Urania asked Cornélie to come in, because it was not healthy out of
doors now, at sunset, with the misty exhalations from the lake. The
marchesa bowed coldly and stiffly, pinched her eyes together and
pretended not to remember Cornélie very well.
"I can understand that," said Cornélie, smiling acidly. "You see
different boarders at your pension every day and I stayed for a much
shorter time than you reckoned on. I hope that you soon disposed
of my rooms again, marchesa, and that you suffered no loss through
my departure?"
The Marchesa Belloni looked at her in mute amazement. She was here,
at San Stefano, in her element as a marchioness; she, the sister-in-law
of the old prince, never spoke here of her foreigners' boarding-house;
she never met her Roman guests here: they sometimes visited the castle,
but only at fixed hours, whereas she spent the weeks of her summer
villeggiatura here. And here she laid aside her plausible manner
of singing the praises of a chilly room, her commercial habit of
asking the most that she dared. She here carried her curled, leonine
head with a lofty dignity; and, though she still wore her crystal
brilliants in her ears, she also wore a brand-new spencer around her
ample bosom. She could not help it, that she, a countess by birth,
she, the Marchesa Belloni--the late marquis was a brother of the
defunct princess--possessed no personal distinction, despite all
her quarterings; but she felt herself to be, as indeed she was, an
aristocrat. The friends, the monsignori whom she did sometimes meet
at San Stefano, promoted the Pension Belloni in their conversation
and called it the Palazzo Belloni.
"Oh, yes," she said, at last, very coolly, blinking her eyes with
an aristocratic air, "I remember you now ... although I've forgotten
your name. A friend of the Princess Urania, I believe? I am glad to
see you again, very glad.... And what do you think of your friend's
marriage?" she asked, as she went up the stairs beside Cornélie,
between Mino da Fiesole's marble candelabra.
Gilio, still angry and flushed and not at all calmed by the kiss, had
moved away. Urania had run on ahead. The marchesa knew of Cornélie's
original opposition, of her former advice to Urania; and she was
certain that Cornélie had acted in this way because she herself had had
views on Gilio. There was a note of triumphant irony in her question.
"I think it was made in Heaven," Cornélie replied, in a bantering
tone. "I believe there is a blessing on their marriage."
"The blessing of his holiness," said the marchesa, naïvely, not
understanding.
"Of course: the blessing of his holiness ... and of Heaven."
"I thought you were not religious?"
"Sometimes, when I think of their marriage, I become very
religious. What peace for the Princess Urania's soul when she became
a Catholic! What happiness in life, to marry il caro Gilio! There is
still peace and happiness left in life."
The marchesa had a vague suspicion that she was mocking and thought
her a dangerous woman.
"And you, has our religion no charm for you?"
"A great deal! I have a great feeling for beautiful churches and
pictures. But that is an artistic conception. You will not understand
it perhaps, for I don't think you are artistic, marchesa? And
marriage also has charms for me, a marriage like Urania's. Couldn't
you help me too some time, marchesa? Then I will spend a whole
winter in your pension and--who knows?--perhaps I too shall become
a Catholic. You might give Rudyard another chance, with me; and,
if that didn't succeed, the two monsignori. Then I should certainly
become converted.... And it would of course be lucrative."
The marchesa looked at her haughtily, white with rage:
"Lucrative?..."
"If you get me an Italian title, but accompanied by money, of course
it would be lucrative."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, ask the old prince, marchesa, or the two monsignori."
"What do you know about it? What are you thinking of?"
"I? Nothing!" Cornélie answered, coolly. "But I have second sight. I
sometimes suddenly see a thing. So keep on friendly terms with me and
don't pretend again to forget an old boarder.... Is this the Princess
Urania's room? You go in first, marchesa; after you...."
The marchesa entered all aquiver: she had thoughts of witchcraft. How
did that woman know anything of her transactions with the old prince
and the monsignori? How did she come to suspect that Urania's marriage
and her conversion had enriched the marchesa to the tune of a few
ten thousand lire?
She had not only had a lesson: she was shuddering, she was
frightened. Was that woman a witch? Was she the devil? Had she the
mal'occhio? And the marchesa made the sign of the jettatura with her
little finger and fore-finger in the folds of her dress and muttered:
"Vade retro, Satanas...."
In her own drawing-room, Urania poured out tea. The three pointed
windows of the room overlooked the town and the ancient cathedral,
which in the orange reflection of the last gleams of sunset shot up
for yet a moment out of its grey dust of ages with the dim huddle
of its saints, prophets and angels. The room, hung with handsome
tapestries--an allegory of Abundance: nymphs outpouring the contents
of their cornucopias--was half old, half modern, not always perfect in
taste or pure in tone, with here and there a few hideously commonplace
modern ornaments, here and there some modern comfort that clashed
with the rest, but still cosy, inhabited and Urania's home. A
young man rose from a chair and Urania introduced him to Cornélie
as her brother. Young Hope was a strongly-built, fresh-looking boy
of eighteen; he was still in his bicycling-suit: it didn't matter,
said his sister, just to drink a cup of tea. Laughing, she stroked
his close-clipped round head and, with the ladies' permission,
gave him his tea first: then he would go and change. He looked so
strange, so new and so healthy as he sat there with his fresh, pink
complexion, his broad chest, his strong hands and muscular calves,
with the youthfulness of a young Yankee farmer who, notwithstanding
the millions of "old man Hope," worked on his farm, way out in the Far
West, to make his own fortune; he looked so strange in this ancient
San Stefano, within view of that severely symbolical cathedral,
against this background of old tapestries. And suddenly Cornélie
was impressed still more strangely by the new young princess. Her
name--her American name of Urania--had a first-rate sound: "the
Princess Urania" sounded unexpectedly well. But the little young wife,
a trifle pale, a trifle sad, with her clipping American accent,
suddenly struck Cornélie as somewhat out of place amid the faded
glories of San Stefano. Cornélie was continually forgetting that
Urania was Princess di Forte-Braccio: she always thought of her
as Miss Hope. And yet Urania possessed great tact, great ease of
manner, a great power of assimilation. Gilio had entered; and the
few words which she addressed to her husband were, quite naturally,
almost dignified ... and yet carried, to Cornélie's ears, a sound
of resigned disillusionment which made her pity Urania. She had from
the beginning felt a vague liking for Urania; now she felt a fonder
affection. She was sorry for this child, the Princess Urania. Gilio
behaved to her with careless coolness, the marchesa with patronizing
condescension. And then there was that awful loneliness around her, of
all that ruined magnificence. She stroked her young brother's head. She
spoilt him, she asked him if his tea was all right and stuffed him
with sandwiches, because he was hungry after his bicycle-ride. She
had him with her now as a reminder of home, a reminder of Chicago;
she almost clung to him. But for the rest she was surrounded by the
depressing gloom of the immense castle, the neglected glory of its
ancient stateliness, the conceit of that aristocratic pride, which
could do without her but not without her millions. And for Cornélie
she had lost all her absurdity as an American parvenue and, on the
contrary, had acquired an air of tragedy, as of a young sacrificial
victim. How alien they were as they sat there, the young princess
and her brother, with his muscular calves!
Urania displayed her portfolio of drawings and designs: the ideas
of a young Roman architect for restoring the castle. And she became
excited, with a flush in her cheeks, when Cornélie asked her if
so much restoration would really be beautiful. Urania defended her
architect. Gilio smoked cigarettes with an air of indifference; he was
in a bad temper. The marchesa sat like an idol, with her leonine head
and the crystals sparkling in her ears. She was afraid of Cornélie and
promised herself to be on her guard. A major-domo came and announced
to the princess that dinner was served. And Cornélie recognized old
Giuseppe from the Pension Belloni, the old archducal major-domo, who
had once dropped a spoon, according to Rudyard's story. She looked
at Urania with a laugh and Urania blushed:
"Poor man!" she said, when Giuseppe was gone. "Yes, I took him over
from my aunt. He was so hard-worked at the Palazzo Belloni! Here
he has very little to do and he has a young butler under him. The
number of servants had to be increased in any case. He is enjoying
a pleasant old age here, poor dear old Giuseppe.... There, Bob,
now you haven't dressed!"
"She's a dear child," thought Cornélie, while they all rose and
Urania gently reproached her brother, as she would a spoiled boy,
for coming down to dinner in his knickerbockers.