoke
his cigar and read his evening papers, seated outside one of the
_caffe's_ in Piazza Colonna, where a band would be playing till between
ten and eleven o'clock.
He had never again alluded to the subject of Silvio having presumably
fallen in love. Indeed, he had forgotten all about it immediately after
he had startled Silvio by accusing him of it. Giacinta, however, had by
no means forgotten it. Silvio's silence, or rather his marked
disinclination to discuss either Bianca or anything to do with Casa
Acorari, only increased Giacinta's suspicions that he was at work upon
his plans in his own way. That he would abandon his determination to
make Bianca Acorari's acquaintance she never for a moment contemplated,
knowing his strength of will. It was, in Giacinta's eyes, a most
unlucky infatuation. In all probability, Donna Bianca Acorari's future
husband had been chosen long ago, not by the girl herself, of course,
but by the princess and her friends. Silvio's appearance on the scene
as a suitor must infallibly lead to trouble, for the difference in their
social position was too great to be overcome, except by a very much
larger fortune than Silvio could ever hope to possess.
Giacinta Rossano's pride was aroused. It would be intolerable to feel
that her brother was regarded as not good enough to be the husband of an
Acorari, or of anybody else, for that matter. Knowing Silvio's
contemptuous indifference to merely hereditary rank, she wondered that
he did not realize the false position into which he was apparently doing
his best to put himself. That Donna Bianca Acorari would fall in love
with Silvio, if any reasonable opportunity were given her, Giacinta had
very little doubt. Any woman might fall in love with him, if it were
only for his good looks. But what would be gained if Donna Bianca did
fall in love with him? There would be a great _disturbo_--a family
consultation--probably a dozen family consultations--a great many
disagreeable things said on all sides, and after the girl had had one or
two fits of crying, she would give up all thoughts of Silvio, and allow
herself to be engaged to some man of her own world. And, in the mean
time, Silvio's life would be wrecked, for he would never stand the
mortification of a refusal on the part of Princess Montefiano to regard
him as a suitable husband for her daughter. He would probably become
soured and embittered, and as likely as not take to wild habits.
Altogether, Giacinta Rossano had a very unfavorable opinion of the whole
business. She devoutly wished that the fates had led her father to
choose any other apartment than the second floor of Palazzo Acorari; for
in that case Silvio would certainly not have gone to mass at the Sudario
on Christmas Eve, and lost his heart and his common-sense when he got
there.
This process of reasoning was scarcely logical, perhaps--but Giacinta
had quite made up her mind that the midnight mass was responsible for
the whole affair. She believed that if Silvio had happened to see Donna
Bianca Acorari for the first time under more ordinary circumstances, he
would not have thought twice about her. Besides, to fall in love with a
person in church, she considered, was certainly improper, and very
likely unlucky.
Giacinta had listened to Silvio's account of his meeting with Donna
Bianca in the grounds of the Villa Acorari, complete details of which,
it is hardly necessary to add, he did not give his sister, with
something approaching consternation. She had never doubted that sooner
or later Silvio would succeed in obtaining some interview with the girl,
but she had certainly not expected to hear that Bianca Acorari was so
ready to give everything he asked of her. She had thought that at first
Bianca would be bewildered, and scarcely conscious of what love might
be, and that it would require more than one meeting before Silvio would
succeed in fully arousing a corresponding passion in her.
Evidently, however, from Silvio's words, reticent though he was when he
touched upon Bianca's avowed love for him, it had been a case of love at
first sight on both sides, and not only, as she had always hoped, on
that of Silvio only. This, Giacinta felt, complicated matters
considerably; and it was natural, perhaps, if, at the conclusion of
Silvio's confidences, she remained silent, engrossed in her own
reflections.
"You do not congratulate me," repeated Silvio, as her silence continued.
Giacinta hesitated. "I would congratulate you," she replied, "if I were
sure that what you have done will be for your happiness. But as yet,"
she added, "there is nothing to congratulate you upon."
"How do you mean--nothing to congratulate me upon," said Silvio, with an
unruffled good-humor that almost annoyed Giacinta, "when I tell you that
she loves me--that she has promised to be my wife? Is not that reason
enough for you to congratulate me? But, of course, I always told you I
was sure she returned my love."
"You never told me anything of the kind," said Giacinta curtly. "Until
this evening, I do not think you have mentioned Donna Bianca Acorari's
name to me for three months."
"Have I not?" asked Silvio, carelessly. "Well, it was no good talking
about the matter until I was sure of my ground, you know."
"And you are sure of it now?"
"But of course I am sure of it! Has she not promised to marry me?"
"Oh, that--yes," returned Giacinta; "but, Silvio, you know as well as I
do that in our country engagements are not made like that. Bianca
Acorari is not an English miss. It all reminds me of English novels I
have read, in which young men always go for long walks with young girls,
and come back to the five-o'clock saying that they are going to be
married. This is just what you have done; but, unluckily for you, we
are not in England."
Silvio laughed. Nothing could shake his serenity, for had not Bianca
sworn that if she did not marry him, she would never marry?
"You forget," he said, "that Bianca and I can afford to wait. Even if
Princess Montefiano makes difficulties, it is a mere question of time.
In three years Bianca will be her own mistress, accountable to nobody
for her actions."
Giacinta shook her head. "That is all very well, Silvio," she replied,
"but a great many disagreeable things may happen in three years. Do you
think that Donna Bianca loves you enough to keep her promise to you,
whatever opposition she may encounter?"