Brenda, reaching home after the ball, had asked her parents to hear a
thing she must tell them, and, very pale, informed them of the manner in
which she had taken the direction of her life into her own hands. At the
sight of their faces something had melted within her; she had trusted to
them at last all that was in her heart, so that father and mother,
greatly moved, felt as if they had found their child again rather than
lost her. At the almost incredible spectacle of tears in her father's
eyes Brenda had crept into his arms, against his breast, and lain there
so still, so silent, that it seemed unnatural. They perceived that she
had fainted.
She left for America on the date that had been set, but a term was fixed
for her visit; April was to see her back in Florence.
Her engagement was not announced. Mr. Foss, talking of it with his wife,
expressed liking and respect for their prospective son-in-law. His
confidence in the man had been increased by an action that seemed to him
quite in the American spirit. No doubt Giglioli would prove a good
business man, just as he had been a good soldier, the chief requisites
in all walks of life being a clear head, a heart in its place, and the
will to work.
Mrs. Foss was secretly unhappy during these conversations. The model
wife had never before kept anything from her husband nor taken any step
without his sanction, and she was ashamed now of the duplicity she was
forced to practice. She strengthened herself by the assurance that in so
doing she was really sparing Jerome, saving him possible moments of
indecision, or conflict with himself. She was saving Brenda from the
same troubles, if not worse: such perhaps as seeing her brilliant hero
made into an unsuccessful struggle-for-lifer. She, the mother, would
swallow by her single self all the mental discomforts that might have
been the general portion, and, nobody being any the wiser, shoulder
hardily for their sakes the consciousness of an obligation which might
to the others have poisoned a gift, if not made it impossible to accept.
No member of her family, it seemed to Mrs. Foss, knew quite as well as
she how simple, native, and without self-conceit was Aurora Hawthorne's
generosity; so that taking from her was hardly different, in a sense,
from giving her something. You did not have to pay with gratitude. You
paid, first and last and all the time, with affection.
* * * * *
Gerald, who had seen as beset with difficulty the role of friend which
he might be called upon to play, heard with relief that Giglioli had
obtained leave of absence and gone to see his family. With Brenda over
the seas, and Manlio in the Abruzzi, the subject of their attachment and
future could fall a little into the background, crowded out by the
nearer things.
The fact became of some consequence to Gerald that in his relation to
Mrs. Hawthorne he was so largely a taker. He did not count as any return
for her hospitalities the time he gave to sight-seeing with her and her
friend; he was modest with regard to his own contributions.
He had in truth not desired to fall into Mrs. Hawthorne's debt. He would
have liked best to keep away from her; but fate, likewise character, set
snares for him. After he had stayed away for a certain length of time,
the thought would rise to trouble him, "She will feel hurt," and all
against the voice of good sense, such a reason as that had power with
Gerald. He would then call, and her welcome would be so kind, her
heartiness so warming, that he would stay to dinner, and promise to go
somewhere with them on the following day, after which he would dine with
them again.
So now the gentlemanly wish defined itself in him to show by some token
that he did not take favors all as a matter of course.
He would have liked to make her an offering a little exquisite, a little
rare, which she might recognize as possessing these points and
accordingly prize. To bestow anything concrete would have been folly. A
few possessions he had which he would have thought worthy of the
acceptance of queens: a tear phial of true Roman glass, a Japanese print
or two, a few coins that were old already when Christ was young. And he
would have parted with any one of these treasures to Mrs. Hawthorne,
though not wholly without a pang: first, because he liked her, and then
because he had eaten as it seemed to him a good deal of her bread and
syrup. But she would not have cared for these things; while bereaving
himself, he would have enriched her not at all.
The duty of doing something for Mrs. Hawthorne's pleasure was felt even
by Charlie Hunt, who took her to a concert. When Gerald heard of it, he
searched more persistently and, fate aiding, found something which might
give the lady amusement, he thought, and would certainly afford an
opportunity that would hardly have come her way without his good
offices.
The morning mail brought him a note relating to his project; he did not
wait for afternoon to communicate its contents.
It was eleven when he rang at Mrs. Hawthorne's door. He had hardly
finished asking the servant whether the signora were at home when he
heard her voice upstairs, singing behind closed doors.
She had said so many times, when he went through the formality of having
himself announced and waiting for permission to present himself, "Why
didn't you come right up?" that this morning he said to the servant, "It
imports not to advise her. I shall mount." Did the servant look faintly
ironical, or did Gerald mistakenly imagine it?
The tune she sang sounded familiar. It must be a hymn, he decided, but
could not remember what hymn, or even be sure it was one he had heard
before, hymns are so much alike. He stopped at the sitting-room door and
waited, listening to the big, free, untrained velvet voice, true
throughout the low and medium registers, flat on the upper notes, the
singer having carelessly pitched her hymn too high. He could hear the
lines now, given with a swing that made them curl over at the ends, and
with a punch on certain of the syllables, irrespective of their meaning:
"Feed me _with_--the heavenly manna
In this _barr_--en wilder_ness_;
Be my _shield_, my sword, my banner,
Be the Lord--my righteous_ness_!"
When she came to the words,
"Death of death and hell's destruction,"
a bang and rattling ensued, as if some one were taking a practical hand
in that work. The heavenly ferryman was thereupon besought with vigor to
land her safe on Canaan's side, and the singing ceased.
Gerald stood waiting, if perchance there might be another verse, and
wondered, while waiting, at the sounds he heard in the room, easy to
recognize, but difficult to explain. When it seemed certain that the
music was at an end, he, after hesitating for some minutes longer,
gently tapped.
"Oh, come in!" was shouted from inside. "_Entrez_, will you?
_Avanti!_"
He opened the door a little way, discreetly, and put in his head, ready
to draw it back at once should he see his morning call as befalling
inopportunely.
Aurora was so far from expecting him that for a second or two she
actually did not recognize him, and waited to understand what was wanted
of her. Her head was tied in a white cloth, her sleeves were turned
back, she had on an apron, and she held a broom. The furniture was
pushed together out of the corners, some of it covered with sheets; the
windows were open. No mistake possible. Aurora was sweeping.
A burst of laughter rang; the broom-handle knocked on the floor.
"Yes, I'm sweeping," she cried. "Come right in! You find me practising
one of my accomplishments. I can't play the piano, I can't speak
languages, I can't paint bunches of flowers on black velvet; but I can
sweep, I can cook, I can wash dishes--or babies, one just as well as the
other, and I can nurse the sick."
"I am afraid I have come at an inconvenient moment."
"Not at all. I'm glad to see you. I was most through, anyhow."
She had pulled the cloth off her head, and was patting her hair before
the glass. She turned down her cuffs, untied her apron, and came to
shake hands, smiling as usual.
"You caught me," she said. "When I feel a certain way, I've got to work
off steam, and there's nothing that does it like sweeping."
"I beg of you--I beg of you to let me close those windows for you!"
"All right. I'm awfully hot, but I guess the room's cold. We can have a
fire in a minute. Everything's there to make it."
"I beg you will not trouble! I shall only remain a moment and leave you
to finish."
"No, now, no; don't go and leave me. I was only sweeping to be doing
something. To clean the room wasn't my real object. I took their work
from Zaira and Vitale, who are the ones to do it usually, in a way
that's new to me, with damp sawdust. It's nearly finished, anyhow. All
I've got to do is fold the sheets and push things back into their
places."
"Oh, Mrs. Hawthorne, please, please, allow me--"
He tried to help her, waking to the fact that she was as strong as he,
if not stronger.
The room in a minute looked as usual, and she knelt in front of the
hearth, piling up a kindling of pine-cones and little fagots, on which
she laid a picturesque old root of olive-wood.
"You seem to be alone," he remarked.
"Yes; Estelle's gone out."
He was not sorry to hear it. Miss Madison, whom he entirely liked,
affected him curiously, or, to express the matter more exactly, in a
curious degree failed to affect him at all. Her personality did not bite
on his consciousness. Unless some chance left them on each other's
hands, he had difficulty in remembering her presence. It was not that
she was colorless; not by any means. She obviously had character,
brightness, individuality, even charm; but so far as he was concerned
she might have had none of these. Particularly when her big friend was
by Gerald ceased to see her. He recognized the danger of her negative
effect on him, and often made a point of devoting to her a special
amount of attention, being toward her of an unnatural amiability, trying
thus to keep her ignorant of the extent to which she did not exist for
him. Now he suddenly remembered that from the choice little treat
provided for Mrs. Hawthorne Miss Madison had been left out--forgotten.
He was dismayed. Then a pleasant side to the affair revealed itself by a
dim gleam. He was mortified by his forgetfulness, but the ladies were
after all not Siamese twins.
"You must wonder what brought me at this unusual time of day," he said.
"Any time's good that brings you. But what in particular was it?"
"I wanted to ask you to keep free next Saturday afternoon and, if you
will be so good, spend it in part with me. I should like to take you to
Mrs. Grangeon's."
"Mrs. Grangeon's...?"
"Don't you remember? Antonia! It is Antonia's real name. On the first
evening of our acquaintance you had a good deal to say about her. If I
remember rightly, you expressed then a desire to meet her--see her
face."
"Yes, yes. Antonia, of course."
"She is a figure of importance here in Florence. She is in truth a very
gifted woman--in her way, great, and of wide reputation. And she is
clever, except in just some little spots. Geniuses, one has observed,
are seldom quite free from such spots. She has kept herself very much to
herself now for several years, so that an occasion to see her is grasped
eagerly. This affair of hers on Saturday is the first thing of the kind
in an age. Her villa at Bellosguardo is most interesting and full of
interesting things. And the view from her terrace is worthy of a
pilgrimage. You perceive, Mrs. Hawthorne, that I am doing what I can to
_faire valoir_ the scrap of entertainment I have to offer."
"I think it perfectly lovely of you! Of course I'll go, and delighted
to. And see how it fits in--" She kindled to joyful enthusiasm. "We've
just bought a lot of her books. We realized we'd got to have some books
to make this room look finished off. We bought hers in paper covers and
have had them beautifully bound. Just look here." She went to take a
specimen from the bookcase, a white parchment volume with gold tooling,
a crimson fleur-de-lys painted on the front cover. "Aren't they lovely?
An idea! We'll take some of them up to her and ask her to write her name
in them. Wouldn't that be flattering?"
"Ye ... es."
"I've been trying to read some of it over since these came home from the
binder's. My! Aren't those people of hers wonderful--where you'd think
the ladies never could have a stomache-ache nor the gentlemen a corn!"
"I hope Miss Madison will not think I forgot her," he disingenuously
said, "when in replying to Mrs. Grangeon's invitation I begged
permission to bring you, and that she will do me the honor some day very
soon--"
"Oh, Estelle won't mind!"
The mention of Estelle seemed to change the color of Mrs. Hawthorne's
thoughts, casting a shadow over them.
"Estelle and I had a spat this morning," she told him.
"Oh!"
"That's why I was sweeping and why she's gone for a walk by herself."
"I'm so sorry!" was all he found to say.
"It doesn't amount to anything," she cheered him. "We've had times of
quarreling all our lives, and we've known each other since we were
children. Her aunt and my grandmother had houses side by side in the
country; there was just a fence between our yards. That's how we first
came to be friends. All our lives we've had the way of sometimes saying
what the other doesn't like. And do you know what's always at the bottom
of it? That each one thinks she knows what would be most for the other's
good to do, and we get so mad because the other won't do what we ourself
think would be best for her! Just as some people abuse you because
you're a pig, we as likely as not abuse the other because she isn't a
pig. One of the biggest fights we ever had was because once late at
night, when she was dead tired, tired as a yellow dog, I wanted her to
sit still and let me pack for her, or, anyhow, let me help her pack. And
she said I was as tired as she,--as if that was possible!--and if I
didn't go to bed and get some rest myself and let her alone to get
through her packing as she pleased if it was daylight before she
finished she should have a fit. And from one thing to another we went on
getting madder and madder till we said things you would have thought
made it impossible for us ever to speak to each other again. But the
first thing next morning, when we opened our eyes, we just looked at
each other and began to laugh. Another time we fought like cats and dogs
because I wanted to give her something and she refused to take it."
"I don't call those quarrels, Mrs. Hawthorne."
"You would if you could hear us; you would have if you could have heard
us this morning. And it was only a little one. You see, two people
aren't best friends for nothing. It gives you a sort of freedom; you
aren't a bit afraid. And when you know it's only the other's good you
have at heart, it makes you awfully firm and fast-set in your point of
view. I don't mind telling you that I'm always the one in the wrong."
"Are you?"
"Of course I am. But I like to have my way, even if it's wrong. Hear me
talk! How that does sound! And I was brought up so strict! But it's so.
I want to do as I please. I want to have fun. It began this morning with
Hat saying I spent too much money."
"Did she say that? How unreasonable, how far-fetched!"
"'What's the good of having it,' I said, 'if I can't spend it?'
"'You'd buy anything,' she said, 'that anybody wanted you to buy, if it
was a mangy stuffed monkey. It isn't generosity,' she said; 'it's just
weakness.'
"'Oh, suck an orange!' I said, 'Chew gum! It's anything you choose to
call it. But when a thing takes my fancy, I'm going right on to buy it.
And if it enables a greasy little Italian to buy himself and his
children more garlic,' I said, 'that's not going to stop me,' I said. I
don't mind showing you"--she dropped her selections from the morning's
dialogue--"the thing I bought which started our little discussion. The
artist who made it brought it himself to show me."
She went to take the object referred to from her desk, and held it
before him, examining it at the same time as he did.
"Do you see what it is? Can you tell at once?"
"H-m, I'm not sure. Is it intended for a portrait of Queen Margherita?"
"Right you are! Of course that's what it is. It's a picture of the
queen, done by hand with pen and ink; but that's not all. If you should
take a magnifying glass, you would see that every line is a line of
writing--fine, fine pen-writing, the very finest possible, and if you
begin reading at this pearl of her crown, and just follow through all
the quirligiggles and everything to the end, you will have read the
whole history of Italy in a condensed form! Isn't it wonderful? Don't
you think it extraordinary, a real curiosity? Don't you think I was
right to buy it?"
"My opinion on that point, dear Mrs. Hawthorne, would rather depend on
what you paid for it."
"Oh, would it?" She lost impetus, and gave a moment to reflection.
"Well, I shall never know, then, for I'm not going to tell you. One's
enough blaming me for extravagance."
"My dear Mrs. Hawthorne, pray don't suppose me bold enough to--"
"Oh, you're bold enough, my friend. But while I like my friends to speak
their minds, I've had just enough of it for one day, d' you see? I've
had enough, in fact, to make me sort of homesick."
She looked it, and not as far as could be from tears. The small vexation
of his failure to think her treasure worth anything she might have paid
for it, the intimation that he might join the camp of the enemy in
finding her extravagant, had acted apparently as a last straw.
"Oh, Mrs. Hawthorne, I beg of you not to feel homesick!" he cried,
compunctious and really eager. "It's such a poor compliment to Florence
and to us, you know, us Florentines, who owe you so much for bringing
among us this winter your splendid laughter and good spirits and the
dimples which it does us so much good to see."
"No," she said ruefully, "you can't rub me the right way till I'm
contented here as I was yesterday. Florence is all right, and the
Florentines are mighty polite; but--" She looked at the fire a moment,
while he tried, and failed, to find something effectively soothing to
say. "In the State of Massachusetts there's a sort of spit running into
the sea, and on a sand hill of this there's a little shingled house that
never had a drop of paint outside of it nor of plumbing inside; but
there's an old well at the back, deep as they dig them, with, on the
hottest day, ice-water at the bottom. The yard is pretty well scratched
up by the hens, but there are a few things in it you can't kill
out--some lilacs and some tiger-lilies and a darling, ragged, straggling
old strawberry-bush. Outside the fence, hosts of Bouncing Bets--you know
what they are, don't you? The front door has some nice neat blinds,
always closed, like those of the best room, except for weddings and
funerals; but the back door is open, and when you sit on the step you
can look off down an old slope of apple-orchard and over across it at
the neighbors' roofs and chimneys. And there, Geraldino, is where
Auroretta would like to be."
He had the impulse to reach out and touch the ends of his fingers to her
hand, fondly, as one might do to a child, but he prudently refrained.
His eyes, however, dwelled on her with a smile that conveyed sympathy.
He said, after her, amusedly:
"Auroretta!"
She brightened.
"After I've been bad," she said, "I always am blue."
* * * * *
But within the hour he had come near quarreling with her, he also, and
on more than one score.
It began with his making a pleasant remark upon her voice, which seemed
to him worth cultivating. She brushed aside the idea of devoting study
to the art of singing.
"But," she said, "Italo has brought me some songs. He plays them over
and shows me how to sing them. We have lots of fun." To give him an
example, she broke forth, adapting her peculiarly American pronunciation
to Ceccherelli's peculiarly Italian intonations, "'_Non so resistere,
sei troppo bella!_'"
Gerald winced and darkened.
"Then there's this one," she went on, "'_Mia piccirella, deh, vieni
allo mare!_' Do you want to hear me sing it like Miss Felixson,
together with her dog, which always bursts out howling before she's
done? I've heard them three times, and can do the couple of them to a
T."
"Please don't!" he hurriedly requested. "I hope," he added doubtfully,
"that you won't do it to amuse any of your other friends, either." As
she did not quickly assure him that she neither had done, nor ever would
dream of doing, such a low thing, he went on, with the liberty of speech
that amazingly prevailed between them: "Extraordinary as it seems, you
would be perfectly capable of it. And it would be a grave mistake."
"I've done it for Italo when he was playing my accompaniment. For nobody
else."
"Mrs. Hawthorne, if that little man has become your singing-master, will
you not intrust me with the honorable charge of likewise teaching you
something? No, not painting. I should like to drill you in the
pronunciation of that little man's name. It is Ceccherelli.
Cec-che-rel-li. _Cec-che-rel-li._"
She shook her head.
"No use. I've got accustomed to the other now."
He felt a spark dropped among the recesses where his inflammable temper
was kept.
"Before you know it the fellow will be calling you Aurora!" he said,
repressing the outburst of his wrath at this possibility.
"He does, my friend," she answered him quietly. "He can't say Hawthorne.
Do you hear him saying Hawthorne? He calls me Signora Aurora."
"Then why not call him Signor Italo?"
"At this time of day? It would be too formal. He would wonder what he'd
done to offend me."
Gerald was reminded that since Christmas Ceccherelli had been wearing,
instead of his silver turnip, a fine gold watch, her overt gift and his
frank boast, which he conspicuously extracted from its chamois-skin case
every time he needed to know the hour.
"Mrs. Hawthorne," said Gerald, "you have repeatedly said that you have
what you call lots of fun with Ceccherelli. Would you mind giving me an
idea of what the fun consists in? I wish to have light--that I may do
the man justice. Left to myself, I should judge him to be the dullest,
commonest, cheapest of inexpressibly vulgar, insignificant, pretentious,
ugly, and probably dishonest, little men." The adjectives came rolling
out irrepressibly.
"Perhaps he is," Aurora said serenely; "but haven't you noticed,
Stickly-prickly, that about some things you and I don't feel alike?
Italo plays the piano in a way that perfectly delights me, he's
good-hearted, and he makes me laugh. Isn't that enough?"
"In short, you like him. You like so many people, Mrs. Hawthorne, and of
such various kinds, that though one is bound to be glad to be among your
friends, one needn't--need one?--feel exactly flattered."
She seemed to consider this, but instead of taking it up, went on with
the subject of Italo.
"He entertains me. He knows all about everybody in Florence and tells
me."
"He gossips, you mean."
Again she considered a moment before going on.
"Funny, when I don't know the people, or just know them by sight, and
they and the life are all so foreign and apart from me, gossip about
them doesn't seem the same as gossip at home. It's more like Antonia's
novels, condensed and told in the queerest English! It was some time
before I could make out what he meant when he said two gentlemen had
fought a duel because one of them had found the other nasconding in his
garden-house. The one thus found obstinated himself, says Italo, to
maintain that he had come to make a copy of the architectural design
over the door. But as he didn't seem to have any pencil--"
"Mrs. Hawthorne, how can you be amused by such disgusting stuff?"
She gazed at him inquiringly, with very blue eyes and a look of
innocence, real or put on, then laughed.
"I am, just. I can't tell you the how of it. Do you know Italo's sister
Clotilde?"
"I have not that advantage, no."
"You soon will have, if you care for it, for she's coming to live with
us."
He stared.
"Yes, she's coming to keep house. She speaks English quite well, because
she's had so much to do with English and Americans, being a teacher of
Italian and French. It began with Italo wanting us to take lessons of
her. But, bless you, I don't want to study! I can pick up all I need
without. We said, however, 'Bring her to see us.' And he did. She's real
nice."
"Does she resemble her brother?"
"In some ways. I've an idea, though, that you'd like her better than you
seem to do him. I believe we shall be very well satisfied with her, and
shall save money. Since we seem to have got on to the subject of money
to-day: Luigi, the butler, who has everything under him now, Estelle
says is a caution to snakes, the way he robs us. Now, we're easy-going
and, I dare say, fools; but not darn, darn fools. It's a mistake to
think we wouldn't see a thing big's a mountain, and that you could cheat
us the way that handsome, fine-mannered, dignified villain Loo-ee-gy
thinks he can. So we're going to put in his place a nice woman who is,
in part, our friend, and will care to see that we're dealt fairly with.
Clotilde doesn't seem to mind giving up her lessons to come and be a
sort of elegant housekeeper for us."
"I understand."
"Charlie Hunt is disgusted about it, because when we complained of Luigi
before him, he said he would find us exactly the right person to take
his place. But, you see, we didn't wait. I don't see that we were bound
to. What do you think?"
"It is a case, dear Mrs. Hawthorne, where I must not allow myself to say
what I think."
"Personally, I must say I was rather glad to have Clotilde step in as
she did, because I don't mind telling you--you won't tell anybody
else?--I find just the least little bit of a disposition in that young
man Charlie to run things in this house. D'you know what I mean? I
suppose it's the way he's made. He has been awfully kind, and helped a
lot in all sorts of ways, and I like him ever so much; but I was glad to
check him just a little, and put who I pleased over my own servants, and
then go on just as good friends with him as ever."
"Mrs. Hawthorne, why don't you make Mrs. Foss your adviser in all such
matters? She is so kind always and of such good counsel. It would be so
much the safest thing."
"Of course; but it was she who found Luigi for us, you see. She can't
always know. As far as Charlie Hunt is concerned, I don't want you to
think that we think any less of him than before. He's good and kind as
can be, and does ever so many nice things for us. We were at his
apartment the other day, where he had a tea-party expressly for us, with
his cousins there, and Mr. Landini and two or three others. And then
when he heard me say I like dogs he promised to give me a dog, one of
those lovely clown dogs,--poodles,--with their hair cut in a fancy
pattern, when he can lay his hand on a real beauty."
"Mrs. Hawthorne"--Gerald almost lifted himself off his seat with the
emphasis of his cry,--"Don't let him give you a dog!"
She looked at him in amazement.
"Why, what's wrong?"
"Don't! don't! Can't you see that you must not let him give you a dog?"
"No, I can't. Why on earth?"
"After what you said a few minutes ago," he stammered, feeling blindly
for reasons, "which shows that you have something to complain of in his
conduct toward you, you ought not to allow him to give you a dog. A
dog--you don't understand, and I can't make you. It will be too awful!"
"You surely are the queerest man I have ever known," she said sincerely.
To which he did not reply.
He restrained himself from blurting out that Charlie Hunt, for such and
such reasons, could never deserve the extreme privilege of giving her a
dog. Leslie had once casually spoken the true word about Charlie.
"Charlie has no real inside," she had said, and continued, nevertheless,
to like him well enough. He was young, handsome, in his way attractive.
Most people liked him to just that extent--well enough; few went beyond,
unless early in the acquaintance. He so systematically did what would be
most useful to himself that it was difficult to preserve illusions about
his powers of devotion or unselfishness. He had lived as one of the
family with his aunt and cousins till he found himself desiring an
increase of personal liberty; then an occasion presenting itself to make
a really good arrangement with an Italian family of decent middle class
with their best rooms to let, he had set up bachelor quarters, and
ceasing to be an inmate of his aunt's house, retained unusually little
sense of tie with it.
"Charlie might be nicer about going to places with us," Francesca openly
grumbled, "seeing he's the nearest we've got to a brother."
All this was formlessly in Gerald's mind--this and much more--when his
spirit groaned that Charlie should be giving Aurora a dog.
Mrs. Hawthorne was looking at him, trying to make him out. She could
not. One thing, however, was plain, and it being so plain simplified
all. He felt actual pain because Charlie Hunt was going to give her a
dog. The wherefore it was vain to seek. But she had no desire to give
pain of any kind, even by way of teasing him, to this funnily sensitive
fellow whose shoulders looked so sharp under his coat.
"All right," she said. "If he says anything more about it, I'll tell him
I've changed my mind and don't want a dog. Are you satisfied? And then
if you won't tell me what the objection is to my having one, I shall
have to sit down and try to guess."
Gerald, upon obtaining so easily what he had wanted apparently to the
point of tragedy, looked sheepish, ashamed of himself. His thanks were
given in a slowly returning smile.
"I shouldn't think it would be so difficult," he said.
Antonia had been very friendly to Gerald at the period of their first
acquaintance. She had cared for his painting, specimens of which had
come to her notice through Amabel Van Zandt, and distinguished the at
that time very young artist to the extent of inviting him to her villa,
showing interest in his talent and future, making him talk. From one
year to the next, other things had taken up her mind to his exclusion.
He had continued, however, to pay his respects, if she were at home, at
least once in the season, and retained gratitude toward her, along with
the presumption that he could never be to her the same exactly as the
first-come outsider. He remembered At Homes of hers attended in the old
days, and saw every reason why Mrs. Hawthorne should enjoy one of these,
none why it should not enjoy her. On the contrary. Making full allowance
for the fact that he had grown accustomed to her manner and mode, Mrs.
Hawthorne had yet seemed to him lately of a circumspection not to be
surpassed. When alone with him and Estelle, she was one person; when in
company, she was another, not a little like Mrs. Foss, retaining enough
of her own irrepressible self to seem just acceptably original. Antonia,
the novelist, declared a fondness for people out of the ordinary, the
conventional. Gerald thought the American might interest her. But if she
did not, little depends, at a reception, upon the hostess being charmed
with individual guests; he still believed that Aurora would have a good
time--he meant to ensure her doing this.
Aurora had, as she described it, dressed herself to kill, and was
looking, Estelle told her, perfectly stunning. She had on velvets and
furs, pearls and plumes. She had wished at one and the same time to make
Gerald Fane proud of her and do honor to Antonia's party. Concealed in
her muff was a white parchment volume--muffs were small in those days. A
similar volume had been stuffed into each of Gerald's overcoat pockets.
Gerald, as has been said, remembered At Homes of Antonia's, and had in
mind an image of what he might expect to see.
He perceived at once that to-day all was different. This was immensely
choice, the most so afforded by Florence. That he had been invited
showed Antonia's estimate of him still as a person of artistic
significance; also, he modestly decided, the difficulty one had to make
up an assemblage solely of notabilities. Her permission to bring a
friend showed flattering faith in his taste.
Persons were there whom one but seldom saw anywhere; the persons whom
one saw everywhere were conspicuously absent. Among a majority of
English, there was a sprinkling of Italian nobility, mostly older
people. Antonia had lived for many years in Florence. There was a very
able historian, allied to the English through his wife; there was an old
General of the wars of liberation; there was a Church dignitary of
infinite elegance and high rank: all serious people who did not go to
teas, and whose coming to this one was a compliment to Antonia. The
exceptional woman's right to the like homage was established; her
celebration of Italy was by Italy, in the persons of such sons of hers
as got an inkling of their debt, gracefully acknowledged.
Gerald, entering the large drawing-room with Aurora, at first wondered,
then understood. The interesting Princess Rostopchine, on a visit to
Florence, was present--woman of accomplishments in every
branch--painter, sculptress, musician, author; a beauty into the
bargain, and lady-in-waiting for many years to a queen.
She was no longer in the freshness of youth; her beauty had been left a
little bony, a little fatigued and bloodless; her eyelids drooped over
the brilliant intelligence of her eyes. The poetry of her looks was
increased by her costume. In wise disdain of the fashion, she went robed
rather than dressed; her things clung and trailed and undulated; they
were gray as cobwebs, dim as pressed orchids. She was as fascinating as
at any time in her life--perhaps more so, because she cared to be.
Antonia, who had made her acquaintance at Aix-les-bains, was under her
spell. The reception was given to honor her, rather than to enable
Antonia, as Gerald had at first supposed, to see her friends again after
several years of absence and neglect.
A niece of Antonia's received, and invited guests to be refreshed with
tea, while Antonia and the Princess sat side by side, and now talked
together, now with others, who of themselves approached, or whom Antonia
invited to join them. The conversation was part of the time in French,
which Antonia spoke fluently, but for the greater part in English, which
the princess spoke well, as Russians speak every language.
Gerald was watching for the favorable moment to present Aurora; they
therefore stood within earshot. While he talked to keep her diverted, he
was aware that his companion less than half listened to him, absorbed in
Antonia and the princess.
A princess and a famous writer! Aurora had never set eyes on a princess
before, nor, to her knowledge, on an author. They hypnotized her, those
two. Their conversation was far beyond Leslie's, she did not understand
any of it, though every syllable reached her ear. The marked Englishness
of Antonia's speech caused an almost necessity in Aurora to say the
words after her, echoing their peculiarity. Her lips unconsciously
moved.
Aurora's eyes were busy as well as her ears. Antonia was clad in a
tea-gown--Aurora thought it was a wrapper. The tea-gown had long lain in
a chest, while Antonia was on her travels, and the great woman's eyes,
fixed on more important things, had not perceived when it was taken out
for her wear to-day that it was crushed and rumpled. Aurora believed it
had been recovered from the ash-can, and her breast was filled with awe.
It was with unqualified and childlike admiration that she gazed at the
two women whose soaring superiority she unenviously felt.
As it seemed unbefitting as yet to interrupt their conversation, Gerald
looked around him in search of acquaintances whom to present to Aurora
while waiting.
Balm de Breze first met his eye--the vicomte was Antonia's landlord--but
Gerald discriminated against him. He next spied Hamilton Spencer and
Carlo Guerra, both genial fellows, left Aurora's side for an instant and
brought them up.
Aurora called back her attention and gave it to them. A certain success
of smiles and bright eyes she was almost sure to have, with men. Gerald
went off to get her some tea, took it to her, and finding her in the
midst of a sufficiently lively time with her new acquaintances, returned
to Antonia's niece at the tea-table for a chat and cup of tea. While
hearing the news from this unassuming elderly girl, he could keep an eye
on Mrs. Hawthorne at a distance, and catch any facial signal for help.
Aurora was drinking her tea, holding her cup like a real lady, with her
little finger delicately curled back. Aurora's figure stood out from
among those surrounding her like a thing of a different make, an earthen
jar among glass vases, a Swede among Japanese.
Aurora was out of place, it could not be blinked; and that she was so
visible, in her able-bodied comeliness, her supremacy of dimples, her
extremely good corset, increased the offense. So did also the native
assurance of her eye--which had something at all times of a jovial
sea-captain, with his foot on his own deck.
Gerald looked from her to Antonia, slightly uneasy. Antonia's face had
characteristics of a man's, but along with them indications above all
feminine. Power and caprice in the great woman went linked. He saw her
while listening to the princess turn her head toward the quarter of the
room tinctured by Aurora's unmodified presence, as if taking account of
the voice and accent of the stranger in her house.
This seemed to him his opportunity, and excusing himself from Miss
Grangeon, he started toward Aurora.
"There are more ways than one of skinning a cat!" came floating to him
in Aurora's deep-piled voice, borne on her frank laugh, as he
approached.
He found her having a very good time, but ready to call an end to it and
go to be presented.
"I'm awfully nervous!" she whispered to Gerald, but that was a manner of
speech. Aurora's nerves were author-proof. She meant that she was
impressed by the greatness of the moment. She picked up her three books
from the table near by, held them with her left arm so that her right
hand might be free to clasp Antonia's, and, smiling as a basket of
chips--thus did she later describe herself--advanced toward the crowning
honor of the day.
Antonia saw her coming and narrowed her eyes the better to see.
Antonia's face, at no time in her life soft, was as much like granite at
this moment as it had the moment before been like old white soap; her
eyes, fixed on the approaching pair, turned stonily unseeing.
Gerald bravely went through with the introduction, and tried to warm the
atmosphere with winged words. Aurora's hand was all ready to shake.
Antonia's hand did not go forth to meet it, but Aurora, elate and
overflowing, was not put off by this.
"I can never tell you"--she gushed, "how pleased I am to meet you--how
honored I feel. Nor can I ever tell you how perfectly wonderful I think
your books. Perfectly wonderful.... Perfectly wond ... Perf ... See what
I've brought. These three that I'm going to leave for you to write in,
if you'll be so very kind. It would increase their value for me I never
can tell you how much."
"My dear Madam," said Antonia, "I never inscribe a book that I have not
myself presented. I am not acquainted with the phrase in which it is
done. The value of my autograph will be enormously increased hereafter
for collectors by the fact that when I receive requests for it I drop
them into the waste-basket. Yes, I merely keep the stamps."
"Oh!"
"Yes."
"Oh!" more faintly.
"Yes!" more firmly.
Turning her back to Aurora, Antonia once more addressed Princess
Rostopchine. "Vera Sergeievna, you were saying...."
The only sign Aurora gave of being flabbergasted was forgetting the
books she held. They slid with noise to the floor. As Gerald picked them
up, "Did I ever tell you"--she asked him chattily, and leisurely moved
on,--"about the time I stood on the sidewalk to see the procession go
by, in Boston, when we commemorated Bunker Hill?" And she went on with a
favorite reminiscence: how she had held on to her inch of standing-room,
in spite of a fat and puffing man, a gimlet-elbowed woman, and a
policeman.
* * * * *
When they were in her coupe, smartly bowling toward town, silence fell.
Gerald's brow was black, his eyes were steely.
"Mrs. Hawthorne," he jerked out, "I am not going to express myself on
the experiences of this afternoon. Words could not do them justice, and
I am not cool enough to trust myself. But I wish to apologize to you
most humbly for my egregious, my imbecile mistake."
"Don't you care, Geraldino! Don't you care one bit! Bless your dear
heart, I'm not touchy!" Aurora said cheerily, and, not resisting as he
had recently done the impulse to comfort his friend by a caressing
touch, gave his hand as tight a squeeze as her snug new glove permitted.
"Nasty old thing! What does it matter? But"--her eyes rounded at the
amazed recollection,--"that I should have lived, I--me--my size--to feel
like a fly-speck on the wall! It did beat everything! Yours truly, F. S.
W.! Fly Speck on the Wall!"
She was lost for a moment in the consideration of herself reduced to a
negligible dot, and Gerald, too angry to talk, thought hydrophobia
thoughts in silence. In these he was disturbed by the sound of her
trying in a murmur to speak like Antonia, and hitting off the
Englishwoman's pronunciation rather successfully.
"Deah Madam! I nevah, nevah inscrrribe a book.... I drap them into the
baaahsket. Yesss. I marely keep the stamps."