Lavinia followed her husband to their rooms, where he sat smoking one
of his long black cigars. He was pale; his brow was wet and his collar
wilted. She stood beside him and he patted her arm.
“Everything is in order,” he assured her.
A species of blundering tenderness for him possessed her; an unexpected
throb of her being startled and robbed her of words. He mistook her
continued silence.
“All I have is yours,” he explained; “it is your right. I can see now
that--that my money was all I had to offer you. The only thing of value
I possess. I should have realized that a girl, charming like yourself,
couldn't care for a mound of fat.” Her tenderness rose till it choked in
her throat, blurred what she had to say.
“Cesare,” she told him, “Gheta was right; at one time I was in love with
Mochales.” He turned with a startled exclamation; but she silenced him.
“He was, it seemed, all that a girl might admire--dark and mysterious
and handsome. He was romantic. I demanded nothing else then; now
something has happened that I don't altogether understand, but it has
changed everything for me. Cesare, your money never made any difference
in my feeling for you--it didn't before and it doesn't to-night--” She
hesitated and blushed painfully, awkwardly.
The cigar fell from his hand and he rose, eagerly facing her.
“Lavinia,” he asked, “is it possible--do you mean that you care the
least about me?”
“It must be that, Cesare, because I am so terribly afraid.”
Later he admitted ruefully:
“But no man should resemble, as I do, a great oyster. I shall pay very
dearly for my laziness.”
“You are not going to fight Mochales!” she protested. “It would be
insanity.”
“Insanity,” he agreed promptly. “Yet I can't permit myself to be the
target for vile tongues.”
Lavinia abruptly left him and hurried to her sister's room. The door was
locked; she knocked, but got no response.
“Gheta,” she called, low and urgently, “open at once! Your plans have
gone dreadfully wrong. Gheta!” she said more sharply into the answering
silence. “Cesare has had a terrific argument with Mochales, and worse
may follow. Open!” There was still no answer, and suddenly she beat
upon the door with her fists. “Liar!” she cried thinly through the wood.
“Liar! You bitter old stick! I'll make you eat that necklace, pearl for
pearl, sorrow for sorrow!”
A feeling of impotence overwhelmed her at the implacable stillness that
succeeded her hysterical outburst. She stood with a pounding heart, and
clasped straining fingers.
Abrego y Mochales could kill Cesare without the slightest shadow of a
question. There was, she recognized, something essentially feminine in
the saturnine bullfighter; his pride had been severely assaulted; and
therefore he would be--in his own, less subtle manner--as dangerous
as Gheta. Cesare's self-esteem, too, had been wounded in its most
vulnerable place--he had been insulted before her. But, even if the
latter refused to proceed, Mochales, she knew, would force an acute
conclusion. There was nothing to be got from her sister and she
slowly returned to her chamber, from which she could hear Orsi's heavy
footfalls.
She mechanically removed the square emerald that hung from a platinum
thread about her neck, took off her rings, and proceeded to the small
iron safe where valuables were kept. As she swung open the door a sheet
of paper slipped forward from an upper compartment. It bore a
printed address ... in the Strada San Lucia. She saw that it was the
blackmailing letter Cesare had received from the Neapolitan secret
society, demanding two thousand lire. She recalled what he had said at
the time--if she had an enemy her gown could be spoiled in the foyer of
the opera; a man ruined at his club.... Even murders were ascribed to
it.
She held the letter, gazing fixedly at the address, mentally repeating
again and again the significance of its contents. She thought of
showing it to Cesare, suggesting----But she realized that, bound by a
conventional honor, he would absolutely refuse to listen to her.
Almost subconsciously she folded the sheet and hid it in her dress.
Kneeling before the safe she procured a long red envelope. It contained
the sum of money her father had given her at the wedding. It was her
dot--a comparatively small amount, he had said at the time with an
apologetic smile; but it was absolutely, unquestionably her own. This,
when she locked the safe, remained outside.
When she had hidden the letter and envelope in her dressing table Cesare
stood in the doorway. He was still pale, but composed, and held himself
with simple dignity.
“Some men,” he said, “are not so happy, even for an hour.”
A sudden passionate necessity to save him swept over her.
In the morning Orsi remained at the villa, but he sent the launch in
early with an urgent summons for the Cavaliere Nelli. Later, when he
asked for Lavinia, he was told that she had gone to Naples; and when
the boat returned, Nelli--a military figure, with hair and mustache like
yellowish white silk--assisted her to the wall. She was closely veiled
against the sparkling flood of light and bay, and hurried directly to
her room.
There she knelt on a praying chair before a small alcoved altar with
tall wax tapers, and remained a long while. She was disturbed by a
sudden ringing report below; it was Cesare practising with a dueling
pistol. Lavinia remembered, from laughing comments in Florence, that
her husband was an atrocious shot. The sound was repeated at irregular
intervals through an unbearably long morning.
Gheta, she learned, had refused the morning chocolate and, with her
maid, had collected and packed all her effects. Lavinia had no desire to
see her. The situation now was past Gheta's mending.
After luncheon Lavinia remained in her room, Nelli departed for Naples
and Cesare joined her. It was evident that he was greatly disturbed;
but he spoke to her evenly. He was possessed by an impotent rage at
his unwieldy body and clumsy hand. This alternated with an evident
wonderment at the position in which he found himself and a great
tenderness for Lavinia.
At dusk they were in Lavinia's room waiting for a message from Naples.
Lavinia was leaning across the marble ledge of her window, gazing over
the dim blue sweep of water to the distant flowering lights. She heard
sudden footsteps and, half turning, saw her husband tearing open an
envelope.
“Lavinia!” he cried. “There has been an accident in the elevator of the
Grand Hotel, and Mochales--is dead!” She hung upon the ledge now for
support. “The attendant, a new man, started the car too soon and caught
Mochales----” She sank down upon her knees in an attitude of prayer, and
Cesare Orsi stood reverently bowed.
“The will of God!” he muttered.
A long slow shiver passed over Lavinia, and he bent and lifted her in
his arms.