Duco was silent and nervous at table. He played with his bread;
and his fingers trembled. She felt that he had something on his mind:
"What is it?" she asked, kindly.
"Cornélie," he said, excitedly, "I want to speak to you."
"What about?"
"You're not behaving properly."
"In what respect?"
"With the prince. You've seen through him and yet ... yet you go on
putting up with him, yet you're always meeting him. Let me finish,"
he said, looking around him: there was no one in the restaurant save
two Italians, sitting at the far table, and they could speak without
being overheard. "Let me finish," he repeated, when she tried to
interrupt him. "Let me say what I have to say. You of course are
free to act as you please. But I am your friend and I want to advise
you. What you are doing is not right. The prince is a cad, a low,
common cad. How can you accept presents from him and invitations? Why
did you compel me to come yesterday? The dinner was one long torture
to me. You know how fond I am of you: why shouldn't I confess it? You
know how high I hold you. I can't bear to see you lowering yourself
with him. Let me speak. Lowering, I say. He is not worthy to tie your
shoe-strings. And you play with him, you jest with him, you flirt--let
me speak--you flirt with him. What can he be to you, a coxcomb like
that? What part can he play in your life? Let him marry Miss Hope:
what do you care about either of them? What do inferior people matter
to you, Cornélie? I despise them and so do you. I know you do. Then
why do you cross their lives? Let them live in the vanity of their
titles and money: what is it all to you? I don't understand you. Oh,
I know, you're not to be understood, all the woman part of you! And I
love everything that I see of you: I love you in everything. It doesn't
matter whether I understand you. But I do feel that this isn't right. I
ask you not to see the prince any more. Have nothing more to do with
him. Cut him.... That dinner, last night, was a torture to me...."
"My poor boy," she said, gently, filling his glass from their fiasco,
"but why?"
"Why? Why? Because you're lowering yourself."
"I do not stand so high. No, let me speak now. I do not stand
high. Because I have a few modern ideas and a few others which are
broader-minded than those of most women? Apart from that I am an
ordinary woman. When a man is cheerful and witty, it amuses me. No,
Duco, I'm speaking now. I don't consider the prince a cad. I may think
him a coxcomb, but I think him cheerful and witty. You know that I
too am very fond of you, but you are neither cheerful nor witty. Now
don't get angry. You are much more than that. I'm not even comparing
il nostro Gilio with you. I won't say anything more about you, or
you will become conceited, but cheerful and witty you are not. And
my poor nature sometimes feels a need for these qualities. What have
I in my life? Nothing but you, you alone. I am very glad to possess
your friendship, very happy in having met you. But why may I not
sometimes be cheerful? Really, there is a little light-heartedness
in me, a little frivolity even. Am I bound to fight against it? Duco,
am I wicked?"
He smiled sadly; there was a moist light in his eyes; and he did
not answer.
"I can fight, if necessary," she resumed. "But is this a thing to fight
against? It is a passing bubble, nothing more. I forget it the next
minute. I forget the prince the next minute. And you I do not forget."
He was looking at her radiantly.
"Do you understand that? Do you understand that I don't flirt and
fence with you? Shake hands and stop being angry."
She gave him her hand across the table and he pressed her fingers:
"Cornélie," he said, softly. "Yes, I feel that you are loyal. Cornélie,
will you be my wife?"
She looked straight in front of her and drooped her head a little
and stared before her earnestly. They were no longer eating. The two
Italians stood up, bowed and went away. They were alone. The waiter
set some fruit before them and withdrew.
They both sat silent for a moment. Then she spoke in a gentle voice;
and her whole being displayed so tender a melancholy that he could
have burst into sobs and worshipped her where she sat.
"I knew of course that you would ask me that some day. It was in the
nature of things. A great friendship like ours was bound to lead to
that question. But it can't be, dearest Duco. It can't be, my dear,
dear boy. I have my own ideas ... but it's not that. I am against
marriage ... but it's not that. In some cases a woman is unfaithful
to all her ideas in a single second.... Then what is it?..."
She stared wide-eyed and passed her hand over her forehead, as though
she did not see clearly. Then she continued:
"It is this, that I am afraid of marriage. I have been through it,
I know what it means.... I see my husband before me now. I see
that habit, that groove before me, in which the subtler individual
characteristics are effaced. That is what marriage is: a habit,
a groove. And I tell you candidly: I think marriage loathsome. I
think passion beautiful, but marriage is not passion. Passion can
be noble and superhuman, but marriage is a human institution based
upon our petty human morality and calculation. And I have become
frightened of those prudent moral ties. I promised myself--and I
believe that I shall keep my promise--never to marry again. My whole
nature has become unfitted for it. I am no longer the Hague girl
going to parties and dinners and looking out for a husband, together
with her parents.... My love for him was passion. And in my marriage
he wanted to restrict that passion to a groove and a custom. Then I
rebelled.... I'd rather not talk about it. Passion lasts too short a
time to fill a married life.... Mutual esteem to follow, etcetera? One
needn't marry for that. I can feel esteem just as well without being
married. Of course there is the question of the children, there are
many difficulties. I can't think it all out now. I merely feel now,
very seriously and calmly, that I am not fit to marry and that I
never will marry again. I should not make you happy.... Don't be sad,
Duco. I am fond of you, I love you. And perhaps ... had I met you
at the right moment. Had I met you before, in my Hague life ... you
would certainly have stood too high for me. I could not have grown
fond of you. Now I can understand you, respect you and look up to
you. I tell you this quite simply, that I love you and look up to you,
look up to you, in spite of all your gentleness, as I never looked up
to my husband, however much he made his manly privilege prevail. And
you are to believe that, very firmly and with great certainty, and
you must believe that I am true. I am coquettish ... only with Gilio."
He looked at her through his silent tears. He stood up, called the
waiter, paid the bill absent-mindedly, while everything swam and
flashed before his eyes. They went out of the door and she hailed a
carriage and told the man to drive to the Villa Doria-Pamphili. She
remembered that the gardens were open. They drove there in silence,
steeped in their thoughts of the future that was opening tremulously
before them. Sometimes he heaved a deep breath and quivered all over
his body. Once she fervently squeezed his hand. At the gate of the
villa they alighted and walked up the majestic avenues. Rome lay in
the depths below; and they suddenly saw St. Peter's. But they did
not speak; and she suddenly sat down on an ancient bench and began
to weep softly and feebly. He put his arm round her and comforted
her. She dried her tears, smiled and embraced him and returned his
kiss.... Twilight fell; and they went back. He gave the address of
his studio. She accompanied him. And she gave herself to him, in all
her truthful sincerity and with a love so violent and so great that
she thought she would swoon in his arms.