In one of the few remaining streets of Rome which the vandal hand of
the modern builder and restorer has not meddled with, stands the "Casa
D'Angeli", a sixteenth-century building fronted with wonderfully carved
and widely projecting balconies--each balcony more or less different in
design, yet forming altogether in their entirety the effect of complete
sculptural harmony. The central one looks more like a cathedral shrine
than the embrasure of a window, for above it angels' heads look out
from the enfolding curves of their own tall wings, and a huge shield
which might serve as a copy of that which Elaine kept bright for
Lancelot, is poised between, bearing a lily, a cross, and a heart
engraven in its quarterings. Here, leaning far forward to watch the
intense gold of the Roman moon strike brightness and shadow out of the
dark uplifted pinions of her winged stone guardians, stood Sylvie
Hermenstein, who, in her delicate white attire, with the moonbeams
resting like a halo on her soft hair, might have easily passed for some
favoured saint whom the sculptured angels were protecting. And yet she
was only one whom the world called "a frivolous woman of society, who
lived on the admiration of men". So little did they know her,--so
little indeed does the world know about any of us. It was true that
Sylvie, rich, lovely, independent, and therefore indifferent to
opinions, lived her own life very much according to her own ideas,--but
then those ideas were far more simple and unworldly than anybody gave
her credit for. She to whom all the courts of Europe were open,
preferred to wander in the woods alone, reading some favourite book, to
almost any other pleasure,--and as for the admiration which she won by
a look or turn of her head wherever she went, nothing in all the world
so utterly bored her as this influence of her own charm. For she had
tried men and found them wanting. With all the pent-up passion of her
woman's soul she longed to be loved,--but what she understood by love
was a much purer and more exalted emotion than is common among men and
women. She was suffering just now from an intense and overpowering
ennui. Rome was beautiful, she averred, but dull. Stretching her fair
white arms out over the impervious stone-angels she said this, and more
than this, to someone within the room, who answered her in one of the
most delightfully toned voices in the world--a voice that charmed the
ear by its first cadences, and left the listener fascinated into
believing that its music was the expression of a perfectly harmonious
mind.
"You seem very discontented," said the voice, speaking in English, "But
really your pathway is one of roses!"
"You think so?" and Sylvie turned her head quickly round and looked at
her companion, a handsome little man of some thirty-five years of age,
who stretching himself lazily full length in an arm-chair was toying
with the silky ears of an exceedingly minute Japanese spaniel, Sylvie's
great pet and constant companion. "Oh, mon Dieu! You, artist and
idealist though you are--or shall I say as you are supposed to be," and
she laughed a little, "you are like all the rest of your sex! Just
because you see a woman able to smile and make herself agreeable to her
friends, and wear pretty clothes, and exchange all the bon mots of
badinage and every-day flirtation, you imagine it impossible for her to
have any sorrow!"
"There is only one sorrow possible to a woman," replied the gentleman,
who was no other than Florian Varillo, the ideal of Angela Sovrani's
life, smiling as he spoke with a look in his eyes which conveyed an
almost amorous meaning.
Sylvie left the balcony abruptly, and swept back into the room, looking
a charming figure of sylph-like slenderness and elegance in her
clinging gown of soft white satin showered over with lace and pearls.
"Only one sorrow!" she echoed, "And that is--?"
"Inability to win love, or to awaken desire!" replied Varillo, still
smiling.
The pretty Comtesse raised her golden head a little more proudly, with
the air of a lily lifting itself to the light on its stem--her deep
blue eyes flashed.
"I certainly cannot complain on that score!" she said, with a touch of
malice as well as coldness--"But the fact that men lose their heads
about me does not make me in the least happy."
"It should do so!" and Varillo set the little Japanese dog carefully
down on the floor, whereupon it ran straight to its mistress, uttering
tiny cries of joy, "There is no sweeter triumph for a woman than to see
men subjugated by her smile, and intimidated by her frown;--to watch
them burning themselves like moths in her clear flame, and dying at her
feet for love of her! The woman who can do these things is gifted with
the charm which makes or ruins life,--few can resist her,--she draws
sensitive souls as a magnet draws the needle,--and the odd part of it
all is that she need not have any heart herself--she need not feel one
pulse of the passion with which she inspires others--indeed it is
better that she should not. The less she is moved herself, the greater
is her fascination. Love clamours far more incessantly and passionately
at a closed gate than an open one!"
Sylvie was silent for a minute or two looking at him with something of
doubt and disdain. The room they were in was one of those wide and
lofty apartments which in old days might have been used for a prince's
audience chamber, or a dining hall for the revelry of the golden youth
of Imperial Rome. The ceiling, supported by eight slender marble
columns, was richly frescoed with scenes from Ariosto's poems, some of
the figures being still warm with colour and instinct with life--and on
the walls were the fading remains of other pictures, the freshest among
them being a laughing Cupid poised on a knot of honeysuckle, and
shooting his arrow at random into the sky. Ordinarily speaking, the
huge room was bare and comfortless to a degree,--but the Comtesse
Sylvie's wealth, combined with her good taste, had filled it with
things that made it homelike as well as beautiful. The thickest velvet
pile carpets laid over the thickest of folded mattings, covered the
marble floors, and deprived them of their usual chill,--great logs of
wood burned cheerfully in the wide chimney, and flowers, in every sort
of quaint vase or bowl, made bright with colour and blossom all dark
and gloomy corners, and softened every touch of melancholy away. A
grand piano stood open,--a mandoline tied with bright ribbons, lay on a
little table near a cluster of roses and violets,--books, music,
drawings, bits of old drapery and lace were so disposed as to hide all
sharp corners and forbidding angles,--and where the frescoes on the
wall were too damaged to be worth showing even in outline, some fine
old Flemish tapestry covered the defect. Sylvie herself, in the
exquisite clothing which she always made it her business to wear, was
the brilliant completion of the general picturesqueness,--and Florian
Varillo seemed to think so as he looked at her with the practised
underglance of admiration which is a trick common to Italians, and
which some women accept as a compliment and others resent as an insult.
"Do you not agree with me?" he said persuasively, with a smile which
showed his fine and even teeth to perfection, "When the chase is over
the hunters go home tired! What a man cannot have, that very thing is
what he tries most to obtain!"
"You speak from experience, I suppose," said Sylvie, moving slowly
across the room towards the fire, and caressing her little dog which
she held nestled under her rounded chin like a ball of silk, "And yet
you, more than most men, have everything you can want in this
world--but I suppose you are not satisfied--not even with Angela!"
"Angela is a dear little woman!" said Florian, with an air of emotional
condescension, "The dearest little woman in the world! And she is
really clever."
"Clever!" echoed Sylvie, "Is that all?"
"Cara Contessa, is not that enough?"
"Angela is a genius," averred Sylvie, with warmth and energy, "a true
genius!--a great,--a sublime artist!"
"Che Che!" and Varillo smiled, "How delightful it is to hear one woman
praise another! Women are so often like cats spitting and hissing at
each other, tearing at each other's clothes and reputations,--clothes
even more than reputations,--that it is really quite beautiful to me to
hear you admire my Angela! It is very generous of you!"
"Generous of me!" and the Comtesse Hermenstein looked him full in the
eyes, "Why I think it an honour to know her--a privilege to touch her
hand! All Europe admires her--she is one of the world's greatest
artists."
"She paints wonderfully well,--for a woman," said Varillo lazily, "But
there is so much in that phrase, cara Contessa, 'for a woman'. Your
charming sex often succeeds in doing very clever and pretty things; but
in a man they would not be considered surprising. You fairy creatures
are not made for fame--but for love!"
The Comtesse glanced him up and down for a moment, then laughed
musically.
"And for desertion, and neglect as well!" she said, "And sometimes for
bestowing upon YOUR charming sex every fortune and every good blessing,
and getting kicked for our pains! And sometimes it happens that we are
permitted the amazing honour of toiling to keep you in food and
clothing, while you jest at your clubs about the uselessness of woman's
work in the world! Yes, I know! Have you seen Angela's great picture?"
Again Florian smiled.
"Great? No! I know that the dear little girl has fixed an enormous
canvas up in her studio, and that she actually gets on a ladder to
paint something upon it;--but it is always covered,--she does not wish
me to see it till it is finished. She is like a child in some things,
and I always humour her. I have not the least desire to look at her
work till she herself is willing to show it to me. But in myself I am
convinced she is trying to do too much--it is altogether too large an
attempt."
"What are YOU doing?" asked Sylvie abruptly.
"Merely delicate trifles,--little mosaics of art!" said Varillo with
languid satisfaction, "They may possibly please a connoisseur,--but
they are quite small studies."
"You have the same model you had last year?" queried Sylvie.
Their eyes met, and Varillo shifted uneasily in his chair.
"The same," he replied curtly.
Again Sylvie laughed.
"Immaculate creature!" she murmured, "The noblest of her sex, of
course! Men always call the women who pander to their vices 'noble'."
Varillo flushed an angry red.
"You are pleased to be sarcastic, fair lady." he said carelessly, "I do
not understand--"
"No? You are not usually so dense with me, though to those who do not
know you as well as I do, you sometimes appear to be the very stupidest
of men! Now be frank!--tell me, is not Pon-Pon one of the 'noble'
women?"
"She is a very good creature," averred Varillo gently, and with an air
that was almost pious,--"She supports her family entirely on her
earnings."
"How charming of her!" laughed Sylvie, "And so exceptional a thing to
do, is it not? My dressmaker does the same thing,--she 'supports' her
family; but respectably! And just think!--if ever your right hand loses
its cunning as a painter, Angela will be able to 'support' YOU!"
"Always Angela!" muttered Varillo, beginning to sulk, "Cannot you talk
of something else?"
"No,--not for the moment! She is an interesting subject,--to ME! She
will arrive in Rome to-morrow night, and her uncle Cardinal Bonpre,
will be with her, and they will all stay at the Sovrani Palace, which
seems to me like a bit of the Vatican and an old torture-chamber rolled
into one! And, talking of this same excellent Cardinal, they have
almost canonized him at the Vatican,--almost, but not quite."
"For what reason?"
"Oh, have you not heard? It appears he performed a miracle in Rouen,
curing a child who had been a cripple ever since babyhood, and making
him run about as well and strong as possible. One prayer did it, so it
is said,--the news reached the Vatican some days ago; our charming
Monsignor Gherardi told me of it. The secretary of the Archbishop of
Rouen brought the news personally to the Holy Father."
"I do not believe it," said Varillo indifferently, "The days of
miracles are past. And from what I know, and from what Angela has told
me of her uncle, Cardinal Bonpre, he would never lend himself to such
nonsense."
"Well, I only tell you what is just now the talk at the Vatican," said
Sylvie, "Your worthy uncle-in-law that is to be, may be Pope yet! Have
you heard from Angela?"
"Every day. But she has said nothing about this miracle."
"Perhaps she does not know,"--and Sylvie began to yawn, and stretch her
white arms above her head lazily, "Oh, DIO MIO! How terribly dull is
Rome!"
"How long have you been here, Contessa?"
"Nearly a week! If I am not more amused I shall go away home to
Budapest."
"But how is one to amuse you?" asked Varillo, sitting down beside her
and endeavouring to take her hand. She drew it quickly from him.
"Not in that way!" she said scornfully, "Is it possible that you can be
so conceited! A woman says she is dull and bored, and straightway the
nearest man imagines his uncouth caresses will amuse her! TIENS TIENS!
When will you understand that all women are not like Pon-Pon?"
Varillo drew back, chafed and sullen. His AMOUR PROPRE was wounded, and
he began to feel exceedingly cross. The pretty laugh of Sylvie rang out
like a little peal of bells.
"Suppose Angela knew that you wished to 'amuse' me in that particularly
unamusing way?" she went on, "You--who, to her, are CHEVALIER SANS PEUR
ET SANS REPROCHE!"
"Angela is different to all other women," said Varillo quickly, with a
kind of nervous irritation in his manner as he spoke, "and she has to
be humoured accordingly. She is extremely fantastic--full of strange
ideas and unnatural conceptions of life. Her temperament is studious
and dreamy--self-absorbed too at times--and she is absolutely
passionless. That is why she will make a model wife."
The Comtesse drew her breath quickly,--her blood began to tingle and
her heart to beat--but she repressed these feelings and said,
"You mean that her passionless nature will be her safety in all
temptation?"
"Exactly!" and Varillo, smiling, became good natured again--"For Angela
to be untrue would be a grotesque impossibility! She has no idea of the
stronger sentiment of love which strikes the heart like a lightning
flash and consumes it. Her powers of affection are intellectually and
evenly balanced,--and she could not be otherwise than faithful because
her whole nature is opposed to infidelity. But it is not a nature
which, being tempted, overcomes--inasmuch as there is no temptation
which is attractive to her!"
"You think so?" and a sparkle of satire danced in Sylvie's bright eyes,
"Really? And because she is self-respecting and proud, you would almost
make her out to be sexless?--not a woman at all,--without
heart?--without passion? Then you do not love her!"
"She is the dearest creature to me in all the world!" declared Florian,
with emotional ardour, "There is no one at all like her! Even her
beauty, which comes and goes with her mood, is to an artist's eye like
mine, exquisite,--and more dazzling to the senses than the stereotyped
calm of admitted perfection in form and feature. But, CARA CONTESSA, I
am something of an analyst in character--and I know that the delicacy
of Angela's charm lies in that extraordinary tranquillity of soul,
which, (YOU suggested the word!) may indeed be almost termed sexless.
She is purer than snow--and very much colder."
"You are fortunate to be the only man selected to melt that coldness,"
said Sylvie with a touch of disdain, "Myself, I think you make a great
mistake in calling Angela passionless. She is all passion--and
ardour--but it is kept down,--held firmly within bounds, and devoutly
consecrated to you. Pardon me, if I say that you should be more
grateful for the love and trust she gives you. You are not without
rivals in the field."
Florian Varillo raised his eyebrows smilingly.
"Rivals? VERAMENTE! I am not aware of them!"
"No, I should say you had too good an opinion of yourself to imagine
any rival possible!" said the Comtesse, "But such a person may exist!"
Varillo yawned, and flicked a grain of dust off his waistcoat with a
fastidious thumb and finger.
"Impossible! No one could possibly fall in love with Angela now! She is
an icicle,--no man save myself has the ghost of a chance with her!"
"Of course not," said Sylvie impatiently, "Because she is betrothed to
you. But if things were not as they are--"
"It would make no difference, I assure you," laughed Varillo gaily,
"Angela does not like men as a rule. She is fondest of romance--of
dreams--of visions, out of which come the ideas for her pictures--"
"And she is quite passionless with all this, you think?" said Sylvie,
"The 'stronger sentiment which strikes the heart like a flash of
lightning, and consumes it', as you so poetically describe it--could
never possibly disturb her peace?"
"I think not," replied Varillo, with a meditative air, "Angela and I
glided into love like two children wandering by chance into a meadow
full of flowers,--no storm struck us--no sudden danger signal flashed
from our eyes--no trembling hurry of the blood bade us rush into each
other's arms and cling!--nothing of this marvel touched us!--we loved
with all the calm--but without the glory!"
His voice,--the most fascinating quality attached to his
personality,--rose and fell in this little speech with an exquisite
cadence, half sad, half sweet,--and Sylvie, impressionable creature as
she was, with her innate love of romance and poetry, was unconsciously
moved by it to a faint sigh. There was nothing to sigh for, really,--it
was just a mere melodious noise of words, in the making of which
Florian Varillo was an adept. He had not an atom of serious thought in
his remark, any more than in the dainty verses he was wont to append to
his pictures--verses which he turned out with the lightest and swiftest
ease, and which read like his spoken sentences, as if there were a
meaning in them, when truly there was none. But Sylvie was just then in
a curious state of mind, and slight things easily impressed her. She
was in love--and yet she was not in love. The handsome face and figure
of the Marquis Fontenelle, together with many of his undoubted good and
even fine qualities, attracted her and held her in thrall, much more
than the consciousness of his admiration and pursuit of her,--but--and
this was a very interfering "but" indeed,--she was reluctantly
compelled to admit to herself that there was no glozing over the fact
that he was an incorrigibly "fast", otherwise bad man. His life was a
long record of LIAISONS with women,--an exact counterpart of the life
of the famous actor Miraudin. And though there is a saying that a
reformed rake makes the best husband, Sylvie was scarcely sure of being
willing to try this test,--besides, the Marquis had not offered himself
in that capacity, but only as a lover. In Paris,--within reach of him,
surrounded by his gracious and graceful courtesies everywhere, the
pretty and sensitive Comtesse had sometimes felt her courage oozing out
at her finger's ends,--and the longing to be loved became so strong and
overwhelming in her soul that she had felt she must perforce one day
yield to her persistent admirer's amorous solicitations, come what
would of it in the end. Her safety had been in flight; and here in
Rome, she had found herself, like a long-tossed little ship, suddenly
brought up to firm anchorage. The vast peace and melancholy grandeur of
the slowly dying "Mother of Nations", enveloped her as with a
sheltering cloak from the tempest of her own heart and senses, and
being of an exquisitely refined and dainty nature in herself, she had,
while employing her time in beautifying, furnishing and arranging her
apartments in the casa D'Angeli, righted her mind, so to speak, and
cleared it from the mists of illusion which had begun to envelop it, so
that she could now think of Fontenelle quietly and with something of a
tender compassion,--she could pray for him and wish him all things
good,--but she could not be quite sure that she loved him. And this was
well. For we should all be very sure indeed that we do love, before we
crucify ourselves to the cross of sacrifice. Inasmuch as if the love in
us be truly Love, we shall not feel the nails, we shall be unconscious
of the blood that flows, and the thorns that prick and sting,--we shall
but see the great light of Resurrection springing glorious out of
death! But if we only THINK we love,--when our feeling is the mere
attraction of the senses and the lighter impulses--then our crucifixion
is in vain, and our death is death indeed. Some such thoughts as these
had given Sylvie a new charm of manner since her arrival in Rome--she
was less mirthful, but more sympathetic--less RIANTE, but infinitely
prettier and more fascinating. Florian Varillo studied her
appreciatively in this regard after he had uttered his little
meaningless melody of sentiment, and thought within himself--"A week or
two and I could completely conquer that woman!" He was mistaken--men
who think these sort of things often are. But the thought satisfied
him, and gave bold lustre to his eyes and brightness to his smile when
he rose to take his leave. He had been one of the guests at a small and
early dinner-party given by the Comtesse that evening,--and with the
privilege of an old acquaintance, he had lingered thus long after all
the others had gone to their respective homes.
"I will bid you now the felicissima notte, cara e bella contessa!" he
said caressingly, raising her small white hand to his lips, and kissing
it with a lingering pressure of what he considered a peculiarly
becoming moustache--"When Angela arrives to-morrow night I shall be
often at the Palazzo Sovrani--shall I see you there?"
"Of course you will see me there," replied Sylvie, a little
impatiently, "Am I not one of Angela's closest friends?"
"True! And for the sake of la mia dolcezza, you will also be a friend
to me?"
"'la mia dolcezza'", repeated Sylvie, "Is that what you call her?"
"Yes--but I fear it is not original!" said Varillo smiling, "One
Ariosto called his lady thus."
"Yes?" and Sylvie's eyes darkened and grew humid with a sudden
tenderness of thought, "It is a pretty phrase!"
"It should be used to YOU always, by every man who has my present
privilege!" said Varillo, gallantly, kissing her hand once more, "You
will be my friend?"
Sylvie disengaged her hand from his.
"You must not depend upon me, Signor," she said with sudden coldness,
"To be perfectly frank with you I am not sure that I like you. You are
very charming and very clever--but I doubt your sincerity."
"Ah, che sono infelice!" murmured varillo softly, "you are right,
bellissima madama! I am not myself with many people--but with you--you
are one of the few who understand me . . . I am the very soul of
candour!"
He fixed his eyes full upon her with an open and straight regard,
adding, "Can you doubt me?" in a touching tone of wounded feeling.
The Comtesse laughed, and her face flushed.
"Well, I do not know!" she said, with a light gesture of her hands as
though she threw something unpleasant away from her, "I shall fudge of
you by the happiness--or sorrow--of Angela!"
A slight frown contracted his brows--but it passed quickly, and the
candid smile illumined his mobile face once more.
"Ebben! Buona notte, bela capricciosa!" and bowing low he turned
towards the door, "Thank you a thousand times for a very happy evening!
Even when you are unkind to me you are still charming! Addio!"
She murmured an "addio" in response, and when he had gone, and the echo
of his footfall down the great marble stairs had completely died away,
she went out once more to the balcony and leaned among the sculptured
angels, a dainty, slender, white figure, with her soft flower-like face
turned up to the solemn sky, where the large moon marched like an
Amazon through space, attended by her legions and battalions of stars.
So slight, so fragile and sweet a woman!--with a precious world of love
pent up in her heart . . . yet alone--quite alone on this night of
splendid luminousness and majestic suggestions of infinity,--an
infinity so monstrous and solitary to the one delicate creature, whose
whole soul craved for a perfect love. Alas, for this "perfect love," of
which all the dearest women dream! Where shall they find it?--and how
shall they win it? Too often it comes when they may not have it; the
cup of nectar is offered to lips that are forbidden to drink of it,
because the world's convention stands between and turns the honey to
gall. One of the many vague problems of a future life, offered for our
consideration, is the one concerning the righteous satisfaction of
love. Will not those who have been bound fast as prisoners in the bonds
of matrimony without love, find those whose spirits are naturally one
with theirs, but whom they have somehow missed in this life? For
Byron's fine lines are eternally true,--
"Few--none--find what they love or could have loved,--
Though accident, blind contact, and the strong
Necessity of loving, have removed
Antipathies--but to recur ere long
Envenom'd with irrevocable wrong."
And the "blind contact" is the worst of all influences brought to bear
upon the mind and heart,--the most pernicious, and the most deeply
weighted with responsibility. In this regard, Sylvie Hermenstein had
acted wisely by removing herself from association, or "blind contact"
with her would-be lover,--and yet, though she was aware that her doing
so had caused a certain dispersal of the atmosphere which almost veered
towards complete disillusion, she found nevertheless, that Rome as she
had said, was "dull"; her heart was empty, and longing for she knew not
what. And that deep longing she felt could not have been completely
gratified by the brief ardours of Fontenelle. And so she sat thinking
wearily,--wondering what was to become of her life. She had riches in
plenty, a fine estate and castle in Hungary,--servants at her beck and
call--and yet with all her wealth and beauty and brilliancy, she felt
that she was only loved by two persons in the world, her old butler,
and Madame Bozier, who had been her first governess, and who now lived
with her, as a sort of dame d'honneur surrounded with every comfort and
luxury, and who certainly served her former pupil with a faithful
worship that would not have changed, even if the direst poverty instead
of riches had been the portion of her beloved patroness. This elderly
lady it was who entered now with a soft and hesitating step, and
raising her glasses to her eyes, peered anxiously through the lighted
room towards the dark balcony where Sylvie stood, like a fairy fallen
out of the moon, and who presently ventured to advance and call softly,
"Sylvie!"
The pretty Comtesse turned and smiled.
"Is it you, Katrine? Will you come out here? It is not cold, and there
is a lace wrap on the chair,--put it round your dear old head and come
and be romantic with me!" and she laughed as the worthy Bozier obeyed
her, and came cautiously out among the angels' sculptured wings. "Ah,
dear Katrine! The happy days are gone when a dark-eyed Roman lover
would come strolling down a street like this to strike the chords of
his mandoline, and sing the dear old song,
"'Ti voglio bene assai, E tu non pensi a me!'"
Without thinking about it, she sang this refrain suddenly in her sweet
mezzo-soprano, every note ringing clear on the silence of the night,
and as she did so a man of slim figure and medium height, stepped out
of the dark shadows and looked up. His half laughing eyes, piercing in
their regard, met the dreamy soft ones of the pretty woman sitting
among the angels' heads above him--and pausing a moment he
hesitated--then lifted his hat. His face was excessively delicate in
outline and very pale, but a half mischievous smile softened and
sweetened the firm lines of his mouth and chin, and as the moonbeams
played caressingly on his close curling crop of fair hair, he looked
different enough to most of the men in Rome to be considered singular
as well as handsome. Sylvie, hidden as she was among the shadows,
blushed and drew back, a little vexed with herself,--the worthy Madame
Bozier was very properly scandalised.
"My dear child!" she murmured, "Remember--we are in Rome. People judge
things so strangely! What an unfortunate error!--"
But Sylvie became suddenly unmanageable. Her love of coquetry and
mischief got the better of her, and she thrust out her pretty head over
the balcony once more.
"Be quiet, Katrine!" she whispered, "I was longing for a romance, and
here is one!" And detaching a rose from her dress she tossed it lightly
to the stranger below. He caught it--then looked up once more.
"Till we meet," he said softly in English,--and moving on among the
shadows, disappeared.
"Now, who do you suppose HE was?" enquired Sylvie, leaning back against
the edge of the balcony, with an arch glance at her gouvernante, "It
was someone unlike anyone else here, I am sure! It was somebody with
very bright eyes,--laughing eyes,--audacious eyes, because they laughed
at me! They sparkled at me like stars on a frosty night! Katrine, have
you ever been for a sleigh-ride in America? No, I did not take you
there,--I forgot! You would have had the rheumatism, poor dear! Well,
when you are in America during the winter, you go for rides over the
snow in a big sleigh, with tinkling bells fastened to the horses, and
you see the stars flash as you pass--like the eyes of that interesting
gentleman just now. His face was like a cameo--I wonder who he is! I
shall find out! I must do something desperate for Rome is so terribly
dull! But I feel better now! I like that man's eyes. They are SUCH a
contrast to the sleepy tiger eyes of the Marquis Fontenelle!"
"My dear Sylvie!" remonstrated Madame Bozier, "How can you run on in
this way? Do you want to break any more hearts? You are like a lamp for
unfortunate moths to burn themselves in!"
"Oh no, not I," said Sylvie, shaking her head with a touch of half
melancholy scorn, "I am not a 'professional' beauty! The Prince of
Wales does not select me for his admiration,--hence it follows that I
cannot possibly be an attraction in Europe. I have not the large frame,
the large hands, and the still larger feet of the beautiful English
ladies, who rule royal hearts and millionaires' pockets! Men scarcely
notice me till they come to know me--and then, pouf!--away go their
brains!--and they grovel at my small feet instead of the large ones of
the English ladies!" She laughed. "Now how is that, Katrine?"
"C'est du charme--toujurs du charme!" murmured Madame Bozier, studying
with a wistful affection the dainty lines of Sylvie's slight figure,
"And that is an even more fatal gift than beauty, chere petite!"
"Du charme! You think that is it? Yes?--and so the men grow stupid and
wild!--some want me, and some want my fortune--and some do not know
what they want!--but one thing is certain, that they all quarrel
together about me, and bore me to extinction!--Even the stranger with
the bright stars of an American winter for eyes, might possibly bore me
if I knew him!"
She gave a short sigh of complete dissatisfaction.
"To be loved, Katrine--really loved! What a delicious thing that would
be! Have you ever felt it?"
The poor lady trembled a little, and gave a somewhat mournful smile.
"No, you dear romantic child! I cannot say with truth that I have! I
married when I was very young, and my husband was many years older than
myself. He was afflicted with chronic rheumatism and gout, and to be
quite honest, I could never flatter myself that he thought of me more
than the gout. There! I knew that would amuse you!"--this, as Sylvie's
pretty tender laugh rippled out again on the air, "And though it sounds
as if it were a jest, it is perfectly true. Poor Monsieur Bozier! He
was the drawing master at the school where I was assistant
governess,--and he was very lonely; he wanted someone to attend to him
when the gouty paroxysms came on, and he thought I should do as well,
perhaps better than anyone else. And I--I had no time to think about
myself at all, or to fall in love--I was very glad to be free of the
school, and to have a home of my own. So I married him, and did my best
to be a good nurse to him,--but he did not live long, poor man--you see
he always would eat things that did not agree with him, and if he could
not get them at home he went out and bought them on the sly. There was
no romance there, my dear! And of course he died. And he left me
nothing at all,--even our little home was sold up to pay our debts.
Then I had to work again for my living,--and it was by answering an
advertisement in the Times, which applied for an English governess to
go to a family in Budapest, that I first came to know you."
"And that is all your history!" said Sylvie, "Poor dear Bozier! How
uneventful!"
"Yes, it is," and the worthy lady sighed also, but hers, was a sigh of
placid arid philosophical comfort. "Still, my dear, I am not at all
sorry to be uninteresting! I have rather a terror of lives that arrange
themselves into grand dramas, with terrible love affairs as the central
motives."
"Have you? I have not!" said Sylvie thoughtfully,--"With all my heart I
admire a 'grande passion.' Sometimes I think it is the only thing that
makes history. One does not hear nearly so much of the feuds in which
Dante was concerned, as of his love for Beatrice. It is always so, only
few people are capable of the strength and patience and devotion needed
for this great consummation of life. Now I--"
Madame Bozier smiled, and with tender fingers arranged one of the stray
knots of pearls with which Sylvie's white gown was adorned.
"You dear child! You were made for sweetness and caresses,--not
suffering . . ."
"You mistake!" said Sylvie, with sudden decision, "You, in your
fondness for me, and because you have seen me grow up from childhood,
sometimes still view me as a child, and think that I am best amused
with frivolities, and have not the soul in me that would endure
disaster. But for love's sake I would do anything--yes!
. . . anything!"
"My child!"
"Yes," repeated Sylvie, her eyes darkening and lightening quickly in
their own fascinating way, "I would consent to shock the stupid old
world!--though one can scarcely ever shock it nowadays, because it has
itself become so shocking! But then the man for whom I would sacrifice
myself, must love ME as ardently as I would love HIM! That is the
difficulty, Katrine. For men do not love--they only desire."
She raised her face to the sky, and the moonbeams shed a golden halo
round her.
"That," she said slowly, "is the reason why I have come here to avoid
the Marquis Fontenelle. He does not love me!"
"He is a villain!" said Madame Bozier with asperity.
"Helas! There are so many villains!" sighed Sylvie, still looking up at
the brilliant heavens, "And sometimes if a villain really loves anybody
he half redeems his villainy. But the Marquis loves himself best of
anyone in the world . . . and I--I do not intend to be second in
anyone's affections! So . . ." she paused, "Do you see that star,
Katrine? It is as bright as if it were shining on a frosty night in
America. And do you not notice the resemblance to the eyes of the
stranger who has my rose? I daresay he will put it under his pillow
to-night, and dream!" She laughed,--"Let us go in!"
Madame Bozier followed her as she stepped back into the lighted salon,
where she was suddenly met by her little Arab page, carrying a large
cluster of exquisite red and white roses. A card was attached to the
flowers, bearing the words, "These many unworthy blossoms in return for
one beyond all worth."
The Comtesse read and passed it in silence to Madame Bozier. A smile
was on her face, and a light in her eyes.
"I think Rome is not so dull after all!" she said, as she set the
flowers carefully in a tall vase of Etruscan ware, "Do you know, I am
beginning to find it interesting!"