CHAPTER XIX_The Desire of Life

All the morning, as every day, the bell of the entrance door of

Vittorio Lante's pretty but modest apartments in Via de' Prefetti had

done nothing but ring: and his housekeeper, his only servant, an old

woman of very honest appearance, who had been settled with him by

his mother, had done nothing but announce to her master the visits

of the most diverse and strange people. This pilgrimage of friends,

acquaintances, and strangers had begun directly after Vittorio had

returned from Paris, in fact from Cherbourg, where he had accompanied

his _fiancée_, Mabel Clarke, and his future mother-in-law, Annie

Clarke, whence they had embarked on a colossal transatlantic liner.

Scarcely had the newspapers announced, rather solemnly, the arrival

of the Prince of Santalena, Don Vittorio Lante, who in the spring

would depart for America, where would be celebrated, with marvellous

sumptuousness, his marriage with Miss Mabel Clarke, than those

apartments, usually calm and silent, had been invaded every day by

people of all conditions and kinds. In December Don Vittorio Lante

della Scala, whom everyone now complacently called the Prince of

Santalena, although he had not yet been able to repurchase, shall we

say, the right to bear this title, had gone to Terni to pass the feasts

of Christmas and the New Year with his mother, Donna Maria Lante della

Scala, who lived in great retirement in a few rooms of the majestic

Palazzo Lante, and he did not return until the middle of January.

Again the oddest people, known and unknown, began to overflow the

small but elegant abode of Don Vittorio, and as winter declined to

spring, the people arrived in increasing numbers and besieged Vittorio

at home. They waited for him at the door and went to look for him

in the _parloir_ of his club, where he lunched and dined; they ran

everywhere he was wont to repair. Each morning and evening bundles of

letters arrived for him, some of which were registered and insured to

the value of a thousand and two thousand lire. One day, in fact, he had

a letter with a declared value of five thousand lire. And all, intimate

and ordinary friends, old and new acquaintances, strangers and unknown,

wrote him letters, sent him enclosures, forwarded him documents,

attracted by the immense fortune he was about to possess in marrying

Mabel Clarke with a dowry of fifty millions--and some said a hundred

millions. All desired and wished, all asked from him, with some excuse

or other, with one pretext or another, a little part, a big part, a

huge part of this fortune which was not yet his, but which would be his

within six, four, or two months.

One sought a loan on his return from the honeymoon, a friendly loan,

nothing else, through the ties of old affection, giving no hint as to

the date or manner of repayment; someone asked a serious loan with

splendid guarantees and first mortgages; another wished to sell him

the four horses of his stage-coach; another wished to give up to him

his kennels, another a villa, a castle, a palace, a property, another

wished him to redeem from the Government an island in the Tyrrhennian

Sea to go hunting there; while another wished him to acquire a yacht of

two thousand tons.

Every day to all this were added the visits of vendors of jewels, of

linen, of fashions for men and women, of fine wines and liqueurs,

wanting him to buy from them for fabulous sums, offering all the credit

possible, to be paid for a year after the marriage, so that they might

have the honour of being his purveyors. To their visits and letters

were added those of other strange beings, small and great inventors

who asked much money to relinquish their inventions; discoverers of

wonderful secrets which they would reveal for a consideration; girls

who asked for a dowry to enable them to marry; singers who asked to

be maintained at the Conservatoire for two or three years, the time

that was necessary to become rivals of Caruso; widows with six sons

who wished to lodge three or four with him; people out of employment

who would like to follow him to America when he went to marry; other

unemployed who asked for letters of introduction to John Clarke;

adventurers who compared themselves with him and wanted to know how

he had managed to please a girl with fifty millions; seamstresses

who asked for a sewing-machine; students who wanted him to pay their

university fees. All this was done in fantastic alternation, sometimes

honest, sometimes false, but often grotesque and disgusting; for the

saraband was conducted on a single note--money, which it is true he

had not yet, as nearly everyone knew that he was poor, but that within

six months or less he would have an immense fortune. In fact, some of

the more cynical and shameless believed that he already had money, as

if Mabel Clarke's millions, or million, or half a million, had already

reached him as a present from the future father and mother-in-law,

or from his _fiancée_ herself. Indeed, an old mistress of a month

asked for three thousand francs which she said would be of immediate

use to her and which he could surely give her since he had so much

money from America: in exchange she offered him some love letters

which he had written her, threatening on the other hand to send them

to his _fiancée_ in America. He who had registered his letter to the

value of five thousand lire sent him a copy of a bill of exchange of

his father's, of thirty years ago, a bill which Don Giorgio Lante

had never paid; and, as usual, the correspondent threatened a great

scandal. During the first two months this strange assault at home, at

the club, in the streets, in drawing-rooms, in fact everywhere he went,

this curious assault of avarice and greed interested and amused him. He

was supremely happy in those early days. He had taken leave of Mabel,

certain of her troth; Annie Clarke, the silent idol, had smiled on him

benevolently from the deck of the liner, and he was sure that John

Clarke would give him his daughter. At that time he received gracious

letters--a little brief it is true--from Mabel, and still more often

cablegrams--a form she preferred--of three or four words in English,

always very affectionate: and he replied at once. He was supremely

happy!

The human comedy, the human farce which bustled, not around him, but

around the money he was going to possess, was at bottom somewhat

flattering. He enjoyed all the pleasures of vanity which an

enormously rich man can have, although still poor. His nature was

simple and frank, his heart was loyal. He loved Mabel ardently and

enthusiastically; but the sense of power which he had for a short time

came pleasantly to him. Therefore he was polite to all his morning and

evening aggressors; he refused no one a hearing; he never said no. Only

with a courteous smile he postponed to later any decision, till after

the marriage or the honeymoon. Some sought for a bond or a promise in

writing; amiably and firmly he refused, without allowing him who was so

persistent to lose all hope. Vittorio Lante was never impatient with

all those who asked of him from fifty lire to five hundred thousand,

sometimes smiling and laughing as he kept the most eccentric letters to

laugh at them with Mabel in America, when they should have some moments

of leisure. In these annoyances of wealth there was a hidden pleasure,

of which for some time he felt the impressions keenly.

Then a cablegram of the 3rd of December, from New York, told him that

John Clarke had consented. Intoxicated with joy he telegraphed to

Mabel, to Annie, even to John Clarke, and left at once for Terni, to

announce the glad tidings to his noble and gentle mother. Still soon

some shadows began to spread themselves over his life; light shadows

at first and then darker. Like lightning the news of the betrothal

of the great American millionairess with a young Roman prince had

been spread and printed everywhere in all the European newspapers,

and gradually there had begun witty and slightly pungent comments,

then rather cutting remarks. Whoever sent the French, German, and

English papers to him at Terni, to the Palazzo Lante, which first

congratulated him ironically and afterwards, gradually complicating

the news and redoubling the echoes, treated him as a broken noble of

extinct heraldry, as a dowry-hunter, a seller of titles; whoever sent

these witty, impertinent, often directly libellous papers had marked in

red and blue, with marks of exclamation, the more trenchant remarks.

Implacably, while he was away from Rome, away from every great centre,

in the solitude of his ancient palace--with what sarcasm the ruin of

this palace had been described in the papers and the necessity for

restoring it with Papa Clarke's money!--he received whole packets of

these papers and in his morbid curiosity and offended feelings he

opened all, devouring them with his eyes, and read them through, to

become filled with anger and bitterness.

But if a tender letter from Mabel reached him at Terni, if she replied

with a tender expression to a dispatch of his, his anger calmed and

his bitterness melted. His mother saw him pass from one expression to

another, but she was unwilling to inquire too closely. With a tender

smile and gentle glance she asked him simply:

"Does Mabel still love you?"

"Always, mamma," he replied, trembling with emotion at the recollection

of the beautiful, fresh girl.

But new papers arrived and again his mind was disturbed with anger

and sorrow. He would have liked to reply to them all, with denials,

with violent words, with actions against those people of bad faith,

against the villains who had published the news, who had printed the

articles and paragraphs full of gall: he would have liked to have

picked a quarrel with the paper, cuffed the journalist and fought a

duel with him; he wished to fight a dozen duels, make a noisy scandal,

and then reduce to silence those chroniclers of slander and calumny

by giving true light to the truth of deeds. Then he hesitated and

repented of it. He tore up the letter he had begun and exercised over

himself a pacifying control. Was he right to reply to malignity, lies,

and insinuations? Was it not better to shrug the shoulders, and let

them talk and print, and smile at it all; laugh at the journalists and

despise the journals? Would not Mabel Clarke, if she had been with him,

have thought and decided so, the American girl without prejudices,

free in ideas and sentiments, incapable of allowing herself to be

conquered by conventionality and social hypocrisy? Then he repressed

and controlled himself. But in the depth of his spirit now and then

arose a second reason for silence: with increasing bitterness he told

himself that some and many of the things had the appearance of truth,

and that some of them, moreover, were true. He loved Mabel Clarke

sincerely, but it was undeniable that it was a magnificent match for

whomsoever married her, even if he were rich, and he instead was

absolutely poor. Mabel loved him loyally, but she was the daughter of

an American merchant and he was the heir of a great name, a descendant

of a great family. Love was there, but barter in one way or another had

all the appearance of existing, and did exist. The rest, it is true,

was the malignity, insinuation, and calumny of journalists; but the

barter was undeniable, even sanctioned by ardent sympathy. What was the

use of writing, of lawsuits, of cuffing and provoking duels? It were

better to be silent and pretend to smile and laugh; in fact, in a fury

of pretence to smile and really laugh at all papers and journalists.

On reaching Rome during the first ten days of January he was consoled

by a single thought against such infamies; that Mabel on the other side

might know little or nothing of them. Letters and telegrams continued

to be always very affectionate: the marriage ought to take place in the

middle of April, but John Clarke had been unwilling to fix a precise

date. That exalted his heart and rendered him strong against everything

that was printed about the nuptials: gradually now the papers became

silent. But at home, where his aggressors repaired more than ever, to

ask whatever they could ask from a man immensely rich, even they in the

middle of their discourses, would let slip a phrase or an allusion,

that they had read something and had been scandalised by it: how could

rascals on papers nowadays be allowed to insult such a gentleman as he

was--Don Vittorio Lante, Prince of Santalena as they knew him to be?

At each of these allusions which wounded him, even in the midst of the

adulations and flatteries of his interlocutors, he trembled and his

face became clouded: he noted that everyone knew them and everyone

had read them, that the calumnies had been spread broadcast in every

set. Even at the club, now and then, someone with the most natural

disingenuousness would ask him if he had read such and such a Berlin

paper; someone else, more friendly, would tell him frankly how he had

grieved to read an _entre-filet_ of a Parisian paper. Sometimes he

would smile or jest or shrug his shoulders, and sometimes he showed

his secret anger. His well-balanced, always courteous mood changed;

sometimes he treated petitioners badly and dismissed them brusquely.

Such would leave annoyed, murmuring on the stairs that as a matter of

fact the European papers had not been wrong to treat Don Vittorio Lante

della Scala as a very noble and fashionable adventurer, but still an

adventurer. He passed ten restless days in which only Mabel's letters

and telegrams came to calm him a little.

But he experienced the deepest shock when complete packets of American

papers arrived for him, voluminous, and all marked with red and blue

pencil, since each contained something about his engagement, his

marriage, his nobility, and his family. In long columns of small type

were spread out the most unlikely stories, most offensive in their

falseness; therein were inserted the most vulgar and grotesque things

at his expense, or at the expense of Italy or Italians. It was a

regular avalanche of fantastic information, of extravagant news, of

lying declarations, of interviews invented purposely, of fictitious

correspondence from Rome, and in addition to all this the most brutal

comments on this capture of an American girl and her millions by

another poor European gentleman, in order to carry away the girl and

her money, and make her unhappy, to waste her money on other women as

did all sprigs of European nobility, not only in Italy, but wherever

they had managed to ensnare an American girl. Other marriages between

rich American women and aristocratic but poor Europeans were quoted,

with their often sad lot, conjugal separations, with their divorces,

fortunes squandered in Europe, with their souls alienated from mother

and father, and every American paper concluded that their daughters

were mad and foolish again to attempt an experience which had always

succeeded ill with them; that this miserable vanity of becoming the

wife of an English Duke, a Hungarian magnate, a French marquis or

Italian Prince should be suppressed. They should put it away: American

women should wed American men and not throw away their fresh persons

and abundant money on corrupt and cynical old Europe.

When he had read all this, Vittorio Lante was thoroughly unhappy. The

papers were old, but there were some recent ones; the latest, those

of ten or twelve days previously, breathed an even more poisonous

bitterness. By now he had learned to speak English much better, and

understood it perfectly; none of that perfidy, none of that brutality

escaped him, and all his moral sensibility grieved insupportably,

all his nerves were on edge with spasms, as he thought that Mabel

Clarke, his beloved, his wife to be, had read those infamies from

America, and had absorbed all that poison. He would have liked to

telegraph her a hundred or a thousand words, to swear to her that

they were all nauseating lies; but he repented of it and tore up the

telegram, striving to reassure himself, as he thought that a direct and

independent creature like Mabel Clarke, that a loyal and honest friend

like the American girl would laugh at and despise the horrid things.

But by a mysterious coincidence, which made him secretly throb with

anguish, a week passed by without a letter or note, or a single word

by telegram, reaching him from New York; Vittorio passed a fortnight

of complete silence between anguish and despair. Instead, a very broad

and voluminous letter, under cover and registered, reached him from New

York, containing a long article about his indiscretions, dated from

Rome, in which it was narrated, with the most exaggerated particulars,

how Miss Mabel Clarke's _fiancé_ in Italy had seduced a cousin two or

three years ago, how she had had a son by him, and how he had deserted

her and her little one in a district of Lazio. Vittorio Lante, who in

three weeks of silence had written Mabel Clarke four letters, and

sent three telegrams without obtaining a reply, dying with impatience

and anxiety, and hiding it from people, felt as if a dart were passing

through his heart, from side to side, felt as if all his blood were

ebbing away, and he remained exhausted and bloodless, unable to live or

die.

So that morning at the end of February all those whom Giovanna, the

faithful servant, gradually announced, since her master, pale and

taciturn, consented to receive them with an automatic nod, found a man

who received them with a silent and fleeting smile, with a rare word

as he listened but scarcely replied to them, when they had finished

expounding their ideas and propositions, as if he had understood

nothing, and perhaps had heard nothing of them. For four or five days,

with a great effort of the will, Vittorio kept up appearances, driving

back his anguish to the depths of his heart, knowing that profound

dissimulation is necessary in the world, and that the world must see

little of our joy and none of our sorrow.

That morning there filed before him a traveller for a motor-car

company who wished to make him buy three cars, of forty, sixty, and

eighty horse-power respectively, to be paid for, naturally, after the

marriage, but consignable a month previously with, of course, a fixed

contract; a kind of tatterdemalion, all anointed, who offered him a

Raphael, an authentic Raphael, for two hundred thousand lire, and who

ended by asking for two francs to get something to eat; a gentleman

of high society, who lived by the sale of old pictures, tapestry,

bronzes, and ivories, who took them from the antiquaries and re-sold

them, gaining a little or a big commission, a friend who proposed

increasing the prices, since Mabel Clarke was to pay, and that they

should both divide the difference, proposing to him, in fact, that he

should rob his future wife; a _littérateur_ who came to seek from him

the funds to launch a review in three languages, and who proposed to

insert therein his own articles which Vittorio Lante should sign with

his name; an agent of a bankrupt exchange, known to be unable to go on

'change, who proposed some mining affairs in Africa for John Clarke to

take up, offering him a stiff commission so that he should transfer

these uncertain shares to his father-in-law. And, more or less, in all

demands, proposals, and requests which were made to him that morning,

he perceived the intention to mock and cheat him, but still more he

discovered in many of them the conception that he was a man of greed,

who could for more or less money deceive his wife and father-in-law,

cheat and rob them, like a sponger or society thief. Even more

sorrowfully than at other times, he trembled when he noticed the

expression of lack of esteem in which the people in his presence held

him, people who dared in his own house to propose crooked bargains,

equivocal business, as they offered him his own price!

"Am I, then, dishonoured?" he thought, with a rush of bitterness. The

morning passed and afternoon came: he was alone, and for the third or

fourth time in three or four hours he asked Giovanna if letters or

telegrams had arrived. It was an almost convulsive demand, which he

had repeated constantly for three weeks, the only demand that showed

another human being the state of convulsion in which he found himself.

Nothing came, nor that morning either, except the newspapers, and a

letter from Donna Maria Lante from Terni, which Giovanna had at once

consigned to him. He composed his face, resumed the artless, jolly

expression which had been his worldly mask, went to lunch at the

club, and replied to three or four friends that the marriage would

certainly take place in April. He jested with everyone; he held up his

head before all, but he did not fail to observe that in questions, in

compliments, in congratulations, there was a sense of hesitation, as of

a slight incredulity and a little irony. The old Duke of Althan was

very cold with him; Marco Fiore scarcely greeted him. Hurt and very

nervous, he thought:

"Am I, then, dishonoured?"

He returned home: there were no letters or telegrams. He went out again

to Calori's fencing school, and passed an hour of violent exercise,

in which he allowed to escape whatever was insupportable in his pain;

again he returned home, found nothing there, and went out to leave

cards on two or three foreign ladies, whose acquaintance he had made

the day before at a tea at the English Ambassadress'. He wandered

through Rome, and for the third time, as if it were the way of the

Cross, he repaired home, asked Giovanna from the speaking-tube if there

were anything for him. She replied that there was a telephone message

for him. Disillusioned, more than ever pierced by anxiety, he went

upstairs, took from the landing-place the little card on which Giovanna

had written the telephone message, and read:

"A friend from America expects Don Vittorio Lante at the Grand Hotel at

half-past four to take a cup of tea. Room Number Twenty-seven."

Vittorio trembled from head to foot, like a tree shaken by the wind;

he drew out his watch convulsively. It wanted ten minutes to the

appointment; he hurled himself into a cab, trembling and controlling

himself, not noticing the streets he passed, and biting his lips at

every obstacle his carriage met. On at last reaching the vestibule of

the Grand Hotel, he threw the No. 27 to the porter. Refusing the lift,

bounding up the stairs to the first floor, he knocked at twenty-seven,

while his heart seemed to leap into his throat, suffocating him. From

within the clear, harmonious voice of Mabel Clarke said to him in

English:

"Come in!"

His face changed to a mortal pallor in her presence, as standing in

the middle of the great, bright room, full of flowers, she offered him

her hand; his too intense emotion filled his eyes with tears. He took

the hand and kissed it, while his tears fell on it.

"Oh, dear, dear old boy," murmured Mabel, moved, looking at him

affectionately and smiling.

He held the hand between his own, looked into his _fiancée's_ eyes, and

the cry, so often repressed, was from the depth of his heart:

"Mabel, I swear to you that I am an honest man."

"Do not swear, Vittorio," she replied at once, "I know it."

"Ah, they calumniated me, they defamed me, they dishonoured me. Mabel!"

he exclaimed, falling into an arm-chair, "I swear to you that they are

lies, infamous lies."

"I know," she replied with a softness in her firm, clear voice, "that

they are lies."

"Ah, my consoler, my friend, my delight," he said, with a sigh, taking

her hands, drawing her to him, and embracing her and kissing her on her

forehead, and eyes, and cheeks.

She allowed herself to be embraced and kissed, but with a gracious

movement she freed herself from him, and they sat side by side on one

of the large sofas, beneath a great Musa plant.

"Do you still love me, Mabel?" he asked anxiously.

"I am very fond of you, dear," she replied tranquilly.

"Why have you caused me such suffering, dear, dear Mabel, in not

writing or telegraphing to me?"

"I was travelling to Rome," she explained.

"But when did you start?" he asked, already disquieted.

"Three weeks ago, dear."

"Then you have been elsewhere?" he continued, controlling his agitation

with an effort.

"Yes, elsewhere," she rejoined with a smile, but without further

explanation.

"But why didn't you warn me, dear? Why make me pass terrible days here

alone in Rome, not knowing how to vent my anger and sorrow? Ah, what

days!"

"I left unexpectedly, Vittorio."

"Unexpectedly?"

"I decided to come to Rome in search of you on the spur of the moment.

Mammy is on the other side, only Broughton accompanied me. I am

incognito, dear; no one knows that I am Mabel Clarke. I am called Miss

Broughton."

She laughed shortly. He was still more disturbed, though he did not

wish to show it. Confused and embarrassed, he looked at her, finding

her more blooming than ever in her irresistible youth, in her face

flourishing with beauty and health, in her slender figure dressed in

white. Like a lover he exclaimed:

"Nothing matters now that you are here, Mabel, now that I am beside

you, now that I press your dear hand, where is all my happiness."

She listened to him as formerly, bowing her head with its rebellious

chestnut locks a little, as if the ardent breath of those words were

caressing her face and soul. Then, suddenly, she said simply:

"Shall we have tea, Vittorio?"

"Yes, dear," he replied, enchanted with her. Just as formerly, she

went to a little table where everything was ready to make tea. She

accomplished quickly and gracefully the little operations, while he

watched her, enchanted by that beloved presence, and by her action and

words, which reminded him of, and brought to life again, his dream of

love in the Engadine. Suddenly all Vittorio's ecstasy dissolved; he was

again disturbed by a violent uneasiness.

"Why have you come to Rome, Mabel?" he asked, somewhat authoritatively.

"To learn the truth, Vittorio," she replied firmly, "and to tell it to

you."

"To learn the truth, Mabel? Then you believed the infamies?"

"I did not believe them," she replied, shaking her head seriously.

"Did you believe that my mother was a martyr because of me, dying of

hunger in her palace at Terni, mending silk stockings to let me live?"

he cried, beside himself.

"I did not believe it. I went to Terni two days ago; I saw your mother,

and I embraced her. She's a saint, and you are a good son."

"You went to Terni? Yet you say that you did not believe it, Mabel? How

dare you say so? You also believed that I seduced Livia Lante; did you

not?"

"I did not believe that; but I saw your cousin Livia four days ago

at Velletri. I spoke to her, and she told me everything. You did not

seduce her, and you never promised to marry her; she is sure that you

do not love her."

"Oh, Mabel, Mabel, what shame for me! You went to seek the proofs of my

honesty; what shame for me! You believed me a villain!" Convulsed with

grief, he hid his face in his hands.

She arose; took his hands away from his face, and forced him to look at

her.

"Dear, dear, don't go on so, I beg of you. I believed nothing, but I

wanted to know the truth. As for us in our country, we believe only

with our eyes, so I decided to look for the truth."

"I have never lied to you, Mabel," he added, a little more calmly.

"No, never; you are a brave, loyal old boy."

"You continue, then, after your personal inquiry, Mabel, to esteem and

love me?"

"I continue to esteem and be fond of you."

"You continue to be mine."

"No," she replied clearly; "I do not continue to be yours."

"Do you take back your word?" he cried, amazed.

"It is you who will give me back yours," she said quietly.

"I? I?"

"You, dear. Because you are a man of honour, for no other reason,

because you are a gentleman you will break off of your own accord our

engagement, and we shall not marry."

Mabel spoke simply and firmly, without emotion. Moreover, her face had

a seriousness and a gravity that he had never seen.

"Shall we not marry?" he exclaimed.

"No, Vittorio. We ought not to marry."

"Because of the calumnies and defamations, Mabel?"

"For none of those horrid things, my dear. We ought not to marry

because we should make a mistake."

"A mistake?"

"Yes, a mistake, which later would make us so unhappy, you and I. Now,

we ought not to be unhappy."

"But why? But why?" he asked, very agitatedly.

"Because I am very rich and you are very poor."

"How horrible! How horrible!" he murmured gloomily, despondently.

"_Que faire, mon cher?_" she exclaimed in French, shrugging her

shoulders; "I have this money because father gave it to me, and I can't

throw it away: can I? Money isn't such a bad thing. It isn't my fault

if I have so much of it."

"Neither is it my fault if I am so poor," he rejoined sadly.

"Nor is it mine, dear Vittorio."

"You knew I was poor! I confessed it to you. I hid nothing from you."

"That is true," she declared at once. "I knew that: you told me

loyally. I loved you and esteemed you for your loyalty. Only I made a

mistake."

"You made a mistake?"

"Yes; I made a mistake in believing that a rich woman could marry a

poor man without being very unhappy afterwards. It is a great mistake.

I beg your pardon, Vittorio, for my mistake. You are suffering for it,

and I want you to pardon me."

"Ah, but you don't suffer; it doesn't matter at all to you," he

exclaimed, very bitterly.

"You deceive yourself, Vittorio," she added, with some sweetness. "I

suffer as I know how to, as I can. But it is better to suffer a brief,

great sorrow, than to suffer for the whole of one's life."

"But why should we suffer together, Mabel?"

"Because of the money, dear."

"I never thought of that when I loved you."

"I know that," she replied, taking his hand and pressing it, "but

people don't. You have been seeking for a large dowry for some years;

you wanted to make a great marriage. People in America and Italy will

never believe you to be disinterested."

"But you who know and love me? You should see that I love and adore you

only for yourself?"

"Even love wanes later, and not so very much later," she replied

thoughtfully. "Your Italian love is so ardent and flattering; it sets

very soon. Afterwards ... I should believe people; I should believe

that you had married me for my money."

"_Afterwards!_ I swear to you that there should be no afterwards for

me."

"Swear not. All American women who have married Europeans have been

disillusioned and betrayed."

"Others! Others!"

"They were also gentlemen, dear, who perhaps were in good faith. It is

useless, we are too different; we have other souls and temperaments. We

have no luck with you Europeans, we poor, rich American women."

Obstinately she shook her head; then she resumed slowly.

"Where should we live? A part of the time in my country, in America.

There they would deem you a dowry-hunter; it would be, it will be,

impossible to make them believe the contrary. You would feel yourself

despised. Then the life is so different, in an atmosphere of distrust

the life would seem to you eccentric, grotesque, unbearable; and if I

forced you to stay there you would end by hating me."

"But with us? In this beautiful land?"

"Here _I_ should suffer, dear Vittorio. To all you Italian men and

women I should always be the American woman who had made a bargain, who

had given her dollars and bought a title. Principessa di Santalena!

Donna Mabel Lante della Scala! What a lot of people would laugh on

hearing the name, and would hide their smiles, because I should have

a palace and a park, and would give dinners and garden-parties; but

behind my back, what sneers and criticisms, and evil speaking! At your

first betrayal how all would curse you in my country, how all would say

you were right in yours, and all this because I, poor little woman,

have a dowry of fifty millions, and you fifteen hundred lire a month,

on which your mother must live."

She ceased, as if breathless from having made too long a speech, she

who was accustomed to short, clear phrases, like all her race.

"You never thought of this in the Engadine," he interrupted.

"No, I never thought of it. Up there everything was so beautiful and

simple! Love was so pure and life so easy!"

"Ah, how could you have forgotten that time, Mabel?"

"I haven't forgotten it. Afterwards I saw that nothing is simple,

nothing easy--neither life, nor love, nor happiness--nothing, when

there is this terrible, powerful thing, money."

"What, then, do you want from me? What have you come to seek from me?"

he asked, half angrily and half sadly.

"For you to give me a proof of what you are by your birth, by your

past, by your character; for you to free me from the promise of

engagement, frankly and spontaneously."

"Oh, I couldn't do otherwise," he said, with a pale, ironical smile.

"You could. If you were a vile calculator, if you were a sordid,

interested man you could. You have my word, and my mother's; you have

my father's; you have my letters and my telegrams; you could force me

to marry you."

She looked him in the eyes fixedly. He fixed hers unhesitatingly,

without a tremble, and said to her in a loud voice:

"Miss Mabel Clarke, I release you and your parents from the engagement;

I hold at your disposal your letters and telegrams."

Mabel Clarke grew pale, and then blushed with a rush of blood to her

beautiful face; she offered her hand to Vittorio Lante.

"I knew it, darling! I am very fond of you, and shall always be fond of

you."

Silent, impassive, he had performed his sacrifice in the name of his

honour; but the heroic act had consumed him. There was a long silence

between them.

"I shall start back to-morrow," she said, in a low voice.

"Ah, to-morrow!" he repeated, as if he did not quite understand.

"Will you accompany me to Naples, where I shall embark, dear?" she

asked him affectionately, but with a veil of sadness in her voice.

"I would rather not," he murmured weakly.

"You must be stronger, Vittorio."

"I have been strong," he replied, opening his arms. "You must not ask