The hour was six o'clock, and the rooms of the Embassy were as full as
they were likely to be that day. There would doubtless have been more
people had the weather been fine; but it was raining heavily, and below,
in the vast court that formed the centre of the palace, the lamps of
fifty carriages gleamed through the water and the darkness, and the
coachmen, of all dimensions and characters, sat beneath their huge
umbrellas and growled to each other, envying the lot of the footmen who
were congregated in the ante-chamber up-stairs around the great bronze
braziers. But in the reception-rooms there was much light and warmth;
there were bright fires and softly shaded lamps; velvet-footed servants
stealing softly among the guests, with immense burdens of tea and cake;
men of more or less celebrity chatting about politics in corners; women
of more or less beauty gossiping over their tea, or flirting, or wishing
they had somebody to flirt with; people of many nations and ideas, with
a goodly leaven of Romans. They all seemed endeavouring to get away from
the men and women of their own nationality, in order to amuse themselves
with the difficulties of conversation in languages not their own. Whether
they amused themselves or not is of small importance; but as they were
all willing to find themselves together twice a-day for the five months
of the Roman season--from the first improvised dance before Christmas,
to the last set ball in the warm April weather after Easter--it may be
argued that they did not dislike each other's society. In case the
afternoon should seem dull, his Excellency had engaged the services of
Signor Strillone, the singer. From time to time he struck a few chords
upon the grand piano, and gave forth a song of his own composition in
loud and passionate tones, varied with, very sudden effects of extreme
pianissimo, which occasionally surprised some one who was trying to make
his conversation heard above the music.
There was a little knot of people standing about the door of the great
drawing-room. Some of them were watching their opportunity to slip away
unperceived; others had just arrived, and were making a survey of the
scene to ascertain the exact position of their Excellencies, and of the
persons they most desired to avoid, before coming forward. Suddenly, just
as Signor Strillone had reached a high note and was preparing to bellow
upon it before letting his voice die away to a pathetic falsetto, the
crowd at the door parted a little. A lady entered the room alone, and
stood out before the rest, pausing till the singer should have passed the
climax of his song, before she proceeded upon her way. She was a very
striking woman; every one knew who she was, every one looked towards her,
and the little murmur that went round the room was due to her entrance
rather than to Signor Strillone's high note.
The Duchessa d'Astrardente stood still, and quietly looked about her. A
minister, two secretaries, and three or four princes sprang towards her,
each with a chair in hand; but she declined each offer, nodding to one,
thanking another by name, and exchanging a few words with a third. She
would not sit down; she had not yet spoken to the ambassadress.
Two men followed her closely as she crossed the room when the song was
finished. One was a fair man of five-and-thirty, rather stout, and
elaborately dressed. He trod softly and carried his hat behind him, while
he leaned a little forward in his walk. There was something unpleasant
about his face, caused perhaps by his pale complexion and almost
colourless moustache; his blue eyes were small and near together, and had
a watery, undecided look; his thin fair hair was parted in the middle
over his low forehead; there was a scornful look about his mouth, though
half concealed by the moustache; and his chin retreated rather abruptly
from his lower lip. On the other hand, he was dressed with extreme care,
and his manner showed no small confidence in himself as he pushed
forwards, keeping as close as he could to the Duchessa. He had the air
of being thoroughly at home in his surroundings.
Ugo del Ferice was indeed rarely disconcerted, and his self-reliance was
most probably one chief cause of his success. He was a man who performed
the daily miracle of creating everything for himself out of nothing. His
father had barely been considered a member of the lower nobility,
although he always called himself "dei conti del Ferice"--of the family
of the counts of his name; but where or when the Conti del Ferice had
lived, was a question he never was able to answer satisfactorily. He had
made a little money, and had squandered most of it before he died,
leaving the small remainder to his only son, who had spent every scudo of
it in the first year. But to make up for the exiguity of his financial
resources, Ugo had from his youth obtained social success. He had begun
life by boldly calling himself "Il conte del Ferice." No one had ever
thought it worth while to dispute him the title; and as he had hitherto
not succeeded in conferring it upon any dowered damsel, the question of
his countship was left unchallenged. He had made many acquaintances in
the college where he had been educated; for his father had paid for
his schooling in the Collegio dei Nobili, and that in itself was a
passport--for as the lad grew to the young man, he zealously cultivated
the society of his old school-fellows, and by wisely avoiding all other
company, acquired a right to be considered one of themselves. He was very
civil and obliging in his youth, and had in that way acquired a certain
reputation for being indispensable, which had stood him in good stead.
No one asked whether he had paid his tailor's bill; or whether upon
certain conditions, his tailor supplied him with raiment gratis. He was
always elaborately dressed, he was always ready to take a hand at cards,
and he was always invited to every party in the season. He had cultivated
with success the science of amusing, and people asked him to dinner in
the winter, and to their country houses in the summer. He had been seen
in Paris, and was often seen at Monte Carlo; but his real home and
hunting-ground was Rome, where he knew every one and every one knew him.
He had made one or two fruitless attempts to marry young women of
American extraction and large fortune; he had not succeeded in satisfying
the paternal mind in regard to guarantees, and had consequently been
worsted in his endeavours. Last summer, however, it appeared that he had
been favoured with an increase of fortune. He gave out that an old uncle
of his, who had settled in the south of Italy, had died, leaving him a
modest competence; and while assuming a narrow band of _crêpe_ upon his
hat, he had adopted also a somewhat more luxurious mode of living.
Instead of going about on foot or in cabs, he kept a very small coupé,
with a very small horse and a diminutive coachman: the whole turn-out was
very quiet in appearance, but very serviceable withal. Ugo sometimes wore
too much jewellery; but his bad taste, if so it could be called, did not
extend to the modest equipage. People accepted the story of the deceased
uncle, and congratulated Ugo, whose pale face assumed on such occasions
a somewhat deprecating smile. "A few scudi," he would answer--"a very
small competence; but what would you have? I need so little--it is enough
for me." Nevertheless people who knew him well warned him that he was
growing stout.
The other man who followed the Duchessa d'Astrardente across the
drawing-room was of a different type. Don Giovanni Saracinesca was
neither very tall nor remarkably handsome, though in the matter of his
beauty opinion varied greatly. He was very dark--almost as dark for a
man as the Duchessa was for a woman. He was strongly built, but very
lean, and his features stood out in bold and sharp relief from the
setting of his short black hair and pointed beard. His nose was perhaps a
little large for his face, and the unusual brilliancy of his eyes gave
him an expression of restless energy; there was something noble in the
shaping of his high square forehead and in the turn of his sinewy throat.
His hands were broad and brown, but nervous and well knit, with straight
long fingers and squarely cut nails. Many women said Don Giovanni was
the handsomest man in Rome; others said he was too dark or too thin, and
that his face was hard and his features ugly. There was a great
difference of opinion in regard to his appearance. Don Giovanni was not
married, but there were few marriageable women in Rome who would not have
been overjoyed to become his wife. But hitherto he had hesitated--or, to
speak more accurately, he had not hesitated at all in his celibacy. His
conduct in refusing to marry had elicited much criticism, little of which
had reached his ears. He cared not much for what his friends said to him,
and not at all for the opinion of the world at large, in consequence of
which state of mind people often said he was selfish--a view taken
extensively by elderly princesses with unmarried daughters, and even by
Don Giovanni's father and only near relation, the old Prince Saracinesca,
who earnestly desired to see his name perpetuated. Indeed Giovanni would
have made a good husband, for he was honest and constant by nature,
courteous by disposition, and considerate by habit and experience. His
reputation for wildness rested rather upon his taste for dangerous
amusements than upon such scandalous adventures as made up the lives of
many of his contemporaries. But to all matrimonial proposals he answered
that he was barely thirty years of age, that he had plenty of time before
him, that he had not yet seen the woman whom he would be willing to
marry, and that he intended to please himself.
The Duchessa d'Astrardente made her speech to her hostess and passed on,
still followed by the two men; but they now approached her, one on each
side, and endeavoured to engage her attention. Apparently she intended to
be impartial, for she sat down in the middle one of three chairs, and
motioned to her two companions to seat themselves also, which they
immediately did, whereby they became for the moment the two most
important men in the room.
Corona d'Astrardente was a very dark woman. In all the Southern land
there were no eyes so black as hers, no cheeks of such a warm dark-olive
tint, no tresses of such raven hue. But if she was not fair, she was very
beautiful; there was a delicacy in her regular features that artists said
was matchless; her mouth, not small, but generous and nobly cut, showed
perhaps more strength, more even determination, than most men like to see
in women's faces; but in the exquisitely moulded nostrils there lurked
much sensitiveness and the expression of much courage; and the level brow
and straight-cut nose were in their clearness as an earnest of the noble
thoughts that were within, and that so often spoke from the depths of her
splendid eyes. She was not a scornful beauty, though her face could
express scorn well enough. Where another woman would have shown disdain,
she needed but to look grave, and her silence did the rest. She wielded
magnificent weapons, and wielded them nobly, as she did all things. She
needed all her strength, too, for her position from the first was not
easy. She had few troubles, but they were great ones, and she bore
them bravely.
One may well ask why Corona del Carmine had married the old man who was
her husband--the broken-down and worn-out dandy of sixty, whose career
was so well known, and whose doings had been as scandalous as his ancient
name was famous in the history of his country. Her marriage was in itself
almost a tragedy. It matters little to know how it came about; she
accepted Astrardente with his dukedom, his great wealth, and his evil
past, on the day when she left the convent where she had been educated;
she did it to save her father from ruin, almost from starvation; she
was seventeen, years of age; she was told that the world was bad, and
she resolved to begin her life by a heroic sacrifice; she took the
step heroically, and no human being had ever heard her complain. Five
years had elapsed since then, and her father--for whom she had given all
she had, herself, her beauty, her brave heart, and her hopes of
happiness--her old father, whom she so loved, was dead, the last of his
race, saving only this beautiful but childless daughter. What she
suffered now--whether she suffered at all--no man knew. There had been a
wild burst of enthusiasm when she appeared first in society, a universal
cry that it was a sin and a shame. But the cynics who had said she would
console herself had been obliged to own their worldly wisdom at fault;
the men of all sorts who had lost their hearts to her were ignominiously
driven in course of time to find them again elsewhere. Amid all the
excitement of the first two years of her life in the world, Corona had
moved calmly upon her way, wrapped in the perfect dignity of her
character; and the old Duca d'Astrardente had smiled and played with the
curled locks of his wonderful wig, and had told every one that his wife
was the one woman in the universe who was above suspicion. People had
laughed incredulously at first; but as time wore on they held their
peace, tacitly acknowledging that the aged fop was right as usual, but
swearing in their hearts that it was the shame of shames to see the
noblest woman in their midst tied to such a wretched remnant of
dissipated humanity as the Duca d'Astrardente. Corona went everywhere,
like other people; she received in her own house a vast number of
acquaintances; there were a few friends who came and went much as they
pleased, and some of them were young; but there was never a breath of
scandal breathed about the Duchessa. She was indeed above suspicion.
She sat now between two men who were evidently anxious to please her. The
position was not new; she was, as usual, to talk to both, and yet to show
no preference for either. And yet she had a preference, and in her heart
she knew it was a strong one. It was by no means indifferent to her which
of those two men left her side and which remained. She was above
suspicion--yes, above the suspicion of any human being besides herself,
as she had been for five long years. She knew that had her husband
entered the room and passed that way, he would have nodded to Giovanni
Saracinesca as carelessly as though Giovanni had been his wife's
brother--as carelessly as he would have noticed Ugo del Ferice upon her
other side. But in her own heart she knew that there was but one face in
all Rome she loved to see, but one voice she loved, and dreaded too, for
it had the power to make her life seem unreal, till she wondered how long
it would last, and whether there would ever be any change. The difference
between Giovanni and other men had always been apparent. Others would sit
beside her and make conversation, and then occasionally would make
speeches she did not care to hear, would talk to her of love--some
praising it as the only thing worth living for, some with affected
cynicism scoffing at it as the greatest of unrealities, contradicting
themselves a moment later in some passionate declaration to herself. When
they were foolish, she laughed at them; when they went too far, she
quietly rose and left them. Such experiences had grown rare of late, for
she had earned the reputation of being cold and unmoved, and that
protected her. But Giovanni had never talked like the rest of them. He
never mentioned the old, worn subjects that the others harped upon. She
would not have found it easy to say what he talked about, for he talked
indifferently about many subjects. She was not sure whether he spent more
time with her when in society than with other women; she reflected that
he was not so brilliant as many men she knew, not so talkative as the
majority of men she met; she knew only--and it was the thing she most
bitterly reproached herself with--that she preferred his face above all
other faces, and his voice beyond all voices. It never entered her head
to think that she loved him; it was bad enough in her simple creed that
there should be any man whom she would rather see than not, and whom she
missed when he did not approach her. She was a very strong and loyal
woman, who had sacrificed herself to a man who knew the world very
thoroughly, who in the thoroughness of his knowledge was able to see that
the world is not all bad, and who, in spite of all his evil deeds, was
proud of his wife's loyalty. Astrardente had made a bargain when he
married Corona; but he was a wise man in his generation, and he knew and
valued her when he had got her. He knew the precise dangers to which she
was exposed, and he was not so cruel as to expose her to them willingly.
He had at first watched keenly the effect produced upon her by conversing
with men of all sorts in the world, and among others he had noticed
Giovanni; but he had come to the conclusion that his wife was equal to
any situation in which she might be placed. Moreover, Giovanni was not an
_habitué_ at the Palazzo Astrardente, and showed none of the usual signs
of anxiety to please the Duchessa.
From the time when Corona began to notice her own predilection for
Saracinesca, she had been angry with herself for it, and she tried to
avoid him; at all events, she gave him no idea that she liked him
especially. Her husband, who at first had delivered many lectures on the
subject of behaviour in the world, had especially warned her against
showing any marked coldness to a man she wished to shun. "Men," said he,
"are accustomed to that; they regard it as the first indication that a
woman is really interested; when you want to get rid of a man, treat him
systematically as you treat everybody, and he will be wounded at your
indifference and go away." But Giovanni did not go, and Corona began to
wonder whether she ought not to do something to break the interest she
felt in him.
At the present moment she wanted a cup of tea. She would have liked to
send Ugo del Ferice for it; she did what she thought least pleasant to
herself, and she sent Giovanni. The servants who were serving the
refreshments had all left the room, and Saracinesca went in pursuit of
them. As soon as he was gone Del Ferice spoke. His voice was soft, and
had an insinuating tone in it.
"They are saying that Don Giovanni is to be married," he remarked,
watching the Duchessa from the corners of his eyes as he indifferently
delivered himself of his news.
The Duchessa was too dark a woman to show emotion easily. Perhaps she did
not believe the story; her eyes fixed themselves on some distant object
in the room, as though she were intensely interested in something she
saw, and she paused before she answered.
"That is news indeed, if it is true. And whom is he going to marry?"
"Donna Tullia Mayer, the widow of the financier. She is immensely rich,
and is some kind of cousin of the Saracinesca."
"How strange!" exclaimed Corona. "I was just looking at her. Is not that
she over there, with the green feathers?"
"Yes," answered Del Ferice, looking in the direction the Duchessa
indicated. "That is she. One may know her at a vast distance by her
dress. But it is not all settled yet."
"Then one cannot congratulate Don Giovanni to-day?" asked the Duchessa,
facing her interlocutor rather suddenly.
"No," he answered; "it is perhaps better not to speak to him about it."
"It is as well that you warned me, for I would certainly have spoken."
"I do not imagine that Saracinesca likes to talk of his affairs of the
heart," said Del Ferice, with considerable gravity. "But here he comes. I
had hoped he would have taken even longer to get that cup of tea."
"It was long enough for you to tell your news," answered Corona quietly,
as Don Giovanni came up.
"What is the news?" asked he, as he sat down beside her.
"Only an engagement that is not yet announced," answered the Duchessa.
"Del Ferice has the secret; perhaps he will tell you."
Giovanni glanced across her at the fair pale man, whose fat face,
however, expressed nothing. Seeing he was not enlightened, Saracinesca
civilly turned the subject.
"Are you going to the meet to-morrow, Duchessa?" he asked.
"That depends upon the weather and upon the Duke," she answered. "Are you
going to follow?"
"Of course. What a pity it is that you do not ride!"
"It seems such an unnatural thing to see a woman hunting," remarked Del
Ferice, who remembered to have heard the Duchessa say something of the
kind, and was consequently sure that she would agree with him.
"You do not ride yourself," said Don Giovanni, shortly. "That is the
reason you do not approve of it for ladies."
"I am not rich enough to hunt," said Ugo, modestly. "Besides, the other
reason is a good one; for when ladies hunt I am deprived of their
society."
The Duchessa laughed slightly. She never felt less like laughing in her
life, and yet it was necessary to encourage the conversation. Giovanni
did not abandon the subject.
"It will be a beautiful meet," he said. "Many people are going out for
the first time this year. There is a man here who has brought his horses
from England. I forget his name--a rich Englishman."
"I have met him," said Del Ferice, who was proud of knowing everybody.
"He is a type--enormously rich--a lord--I cannot pronounce his name--not
married either. He will make a sensation in society. He won races in
Paris last year, and they say he will enter one of his hunters for the
steeplechases here at Easter."
"That is a great inducement to go to the meet, to see this Englishman,"
said the Duchessa rather wearily, as she leaned back in her chair.
Giovanni was silent, but showed no intention of going. Del Ferice, with
an equal determination to stay, chattered vivaciously.
"Don Giovanni is quite right," he continued. "Every one is going. There
will be two or three drags. Madame Mayer has induced Valdarno to have out
his four-in-hand, and to take her and a large party."
The Duchessa did not hear the remainder of Del Ferice's speech, for at
the mention of Donna Tullia--now commonly called Madame Mayer--she
instinctively turned and looked at Giovanni. He, too, had caught the
name, though he was not listening in the least to Ugo's chatter; and as
he met Corona's eyes he moved uneasily, as much as to say he wished the
fellow would stop talking. A moment later Del Ferice rose from his seat;
he had seen Donna Tullia passing near, and thought the opportunity
favourable for obtaining an invitation to join the party on the drag.
With a murmured excuse which Corona did not hear, he went in pursuit of
his game.
"I thought he was never going," said Giovanni, moodily. He was not in the
habit of posing as the rival of any one who happened to be talking to the
Duchessa. He had never said anything of the kind before, and Corona
experienced a new sensation, not altogether unpleasant. She looked at him
in some surprise.
"Do you not like Del Ferice?" she inquired, gravely.
"Do you like him yourself?" he asked in reply.
"What a question! Why should I like or dislike any one?" There was
perhaps the smallest shade of bitterness in her voice as she asked the
question she had so often asked herself. Why should she like Giovanni
Saracinesca, for instance?
"I do not know what the world would be like if we had no likes and
dislikes," said Giovanni, suddenly. "It would be a poor place; perhaps it
is only a poor place at best. I merely wondered whether Del Ferice amused
you as he amuses everybody."
"Well then, frankly, he has not amused me to-day," answered Corona, with
a smile.
"Then you are glad he is gone?"
"I do not regret it."
"Duchessa," said Giovanni, suddenly changing his position, "I am glad he
is gone, because I want to ask you a question. Do I know you well enough
to ask you a question?"
"It depends--" Corona felt the blood rise suddenly to her dark forehead.
Her hands burned intensely in her gloves. The anticipation of something
she had never heard made her heart beat uncontrollably in her breast.
"It is only about myself," continued Giovanni, in low tones. He had seen
the blush, so rare a sight that there was not another man in Rome who had
seen it. He had not time to think what it meant. "It is only about
myself," he went on. "My father wants me to marry; he insists that I
should marry Donna Tullia--Madame Mayer."
"Well?" asked Corona. She shivered; a moment before, she had been
oppressed with the heat. Her monosyllabic question was low and
indistinct. She wondered whether Giovanni could hear the beatings of her
heart, so slow, so loud they almost deafened her.
"Simply this. Do you advise me to marry her?"
"Why do you ask me, of all people?" asked Corona, faintly.
"I would like to have your advice," said Giovanni, twisting his brown
hands together and fixing his bright eyes upon her face.
"She is young yet. She is handsome--she is fabulously rich. Why should
you not marry her? Would she make you happy?"
"Happy? Happy with her? No indeed. Do you think life would be bearable
with such a woman?"
"I do not know. Many men would marry her if they could--"
"Then you think I should?" asked Giovanni. Corona hesitated; she could
not understand why she should care, and yet she was conscious that there
had been no such struggle in her life since the day she had blindly
resolved to sacrifice herself to her father's wishes in accepting
Astrardente. Still there could be no doubt what she should say: how could
she advise any one to marry without the prospect of the happiness she had
never had?
"Will you not give me your counsel?" repeated Saracinesca. He had grown
very pale, and spoke with such earnestness that Corona hesitated no
longer.
"I would certainly advise you to think no more about it, if you are sure
that you cannot be happy with her."
Giovanni drew a long breath, the blood returned to his face, and his
hands unlocked themselves.
"I will think no more about it," he said. "Heaven bless you for your
advice, Duchessa!"
"Heaven grant I have advised you well!" said Corona, almost inaudibly.
"How cold this house is! Will you put down my cup of tea? Let us go near
the fire; Strillone is going to sing again."
"I would like him to sing a 'Nune dimittis, Domine,' for me," murmured
Giovanni, whose eyes were filled with a strange light.
Half an hour later Corona d'Astrardente went down the steps of the
Embassy wrapped in her furs and preceded by her footman. As she reached
the bottom Giovanni Saracinesca came swiftly down and joined her as
her carriage drove up out of the dark courtyard. The footman opened the
door, but Giovanni put out his hand to help Corona to mount the step. She
laid her small gloved fingers upon the sleeve of his overcoat, and as she
sprang lightly in she thought his arm trembled.
"Good night, Duchessa; I am very grateful to you," he said.
"Good night; why should you be grateful?" she asked, almost sadly.
Giovanni did not answer, but stood hat in hand as the great carriage
rolled out under the arch. Then he buttoned his greatcoat, and went out
alone into the dark and muddy streets. The rain had ceased, but
everything was wet, and the broad pavements gleamed under the uncertain
light of the flickering gas-lamps.