THE DENOUEMENT
The morning sun poured over the hills, throwing huge shadows in the
gorge below. The stream, swollen by the heavy rains of the past night,
foamed and snarled along its ragged bed. The air was fresh and cool, and
the stately cypresses took on a deeper shade of green. Lizards scampered
over the damp stones about the porter's lodge or sought the patches of
golden sunshine, and insects busied themselves with the daily harvest.
O'Mally sniffed. As the wind veered intermittently there came to him the
perfume of the locust trees, now in full bloom, the flowers of which
resembled miniature cascades hanging in mid-air. Pietro rocked, his legs
crossed, his face blurred in the drifting tobacco smoke.
"No more tourists, Pietro."
"No." Pietro sighed, a ruminating light in his faded eyes.
"Did you ever see La Signorina before? Do you know anything about her?"
"Never! No!" answered Pietro, with the perfect candor of an accomplished
liar.
"Have you ever seen her Highness?"
"When she so," indicating a height about two feet from the ground.
"You said that you had never seen her."
"Meestake."
"How old would she be?"
Pietro wrinkled his brow, "Oh, _quaranta, cinquanta_; fifty-forty. Who
knows?"
"Fifty! How old are you?" suspiciously.
"_Settanta_; seventy."
"Well, you look it. But why hasn't the princess ever been here, when
it's so beautiful?"
"Woman."
"What woman?"
"La Principessa. Many villas, much money."
O'Mally kicked at one of the lizards. "I thought she might be young."
"No. But La Signorina-bah! they ar-r-r-rest her. _Patienza!_"
"You think so?"
"Wait."
"But her friend the princess will come to her assistance."
Pietro laughed scornfully, which showed that he had some doubts.
"But you won't betray her?"
"Never!" puffing quickly.
"It's a bad business," admitted O'Mally. This old rascal of a gardener
was as hard to pump as a frozen well.
Pietro agreed that it was a bad business. "Eenspector, he come to-day,
_domani_--to-morrow. He come nex' day; watch, watch!" Pietro elevated
his shoulders slowly and dropped them sharply. "All ar-r-r-rest!"
"You think so?"
"_Si._"
"But you wouldn't betray her for money, Pietro?"
"No!" energetically.
Pietro might be loyal; still, O'Mally had some shadow of doubt.
"La Signorina is very beautiful," irrelevantly. "Ah!" with a gesture
toward the heavens. "And if she isn't a princess, she ought to be one,"
slyly.
"_Zitto!_ She come!" Pietro got up with alacrity, pocketing his pipe,
careful that the bowl was right side up.
She was as daintily fresh in her pink frock as a spring tulip; a frock,
thought O'Mally, that would have passed successfully in any ball-room.
She was as beautiful as the moon, and to this bit of Persian O'Mally
added, conscious of a deep intake of breath, the stars and the farther
worlds and the roses close at hand. Her eyes were shining, but her color
was thin. O'Mally, for all his buffoonery, was a keen one to read a
face. She was highly strung. Where would they all land finally?
"I have been looking for you, Mr. O'Mally," she said.
"At your Highness' command!"
Pietro, hearing this title, looked from one to the other suspiciously.
"I have just received a telegram from her Highness."
An expression of relief flitted over Pietro's withered countenance.
"It wasn't necessary," said O'Mally gallantly.
"But I wish you to read it. I know that you will cease to dream of
dungeons and shackles." There was a bit of a laugh in her voice. It was
reassuring.
"All right." O'Mally accepted the yellow sheet which the government
folds and pastes economically. There were fifty words or more. "I can
make out a word or two," he said; "it's in Italian. Will you read it for
me?"
"I forgot," apologetically.
Briefly, La Principessa di Monte Bianca gave Sonia Hilda Grosvenor full
authority to act as her proxy in giving the ball; that in case of any
difficulty with the civil authorities to wire her at once and she would
come. As for the invitation, she knew absolutely nothing about it.
This last statement rather staggered the erstwhile concierge. If the
princess hadn't issued the invitation, who the deuce had? "This leaves
me confused, but it improves the scenery a whole lot. But who, then, has
done this thing?"
"To solve that we must look nearer home."
"Have you any idea who did it?" he inquired anxiously.
"No."
"Have you another invitation?"
"I tore up the only one."
"That's too bad. A stationer's imprint might have helped us."
"I was angry and did not think. To-morrow a dozen temporary servants
will be added to the household. We shall be very busy."
"Before and after," said O'Mally dryly. He wondered what she on her part
had telegraphed the real princess. It was all very mystifying.
"Listen!" she said.
"Horses," declared O'Mally.
"Two," said Pietro, with a hand to his ear.
La Signorina's color deepened.
"Our friends," laughed O'Mally; "come up to see if we are still out of
jail."
The dreamy, pleasurable days at the Villa Ariadne were no more. The
spirit of suspicion, of unrest, of doubt now stalked abroad, peering
from veiled eyes, hovering on lips. And there was a coming and going of
menials, a to-and-froing of extra gardeners and carpenters, and the
sound of many hammers. The ball-room and the dining-room were opened and
aired, the beautiful floors polished, and the dust and cobwebs of twenty
years were vanquished.
In Florence there was a deal of excitement over the coming affair, for
the Villa Ariadne had once been the scene of many a splendid
entertainment. Men chatted about it in their cafes and the women
chattered about it in their boudoirs. And there was here and there a
mysterious smile, a knowing look, a shrug. There had always been a
mystery regarding the Principessa di Monte Bianca; many doubted her
actual existence. But the prince was known all over Europe as a handsome
spendthrift. And the fact that at this precise moment he was quartered
with the eighth corps in Florence added largely to the zest of
speculation. Oh, the nobility and the military, which are one and the
same thing, would be present at the ball; they were altogether too
inquisitive to decline.
Daily the inspector of seals made his solemn round, poking into the
forbidden chambers, into the lofts, into the cellars. He scrutinized
every chest and closet with all the provocative slowness of a
physiologist viewing under the microscope the corpuscles of some unhappy
frog. The information he had received from Rome had evidently quieted
his larger doubts; but these people, from the princess down to the
impossible concierge, were a new species to him, well worth watching. An
American princess; this accounted for much. He had even looked up the
two Americans who rode up from Florence every day; but he found that
they were outside the pale of his suspicions; one of them was a
millionaire, known to the Italian ambassador in the United States; so he
dismissed them as negligible quantities. He had some pretty conflicts
with Pietro; but Pietro was also a Tuscan, which explains why the
inspector never obtained any usable information from this quarter.
Hillard and Merrihew eyed these noisy preparations broodingly. To the
one it was a damper to his rosal romance; to the other it was the
beginning of the end: this woman, so brilliant, so charming, so lovely
and human, could never be his. Well, indeed, he understood now why Mrs.
Sandford had warned him; he understood now what the great mistake was.
Had fate sent her under his window only for this? Bitterness charged his
heart and often passed his lips. And this other man, who, what, and
where was he all this time?
He was always at her heels now, saving her a care here, doing a service
there, but speaking no more of his love. She understood and was
grateful. Once she plucked a young rose and gave it to him, and he was
sure that her hand touched his with pity, though she would not meet his
eyes. And so Merrihew found but little difficulty in picking up the
thread of his romance.
As for O'Mally, he spent most of his leisure studying time-tables.
At four o'clock on the afternoon of the day before the ball, now that
the noise had subsided and the servants were in their quarters, La
Signorina went into the gardens alone. An hour earlier she had seen
Hillard mount and ride away, the last time but once. There seemed to
bear down upon her that oppression which one experiences in a nightmare,
of being able to fly so high, to run madly and yet to move slowly,
always pursued by terror. Strive as she would, she could not throw off
this sense. After all, it was a nightmare, from the day she landed in
New York up to this very moment. But how to wake? Verily, she was mad.
Would any sane person do what she had done and was yet about to do? She
might have lived quietly and peacefully till the end of her days. But
no! And all her vows were like dried reeds in a tempest, broken and
beaten. Even now there was a single avenue of escape, but she knew that
she could not profit by it and leave these unfortunate derelicts to
shift for themselves. It was not fair that they should be made to suffer
for her mad caprices. She must play it out boldly to the final line,
come evil or not.... Love! She laughed brokenly and struck her hands in
suppressed fury. A fitting climax, this! All the world was mad and she
was the maddest in it.
Some one was coming along the path. She wheeled impatiently. She wanted
to be alone. And of all men Worth was not the one she cared to see. But
the sight of his pale face and set jaws stayed the words she was
inclined to speak. She waited restlessly.
"I realize that my presence may be distasteful to you," he began, not
without some minor agitation. It was the first time in days that he had
stood so near to her or had spoken while alone with her. "But I have
something to say to you upon which your future welfare largely depends."
"I believed that we had settled that."
"I am not making any declaration of love, madame," he said.
"I am listening." This prelude did not strike her favorably.
"There has been a tremendous wonder, as I understand, about this ball."
"In what way?" guardedly.
"In regard to the strange manner in which the invitations were issued."
"Have you found out who did it?" she demanded.
"Yes." The light in his eyes was feverish despite the pallor of his
face.
"Who was it?" fiercely. Oh, but she would have revenge for this
miserable jest!
"I issued those invitations--with a definite purpose."
"You?" Her eyes grew wide and her lips parted.
"I!" a set defiance in his tone.
"It is you who have done this thing?"
"Yes. I am the guilty man. I did the work well, considering the
difficulties. The list was the main obstacle, but I overcame that. I
represented myself as secretary to her Highness, which, when all is
said, was the very thing agreed upon in Venice. I am the guilty man;"
but he spoke like a man who was enjoying a triumph.
"And you have the effrontery to confess your crime to me?" her fury
blazing forth.
"Call it what you please, the fact remains."
"What purpose had you in mind when you did this cowardly thing? And I
had trusted you and treated you as an equal! And so it was you who
perpetrated this forgery, this miserable jest?"
"Forgery, yes; jest, no." Her anger did not alarm him; he had gone too
far to be alarmed at anything.
"Why did you do it?"
"I did it as a man who has but a single throw left. One chance in a
thousand; I took that chance and won."
"I do not understand you at all." She was tired.
"As I said, I had a definite purpose. An imposture like this is a prison
offense. I asked you to marry me. I do so again."
"You are hiding a threat!" The mental chaos cleared and left her thought
keen and cold.
"I shall hide it no longer. Marry me, or I shall disclose the imposture
to the police."
"Oh!" She shot him a glance, insolent and piercing. Then she laughed,
but neither hysterically nor mirthfully. It was the laughter of one in
deadly anger. "I had believed you to be a man of some reason, Mr. Worth.
Do you suppose, even had I entertained some sentiment toward you, that
it would survive a circumstance like this?"
"I am waiting for your answer."
"You shall have it. Why, this is scarcely on the level with cheap
melodrama. Threats? How short-sighted you have been! Did you dream that
any woman could be won in this absurd fashion? You thought nothing of
your companions, either, or the trouble you were bringing about their
heads."
"Yes or no?" His voice was not so full of assurance as it had been.
"No!"
"Take care!" advancing.
"I am perfectly capable of taking care. And heed what I have to say to
you, Mr. Worth. You will leave this villa at once; and if you do not go
quietly, I shall order the servants to put you forth. That is my
answer."
"You speak as though you were the princess," he snarled.
"Till Thursday morning I _am_!" La Signorina replied proudly.
"I shall inform the police."
"Do so. Now, as there is nothing more to be said, be gone!"
He saw that he had thrown and lost; and a man who loses his last throw
is generally desperate. Regardless of consequences, he seized her
roughly in his arms. She struck him across the eyes with full strength,
and she was no weakling. He gasped in pain and released her.
"If I were a man," she said quietly, but with lightning in her eyes,
"you should die for that!" She left him.
Worth, a hundred varied emotions rocking him, stared after her till she
was no longer in sight. There were tears in his eyes and a ringing in
his head. Fool! To play this kind of game against that kind of woman!
Fool, fool! He had written the end himself. It was all over. He went to
his room, got together his things, found a cart, and drove secretly into
Florence.
On the night of the ball there was a brilliant moon. Rosy Chinese
lanterns stretched from tree to tree. The little god in the fountain
gleamed with silver on one side and there was a glow as of life on the
other. From the long casement windows, opened to the mild air of the
night, came the murmur of music. The orchestra was playing Strauss, the
dreamy waltzes from _The Queen's Lace Handkerchief_. Bright uniforms and
handsome gowns flashed by the opened windows. Sometimes a vagrant puff
of air would find its way in, and suddenly the ball-room dimmed and the
dancers moved like phantoms. The flames of the candles would struggle
and, with many a flicker, right themselves, and the radiant colors and
jewels would renew their luster.
O'Mally, half hidden behind a tree, wondered if he had not fallen asleep
over some tale by Scheherazade and was not dreaming this. But here was
old Pietro standing close by. It was all real. At odd whiles he had a
vision of Kitty in her simple white dress, of Merrihew's flushed face,
of Hillard's frowning pallor, of La Signorina wholly in black, a rare
necklace round her white throat, a star of emeralds in her hair, her
face calm and serene. Where would they all be on the morrow?
"Pietro, she is more than beautiful!" sighed O'Mally.
"But wait," said Pietro. He alone among the men knew the cause of
Worth's disappearance. "Trouble."
Leaning against the door which gave entrance to the ball-room from the
hall were two officers, negligently interested in the moving picture.
"What do you make of it?" asked one.
"Body of Bacchus, you have me there!"
"Shall we go?"
"No, no! The prince himself will be here at eleven. He was, singularly
enough, not invited; and knowing the story as I do, I am curious to
witness the scene. The women are already picking her to pieces. To give
a ball in this hurried manner, without ladies in attendance! These
Americans! But she _is_ beautiful," with evident reluctance.
Hillard, peering gloomily over their shoulders, overheard. The prince!
Oh, this must not be. There could be only one prince in a matter of this
kind. He pushed by the Italians without apology for his rudeness, edged
around the ball-room till he reached La Signorina's side. He must save
her at all hazards.
"A word," he whispered in German.
"What is it?" she asked in the same tongue.
"The prince himself will be here at eleven."
"What prince?"
"Di Monte Bianca. Come, there is no time to lose. I have been holding my
carriage ready ever since I came. Come."
"Thank you, but it is too late." She smiled, but it was a tired and
lonely little smile. "Wait near me, but fear nothing." She had long
since armed her nerves against this moment.
"But--"
"Enough! Leave everything to me."
"In God's name, who and what are you that you show no alarm when such
danger threatens?"
"I have told you to wait," she answered.
He stepped back, beaten, discouraged. He would wait, and woe to any who
touched her!
At precisely eleven the music ceased for intermission. There was a lull.
Two _carabinieri_ pushed their way into the ball-room. Tableau.
"Which among you is called the Principessa di Monte Bianca?" was asked
authoritatively.
"I am she," said La Signorina, stepping forth.
The _carabinieri_ crossed quickly to her side.
"What do you wish?" she asked distinctly.
"You are under arrest for imposture. You are not the Principessa di
Monte Bianca; you are known as La Signorina, a singer."
Hillard, wild with despair, made as though to intervene.
"Remain where you are!" he was warned.
As the _carabinieri_ were about to lay hands upon La Signorina, a loud
voice from the hall stopped them.
"One moment!" An officer in riding breeches and dusty boots entered and
approached the dramatic group. Hillard and Merrihew recognized him
instantly. It was the man with the scar. "What is the trouble?"
"This woman," explained one of the _carabinieri_, saluting respectfully,
"is posing as your wife, Highness. We are here to arrest her."
"Do not touch her!" said the prince. "She has the most perfect right in
the world to do what she has done. She _is_ the Principessa di Monte
Bianca, my wife!"