When Peter rose next morning, he pulled a grimace at the departed night.
“You are a detected cheat,” he cried, “an unmasked impostor. You live
upon your reputation as a counsellor--'tis the only reason why we bear
with you. La nuit porte conseil! Yet what counsel have you brought to
me?--and I at the pass where my need is uttermost. Shall I go to her
this afternoon, and unburden my soul--or shall I not? You have left
me where you found me--in the same fine, free, and liberal state of
vacillation. Discredited oracle!”
He was standing before his dressing-table, brushing his hair. The image
in the glass frowned back at him. Then something struck him.
“At all events, we'll go this morning to Spiaggia, and have our hair
cut,” he resolved.
So he walked to the village, and caught the ten o'clock omnibus for
Spiaggia. And after he had had his hair cut, he went to the Hotel de
Russie, and lunched in the garden. And after luncheon, of course, he
entered the grounds of the Casino, and strolled backwards and forwards,
one of a merry procession, on the terrace by the lakeside. The gay
toilets of the women, their bright-coloured hats and sunshades, made
the terrace look like a great bank of monstrous moving flowers. The band
played brisk accompaniments to the steady babble of voices, Italian,
English, German. The pure air was shot with alien scents--the women's
perfumery, the men's cigarette-smoke. The marvellous blue waters crisped
in the breeze, and sparkled in the sun; and the smooth snows of Monte
Sfiorito loomed so near, one felt one could almost put out one's stick
and scratch one's name upon them.... And here, as luck would have it,
Peter came face to face with Mrs. O'Donovan Florence.
“How do you do?” said she, offering her hand.
“How do you do?” said he.
“It's a fine day,” said she.
“Very,” said he.
“Shall I make you a confidence?” she asked.
“Do,” he answered.
“Are you sure I can trust you?” She scanned his face dubiously.
“Try it and see,” he urged.
“Well, then, if you must know, I was thirsting to take a table and call
for coffee; but having no man at hand to chaperon me, I dared not.”
“Je vous en prie,” cried Peter, with a gesture of gallantry; and he
led her to one of the round marble tables. “Due caffe,” he said to the
brilliant creature (chains, buckles, ear-rings, of silver filigree,
and head-dress and apron of flame-red silk) who came to learn their
pleasure.
“Softly, softly,” put in Mrs. O'Donovan Florence. “Not a drop of
coffee for me. An orange-sherbet, if you please. Coffee was a figure of
speech--a generic term for light refreshments.”
Peter laughed, and amended his order.
“Do you see those three innocent darlings playing together, under the
eye of their governess, by the Wellingtonia yonder?” enquired the lady.
“The little girl in white and the two boys?” asked Peter.
“Precisely,” said she. “Such as they are, they're me own.”
“Really?” he responded, in the tone of profound and sympathetic interest
we are apt to affect when parents begin about their children.
“I give you my word for it,” she assured him. “But I mention the fact,
not in a spirit of boastfulness, but merely to show you that I 'm not
entirely alone and unprotected. There's an American at our hotel, by the
bye, who goes up and down telling every one who'll listen that it ought
to be Washingtonia, and declaiming with tears in his eyes against the
arrogance of the English in changing Washington to Wellington. As he's
a respectable-looking man with grown-up daughters, I should think very
likely he's right.”
“Very likely,” said Peter. “It's an American tree, is n't it?”
“Whether it is n't or whether it is,” said she, “one thing is
undeniable: you English are the coldest-blooded animals south of the
Arctic Circle.”
“Oh--? Are we?” he doubted.
“You are that,” she affirmed, with sorrowing emphasis.
“Ah, well,” he reflected, “the temperature of our blood does n't matter.
We're, at any rate, notoriously warm-hearted.”
“Are you indeed?” she exclaimed. “If you are, it's a mighty quiet kind
of notoriety, let me tell you, and a mighty cold kind of warmth.”
Peter laughed.
“You're all for prudence and expediency. You're the slaves of your
reason. You're dominated by the head, not by the heart. You're little
better than calculating-machines. Are you ever known, now, for instance,
to risk earth and heaven, and all things between them, on a sudden
unthinking impulse?”
“Not often, I daresay,” he admitted.
“And you sit there as serene as a brazen statue, and own it without a
quaver,” she reproached him.
“Surely,” he urged, “in my character of Englishman, it behooves me to
appear smug and self-satisfied?”
“You're right,” she agreed. “I wonder,” she continued, after a moment's
pause, during which her eyes looked thoughtful, “I wonder whether you
would fall upon and annihilate a person who should venture to offer you
a word of well-meant advice.”
“I should sit as serene as a brazen statue, and receive it without a
quaver,” he promised.
“Well, then,” said she, leaning forward a little, and dropping her
voice, “why don't you take your courage in both hands, and ask her?”
Peter stared.
“Be guided by me--and do it,” she said.
“Do what?” he puzzled.
“Ask her to marry you, of course,” she returned amiably. Then, without
allowing him time to shape an answer, “Touche!” she cried, in triumph.
“I 've brought the tell-tale colour to your cheek. And you a brazen
statue! 'They do not love who do not show their love.' But, in faith,
you show yours to any one who'll be at pains to watch you. Your eyes
betray you as often as ever you look at her. I had n't observed you for
two minutes by the clock, when I knew your secret as well as if you 'd
chosen me for your confessor. But what's holding you back? You
can't expect her to do the proposing. Now curse me for a meddlesome
Irishwoman, if you will--but why don't you throw yourself at her feet,
and ask her, like a man?”
“How can I?” said Peter, abandoning any desire he may have felt to beat
about the bush. Nay, indeed, it is very possible he welcomed, rather
than resented, the Irishwoman's meddling.
“What's to prevent you?” said she.
“Everything,” said he.
“Everything is nothing. That?”
“Dear lady! She is hideously rich, for one thing.”
“Getaway with you!” was the dear lady's warm expostulation. “What
has money to do with the question, if a man's in love? But that's the
English of it--there you are with your cold-blooded calculation. You
chain up your natural impulses as if they were dangerous beasts. Her
money never saved you from succumbing to her enchantments. Why should it
bar you from declaring your passion.”
“There's a sort of tendency in society,” said Peter, “to look upon the
poor man who seeks the hand of a rich woman as a fortunehunter.”
“A fig for the opinion of society,” she cried. “The only opinion you
should consider is the opinion of the woman you adore. I was an heiress
myself; and when Teddy O'Donovan proposed to me, upon my conscience
I believe the sole piece of property he possessed in the world was a
corkscrew. So much for her ducats!”
Peter laughed.
“Men, after coffee, are frequently in the habit of smoking,” said she.
“You have my sanction for a cigarette. It will keep you in countenance.”
“Thank you,” said Peter, and lit his cigarette.
“And surely, it's a countenance you'll need, to be going on like that
about her money. However--if you can find a ray of comfort in the
information--small good will her future husband get of it, even if he is
a fortunehunter: for she gives the bulk of it away in charity, and I 'm
doubtful if she keeps two thousand a year for her own spending.”
“Really?” said Peter; and for a breathing-space it seemed to him that
there was a ray of comfort in the information.
“Yes, you may rate her at two thousand a year,” said Mrs. O'Donovan
Florence. “I suppose you can match that yourself. So the disparity
disappears.”
The ray of comfort had flickered for a second, and gone out.
“There are unfortunately other disparities,” he remarked gloomily.
“Put a name on them,” said she.
“There's her rank.”
His impetuous adviser flung up a hand of scorn.
“Her rank, do you say?” she cried. “To the mischief with her rank.
What's rank to love? A woman is only a woman, whether she calls herself
a duchess or a dairy-maid. A woman with any spirit would marry a bank
manager, if she loved him. A man's a man. You should n't care that for
her rank.”
“That,” was a snap of Mrs. O' Donovan Florence's fingers.
“I suppose you know,” said Peter, “that I am a Protestant.”
“Are you--you poor benighted creature? Well, that's easily remedied. Go
and get yourself baptised directly.”
She waved her hand towards the town, as if to recommend his immediate
procedure in quest of a baptistery.
Peter laughed again.
“I 'm afraid that's more easily said than done.”
“Easy!” she exclaimed. “Why, you've only to stand still and let yourself
be sprinkled. It's the priest who does the work. Don't tell me,” she
added, with persuasive inconsequence, “that you'll allow a little thing
like being in love with a woman to keep you back from professing the
true faith.”
“Ah, if I were convinced that it is true,” he sighed, still laughing.
“What call have you to doubt it? And anyhow, what does it matter whether
you 're convinced or not? I remember, when I was a school-girl, I never
was myself convinced of the theorems of Euclid; but I professed them
gladly, for the sake of the marks they brought; and the eternal verities
of mathematics remained unshaken by my scepticism.”
“Your reasoning is subtle,” laughed Peter. “But the worst of it is, if I
were ten times a Catholic, she wouldn't have me. So what's the use?”
“You never can tell whether a woman will have you or not, until you
offer yourself. And even if she refuses you, is that a ground for
despair? My own husband asked me three times, and three times I said no.
And then he took to writing verses--and I saw there was but one way to
stop him. So we were married. Ask her; ask her again--and again. You can
always resort in the end to versification. And now,” the lady concluded,
rising, “I have spoken, and I leave you to your fate. I'm obliged
to return to the hotel, to hold a bed of justice. It appears that my
innocent darlings, beyond there, innocent as they look, have managed
among them to break the electric light in my sitting-room. They're to be
arraigned before me at three for an instruction criminelle. Put what I
've said in your pipe, and smoke it--'tis a mother's last request. If
I 've not succeeded in determining you, don't pretend, at least, that I
haven't encouraged you a bit. Put what I 've said in your pipe, and see
whether, by vigorous drawing, you can't fan the smouldering fires of
encouragement into a small blaze of determination.”
Peter resumed his stroll backwards and forwards by the lakeside.
Encouragement was all very well; but... “Shall I--shall I not? Shall
I--shall I not? Shall I--shall I not?” The eternal question went
tick-tack, tick-tack, to the rhythm of his march. He glared at vacancy,
and tried hard to make up his mind.
“I'm afraid I must be somewhat lacking in decision of character,” he
said, with pathetic wonder.
Then suddenly he stamped his foot.
“Come! An end to this tergiversation. Do it. Do it,” cried his manlier
soul.
“I will,” he resolved all at once, drawing a deep breath, and clenching
his fists.
He left the Casino, and set forth to walk to Ventirose. He could not
wait for the omnibus, which would not leave till four. He must strike
while his will was hot.
He walked rapidly; in less than an hour he had reached the tall gilded
grille of the park. He stopped for an instant, and looked up the
straight avenue of chestnuts, to the western front of the castle, softly
alight in the afternoon sun. He put his hand upon the pendent bell-pull
of twisted iron, to summon the porter. In another second he would have
rung, he would have been admitted.... And just then one of the little
demons that inhabit the circumambient air, called his attention to an
aspect of the situation which he had not thought of.
“Wait a bit,” it whispered in his ear. “You were there only yesterday.
It can't fail, therefore, to seem extraordinary, your calling again
to-day. You must be prepared with an excuse, an explanation. But
suppose, when you arrive, suppose that (like the lady in the ballad) she
greets you with 'a glance of cold surprise'--what then, my dear? Why,
then, it's obvious, you can't allege the true explanation--can you?
If she greets you with a glance of cold, surprise, you 'll have your
answer, as it were, before the fact you 'll know that there's no manner
of hope for you; and the time for passionate avowals will automatically
defer itself. But then--? How will you justify your visit? What face can
you put on?”
“H'm,” assented Peter, “there's something in that.”
“There's a great deal in that,” said the demon. “You must have an excuse
up your sleeve, a pretext. A true excuse is a fine thing in its way;
but when you come to a serious emergency, an alternative false excuse is
indispensable.”
“H'm,” said Peter.
However, if there are demons in the atmosphere, there are gods in the
machine--(“Paraschkine even goes so far as to maintain that there are
more gods in the machine than have ever been taken from it.”)
While Peter stood still, pondering the demon's really rather cogent
intervention, his eye was caught by something that glittered in the
grass at the roadside.
“The Cardinal's snuff-box,” he exclaimed, picking it up.
The Cardinal had dropped his snuff-box. Here was an excuse, and to
spare. Peter rang the bell.