I HAVE read that there are no fairies in Italy, but I know better.
Italy is full of them, and they are the most light-footed, friendly,
impartial, democratic fairies in the world. They are liable to make
friends with anybody. Like many Italians, they seem to live mostly on
the foreign population. A number of them adopted me for a residence.
Sometimes, when they were playful, they made me feel like a winter
resort. They used to enjoy tobogganing down the slopes of my shoulders
and digging their toes in the snow; they held games here and there on my
person, which seemed to be well attended. I got a glimpse of one of them
now and then, and we became acquainted with each other; and, while he
was very shy, I am sure that he knew and liked me. I called him Oberon.
He and his kin did me a great service, for they taught me why people
move their arms and shrug their shoulders so much in Italy. Then, too, I
always had company wherever I happened to be.
So when Betsey and the Norris ladies implored me to go with them to Mrs.
Dorsey's palace and hear a prince lecture, I reported that I was engaged
to play with the fairies, whereupon they concluded that I wanted the
time for meditation and left me out of their plans. So it happened that
I was, fortunately, alone with Norris when Forbes arrived, a full day
ahead of his schedule.
The boy and I went out for a walk together. Before sailing he had spent
two weeks coaching the ball-team of his college and was in fine form.
His kindly blue eyes glowed with vitality and his skin was browned by
the sunlight. As I looked at that tall, straight column of bone and
muscle, with its broad shoulders and handsome head, I could not help
saying: “If you were standing on a pedestal here in Rome there'd be a
lot of gals in the gallery.”
“Before you say things like that you should teach me how to answer them
with wit and modesty,” he said.
“Keep your eye on me and you'll learn all the arts of modesty,” I
assured him. “And especially you will learn how to disarm suspicion when
you are accused of wit.”
In a shaded walk of the Pincio Gardens he asked, “Is Gwendolyn looking
well?”
“She's more beautiful than ever, and very well,” I said. “She will be
disappointed when she finds you here.”
He stopped and faced me with a look of surprise, and asked:
“Do you think so?”
“I am sure of it, because she had planned to meet you with proper
ceremony at the station and take you off to a real Roman luncheon. I
am glad that you have come, for I have worked hard as your attorney and
need a rest. I have had some fun with it, but I am delighted to turn the
case over to you.”
He did not need a chart to understand me, for he said:
“You must tell me what progress you have made with it.”
“Well, I suppose you have read of the Count Carola.”
“Yes, and so has every one who knows Gwendolyn.”
“He is the plaintiff who seeks to establish the claim that he is
a better man than you are. My defense has been so able that he
has challenged me, and I have named the weapons; they are to be
pitchforks--American pitchforks.”
Forbes laughed and remarked:
“You must take him for a bunch of hay.”
“June grass!” I answered. “We'll need some one to rake after, as we used
to say on the farm, and I may ask you to be my second.”
“Does the count amount to much?”
“Not much; I have had him added up and his total properly audited.”
“How are the judge and jury?”
“The judge is in our favor; the jury is in doubt. Gwendolyn insists that
you don't want to marry any one at present.”
“I want to, but I probably shall not,” he answered. “When I marry I want
to have done something besides having just lived. It seems as if it were
due my wife. Besides, when I get married I want to stay married; I don't
want any girl to marry _me_ and give her heart to some other fellow. She
must have time to be sure of one thing--that I am the right man. That
cannot be proven with passionate vows or bouquets or guitar music, but
only by sufficient acquaintance. On the other hand, I'd like to know, or
think I know, that she is the right girl. If Gwendolyn really wants to
marry a count it would be silly for me to try to convince her that I
am the better fellow. She must see that for herself. If she doesn't,
I should assume that she was right. God knows that I'm not so stuck on
myself as to question her judgment. I'm very fond of her, but I have
never let her suspect it.”
“If I were you I'd begin to arouse her suspicions.”
“That I propose to do, but delicately and without any guitar music. Love
is a very sacred thing to me.”
“And the man who talks much about his love generally hasn't any,” I
suggested.
“At least, if he has any love in him the cheapest way of showing it is
by talk and song.”
“It's so awful easy to make words lie,” I agreed.
“If she wants me to enter a lying-match with these Romeos I'll agree,
but only on condition that it's a lying-match--that we're only playing a
game. I won't try to deceive her. Women are not fools or playthings any
longer, are they?
“Generally not, if they're born in America,” I agreed.
Here was the modem American lover, and I must acknowledge that I fell in
love with him. He stood for honest loving--a new type of chivalry--and
against the lying, romantic twaddle which had come down from the feudal
world. That kind of thing had been a proper accessory of courts and
concubines. It would not do for America.
“I see that I am putting the case in good hands. Go in and win it,” I
said.
“I'll make it my business while I'm here,” said he.
“You're a born business man. I know it's fashionable to hate the word
'business,' but I like it. In love it looks for dividends of happiness.”
“And I've observed that a home has got to pay or go out of business,”
said he. “If Gwendolyn would put up with me I believe we could stand
together to the end of the game.”
“I have some reason for saying that she is very fond of you,” I
declared.
“I wouldn't dare ask you to explain, but you tempt me,” he said.
“A good-attorney never tells all he knows unless he is writing a book,”
I answered.
We had come to the Spanish Stairs, where converging ways poured a thin,
noisy fall of tourists and guide-books into the street below. I had seen
the Stairs in my youth.