Cupid Laughs.
_From court to the cottage,
In bower and in hall,
From the king unto the beggar,
Love conquers all.
Though ne'er so stout and lordly,
Strive or do what you may,
Yet be you ne'er so hardy,
Love will find out the way._
--ANONYMOUS
[Illustration: RUINS OF FORUM, ROME.]
Mr. Sumner and Mrs. Douglas had been most fortunate in getting
possession of extremely pleasant apartments close to the Pincio. These
were in the very same house in which they had lived with their parents
twenty years before, when Mrs. Douglas was a young girl of eighteen
years. Here she had first met and learned to love young Kenneth Douglas,
so that most tender memories clustered about the place, and she was glad
that her children should learn to know it.
She soon began to pick up the old threads of life. "Ah me! what golden
threads they then were," she often sighed. Mr. Sumner was at home here
in Rome almost as much as in Florence, and was busy for a time making
and receiving calls from artist friends.
Malcom had his own private guide, and from morning until night they
hardly saw him. He averred himself to be in the seventh heaven, and
there was little need that he should proclaim the fact; it was evident
enough. Julius Cæsar's Commentaries, Cicero's Orations, Virgil, all
Roman history were getting illuminated for him in such a way that they
would never grow dim.
But at first the others felt sensibly the change from dear, familiar
little Florence. Rome is so vast in her history, legend, and romance!
The city was oppressive at near sight.
"Shall we ever really know anything about it all?" asked the girls of
each other. Even Miss Sherman, who had been able to get a room in a
small hotel close by, and so was still their constant companion, wore a
little troubled air now and then, as if there were something she ought
to do and did not know how to set about it.
They drove all over the city; saw its ancient ruins--the Colosseum, the
Forums, the Palatine Hill, the Baths of Agrippa, Caracalla, Titus, and
Diocletian; visited the Pantheon, Castle of St. Angelo, and many of the
most important churches. They drove outside the walls on the Via Appia,
and saw all the many interesting things by the way. They sought all the
best points of view from which they could look out over the great city.
One afternoon they were all together on the wide piazza in front of San
Pietro in Montorio, which commands a very wide outlook. Here, after
having studied the location of chief points of interest, they gave
themselves up to the delight of a superb sunset view. As they lingered
before again taking their carriages, Malcom told some of his morning
experiences, and Barbara wistfully said:--
"I wonder if we ought not to begin some definite study of Roman history
and the old ruins. Betty and I have taken some books from the library in
Piazza di Spagna, and are reading hard an hour or two every day, but it
gives me a restless feeling to know that there is so much all about me
that I do not understand," and she looked inquiringly at Mr. Sumner.
"Robert and I have talked over this very thing," replied Mrs. Douglas.
"Shall I tell them what we think?" she asked her brother, as he rather
abruptly turned away. On his assent she continued:--
"It is a familiar question, since I very plainly remember hearing my
father and mother talk of it when I was your age, and Robert was but a
lad. My father said it would take a lifetime of patient study to learn
thoroughly all that can to-day be learned of what we call ancient
Rome--the Rome of the Cæsars; and how many Romes existed before that, of
which we can know nothing, save through legend and tradition! 'Now,
will it not be best,' he asked, 'that we read all we can of legend and
the chief points of Roman history up to the present time, so that the
subject of Rome get into our minds and hearts; and then try to absorb
all we can of the spirit of both past and present, so that we shall know
Rome even though we have not tried to find out all about her? We cannot
accomplish the latter, and if we try I fear we shall miss everything.'
My mother agreed fully with him. And so, many evenings at home; father
would read to us pathetic legends and stirring tales of ancient Roman
life; and we would often go and sit amidst the earth-covered ruins on
the Palatine. Here, children, I have heard your own dear father more
than once repeat, as only he could, Byron's graphic lines:--
"Cypress and ivy, weed and wall-flower grown,
Matted and mass'd together; hillocks heap'd
On what were chambers, arch crushed, column strewn
In fragments; choked-up vaults, and frescoes steep'd
In subterranean damps, where the owl peep'd
Deeming it midnight.
"He used to love to repeat bits of poetry everywhere, just as Margery
does.
"We climbed the Colosseum walls and sat there for hours dreaming of what
it once was--and so we went all over the city--until I really think I
lived in ancient Rome a part of the time. Often did I weep over the
tragic fate of Roman heroes and matrons as I was in the places sacred to
their history, so deeply impressed was I by the reality of the past life
of Rome. I had not followed the erudite words of any interpreter of the
ruins; I had not learned which was the particular pile of stones which
marks the location of the palace of Tiberius, Augustus, or Septimius
Severus; I could not even give name to all the various ruins of the
Roman Forum, but old Rome was very real to me, and has been ever since.
"Now," she continued, as she glanced at the interested faces about her,
"we are here for a very short time, and it does seem much the best to
both Robert and me that you should try to get Rome into your _hearts_
first. Don't be one bit afraid to grow sentimental over her. It is a
good place in which to give ourselves up to sentiment. We will take a
guide for all that which seems necessary. This one afternoon, however,
up here, when you have learned the location of the seven hills and have
clearly fixed in your minds the relative positions of the most important
ruins and old buildings is, in my opinion, worth more than would be many
afternoons spent in prowling through particular ruins; that is, for you.
Were we archæological students, it would of course be a far different
matter."
"And we will at once resume our study of paintings," said Mr. Sumner,
drawing nearer. "To-morrow morning, if Malcom has no engagement, we will
go to the Sistine Chapel to see Michael Angelo's frescoes. I have been
so busy until now that I could not get the time I wished for it."
The next morning, as Barbara and Bettina were getting ready for the
drive according to Mr. Sumner's appointment, Bettina, who was vigorously
brushing her brown suit, heard a sigh from her sister, and looking up
saw her ruefully examining her own skirt.
"Rather the worse for wear, aren't they, Barbara _mia_?"
"Indeed, they are. I didn't notice it, though, until we came here into
this bright Rome. We seem to have come all at once into spring sunshine
and the atmosphere of new clothes; and, Betty, I believe I do feel
shabby. I know you have been thinking the same thing, too; for everybody
else seems to have new spring dresses, and they are so fresh and pretty
that ours look doubly worse. Oh, dear!" and she sighed again.
Then, catching sight of her sister's downcast face, Barbara, in a
moment, after her usual fashion, rose above her annoyance and cried:--
"For shame, Barbara Burnett! to think that you are in Rome, the Eternal
City! that you are dressing to go to the Sistine Chapel to look at
Michael Angelo's frescoes! and do you dare to waste a thought on the
gown you are to wear! Oh, Betty! you are ashamed of me, too, I
know.--There, you dear old brown suit! Forgive me, and I never will do
such a mean thing again. To think of all the lovely places I have been
in with you, and now that I should like to cheat you out of seeing
Michael Angelo's frescoes!" and she adjusted the last button with such a
comical, half-disgusted expression on her face that Betty burst into a
merry laugh.
When the two girls came down stairs and stepped out upon the sidewalk
beside which the carriages were waiting, their radiant faces gave not
the slightest hint that any annoyance had ever lurked there; and no one,
looking into them, would ever give a thought to the worn brown dresses.
No one? not many, at least. Perhaps Miss Sherman, looking so dainty in
her own fresh attire, did. Anyway, as Mr. Sumner handed her into one of
the carriages, and himself springing in, took a seat beside her, she
shot a triumphant glance at Barbara, who was seating herself in the
other carriage with Bettina and Malcom. Mrs. Douglas and Margery had
gone out on some morning errand and would follow them presently so Miss
Sherman was alone with Mr. Sumner.
Robert Sumner was waging quite a battle with himself during these days.
Ever since that night at Perugia, he had found to his utter dismay that
he could not put Barbara out of his thoughts. Indeed, ever after the
evening of the birthday party she had assumed to him a distinct
individuality. It seemed as if he had received a revelation of what she
was to become. Every now and then as he saw her at home, the vision of
beautiful womanhood that had passed before him that evening would flash
into his mind, and the thought would come that sometime, somewhere, she
would find him into whose eyes could shine from her own that glorious
lovelight that he had for an instant surprised in them.
It had not seemed to him that he then saw the present Barbara, but that
which she was to be; and this future Barbara had no special connection
with the present one, save to awaken an interest that caused him to be
watchful of her. He had always recognized the charm of her
personality,--her frank enthusiasms, and her rich reserve; the wide
outlook and wise judgment of things unusual in one so young. But now he
began to observe other more intimate qualities,--the wealth of affection
bestowed on Bettina and the distant home; her tender regard to the
feelings of those about her; her quick resentment of any injustice; her
sturdy self-reliance; her sweet, unspoiled, unselfish nature; and her
longing for knowledge and all good gifts.
Then came Howard's death, and he realized how deeply she was moved. A
new look came often into her eyes, which he noted; a new tone into her
voice, which he heard. And yet he felt that the experience had not
touched the depths of her being.
While they were on the way from Florence to Rome he had rejoiced every
time he heard her voice ringing with the old merry tones, which showed
that she had for the moment forgotten all sad thoughts. When he was
ostensibly talking to all, he was often really talking only to Barbara,
and watching the expression of her eyes; and he always listened to catch
her first words when any new experience came to their party. He was
really fast getting into a dangerous condition, this young man nearly
thirty years old, but was as unconscious of it as a child.
At Perugia came the night struggle caused by Malcom's words; the dream,
and the morning meeting with Barbara. When his hand touched hers as he
put into them the roses, he felt again for an instant the electric
thrill that ran through him on the birthday night, when he met that
wonderful look in her eyes. It brought a feeling of possession, as if it
were the hand of his Margaret which he had touched,--Margaret, who was
so soon to have been his wife when death claimed her.
He tried to account for it. He was jealous for the beloved dead whose
words, whose ways, whose face had reigned supreme over his heart for so
many years, when he caught himself dwelling on Barbara's words,
recalling her tricks of tone, her individual ways.
He set himself resolutely to the task of overcoming this singular
tendency of his thought; and oh! how the little blind (but all-seeing)
god of love had been laughing at Robert Sumner all through the days
since they reached Rome.
Instead of driving and walking about with the others, he had zealously
set himself the task of calling at the studios of all his artist
friends; had visited exhibitions; had gone hither and thither by
himself; and yet every time had hastened home, though he would not admit
it to his own consciousness, in order that he might know where Barbara
was, what she was doing, and how she was feeling. He had busied himself
in fitting up a sky-lighted room for a studio, where he resolved to
spend many morning hours, forgetting all else save his beloved
occupation; and the very first time he sat before his easel a sketch of
Barbara's face grew out of the canvas. The harder he tried to put her
from his thoughts, the less could he do so, and he grew restless and
unhappy.
Another cause of troubled, agitated feeling was his decision to return
to America and there make his home. In this he had not faltered, but it
oppressed him. He loved this Italy, with her soft skies, her fair,
smiling vineyards and bold mountain backgrounds, her romantic legends,
and, above all, her art-treasures. He had taken her as his
foster-mother. Her atmosphere stimulated him to work in those directions
his heart loved best. How would it be when he should be back again in
his native land? He had fought his battle; duty had told him to go
there; and when she had sounded the call, there could be no retreat for
him. But love and longing and memory and fear all harassed him. He had
as yet said nothing of this to his sister, but it weighed on him
continually. Taken all in all, Robert Sumner's life, which had been
keyed to so even a pitch, and to which all discord had been a stranger
for so many years, was sadly jarred and out of tune.
Of course Mrs. Douglas's keen sisterly eyes could not be blind to the
fact that something was troubling her brother. And it was such an
unusual thing to see signs of so prolonged disturbance in him that she
became anxious to know the cause. Still she could not speak of it first.
Intimate as they were, the inner feelings of each were very sacred to
the other, and she must wait until he should choose to reveal all to
her.
She well knew that his heart had been wholly consecrated to the only
love it had heretofore known, and the query had often arisen in her mind
whether the approach of another affection might not in the first place
work some unhappiness. That he could ever love again as he had loved
Margaret she did not for a moment believe. She well knew, however, that
the happiness of any woman who might give her life into her brother's
keeping was safe, and her wish for him was that he might be so drawn
toward some loving woman that he might desire to make her his wife, and
so be blessed with family life and love; for the thought that he might
live lonely, without family ties, was inexpressibly sad to her loving
heart.
We have seen how the coming of Miss Sherman into their lives roused
these hopes afresh; and she now wondered if his evident unrest might be
caused by the first suggestion of the thought of asking her to become
his wife. It was evident that he admired her and enjoyed her society;
and, so far as Miss Sherman's feelings were concerned, she felt no
doubt. Indeed, she sometimes shrank a bit from the free display of her
fondness for his company, and hoped that Malcom and the girls might not
notice it. She easily excused it, however, to herself, although the
closer intimacy of daily intercourse was revealing, little by little,
flaws in the character she had thought so fair.
How utterly mistaken was Mrs. Douglas! and how shocked would Lucile
Sherman have been this very morning could she have known how strong a
longing leaped into Robert Sumner's heart to take into his hungry arms
that graceful figure in worn brown suit, with brave, smiling young face
and steadfast eyes, put her into his carriage, and drive
away,--anywhere,--so it only were away and away!
Or, how stern a grip he imposed on himself as he took his seat beside
her dimpling, chattering self, radiant with fresh colors and graceful
draperies.
Or, of the tumult of his thoughts as they drove along through the narrow
streets, across the yellow Tiber and up to the stately entrance of St.
Peter's.