NEXT morning I found Betsey and the young people eager for the trip to
Florence. Richard and I had breakfast together at eight-thirty.
“There's a new count in the game,” said he, as soon as we were seated
together. “He came to our table last evening. He's a grand chap and in
favor with the king, to whom he is going to present Gwendolyn and her
mother. He knows how to talk to women, and I don't. I shall not be in it
with him.”
“As to which is the best man it's her judgment, not yours, that's
important,” I said. “So long as I am managing the case you must take
nothing for granted. Put her on the witness-stand, and let's know
what she has to say about it. Before that I must tell ye something--in
confidence. Norris is about the best fellow that I ever knew, but he got
into trouble when he was a boy. He was the victim of circumstances and
went to prison--served a year.”
“I heard of that long ago,” said Forbes.
“What!” I exclaimed, in astonishment.
“Nobody cares anything about that. Everybody knows that he's a good man
now--that is enough in America.”
“Do many know it?”
“Probably not. I have heard that even Gwendolyn and her mother do not
know it.”
It surprised and in a way it pleased me to learn that I had told him
what he already knew. I remembered that he had said, in his walk with
me, that the distinguished editor who had got the tragic story from
my lips was an uncle of his. So, after all, it was not strange that he
should know.
“I presume that he had a wild youth, but he's a good man,” Forbes added.
That was all we said about it.
Our drive, which began at midday, took us through the loveliest
vineyards in Italy. I shall never forget the vivid-green valley of the
Arno as it looked that day. Lace-like vines spreading over the cresset
tops of the olives and between them and filling the air with color;
stately poplar rows and dark spires of cypress; distant purple mountain
walls and white palaces on misty heights--they were some of the items.
Here in these vineyards, and in others like them, are about the best
tillers in the world--a simple, honest, beauty-loving people who are the
soul of Italy, and, in the main, no country has a better asset.
On the road we met the Litchmans, of Chicago, touring with their
yelling-machine and a special car trailing behind them filled with
clothes and millinery.
That night we dined together and went to the opera. It was all Greek
to me, but it was great! They woke me at one, and we went home. Next
morning, having learned that Mrs. Mullet was not at her hotel, we all
proceeded to the vast Uffizi Gallery. Grand place!
What a wonderful procession these people in marble and paint see every
day in the parade of weary pilgrims, in the moving mosaic of humanity.
What a Babel of tongues, all speaking Baedeker! I wonder if the gods,
emperors, and painted masterpieces fully appreciate this endless human
caravan. It is far more wonderful than they. Who are these people? Ask
any of them, and he will be apt to tell you that the rest are fools;
that almost every one of them is looking for conversational thunder
and--knockers!
Some hurry.
“Two more galleries to see, and the train goes at five,” you hear one of
them saying.
I was nearly bowled over and trampled upon by three German women who had
lost their party.
Once these marble floors were almost exclusively the highway of
the highbrows. Now the sacred children of the imagination are being
introduced to a new crowd. Newness is its chief characteristic. Here
are the overgrown multitude of the newly rich, the truly rich, and
the untruly rich. Here are the newly married, the unmarried, the
over-married, and the slightly married, and the well-married from all
lands, some of them new recruits in the great army of art.
We passed through the Hall of the Ancient Imperial Shoats into the long
corridor filled with statuary.
“The old gods seem to have had desperate battles before they gave up,”
Betsey said to me. “Most of them lost either an arm or a leg in the
war.”
“Many were beheaded and chucked into the garbage-barrels,” I answered.
“The way Jupiter and Minerva were beaten up was a caution. It wasn't
right; it wasn't decent. They were a harmless, inoffensive lot; they
had never done anything to anybody. A lot of things were laid at their
doors, but nothing was ever proved against 'em. These days we know
enough to appreciate harmlessness.”
“They were very beautiful,” said Betsey, “but they're a crippled lot
now.”
“Yes, most of them have artificial limbs,” I answered. “All they do
now is to pose in vaudeville for the entertainment of humanity.” As we
neared the room where I was to meet Mrs. Mullet we bade the young people
go their way and look for us at the door about twelve-thirty.
We found the lady copying the portraits of our first parents. Her breast
began to heave in a storm of emotion as she looked at us.
“Who are your friends?” I quickly asked, by way of diverting her
thought.
“This is Adam and Eve,” said she, almost tearfully.
“I'm glad to see that they don't make company of us,” Betsey declared.
“They receive everybody in that same suit of clothes,” I answered. “And
Eve's entertainment is so simple--apples right off the tree!”
“I don't see but that they look just as aristocratic as they would if
they had sprung from poor but respectable parents,” said Betsey.
“Adam looks like a rather shiftless, good-natured young fellow, easily
led, but, on the whole, I like them both,” was my answer. “They're frank
and open and aboveboard. If you're looking for your first ancestors and
must have them, I don't think you could do better. Certainly Mr. Darwin
has nothing to offer that compares with them.”
Betsey and I had our little dialogues about many objects in our way, and
now we had got Mrs. Mullet righted, so to speak, and on a firm working
basis. She showed us through the gallery. I remember that she was
particularly interested in the Botticelli paintings.
Mrs. Mullet said that she adored the Madonna--a case of compound
adoration, for in its adoring group Botticelli succeeded in painting the
most inhuman piety that the world has seen.
“Isn't that glorious?” Mrs. Mullet asked, as we stopped before his
Venus--a tall lady standing on half a cockle-shell, neatly poised on
breezy water.
“She has crooked feet,” said Betsey.
“Well, I guess yours would be crooked if you had been to sea on a
cockle-shell,” I said, which will prove to the learned reader that we
were about as ignorant of art as any in that hurrying crowd of misguided
people.
“Oh, I think it's a wonderful thing! Look at the colors!” Mrs. Mullet
exclaimed.
“But the toes are so long--they are rippling toes. Those on the right
foot look as if they had just finished a difficult run on the piano,”
Betsey insisted.
“She might be called the Long-toed Venus,” I suggested. “But she isn't
to blame for that. I suppose she was born with that infirmity.”
So we crude and business-like Americans went on, as we flitted here and
there, sipping the honey from each flower of art.
Twelve-thirty had arrived, and I suggested to Betsey that she should
meet the young people and go with them wherever they pleased, and that
they could find me at the hotel at four. She left us, and I asked Mrs.
Mullet what I could do for her.
“I'm in perfectly awful trouble,” she sighed, with rising tears.
“Tell me all about it,” I said. “But please do not weep, or people will
wonder what this cruel old man has been doing to you.”
“That man insisted that I should have my bust made and my portrait
painted and agreed to pay for them, but now of course I shall have to
pay for them myself. He has threatened to sue me for a hundred thousand
dollars for breach of promise. It will take more than half my property.”
“Don't worry about the suit,” I said. “I'll agree to save you any cost
in that matter. As to the bust, you can use it for a milestone in your
history. The painting will show you how you looked when you were--not as
wise as you are now. You can look at it and take warning.”
“I couldn't bear to look at them. I feel as if I never wanted to see
myself again. I have written to everybody at home about this engagement.
It's just perfectly dreadful!” Again she was near breaking down.
“You ought to be glad--not sorrowful,” I said. “That man can't even play
a guitar. If he had a title or a fortune we wouldn't mind his being a
scamp, but he hasn't. He hasn't even a coat of arms.”
“There! I'm not going to cry, after all,” she declared, as she wiped her
eyes. “I'm glad you've kept me from breaking down.”
“I wonder that you didn't wait until you knew him better before making
this engagement,” I said.
“But he was so gentlemanly and nice,” she went on; “and Mr. Pike, the
lumber king from Michigan, introduced him to me and said that he had
known him a long time. Then the colonel is acquainted with counts and
barons and other grand people. He claimed to be an old friend of yours
and of Mr. Norris. He said that the last time he called on you he went
away with your hat by mistake, and showed me your initials in the one he
wore.”
“He often associates with property of a questionable character, but I
was not aware that he had got in with the counts and barons,” I said.
“He knows the Count Carola very well,” she declared.
“Leave them to each other--they deserve it,” I said. “Return to Rome and
refer Wilton to me, and refuse to have anything more to do with him.”
She asked for my bill, but I assured her that dollars were too small
for such a service, and that I couldn't think of accepting anything less
than thanks in a case of that kind.
I left her and got a bite to eat and went to our hotel at three-thirty.
Betsey was waiting for me at the door. She was pale and excited.
“We've had a dreadful time,” said she. “Gwendolyn and I had gone on
while Richard was paying our bill in a shop. Suddenly a young man came
and spoke to Gwendolyn. Richard saw it. In a second I heard a horrible
thump and saw the young Italian lying in the mud. He didn't try to get
up. Looked as if he was sleeping.”
“It's bad weather for Romeoing,” I answered. “That count should have
waited till the streets were dry. Where are they?”
“Gwendolyn is in the parlor. Richard said that we should look for him on
the road and took a fiacre and flew. The girl is frightened.”
Betsey brought her out, and we got into the car and sped away.
“One more count!” I exclaimed, with a laugh.
“One less count!” said Gwendolyn. “I'm sure he's dead.”
“Ladies have limited rights outside the house in Italy,” I said.
“I don't mind those silly men,” said Gwendolyn. “I've been spoken to
like that a dozen times, but I hurry along and pretend that I do not
hear them.”
“That count will be careful after this,” I suggested.
“If he lives,” said Gwendolyn. “I'm afraid that his head is cracked.”
“His head was cracked long ago,” was my answer.
“Uncle Soc,” said Gwendolyn (she had begun to call me Uncle Soc there in
Italy), “Richard and Italy could never get along together.”
“Richard, Gwendolyn, and America are a better combination,” I suggested.
“What a pretty thought!” she exclaimed, just as we overtook the young
man about a mile out on the highway to Rome.
“Get in here and behave yourself,” I said. “You've had exercise enough.”
“I could stand more, if necessary,” he answered, with a laugh, as he sat
down with us.
That ride to Rome was one of the merriest, in my life. For the young
people it had been a day of joy and progress, but on the whole it hadn't
been a highly creditable day. So let's drop the curtain right here and
let it go into history.