At Torre del Greco, in his dining-hall with its lofty windows, the
Baron di Pavichino sat at breakfast. His bushy eyebrows contracted
darkly when the long-expected visit of his nephew Luigi was announced
to him.
Luigi di Pavichino, the passionate lover of the fair Concetta, now
entered the room, pale and weary-eyed. For four days he had not been
seen in the Palazzo di Pavichino, although not long before he had
become engaged to his rich cousin. The fear of exposing himself to
her displeasure now brought him here, after changing his clothes for
a little more formal attire than that in which he had appeared at the
peasants' festival, to explain his absence by a plausible story.
"_Per Bacco!_ Lucetta was looking for you in vain yesterday and the
day before!" began the old Baron sternly, plucking at his gray beard
in a way that betokened displeasure. "If you are beginning already to
provide such disappointments for your future wife, my dear Luigi, then
it would possibly be more sensible to call the engagement off while
there is yet time."
Luigi trembled at these words of his wealthy uncle. In fact, this
marriage was his only plank of salvation, to which he clung with
desperate grasp like a man fighting for life in the waves--to which
he must cling in order to bring any order into his ruined financial
position, which he carefully concealed from his suspecting uncle, and
which had to be retrieved as soon as possible.
The fact that the estate inherited from his father, including farms
and factories, was mortgaged up to the last cent, would have been
sufficient to jeopardize his relations to his unattractive but
richly-dowered cousin. He knew the verdict. A long-drawn sigh was the
only answer he gave to himself, and besides, there was his incapability
of meeting his notes indorsed by friends, falling due within a short
time for considerable amounts contracted at the gaming table. Sums
which had to be paid because they were debts of honor, for which he
pledged his "parole d'honneur."
"Forgive me, dear uncle," he began stumblingly, with these reflections
in mind.
"I went to see the Padre at the Monastery to tell him of my engagement
and there--the kind monk--the harvest--the new wine--"
The weatherbeaten features of the old nobleman took on a more cheerful
expression at these words.
"Per bacco!" he began, smacking his lips and winking slyly, "it must
have been the new Lacrima Christi wine I sent him last week, which has
made all the mischief. Ho! ho! if that's the case, my dear boy, you
will soon taste the wine that will be worth the tasting," he added with
a broad grin, smacking his lips again in a manner attributable to the
thorough knowledge of an old wine gourmand.
"Yes, my boy, the same Lacrima Christi will be served at your wedding
next month."
The atmosphere was sultry, but he shivered; and if a mirror could have
been held before his eyes he would have startled back alarmed from the
gray stony face so unlike his.
"Next month?" he stammered.
Until now he tried to forget the whole affair; her image was so utterly
driven from his fickle heart as if it were buried twenty feet under the
ruins of Herculaneum.
"Yes, my dear Luigi, I shall write at once to Torre Annunziata, and
then we will celebrate a merry wedding and invite all--Why, what's the
matter?" he asked greatly bewildered. "What a wry face you are making?"
"It is the pleasure--the unlooked-for surprise,--" stammered Luigi with
difficulty, while his pale face grew a shade paler. The sweet face of
Concetta, with the bewitching dimples from which little mocking Cupids
seemed to peep out, challenging him like a siren to a kiss; her silvery
laughter, her deep blue eyes like a fairy's--all that came up before
his interior vision with intoxicating strength, while the thought
that in four weeks he would be called upon to plight his troth to his
unlovely cousin made him shudder.
Still he was careful not to drop the veil that hid his real thoughts so
carefully in the presence of his suspicious uncle.
[Illustration: CONFESSING ALL TO THE WONDER-WORKING SAINT]
"Pleasure? Ho! ho! my dear Luigi, I thought as much. Young men, young
men! I have not forgotten my own youth yet--a little wild it was." He
chuckled half to himself, in a low voice.
"Can I--see my _fiancee_ now?" Luigi asked, in a half stifled voice.
"Now? So early? No, dear boy, she is still among her pillows--dreaming
of you! _Per Dio!_ today, though, is the great festival of Saint
Cecelia. Our good neighbors from Torre del Greco, Portici, and Torre
Annunziata will be sure to gather at Castellamare. We must go too. You
shall go with Lucetta in my victoria with the four fiery Arabs, and I
will follow the happy pair in a plainer carriage," continued the old
baron with nods of pleasure.
It was at the same festival, at the chapel of Saint Cecelia, that he
hoped this very evening to meet Concetta. The room seemed to spin round
him and grow dark. "By your leave, my dear uncle, I must go at once to
the club. You know, the joyful news--"
"Of your engagement?"
"Haven't you mentioned it yet to your friends," he cried, a picture of
wild-eyed amazement.
"To be sure I have, but--the early date of the wedding--" he hastened
to reply in a dull voice, wiping the cold perspiration from his brow.
Catching up his hat and cane, he took a hasty leave from his Uncle,
with the promise to come back punctually at four o'clock. He rushed
away tortured by this dreaded thought in mind; but he had to see the
small army of creditors and keep them at bay with their insolent
demands for money, which were becoming intolerable until after the most
dreaded wedding.