heard him, or even whether she had been listening at all, but she asked:
"You never met Count Helion?"
"I haven't the slightest idea of the man. He is not in this room, is he?
What is he like?"
Lady William looked amused for a moment at the artless curiosity of the
Countess de Montevesso's young friend; but it was in an indifferent tone
that she said:
"Count Helion is a man of immense wealth which he amassed in India
somewhere. He is much older than his wife. More than twice her age."
Cosmo showed his surprise, and Lady William continued smoothly: "Of
course all the world knows that Adèle has been a model wife."
Cosmo noted the faintest possible shade of emphasis on those last words
and thought to himself: "That means she is not happy and that the world
knows it." But, several men having approached the circle, the
conversation became general. He vacated his seat by the side of Lady
William and got introduced by Adèle to several people, amongst whom was
a delicate young woman splendidly dressed and of a slightly Jewish type
who, though she was the wife of General Count Bubna, commander-in-chief
of the Austrian troops and the representative of Austria at the Court of
Turin, behaved with a strange timidity and appeared almost too shy to
speak. A simple Madame Ferrati, or so at least Cosmo heard her name, a
lady with white tousled hair, had an aggressive manner. Cosmo remarked
in the course of the evening that she seemed rather to be persecuting
Lady William, who, however, remained amiably abstracted and did not seem
to mind anything. The Marquis, getting away from the console, had seated
himself near the little Madame Bubna. This, Cosmo thought, was an
unavoidable sort of thing for him to do. A young man with a grave manner
and something malicious in his eye, apparently a First Secretary of the
Embassy, informed Cosmo shortly after they had been made known to each
other that "the wife of the general would not naturally be received in
Vienna society," and that this was the secret of Bubna sticking to his
Italian command so long, even now when really all the excitement was
over. Of course he was very much in love with his wife. He used to give
her balls twice a week at the expense of the Turin Municipality. Old
Bubna understood the art of pillaging to perfection, but apart from that
he was a _parfait galant homme_ and an able soldier. Bonaparte had a
very great liking for him. Bubna was the only friend Bonaparte had in
this room. He meant sympathy as man for man. Years ago when Bubna was in
Paris he got on very well with the Emperor. Bonaparte knew how to
flatter a man. It was worth while to sit up half the night to hear Bubna
talking about Bonaparte. "I am posting you up like this," concluded the
secretary, "because I see you are in the intimacy of the Marquis and of
Madame de Montevesso here."
He went away then to talk to somebody else, and presently Madame de
Montevesso, passing close to Cosmo, whispered to him, "Stay to the
last," and went on without waiting for his answer. Cosmo amongst all the
groups engaged in animated conversation felt rather lonely, totally
estranged from the ideas those people were expressing to each other. He
could not possibly be in sympathy with the fears and the hopes, strictly
personal, and with the royalist-legitimist enthusiasms of these
advocates of an order of things that had been buried for a quarter of a
century and now was paraded like a rouged and powdered corpse putting on
a swagger of life and revenge. Then he reflected that in this room, at
any rate, it was probably nothing but scandalous gossip and trivial talk
of futile intrigues. There was no need for him to be indignant. He was
even amused at himself, and looking about him in a kindlier frame of
mind he perceived that the person nearest to him was that strange girl
with the round eyes. She had kept perfectly still on her uncomfortable
stool like a captured savage. Her green flounced skirt was spread on
each side of the seat. The bodice of her dress, which was black, was cut
low, her bare arms were youthfully red and immature. Her hair was done
up smoothly and pulled up from her forehead in the manner of the
portraits of the 15th Century.
"Why do they dress her in this bizarre manner?" thought Cosmo. It
couldn't be Adèle's conception. Perhaps of the Count himself. Yet that
didn't seem likely. Perhaps it was her own atrocious taste. But if so it
ought to have been repressed. He reflected that there could be nothing
improper in him talking to the niece of the house. He would try his
conversational Italian. With the feeling of venturing on a doubtful
experiment he approached her from the back, sat down at her elbow, and
waited. She could not possibly remain unaware of him being there.
At last she turned her head for a point-blank stare, and once she had
her eyes on him she never attempted to take them away. Cosmo uttered
carefully a complimentary phrase about her dress, which was received in
perfect silence. Her carmine lips remained as still as her round black
eyes for quite a long time. Suddenly in a low tone, with an accent which
surprised Cosmo but which he supposed to be Piedmontese, and with a sort
of spiteful triumph, she said:
"I knew very well it would suit me. You think it does?"
Her whole personality had such an aggressive mien that Cosmo, startled
and amused, hastened to say, "Undoubtedly," lest she should fly at his
eyes.
She showed him her teeth in a grin of savage complacency, and the
subject seemed exhausted. Cosmo set himself the task to daunt her by a
steady gaze. In less than two seconds he regretted his venture. He felt
certain that she would not be the one to look away first. There was not
the slightest doubt about that. In order to cover his retreat he let his
eyes wander vaguely about the room, smiled agreeably, and said: "Your
uncle is not here. Shall I have the pleasure of seeing him this
evening?"
"No," she said. "You won't see him this evening. But he knows you have
been here this morning."
This was, strictly speaking, news to Cosmo, but he said at once and with
great indifference:
"Why shouldn't he? Probably Madame de Montevesso has told him. I used to
know your aunt when she was younger than you are, signorina."
"How do you know how old I am?"
Cosmo asked himself if she would ever wink those black eyes of hers.
"I know that you are not a hundred years old."
This struck her as humorous, because there was a sound as of a faint
giggle which, generally speaking, is a silly kind of sound but in her
case had a disturbing quality. It was followed by the hoarse
declaration:
"Aunt didn't. I told Uncle. I looked a lot at you in the morning. Why
didn't you look at me?"
"I was afraid of being indiscreet," said Cosmo readily, concealing his
astonishment.
"What silliness," she commented scornfully. "And this evening too! I was
looking at you all the time and you did nothing but look at all those
witches here, one after another."
"I find all the ladies in the room perfectly charming," said Cosmo.
"You lie. I suppose you do nothing else from morning till night."
"I am sorry you have such a bad opinion of me, but it being what it is,
hadn't I better go away?"
"Directly I set eyes on you I knew you were one of that sort."
"And did you impart your opinion of me to your uncle?" asked Cosmo. He
could be no more offended with that girl than if she had been an
unmannerly animal. Her peculiar stare remained unchanged but her general
expression softened for a moment.
"No. But I took care to tell him that you were a very handsome
gentleman. . . . You are a very handsome gentleman."
What surprised Cosmo was not the downright statement but the thought
that flashed through his mind that it was as dreadful as being told that
one was good to eat. For a time he stared without any thought of
unwinking competition. He was not amused. Distinctly not. He asked:
"Where were you born?"
"How can I tell? In the mountains, I suppose. Somewhere where you will
never go. How can it possibly concern you?"
Cosmo offered his apology for his indiscretion, and she received it with
a sort of uncomprehending scorn. She said after a pause: "None of those
witches, young or old, ever speak to me. And even you didn't want to
speak to me. You only spoke to me . . . Oh, no! I know why you spoke to
me."
"Why did I speak to you?" asked Cosmo thoughtfully. "Won't you tell me?"
Upon the firm roundness of that high-coloured face came a subtle change
which suggested something in the nature of cunning, and the rough,
somewhat veiled voice came from between the red lips which had no more
charm or life than the painted lips carved in a piece of wood.
"If I were to tell you would be as wise as myself."
"Where would be the harm of me being as wise as yourself?" said Cosmo,
trying to be playful but somehow missing the tone of playfulness so
completely that he was struck by his failure himself.
"If you were as wise as myself you would never come to this house again
and I don't want you to stay away," was the answer, delivered in a
hostile tone.
Cosmo said, "You don't! Well, at any rate it can't be because of
kindness, so I don't thank you for it." He said this with extreme
amiability. Becoming aware that people were beginning to leave, he
observed, out of the corner of his eye, that nobody went away without
glancing in their direction. Then the departure of Lady William caused a
general stir and gave Cosmo the occasion to get up and move away. Lady
William gave him a gracious nod, and the Marquis, coming up to him,
introduced him at the last moment to General Count Bubna just as that
distinguished person was making ready to take his wife away. Everybody
was standing up and for the first time Cosmo felt himself completely
unobserved. Obeying a discreet sign of the Countess Montevesso, he moved
unaffectedly in the direction of a closed door, the white and gold door
he remembered well from his morning visit. When he had got near to it
and within reach of the handle he turned about. He had the view of the
guests' backs as they moved slowly out. Adèle looked over her shoulder
for a moment with an affirmative nod. He understood it, hesitated no
longer, opened the door, and slipped through without, so far as he could
judge, being seen by anybody.
It was as he had thought. He found himself in Madame de Montevesso's
boudoir in which he had been received that morning.
IV
He shut the door behind him gently and remained between it and the
screen. He had expected to be followed at once by Adèle. What could be
detaining her? But he remembered the remarkable proportions of that
suite of reception rooms. He had seen some apartments in Paris, but
nothing quite so long as that. The old Marquis would no doubt conduct
the little Madame Bubna to the very door of the anteroom. The ambassador
of The Most Christian King owed that attention to the representative of
His Apostolic Majesty and Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian troops.
This was the exact form which his thought took. The Christian King, the
Apostolic Majesty--all those submerged heads were bobbing up out of the
subsiding flood.
He pictured them to himself in their mental simplicity and with their
grand air; the Marquis magnificent and ageing, and the dutiful daughter
by his side with her radiant head and her divine form. It was impossible
to believe that these two had also been submerged at one time.
All those people were mere playthings, reflected Cosmo without a pang.
But who or what was playing with them? he thought further, boldly, and
remained for a moment as if amused by the marvellousness of it, in the
manner of people watching the changes on the stage. But what could have
become of them?
She might next moment be opening the door. Could she have made him stay
behind because she wanted to speak with him alone? Why, yes, obviously.
Cosmo did not ask himself what she wanted to talk to him about. It was
no wonder that he felt, it was a subtle emotion resembling impatience
for the arrival of a promised felicity of an indefinite kind. All this
was by no means poignant. It was merely delightfully disturbing.
"I shall have a tête-à-tête; that's clear," he thought, as he
advanced into the room. The air all around him was delightfully warm.
Whatever she would have to say would be wonderful because of her voice.
He would look her in the face. She did not intimidate him and it was
impossible to have too much of that. After all, he thought, immensely
amused, it was only Adèle, Ad----
His mental monologue was cut short by the shock of perceiving, seated on
the painted sofa, a man who was looking at him in perfect silence and
immobility. The fact was that Count Helion, having come into the boudoir
sooner than his wife had expected him to do, had directed his eyes to
the screen ever since he had heard the opening and the shutting of the
door. One of his hands was resting on his thigh, the other hung down
holding negligently a number of some gazette which was partly resting on
the floor. Though not very big, that piece of paper attracted Cosmo's
eyes; and it was in this way that he became aware of the brown fingers
covered with rings, of the gaunt legs encased in silk stockings, and of
the crossed feet in dress shoes with gold buckles, almost before he took
in the impression of the broad but lean face which seemed to have been
stained with walnut juice long enough for the stain to have worn down
thin, letting the native pallor come through. The same tint extended to
the bald top of the head. But what was really extraordinary was the
hair: two patches of black behind each temple, obviously dyed. The man,
as to whose identity Cosmo could have no doubt, got up, displaying the
full length of his bony frame, in a tense and soldierly stiffness
associated with cross-belts and a cowhide knapsack on the back. "A
grenadier," thought Cosmo, startled by this unexpected meeting, which
also caused him profound annoyance, as though he had been induced to
walk into a trap. What he could not understand was why the man should
make that grimace at him. It convulsed his whole physiognomy, involving
his lips, his cheeks, and his very eyes in a sort of spasm. The most
awful thing was that it stayed there. . . . "Why, it's a smile," thought
Cosmo, with sudden relief. It was so sudden that it broke into a smile
without any particular volition of his own. Thereupon the face of Count
Helion recovered its normal aspect and Cosmo heard his voice for the
first time. It proceeded from the depths of his chest. It was resonant
and blurred and portentous with an effect of stiffness somehow in accord
with the man's bearing. It informed Cosmo that Count Helion had been
waiting in the Countess's boudoir on purpose to make his acquaintance,
while in the man's eyes there was a watchfulness as though he had been
uttering a momentous disclosure and was anxious as to its effect. A
perfectly horizontal, jet-black moustache underlining the nose of Count
Helion, which was broad at the base and thin at the end, suggested comic
possibilities in that head, which had too much individuality to be
looked upon by Cosmo simply as the head of Adèle's husband; and Cosmo
hardly looked at it in that light. His hold on that fact was slippery.
He preserved his equanimity perfectly and said that he himself had
wondered whether he would have the pleasure of making the Count's
acquaintance that evening. Both men sat down.
"My occupations kept me late to-night," said the Count. "The courier
came in."
He pointed with his fingers to the gazette lying on the floor, and Cosmo
asked if there were any news.
"In the gazette, no. At least nothing interesting. The world is full of
vanities and scandals, rumours of conspiracies. Very poor stuff. I don't
know any of those people the papers mention every day. That's more my
wife's affair. For years now she has spent about ten months of every
year in Paris or near Paris. I am a provincial. My interests are in the
orphanage I have founded in my native country. I am also building an
asylum for . . ."
He got up suddenly, approached the mantelpiece in three strides, and
turned round exactly like a soldier in the ranks of a company changing
front. He was wearing a blue coat cut away in front and having a long
skirt, something recalling the cut of a uniform, though the material was
fine and there was a good deal of gold lace about it, as also on his
white satin waistcoat. Cosmo recalled the vague story he had heard about
Count de Montevesso having served in more than one army before being
given the rank of general by the King of Piedmont. The man had been
drilled. Cosmo wondered whether he had ever been caned. He was a
military adventurer of the commonest type. Some of them have been known
to return with a fortune got by pillage and intrigue and possibly even
by real talents of a sort in the service of oriental courts full of
splendours and crimes, tyrannies and treacheries and dark drama of
ambition, or love.
"He is the very thing," Cosmo exclaimed mentally, gating at the stiff
figure leaning against the mantelpiece. Of course he got his fortune in
India. What was remarkable about him was that he had managed to get away
with his plunder, or at any rate a part of it, considerable enough to
enable him to make a figure in the world and marry Adèle d'Armand in
England. That was only because of the Revolution. In royal France he
would not have had the ghost of a chance; and even as it was, only the
odious laxity of London society in accepting rich strangers had given
him his opportunity. Cosmo, forcing himself to envisage this dubious
person as the husband of Adèle, felt very angry with the light-minded
tolerance extended to foreigners characteristic of a certain part of
London society. It was perfectly outrageous.
"Where the devil can my wife be?"
Those words made Cosmo start, though they had not been uttered very
loudly. Almost mechanically he answered: "I don't know," and noticed
that Count Helion was staring at him in a curiously unintelligent
manner.
"I was really asking myself," muttered the latter and stirred uneasily,
without however taking his elbow off the mantelpiece. "It's a natural
thought since we are, God knows why, kept waiting for her here. I wasn't
aware I had spoken. Living for many years amongst people who didn't
understand any European language--I had hundreds of them in my palace in
Sindh--I got into the habit of talking aloud, strange as it may appear
to you."
"Yes," said Cosmo, with an air of innocence. "I suppose one acquires all
sorts of strange habits in those distant countries. We in England have a
class of men who return from India enriched. They are called nabobs.
Some of them have most objectionable habits. Unluckily their mere wealth
. . ."
"There is nothing to compare with wealth," interrupted the other in a
soldierly voice and paused, then continued in the same tone of making a
verbal report: "When I was in England I had the privilege to know many
people of position. They were very kind to me. They didn't seem to think
lightly of wealth."
Each phrase came curt, detached, but it was evident that the man did not
mean to be offensive. Those statements originated obviously in sincere
conviction; and after the Count had uttered them there appeared on his
forehead the horizontal wrinkles of unintelligent worry. Cosmo asked
himself whether the man before him was not really very stupid. Under the
elevated eyebrows his eyes looked worn and empty of all thought.
"Lots of money, I mean," M. de Montevesso began again. "Not your savings
and scrapings. Money that one acquires boldly and enough of it to be
profuse with."
"Is he going to treat me to vulgar boasting?" thought Cosmo. He wished
that Adèle would come in and interrupt this tête-à-tête which was so
very different from the one he had been expecting.
"I daresay money is very useful," he assented, with airy scorn which he
thought might put an end to the subject. But his interlocutor persisted.
"You can't know anything about it," he affirmed, then added
unexpectedly: "Money will give you even ideas. Lots of ideas. The worst
of it is that any one of them may turn out damnable. Well, yes. There is
of course danger in money, but what of that?"
"It can scarcely be if it is used for good works, as you seem to use
it," said Cosmo with polite indifference. He meant it to be final, but
Count de Montevesso was not to be suppressed.
"It leads one into worries," he said. "For instance, that orphanage of
mine, it is really a very large place. I am trying to be a benefactor to
my native province, but I want it to be in my own way. Well, since the
Restoration, the priests are trying to get hold of it. They want to turn
it to the glory of God and to the service of religion. I have seen
enough of all sorts of religions not to know what that means. No sooner
had the King entered Paris than the Bishop wrote to me pointing out that
there was no chapel and suggesting that I should build one and appoint a
chaplain. That Bishop is . . ."
He threw up his head suddenly and Cosmo became aware of the presence of
Adèle without having heard even the rustle of her dress. He stood up
hastily. There was a short silence.
"I see the acquaintance is made," said Adèle, looking from one to the
other. Her eyes lingered on Cosmo and then turned to her husband. "I
didn't know you would be already here. I had to help my father to his
room. I would have come at once here but he detained me." Again she
turned to Cosmo. "You will pardon me."
"I found Count Helion here. I have not been alone for a minute," said
Cosmo. "You owe me no apologies. I was delighted to make your husband's
acquaintance, even if you were not here to introduce us to each other."
This was said in English and Count Helion by the mantelpiece waited till
Cosmo had finished before he asked, "Where's Clelia?"
"I have sent her to bed," said Countess de Montevesso. "Helion, my
father would like to see you this evening."
"I am at the orders of M. le Marquis."
The grenadier-like figure at the mantelpiece did not stir, and those
words were followed only by a slight twitch in the muscles of the face
which might have had a sardonic intention. "To-night, at once," he
repeated. "But with Mr. Latham here?"
"Pray don't mind me, I am going away directly," said Cosmo. "It is
getting late."
"In Italy it is never late. I hope to find you here when I return. As
the husband of a daughter of the house of D'Armand I know what is due to
the name of Latham. Am I really expected at once?"
Adèle moved forward a step or two, speaking rapidly. "There has been
some news from Elba, or about Elba, which gives a certain concern to my
father. As you have been to the public knowledge in direct touch with
people from Elba my father would like to have your opinion."
Count Helion changed his attitude, and leaning his shoulders against the
mantelpiece addressed himself to Cosmo.
"It was the most innocent thing in the world. It was something about the
project for the exploitation of the Island of Pianosa. Napoleon sent his
treasurer here to get in touch with a banker. I am a man of affairs. The
banker consulted me--as a man who knew the spot. It's true I know the
spot, but if you hear it said that it is because of my relations with
the Dey of Algiers, pray don't believe it. I am in no way in touch with
the Barbary States."
He made a step forward, and then another, and stood still. "You two had
better sit down and talk. Yes, sit down and talk. Renew the acquaintance
of your early youth . . . your early youth," he repeated in a faint
voice. "Those youthful friendships . . ." he made a convulsive grimace
which Cosmo had discovered to be the effect of a smile. "There is
something so charming in those youthful friendships. As to myself I
don't remember ever being youthful." He stepped out towards the door
through which Cosmo had seen Clelia enter that morning. "Let me find you
when I return, enjoying yourselves most sentimentally. Most delightful."
His long stiff back swayed in the doorway and the door came to with a
crash.
Cosmo and Adèle looked at each other with a smile. Cosmo, hat in hand,
asked just audibly, "I suppose I had better stay?" She made an
affirmative sign and, moving away from him, put her foot on the marble
fender of the fireplace where nothing was left but hot ashes hiding a
reddish glow.
V
Cosmo, ill at ease, remained looking at her. He was in doubt what the
sign she had made meant, a nervous and imperious gesture, which might
have been a command for him to go or to stay. In his irresolution he
gazed at her, thinking that she was lovely to an incredible degree and
that the word "radiant" applied to her extraordinary aptness. Light
entered into her composition. And it was not the cold light of marble.
"She actually glows," he said to himself, amazed, "like ripe fruit in
the foliage, like a big flower in the shade."
"Don't gaze at my blushes," said Madame de Montevesso in an even tone
tinged with a little mockery and a little bitterness. "Would you believe
that when I was a girl I was so shy that I used to blush crimson
whenever anybody looked at me or spoke to me? It's a failing which does
not meet with much sympathy. And yet my suffering was very real. It
would reach such a pitch at times that I was ready to cry."
"Shall I go away?" asked Cosmo in a deadened voice. He waited for a
moment while she seemed to debate in her mind the answer to the
question. In his fear of being sent away he went on: "God knows I don't
want to leave you. And after all the Count is coming back and . . ."
"Oh, yes, he is coming back. Sit down. Yes. It would be better. Sit
down. . . ." Cosmo sat down where he could see her admirable shoulders,
the roundness of her averted head, _coiffée en boucles_ and girt with a
gold circlet, the shadowy retreating view of her profile. The long
drapery of her train flowed to the ground in a dark blue shimmer. . . .
"He is inevitable. He has always been inevitable," came further from her
lips which he couldn't see, for the mirror above the mantelpiece
reflected nothing but her forehead with the gold mist of her hair above.
Cosmo remained silent. For nothing in the world would he have made a
sound. He held his breath with expectation; and in the extreme tension
of his whole being the lights grew dim around him, while her white
shoulders, the thick clustering curls, the arm on which she leaned, and
the other bare arm hanging inert by her side, seemed the only source of
light in the room.
"You don't know me at all," began the Countess de Montevesso. "I don't
charge you with forgetting; but the little you may remember of me cannot
be of any use. It is only natural that I should be a stranger to you.
But you cannot be a stranger to me. For one thing you were a boy and
then you were not a child of outcasts without a country, of refugees
with a ruined past and with no future. You were a young Latham, as
rooted in your native soil as the old trees of your park. Even then
there seemed to me something enviable about you."
She turned her head a little to glance at him. "You had no idea what it
was like after we had gone to London. My ignorance of the world was so
profound that I felt ill at ease in it. I hoped I had an attractive
face, but I only discovered that I was pretty from the remarks of the
people in the street I overheard. I spent my life by the side of my
mother's couch. I never went out except attended by my father or by
Aglae. My only amusement was to play a game of chess now and then with
an old doctor, also a refugee, who looked after my mother, or listen to
the conversation of the people who came to see us. Amongst them there
were all the prominent men and women of the old régime. Refugees. They
seldom spoke the truth to each other, and yet they were no more stupid
than the rest of the world. Nobody could be more good-natured and better
company, more frivolous or more inconsiderate. I have seen women of the
highest rank work ten hours a day to get bread for their children, but
they also slandered one another, told falsehoods about their conduct and
their work, and quarrelled among themselves in the style of washerwomen.
Morals were even looser than in the times before the Revolution. Manners
were forgotten. Every transgression was excused in those who were
regarded as good royalists. I don't mean this to apply to the great body
of the refugees. Some of them led irreproachable lives. Round our
Princes there were some most absurd intrigues. I didn't know much of all
this, but I remember my poor father's helpless indignations and my own
appalled disgust at the things I could not help hearing and seeing."
She turned her head to look at Cosmo. "I am telling you all this to give
you some idea of the air I had to breathe," she said in a changed tone.
"I don't think it contaminated me. I felt its odiousness; but all this
seemed without remedy. I didn't even suffer much from it. What I
suffered most from was our domestic anxieties; my mother's fears lest
the small resources we had to live on should fail us altogether. Our
daily crust of bread seemed to depend on political events in Europe, and
they were going against us. Battles, negotiations, everything. A blight
seemed to have fallen on the royalist cause. My mother didn't conceal
her distress. What touched me more still was the careworn, silent
anxiety of my poor father."
She paused, looking at Cosmo intently, meeting his eyes fixed on her
face. "I was getting on for sixteen," she continued. "No one ever paid
the slightest attention to me. The only genuine passion in my heart was
filial love. . . . But is it any good in going on? And then I can't tell
what you may have heard already."
"All I have heard," said Cosmo in a tone of profound respect, "is that
Adèle de Montevesso's life has been irreproachable."
"I remember the time when all the world was doing its best to make it
impossible. Would it shock you very much if I told you that I don't care
at all about its good opinion now? There was a time when it would put
the worst construction possible on my distress, on my bewilderment, on
my very innocence."
"Why should the world do that to you?" asked Cosmo.
"Why? But I see you know nothing. I met my husband first at a select
concert that was given by the music-master of the late Queen of France.
My mother was feeling a little better and insisted on my going out a
little. Those were small fashionable affairs. I had a good voice myself,
and that evening I sang with Madame Seppio. An English gentleman--his
name doesn't matter--presented M. de Montevesso to me as a friend of his
just returned from India and anxious to be introduced to the best
society. What with my usual shyness and the unattractive appearance of
the man, I don't think I received his attentions very well. There was
really no reason I should notice him particularly. It wasn't difficult
to see that he had not the manners of a man of the world. Where could he
have acquired them? He had left his village at seventeen, he enlisted in
the Irish Regiment which served in France, then he deserted, perhaps. I
only know that some years afterwards he was a captain in the service of
Russia. From there he made his way to India. I believe the
governor-general used him as a sort of unofficial agent amongst native
princes, but he got into some scrape with the company. By what steps he
managed to get on to the back of an elephant and command the army of a
native prince I really don't know. And even if I had known then it would
not have made him more interesting in my eyes. I was relieved when he
made me a deep bow with his hand on his heart and went away. He left a
most fugitive impression, but the very next morning he sent his English
friend to ask my parents for my hand. That friend was a nobleman, a man
of honour, and the offers he was empowered to make were so generous that
my parents thought they must tell me of them. I was so astonished that
at first I couldn't speak. I simply went away and shut myself up in my
room. They were not people to press me for an answer. The poor worried
dears thought that I wouldn't even consent to contemplate this marriage;
while I, shut up in my room--I was afraid, remembering the way they had
spoken to me of that offer, that they would reject it without consulting
me any further. I sent word by Aglae that I would give my answer next
day and that I begged to be left to myself. Then I escaped from the
house, followed by Aglae, who was never so frightened in her life, and
went to see the wife of that friend of my present husband. I begged her
to send at once for General de Montevesso--at that time he called
himself General. The King of Sardinia had given him this rank in
acknowledgment of some service that his great wealth had enabled him to
render to the Court of Turin. That lady of course had many scruples
about doing something so highly unconventional, but at last, overcome by
the exaltation of my feelings, she consented."
"She did that?" murmured Cosmo. "What an extraordinary thing!"
"Yes. She did that, instead of taking me home. People will do
extraordinary things to please a man of fabulous wealth. She sent out
two or three messengers to look for him all over the town. They were
some time in finding him. I waited. I was perfectly calm. I was calmer
than I am now, telling you my story. I was possessed by the spirit of
self-sacrifice. I had no misgivings. I remember even how cold I was in
that small drawing room with a big coal fire. He arrived out of breath.
He was splendidly dressed and behaved very ceremoniously. I felt his
emotion without sharing it. I, who used to blush violently at the
smallest provocation, didn't feel the slightest embarrassment in
addressing that big stiff man so much older than myself. I could not
appreciate what a fatal mistake I was committing by telling him that I
didn't care for him in the least and probably never should; but that if
he would secure my parents' future comfort my gratitude would be so
great that I could marry him, without reluctance and be his loyal friend
and wife for life. He stood there stiff and ominous and told me that he
didn't flatter himself with the possibility of inspiring any deeper
feeling.
"We stood there facing each other for a bit. I felt nothing but an
inward glow of satisfaction at having, as I thought, acted honourably.
As to him I think he was simply made dumb with rage. At last he bowed
with his hands on his heart and said that he would not even ask now for
the favour of kissing my hand. I appreciated his delicacy at that
moment. It would have been an immense trial to my shyness. I think now
that he was simply afraid of putting my hand to his lips lest he should
lose his self-control and bite it. He told me later, in one of those
moments when people don't care what they say, that at that moment he
positively hated me, not the sight of me, you understand, but my
aristocratic insolence."
She paused, and in the youthful sincerity of his sympathy Cosmo uttered
a subdued exclamation of distress. Madame de Montevesso looked at him
again and then averted her face.
"I heard afterwards some gossip to the effect that he had been jilted by
a girl to whom he was engaged, the daughter of some captain on half-pay,
and that he proposed to me simply to show her that he could find a girl
prettier, of higher rank, and in every way more distinguished that would
consent to be his wife. I believe that it was this that prevented him
from drawing back before my frankness. As to me, I went home, seeing
nothing, hearing nothing, caring for nothing, as though I had done with
the world, as though I had taken the veil. I can find no other
comparison for the peace that was in me. I faced my mother's reproaches
calmly. She was of course very much hurt at my not confiding in her at
this crisis of my life. My father, too. But how could I have confided in
them in this matter on which their security and welfare depended? How
could I have confided in any of the men and women around me who seemed
to me as if mad, whose conduct and opinions I despised with youthful
severity as foolish and immoral? There was one human being in the world
in whom I might perhaps have confided, that perhaps would have
understood me. That was your father, Cosmo. But he was three hundred
miles away. There was no time. Tell me, did he understand? Has he cast
me out of his thoughts for ever?"
"My father," said Cosmo, "has lived like a hermit for years. There was
nothing to make him forget you. Yes, he was a man in whom you could have
confided. He would have understood you. That doesn't mean to say that he
would have approved. I wish he had been by your side. He would have
brought pressure on your parents with the authority of an old and tried
friend."
"And benefactor," struck in the Countess de Montevesso. "My father, I
believe, had an inkling of the truth. He begged me again and again to
think well of what I was doing. I told him that I was perfectly
satisfied with what I had done. It was perfectly true then. I had
satisfied my conscience by telling my suitor that I could never love
him. I felt strangely confident that I could fulfil the duties of my new
position, and I was absorbed by the happiness of having saved my parents
from all anxiety for the future. I was not aware of having made any
sacrifice. Probably if I had been twenty or more I would have been less
confident; perhaps I wouldn't have had the courage! But at that age I
didn't know that my whole life was at stake. Three weeks afterwards I
was married.
"As you see, there was no time lost. During that period our intercourse
was of the most formal kind only I never even attempted to observe him
with any attention. He was very stiff and ceremonious, but he was in a
hurry, because I believe he was afraid from his previous experience that
I would change my mind. His usual answer to the expression of all my
wishes and to most of my speeches was a profound bow--and, sometimes, I
was amused. In the lightness of my heart a thought would come to me that
a lifetime on such terms would be a funny affair. I don't say he
deceived me in anything. He had brought an immense fortune out of India
and the world took him at its face value. With no more falsehood than
holding his tongue and watching his behaviour he kept me in the dark
about his character, his family, his antecedents, his very name. When we
first were married he was ostentatious and rather mean at the same time.
His long life in India added the force of oriental jealousy to that
which would be in a sense natural to a man of his age. Moreover, his
character was naturally disagreeable. The only way he could make the
power of his great fortune felt was by hurting the feelings of other
people, of his servants, of his dependents, of his friends. His wife
came in for her share. An older and cleverer woman with a certain power
of deception and caring for the material pleasures of life could have
done better for herself and for him in the situation in which I was
placed, but I, almost a child, with an honest and proud character and
caring nothing for what wealth could give, I was perfectly helpless. I
was being constantly surprised and shocked by the displays of evil
passions and his fits of ridiculous jealousy which were expressed in
such a coarse manner that they could only arouse my resentment and
contempt.
"Meantime we lived in great style--dinner parties, concerts. I had a
very good voice. I daresay he was anxious enough to show off his latest
acquisition, but at the same time he could not bear me being looked at
or even spoken to. A fit of oriental jealousy would come over him,
especially when I had been much applauded. He would express his feelings
to me in barrack-room language. At last, one evening he made a most
scandalous scene before about two hundred guests, and then went out of
the house, leaving me to make the best of it before all those people. It
caused the greatest possible scandal. The party of course broke up. I
spent the rest of the night sitting in my bedroom, too overcome to take
off my splendid dress and those jewels with which he always insisted I
should bedeck myself. With the first signs of dawn he returned, and
coming up into my room found me sitting there. He told me then that
living with me was too much of a torture for him and proposed I should
go back to my parents for a time.
"We had been married for a little over a year then. For the first time
since the wedding I felt really happy. They, poor dears, were delighted.
We were all so innocent together that we thought this would be the end
of all our troubles, that the man was chivalrous enough to have seen his
mistake in the proper light, and to bear the consequences nobly. Hadn't
I told him I could never love him, exactly in so many words?
"I ought to have known that he was incapable of any generosity. As a
matter of fact I didn't think much about it. I, who had overcome my
shyness enough to become, young as I was, a perfect hostess in a world
which I knew so little--because after all that sort of thing was in my
tradition--I was really too stupid, too unsophisticated for those ten
months to have been a lesson to me. I had learned nothing, any more than
one learns from a nightmare or from a period of painful illness. I
simply breathed freely. I became again the old Adèle. I dismissed M. de
Montevesso from my thoughts as though he had never lived. Can you
believe this, Cosmo? It is astonishing how facts can fail to impress
one; brutalities, abuse, scenes of passion, mad exhibitions of jealousy,
as long as they do not attack your conception of your moral personality.
All this fell off me like a poisoned robe, leaving hardly a smart
behind. I raised my head like a flower after a thunderstorm. Don't think
my character is shallow, Cosmo. There were depths in me that could be
reached, but till then I had been only tormented, shocked, surprised,
but hardly even frightened. It was he who had suffered. But my turn was
to come."
"I don't think you were ever a person of shallow feelings."
"One's feelings must mature like everything else, and I assure you I had
not yet stopped growing. The next six months were to finish my
education. For by that time I had lost all my illusions. While I was
breathing freely between my father and mother, forgetting the world
around us, Montevesso was going about the town with his complaints and
his suspicions; regretting he had let me go and enraged that I should
have gone from him so easily. And you may be sure he found sympathizers.
A rich man, you understand! Who could refuse sympathy to so much wealth?
He was obviously a much ill-used man, all the faults of course were on
my side; in less than a month I found myself the centre of underhand
intrigues and the victim of a hateful persecution. Friends, relatives,
mere acquaintances in the world of emigration entered M. de Montevesso's
service. They spied on my conduct and tampered with the servants. There
were assemblies in his house where my character was torn to shreds. Some
of those good friends offered him their influence in Rome for the
annulation of the marriage, for a consideration of course. Others
discovered flaws in the marriage contract. They invented atrocious
tales. There were even horrid verses made about that scandal; till at
last he himself became disgusted with the wretches and closed his house
and his purse to them. Years later he showed me a note of their names
and the amounts paid for all those manifestations of sympathy. He must
have been impressed and disgusted by the retrospect, because it was a
big lot of money. As to the names, they were aristocratic enough to
flatter his plebeian pride. He showed the list to me just to hurt my
feelings.
"Some sinners have been stoned, but I, an innocent girl of seventeen,
had been pelted with mud beyond endurance. It was impossible to induce
him to come to any sort of arrangement that would leave me in peace. All
the world, influenced by his paid friends, was against me. What could I
do? Calumnies are hard to bear. Harder than truth. Even my parents
weakened. He promised to make amends. Of course I went back to him, as
one would crawl out of the mud amongst clean thorns that can but tear
one's flesh. He received me back with apologies that were as nearly
public as such things can be. It was a vindication of my character. But
directly he had me with him again he gave way to his fits of hatred as
before, such hatred as only black jealousy can inspire. It was terrible.
For even jealousy has its gradations, coloured by doubts and hopes, and
his was the worst, the hopeless kind, since he could never forget my
honest declaration."
The Countess of Montevesso's voice died out and then Cosmo looked up.
She was a little pale, which made her eyes appear darker than ever he
had seen them before. Cosmo was too young yet to understand the full
meaning of this confession, but his very youth invested the facts with a
sort of romantic grandeur, while the woman before him felt crushed by
the feelings of their squalid littleness. Without looking at him she
said:
"We went travelling for a year and a half, stayed for a time in Paris,
where he began to make me scenes again, and then we went oh to Italy.
The pretext was to make me known to some of his relations. I don't
believe he could remember his mother, and his father, an old dealer in
rabbit skins, I believe, had died some time before. As to the rest, I
think his heart failed him notwithstanding the brutal pride he used at
times to display to me. He took me to see some decayed people living in
old ruined houses whom I verily believe he bribed to pass for his more
distant connections. It was a pilgrimage amongst the most squalid shams,
something that you cannot conceive, yet I didn't rebel against the
horrible humiliation of it. It was part of the bargain. Sometimes I
thought that he would kill me in one of those wild places in some lost
valley where the people, only a degree removed from peasants in their
dress and speech, fawned upon him as the wealthy cousin and benefactor.
I am certain that during those wanderings he was half distracted. It was
I who went through all this unmoved. But I don't suppose my life was
ever in any danger. At that time none of his moods lasted long enough to
let him carry out any definite purpose. And then he is not a man of
criminal instincts. After all, he is perhaps a great adventurer. He has
commanded armies of a hundred thousand men. He has in a sense faced the
power of England in India. The very fact that he had managed to get out
of it with so much wealth and with quite a genuine reputation shows that
there is something in him. I don't know whether it's that obtained for
him a very gracious reception from Bonaparte when he dragged me back to
Paris."
VI
Madame de Montevesso paused, looking at the white ashes in which the
sparks had not died out yet. "Yes," she went on, "I lived near Paris
through the whole time of the Empire. I had a charming house in the
country. Monsieur de Montevesso had established me in a style which he
considered worthy of himself if not of me. He could never forgive me for
being what I am. He was tolerated by the returned emigration for my
sake, but he grew weary of his own unhappiness and resolved to live by
himself in his own province where he could be a great personage. Perhaps
he is not altogether a bad man. He consented eagerly to my parents, who
had obtained permission to return to France, joining me in the country.
I tasted again some happiness in the peace of our semi-retired life and
in their affection. Our world was that of old society, the world of
returned nobles. They hated and despised the imperial power, but most of
them were ready to cringe before it. Yes, even the best were overawed by
the real might under the tinsel of that greatness. Our circle was very
small and composed of convinced royalists, but I could not share their
hatreds and their contempts. I felt myself a Frenchwoman. I had liberal
ideas. . . ."
She noticed Cosmo's eyes fixed on her with eager and friendly curiosity,
and paused with a faint smile.
"You understand me, Cosmo?" she asked. The latter gave a little nod
without detaching his eyes from the face which seemed to him to glow
with the light of generous feelings, but already Madame de Montevesso
was going on.
"I did not want to be patronized by all those returned duchesses who
wanted to teach me how to feel and how to behave. Their own behaviour
was a mixture of insolence and self-seeking before that government which
they feared and despised. I didn't fear it but neither could I despise
it. My heart was heavy during all those years but it was not downcast.
All Europe was aflame and the blaze scorched and dazzled and filled one
with awe and with forebodings; but then one always heard that fire
purifies all which it cannot destroy. The world would perhaps come out
better from it."
"Well, it's all over," said Cosmo, "and what has it done? The smoke
hangs about yet and I cannot see, but how do you feel?"
Madame de Montevesso, leaning on her elbow on the mantelpiece, with one
foot on the fender, looked down at the ashes in which a spark gleamed
here and there.
"I feel a little cold," she said, "and dazed perhaps. One doesn't know
where to look."
Cosmo got up and made a step forward. His voice, however, was subdued.
"Formerly there was a man."
"A man, yes. One couldn't help looking towards him. There was something
unnatural in that uniqueness, but do you know, Cosmo, the man was
nothing. You smile, you think you hear a royalist speaking, a woman full
of silly aristocratic prejudice; a woman who sees only a small Corsican
squire who hadn't even the sense to catch the opportunity by the hair as
it flew by and be the restorer of the Bourbon dynasty. You imagine all
that of me! . . . Of me!"
She kept her pose, desolate, as if looking down at the ashes of a
burnt-up world.
"I don't think you could be stupid if you tried," he said. "But if the
man was nothing, then what has done it?"
Madame de Montevesso remained silent for a while before murmuring the
word "Destiny," and only then turned her head slightly towards Cosmo.
"What are you staring at in that corner?" she asked, after another
period of silence.
"Was I staring?" he said with a little start. "I didn't know. Your words
evoked a draped figure with an averted head."
"Then it wasn't that," she said, looking at him with friendly eyes.
"Whatever your fancy might have seen it was not Destiny. One must live a
very long time to see even the hem of her robe. Live a very, very long
time," she repeated in a tone of such weariness, tinged by fear, that
Cosmo felt impelled to step forward, take up the hand that hung by her
side, and press it to his lips. When released, it fell slowly to its
previous position. But Madame de Montevesso did not move.
"That's very nice," she said. "It was a movement of sympathy. I have had
very little of that in my life. There is something in me that does not
appeal to the people with whom I live. My father, of course, loves me;
but that is not quite the same thing. Your father, I believe,
sympathized with the child and I am touched to see that the son seems to
understand something of the woman; of an almost old woman."
Cosmo would have been amused at the tone of unaffected conviction in
which she called herself an old woman had it not been for the profound
trouble on that young face bent downwards, and at the melancholy grace
of the whole attitude of that woman who had once been the child Adèle;
a foreign, homeless child, sheltered for a moment by the old walls of
his ancestral home, and the sharer of its life's stately intimacies.
"No," he said, marvelling that so much bitter experience should have
been the lot of such a resplendent figure. "No. Destiny works quickly
enough. We are both still young, and yet think of what we have already
seen."
He fancied she had shuddered a little. He felt ashamed at the thought of
what she had lived through, how she had been affected in her daily life
by what to him had been only a spectacle after all, though his country
had played its part, the impressive part of a rock upraising its head
above the flood. But he continued: "Why, the Man of Destiny himself is
young yet. You must have seen him many times."
"No. Once or twice a year I went to the Tuileries in the company of some
reconciled royalist ladies and very much against my wish. It was
expected from Madame de Montevesso and I always came away thankful to
think that it was over for a time. You could hardly imagine how dull
that Empire time was. All hopes were crushed. It was like a dreadful
overdressed masquerade with the everlasting sound of the guns in the
distance. Every year I spent a month with my husband to save
appearances. That was in the bond. He used then to invite all the
provincial grandees for a series of dinners. But even in the provinces
one felt the sinister moral constraint of that imperial glory. No doubt
all my movements were noticed and recorded by the proper people.
Naturally I saw the Emperor several times. I saw him also in theatres,
in his carriage driving about, but he spoke to me only once."
"Only once!" exclaimed Cosmo under his breath.
"You may imagine I tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible,
and I did not belong to the Court. It was on the occasion of a ball
given to the Princess of Baden. There was an enormous crowd. Early in
the evening I found myself standing in the front row in the Galerie de
Diane between two women who were perfect strangers to me. By and by the
Court came in, the Empress, the Princess, the Chamberlains in full
dress, and took their place on a platform at the end. In the intervals
of dancing the Emperor came down alone, speaking only to the women. He
wore his imperial dress of red velvet, laced in all the seams, with
white satin breeches, with diamonds on the hilt of his sword and the
buckles of his shoes and on his cap with white plumes. It was a
well-designed costume but with his short thick figure and the clumsiness
of his movements he looked to me frightful and like a mock king. When he
came opposite me he stopped. I am certain he knew who I was, but he
asked me my name. I told him.
"'Your husband lives in his province?'
"'Yes, sire.'
"'Your husband employs much labour, I hear. I am grateful to him for
giving work to the people. This is the proper use of wealth. Hasn't he
served in the English army in India?'
"His tone was friendly. I said I didn't know that, but I did know that
he had fought against them there.
"He smiled in a fascinating manner and said, 'That's very possible. A
soldier of fortune. He is a native of Piedmont, is he not?'
"'Yes, sire.'
"'But you are French, entirely French. We have a claim on you. How old
are you?'
"I told him. He said, 'You look younger.' Then he came nearer to me and,
speaking in a confidential tone, said, 'You have no children. I know. I
know. It isn't your fault, but you should try to make some other
arrangement. Believe me, I am giving you good advice.'
"I was dumb with astonishment. He gave me again a very gracious smile
and went on. That is the only conversation I ever had with the Emperor."
She fell silent with downcast eyes, then she added: "It was very
characteristic of him." Cosmo was mainly struck by the fact that he knew
so little of her, that this was the first intimation he had of the
Montevessos being childless. He had never asked himself the question
before, but this positive if indirect statement was agreeable to him.
"I did not make any other arrangements," began Madame de Montevesso with
a slightly ironic intonation. "I was only too thankful to be left alone.
At the time the Russian campaign began I paid my annual visit to
Monsieur de Montevesso. Except for the usual entertainments to local
people I was alone with Count Helion, and as usual when we were quite
alone he behaved in a tolerable way. There was nobody and nothing that
could arouse his jealousy and the dormant hatred he nurses for me deep
down in his heart. We had only the slight discussion, at the end of
which he admitted, gnashing his teeth, that he had nothing to reproach
me with except that I was what I was. I told him I could not help it and
that as things were he ought rather to congratulate himself on that
fact. He gave me only a black look. He can restrain himself wonderfully
when he likes. Upon the whole I had a quiet time. I played and sang to
myself, I read a little, I took long walks, I rode almost every day,
attended by Bernard. That wasn't so agreeable. You remember Bernard?"
Cosmo nodded.
"For years he had been a very devoted and faithful servant to us but I
suppose he, too, like so many of his betters, fell under the spell of
Monsieur de Montevesso's wealth. When my parents rejoined me in France
he had his wish at last and married Aglae, my mulatto maid. He was quite
infatuated with her and now he makes her terribly wretched. She is
really devoted to me, and there cannot be any doubt that Bernard has
been bribed by my husband to play the part of a spy. It seems incredible
but I have had it from the Count in so many words. Bernard let himself
be corrupted years ago, when M. de Montevesso first sent me back to my
parents in a rage and next day was nearly out of his mind with agony at
having done so. Yes, it dates as far back as that. That man so faithful
to us in our misfortunes allowed himself to be bought with the greatest
ease. Everybody, from the highest to the lowest, was in a conspiracy
against a poor girl whose only sin was her perfect frankness. When
Bernard came over to France with my parents I was already aware of this,
but Aglae wanted to marry him and so I said nothing. She probably would
not have believed me then."
"And could you bear that wretch near you all those years?" exclaimed
Cosmo, full of indignation. She smiled sadly. She had borne the
disclosure and had kept the secret of greater infamies. She had all her
illusions about rectitude destroyed so early that it did not matter to
her now what she knew of the people about her.
"Oh, Cosmo," she exclaimed suddenly, "I am a hardened woman now, but I
assure you that sometimes when I remember the girl of sixteen I was,
without an evil thought in her head and in her ignorance surrounded by
the basest slanderers and intrigues, tears come into my eyes. And since
the baseness of selfish passions I have seen seething round the
detestable glory of that man in Elba, it seems to me that there is
nowhere any honesty on earth--nowhere!" The energy of that outburst,
contrasted with the immobility of the pose, gave to Cosmo the sensation
of a chill.
"I will not mention us two," said Cosmo, "herein this room. But I know
of at least two honest men on earth. They are your father and mine. Why
didn't you write to Father, Adèle?"
"I tell you I was a child. What could I write to him? Hasn't he retired
out of the world for so many years only not to see and not to hear?
That's one of your honest men. And as to my poor father, who is the soul
of honour, such is the effect of long misfortune on the best characters
and of temptations associated with his restored rank, that there have
been moments when I watched his conduct with dread. Caste prejudices are
an awful thing, but thank God he had never a thought of vengeance in his
mind. He is not a courtier."
"I have heard about it," interrupted Cosmo, "from the Marquis himself.
He is a dear old man."
The two by the mantelpiece exchanged dim smiles.
"I had to come here with him," said Adèle. "He cannot do without me. I
too was glad to get away from the evil passions and the hopeless
stupidities of all the people that had come back without a single
patriotic feeling, without a single new idea in their heads, like
merciless spectres out of a grave, hating the world to which they had
returned. They had forgotten nothing and learned nothing."
"I have seen something of that myself," murmured Cosmo. "But the world
can't be put back where it was before you and I were born."
"No! But to see them trying to do it was intolerable. Then my husband
appeared on the scene, hired this Palazzo, and insisted on us all living
here. It was impossible to raise a rational objection to that. Father
was never aware of half I went through in my life. I learned early to
suppress every expression of feeling. But in the main we understand each
other without talking. When he received Count Helion's letter offering
us this house he just looked at me and said, 'I suppose we must.' For my
part, I go through life without raising any objections to anything. One
has to preserve one's dignity in some way; and is there another way open
to me? Yes, I have made up my mind; but I must tell you, Cosmo, that
notwithstanding that amazing tour we made ten years ago amongst M. de
Montevesso's problematic relations, those two sisters and that niece
have been a perfect novelty to me. I only hope I never betrayed my
surprise or any feeling at all about it." The Countess raised her eyes
to Cosmo's face. "I have spoken of it to you as I have never spoken to
anybody in my life, because of old memories which are so much to me and
because I could not mistrust anybody of your name. Have you been wearied
by this long tale?"
"No," said Cosmo. "But have you thought how it is going to end?"
"To end?" she said in a startled tone which affected Cosmo profoundly.
"To end? What do you mean? Everything is ended already."
"I was thinking of your endurance," said Cosmo.
"Do I look worn out?" she asked.
Cosmo raised his head and looked at her steadily. The impression of her
grace and her strength filled his breast with an admiring and almost
oppressive emotion. He could find nothing to say, not knowing what was
uppermost in his mind, pity or admiration, mingled with a vague anger.
"Well, what do you see in my face?"
"I never have seen such serenity on any face," said Cosmo. "How sure of
itself your soul must be!"
Her colour became heightened for a moment, her eyes darkened as she said
in a grateful tone, "You are right, Cosmo. My face is not a mask."
But he hardly heard her. He was lost in wonder at the sudden disorder of
his thoughts. When he regained his mental composure he noticed that
Madame de Montevesso seemed to be listening.
"I wonder whether the Count is still with my father," she said. "Ring
that bell on the table at your hand, Cosmo."
Cosmo did so and they waited, looking at each other. Presently the door
swung open, and at the same time the cartel above it began to strike the
hour. Cosmo counted eleven and then Madame de Montevesso spoke to
Bernard, who waited in silence.
"Is M. le Comte still with my father?"
"I haven't seen him come out yet, Madame la Comtesse."
"Tell your wife not to wait for me, Bernard."
"Yes, Madame la Comtesse." Bernard backed out respectfully through the
door.
"How fat he is, and what sleek hair," marvelled Cosmo. "And what a
solemn manner. No wonder I did not recognize him at once. He showed me
into your father's room, you know. He looks a Special Envoy's
confidential man all over. And to think that he is your household spy! I
wonder at your patience."
"Perhaps if I had anything to conceal I would have had less patience
with the spy," she said, equably. "I believe that when we lived in Paris
he wrote every week to M. de Montevesso, because, you know, he can write
quite well. I wonder what he found to write about. Lists of names, I
suppose. Or perhaps his own views of the people who called with bits of
overheard conversations."
"It's incredible," murmured Cosmo. "It's fantastic. What contempt he
must have for your husband."
"The most remarkable thing," said Madame de Montevesso, "is that I am
convinced that he doesn't write any lies."
"Yes," said Cosmo, "I assume that. And do you mean that the Count is
paying him every week for that sort of thing. It's an ugly farce."
"Don't you think," said the Countess, "that something serious may come
of it some day?" Cosmo made a hopeless gesture.
"The man you married is mad," he said with intense conviction.
"There have been times when I felt as if I were mad myself," murmured
Madame de Montevesso. "Take up your hat," she added quickly.
She had heard footsteps outside the door. A moment after, Count Helion
came in and fixed his black glance on his wife and Cosmo. He did not
open his lips and remained ominously by the door for a time. The strain
of the silence was made sinister by the stiff bearing of the man, the
immobility of the carven brown face, crossed by the inky-black moustache
in harsh contrast with the powdered head. He might have been a sergeant
come at the stroke of the hour to tell those two people that the firing
squad was waiting for them outside the door. Madame de Montevesso broke
the dumb spell.
"I did my best to entertain Mr. Latham, but we had given you up. He was
just going."
She glanced serenely at Cosmo, whom the sweetness of her tone, her easy
self-possession before that barrack-room figure, stung to the heart. At
that moment no words could have expressed the intensity of his hatred
for the Count of Montevesso, at whom he was looking with a smile of the
utmost banality. The latter moved forward stiffly.
"Your father hopes you will see him for a moment presently," he said to
his wife. "He has not gone to bed yet."
"Then I will go to him at once."
Madame de Montevesso extended her hand to Cosmo, who raised the tips of
her fingers to his lips ceremoniously.
"I will see Mr. Latham out," said the Count, bowing to his wife, who
went out of the room without looking at him. Cosmo, following her with
his eyes, forgot Count Helion's existence. He forgot it so thoroughly
that it was with a perceptible start that he perceived the Count's eyes
fixed on him in an odd way. "He will never look at ease anywhere,"
thought Cosmo scornfully. A great part of his hatred had evaporated. "I
suppose he means to be pilot. I wonder how he looked on the back of an
elephant."
"It was very good of you to wait so long for my return," said Count
Helion. "I have been detained by an absurd discussion arising out of
probably false reports."
"The time passed quickly," said truthful Cosmo; but, before the black
weary glance of the other, hastened to add with assumed care, "We talked
of old times."
"Old times," repeated Count Helion without any particular accent. "My
wife is very young yet, though she must be older than you are. Isn't she
older?"
Cosmo said curtly that he really did not know. When they were running
about as children together she was the tallest of the three.
"And now," took up the inexpressive voice of Count de Montevesso,
"without her high heels she would be a little shorter than you. As you
stood together you looked to me exactly the same height. And so you
renewed the memories of your youth. They must have been delightful."
"They were no doubt more delightful for me than they could have been for
Mme. la Comtesse," said Cosmo, making a motion towards taking leave.
"A moment. Let me have the honour to see you out." Count Helion walked
round the room blowing out the candles in three candelabras in
succession and taking up the fourth in his hand.
"Why take this trouble?" protested Cosmo. "I know my way."
"Every light has been extinguished in the reception rooms; or at least
ought to have been. I detest waste of all kinds. It is perhaps because I
have made my own fortune, and by God's favour it is so considerable in
its power for good that it requires the most careful management. It is
perhaps a peculiar point of view, but I have explained it to Mme. de
Montevesso."
"She must have been interested," muttered Cosmo between his teeth,
following across the room and round the screen the possessor of these
immensely important riches, who, candelabra in hand, preceded him by a
pace or two and threw open the door behind the screen. Cosmo, crossing
in the wake of Count Helion the room of the evening reception, saw dimly
the disarranged furniture about the mantelpiece, the armchair in which
Lady William had sat, the great sofa in which little Countess Bubna had
been shyly ensconced, the card table with the chairs pushed back and all
the cards in a heap in the middle. The swaying flames of the candles,
leaping from one long strip of mirror to another, preceded him into the
next salon where all the furniture stood ranged expectantly against the
walls. The next two salons were exactly alike except for the colour of
the hangings and the size of the pictures on the walls. As to their
subjects, Cosmo could not make them out.
Not a single lackey was to be seen in the anteroom of white walls and
red benches; but Cosmo was surprised at the presence of a peasant-like
woman, who must have been sitting there in the dark for some time. The
light of the candelabra fell on the gnarled hands lying in her lap. The
edge of a dark shawl shaded her features with the exception of her
ancient chin. She never stirred. Count Helion, disregarding her as
though she had been invisible, put down the candelabra on a little table
and wished Cosmo good-night with a formal bow. At the same time he
expressed harshly the hope of seeing Cosmo often during his stay in
Genoa. Then with an unexpected attempt to soften his tone he muttered
something about his wife--"the friend of your childhood."
The allusions exasperated Cosmo. The more he saw of the grown woman, the
less connection she seemed to have with the early Adèle. The contrast
was too strong. He felt tempted to tell M. de Montevesso that he by no
means cherished that old memory. The nearest he came to it was the
statement that he had the privilege to hear much of Madame de Montevesso
in Paris. M. de Montevesso, contemplating now the dark peasant-like
figure huddled up on the crimson seat against a white wall, hastened to
turn towards Cosmo the black weariness of his eyes.
"Mme. de Montevesso has led a very retired life during the Empire. Her
conduct was marked by the greatest circumspection. But she is a person
of rank. God knows what gossip you may have heard. The world is
censorious."
Brusquely Cosmo stepped out into the outer gallery. Listening to M. de
Montevesso was no pleasure. The Count accompanied him as far as the head
of the great staircase and stayed to watch his descent with a face that
expressed no more than the face of a soldier on parade, till, all at
once, his eyes started to roll about wildly as if looking for some
object he could snatch up and throw down the stairs at Cosmo's head. But
this lasted only for a moment. He reëntered the anteroom quietly and
busied himself in closing and locking the door with care. After doing
this he approached the figure on the bench and stood over it silently.
VII
The old woman pushed back her shawl and raised her wrinkled soft face
without much expression to say:
"The child has been calling for you for the last hour or more."
Helion de Montevesso walked all the length of the anteroom and back
again; then stood over the old woman as before.
"You know what she is," she began directly the Count had stopped. "She
won't give us any rest. When she was little one could always give her a
beating but now there is no doing anything with her. You had better come
and see for yourself."
"Very unruly?" asked the Count de Montevesso.
"She is sixteen," said the old woman crisply, getting up and moving
towards the stairs leading to the upper floor. A stick that had been
lying concealed in the folds of her dress was now in her hand. She
ascended the stairs more nimbly than her appearance would have led one
to expect, and the Count of Montevesso followed her down a long
corridor, where at last the shuffle of her slippers and the tapping of
her stick ceased in front of a closed door. A profound silence reigned
in this remote part of the old palace which the enormous vanity of the
upstart had hired for the entertainment of his wife and his
father-in-law in the face of the restored monarchies of Europe. The old
peasant woman turned to the stiff figure which, holding the candelabra
and in its laced coat, recalled a gorgeous lackey.
"We have put her to bed," she said, "but as to holding her down in it,
that was another matter. Maria is strong but she got weary of it at
last. We had to send for Father Paul. Shameless as she is she would not
attempt to get out of her bed in her nightdress before a priest. The
Father promised to stay till we could fetch you to her, so I came down,
but I dared not go further than the anteroom. A valet told me you had
still a guest with you, so I sent him away and sat down to wait. The
wretch to revenge himself on me put out the lights before he went."
"He shall be flung out to-morrow," said M. de Montevesso in a low tone.
"I hope I have done nothing wrong, Helion."
"No," said M. de Montevesso in the same subdued tone. He lent his ear to
catch some slight sound on the other side of the door. But the stillness
behind it was like the stillness of a sick room to which people listen
with apprehension. The old woman laid her hand lightly on the sleeve of
the gorgeous coat. "You are a great man . . ."
"I am," said Count Helion without exultation.
The old woman, dragged out at the age of seventy from the depths of her
native valley by the irresistible will of the great man, tried to find
utterance for a few simple thoughts. Old age with its blunted feelings
had alone preserved her from utter bewilderment at the sudden change;
but she was overpowered by its greatness. She lived inside that palace
as if enchanted into a state of resignation. Ever since she had arrived
in Genoa, which was just five weeks ago, she had kept to the upper
floor. Only the extreme necessity of the case had induced her to come so
far downstairs as the white anteroom. She was conscious of not having
neglected her duty.
"I did beat her faithfully," she declared with the calmness of old age
and conscious rectitude. The lips of M. de Montevesso twitched slightly.
"I did really, though often feeling too weary to raise my arm. Then I
would throw a shawl over my head and go in the rain to speak to Father
Paul. He had taught her to read and write. He is full of charity. He
would shrug his shoulders and tell me to put my trust in God. It was all
very well for him to talk like that. True that on your account I was the
greatest person for miles around. I had the first place everywhere. But
now that you made us come out here just because of your fancy to turn
the child into a Contessa, all my poor senses leave my old body. For,
you know, if I did beat her, being entrusted with your authority,
everybody else in the village waited on a turn of her finger. She was
full of pride and wilfulness then. Now since you have introduced her
amongst all these _grandissimi signori_ of whom she had only heard as
one hears of angels in heaven, she seems to have lost her head with the
excess of pride and obstinacy. What is one to do? The other day on
account of something I said she fastened her ten fingers into my gray
hair. . . ." She threw her shawl off and raised her creased eyelids. . . .
"This gray hair, on the oldest head of your family, Helion. If it
hadn't been for Maria she would have left me a corpse on the floor." The
mild bearing of the old woman had a dignity of its own, but at this
point it broke down and she became agitated.
"Many a time I sat up in my bed thinking half the night. I am an old
woman. I can read the signs. This is a matter for priests. When I was a
big girl in our village they had to exorcise a comely youth, a herdsman.
I am not fit to talk of such matters. But you, Helion, could say a word
or two to Father Paul. He would know what to do . . . or get the Bishop
. . ."
"Amazing superstition," Count Helion exclaimed in a rasping growl. "The
days of priests and devils are gone," he went on angrily, but paused as
if struck with a sudden doubt or a new idea. The old woman shook her
head slightly. In the depths of her native valley all the days were
alike in their hopes and fears as far back as she could remember. She
did not know how she had offended her brother and emitted a sigh of
resignation.
"What's the trouble now?" Count Helion asked brusquely.
The old woman shrugged her shoulders expressively. Count Helion
insisted. "There must be some cause."
"The cause, as I am a sinner, can be no other but that young signore
that came out with you and to whom you bowed so low. I didn't know you
had to bow to anybody unless perhaps to the King who has come back
lately. But then a king is anointed with holy oils! I couldn't believe
my eyes. What kind of prince was that?" She waited, screwing her eyes up
at Count Helion, who looked down at her inscrutably and at last
condescended to say:
"That was an Englishman."
She moaned with astonishment and alarm. A heretic! She thought no
heretic could be good-looking. Didn't they have their wickedness written
on their faces?
"No," said Count Helion. "No man has that, and no woman, either."
Again he paused to think. "Let us go in now," he added.
The big room (all the rooms in that Palazzo were big unless they
happened to be mere dark and airless cupboards), which they entered as
quietly as if a sick person had been lying in there at the point of
death, contained amongst its gilt furniture also a few wooden stools and
a dark walnut table brought down from the farmhouse for the convenience
of its rustic occupants. A priest sitting in a gorgeous armchair held to
the light of a common brass oil lamp an open book, the shadow of which
darkened a whole corner of the vast space between the high walls
decorated with rare marbles, long mirrors, and heavy hangings. A few
small pieces of washing were hung out to dry on a string stretched from
a window latch to the back of a chair. A common brazier stood in the
fireplace and, near it, a gaunt, bony woman dressed in black with a
white handkerchief on her head was stirring something in a little
earthen pot. Ranged at the foot of a dais bearing a magnificent but
dismantled couch of state were two small wooden bedsteads, on one of
which lay the girl whom Cosmo knew only as "Clelia, my husband's niece,"
with a hand under her cheek. The other cheek was much flushed; a tangle
of loose black hair covered the pillow. Whether from respect for the
priest or from mere exhaustion she was keeping perfectly still under her
bedclothes pulled up to her very neck so that only her head remained
uncovered.
At the entrance of the Count the priest closed his book and stood up,
but the woman by the mantelpiece went on stirring her pot. Count Helion
returned a "_Bonsoir, Abbé_" to the priest's silent bow, put down the
candelabra on a console, and walked straight to the bedstead. The other
three people, the gaunt woman still with her pot in her hand, approached
it too but kept their distance.
The girl Clelia remained perfectly still under the downward thoughtful
gaze of Count Helion. In that face half buried in the pillow one eye
glittered full of tears. She refused to make the slightest sound in
reply to Count Helion's questions, orders, and remonstrances. Even his
coaxings, addressed to her in the same low, harsh tone, were received in
obstinate silence. Whenever he paused he could hear at his back the old
woman whispering to the priest. At last even that stopped. Count Helion
resisted the temptation to grab all that hair on the pillow and pull the
child out of bed by it. He waited a little longer and then said in his
harsh tone:
"I thought you loved me."
For the first time there was a movement under the blanket. But that was
all. Count Helion turned his back on the bed and met three pairs of eyes
fixed on him with different expressions. He avoided meeting any of them.
"Perhaps if you were to leave us alone," he said.
They obeyed in silence, but at the last moment he called the priest back
and took him aside to a distant part of the room where the brass oil
lamp stood on the walnut-wood table. The full physiognomy of Father Paul
Carpi with its thin eyebrows and pouting mouth was overspread by a
self-conscious professional placidity that seemed ready to see or hear
anything without surprise. Count de Montevesso was always impressed by
it. "Abbé," he said brusquely, "you know that my sister thinks that the
child is possessed. I suppose she means by a devil."
He looked with impatience at the priest, who remained silent, and burst
out in a subdued voice:
"I believe you people are hoping now to bring him back into the world
again, that old friend of yours." He waited for a moment. "Sit down,
Abbé."
Father Carpi sank into the armchair with some dignity while Count Helion
snatched a three-legged stool and planted himself on it on the other
side of the table. "Now, wouldn't you?"
Something not bitter, not mocking, but as if disillusioned seemed to
touch the lips of Father Carpi at the very moment he opened them to say
quietly:
"Only as a witness to the reign of God."
"Which of course would be your reign. Never mind, a man like me can be
master under any reign." He jerked his head slightly towards the bed.
"Now what sort of devil would it be in that child?"
The deprecatory gesture of Father Carpi did not detract from his
dignity. "I should call it dumb myself," continued Count Helion. "We
will leave it alone for a time. What hurts me often is the difficulty of
getting at your thoughts, Abbé. Haven't I been a good enough friend to
you?" To this, too, Father Carpi answered by a deferential gesture and
deprecatory murmur. Count Helion had restored the church, rebuilt the
presbytery, and had behaved generally with great munificence. Father
Carpi, sprung from shopkeeping stock in the town of Novi, had lived
through times difficult for the clergy. He had been contented to exist.
Now, at the age of forty or more, the downfall of the Empire, which
seemed to carry with it the ruin of the impious forces of the
Revolution, had awakened in him the first stirrings of ambition. Its
immediate object was the chaplaincy to the Count of Montevesso's various
charitable foundations.
There was a man, one of the great of this world, whom, without
understanding him in any deeper sense or ever trying to judge his
nature, he could see plainly enough to be unhappy. And that was a great
point.
For the unhappy are more amenable to obscure influences, religious and
others. But Father Carpi was too intelligent to intrude upon the griefs
of that man with the mysterious past either religious consolation or
secular advice. For a long time now he had watched and waited, keeping
his thoughts so secret that they seemed even hidden from himself. To the
outbreaks of that rough, arrogant, contemptuous, and oppressive temper
he could oppose only the gravity of his sacerdotal character as Adèle
did her lofty serenity, that detachment, both scornful and inaccessible,
which seemed to place her on another plane.
Father Carpi had never been before confronted so directly by the
difficulties of his position as at that very moment and on the occasion
of that intolerable and hopeless girl. To gain time he smiled, a slight,
non-committal smile.
"We priests, M. le Comte, are recommended not to enter into discussion
of theological matters with people who, whatever their accomplishments
and wisdom, are not properly instructed in them. As to anything else I
am always at Monseigneur's service."
He gave this qualification to Count Helion because it was not beyond the
bounds of respect due from a poor, parish priest to a titled great man
of his province.
"Have you been much about amongst the town people?" asked Count Helion.
"I go out every morning about seven to say mass in that church you may
have noticed near by. I have visited also once or twice an old friend
from my seminary days, a priest of a poor parish here. We rejoice
together at the return of the Holy Father to Rome. For the rest I had an
idea. Monseigneur, that you did not wish me to make myself prominent in
any way in this town."
"Perhaps I didn't. It may be convenient, though, to know what are the
rumours current amongst the populace. That class has its own thoughts. I
suppose your friend would know something of that."
"No doubt. But I can tell you, Monseigneur, what the people think. They
think that if they can't be Genoese as before, they would rather be
French than Piedmontese. That, Monseigneur, is a general feeling even
amongst the better class of citizens."
"Much would they gain by it," mumbled Count de Montevesso. "Unless the
Other were to come back. Abbé," he added sharply, "is there any talk of
him coming back?"
"That indeed would be a misfortune." Father Carpi's tone betrayed a
certain emotion which Count Helion noticed, faint as it was.
"Whatever happens you will have always a friend in me," he said, and
Father Carpi acknowledged the assurance by a slight inclination of his
body.
"Surely God would not allow it," he murmured uneasily. But the stare of
his interlocutor augmented his alarm. He was still more startled when he
heard Count de Montevesso make the remark that the only thing which
seemed to put a limit to the power of God was the folly of men. He had
too poor an opinion of Count de Montevesso to be shocked by the
blasphemy. To him it was only the proof that the Count had been very
much upset by something, some fact or some news.
"And people are very foolish just now both in Paris and in Vienna,"
added Count de Montevesso after a long pause.
It was news then. Father Carpi betrayed nothing of his anxious
curiosity. The inward unrest which pervaded the whole basin of the
Western Mediterranean was strongest in Italy perhaps and was very strong
in the heart of Father Carpi, who was both an Italian and a priest.
Perhaps he would be told something! He almost held his breath, but Count
de Montevesso took his head between his hands and said only:
"One is pestered by folly of all sorts. Abbé, see whether you can bring
that child to reason."
However low in the scale of humanity Father Carpi placed the Count de
Montevesso, he never questioned his social position. Father Carpi was
made furious by the request, but he obeyed. He approached the rustic
bedstead and looked at the occupant with sombre disgust. Nothing was
obscure to him in the situation. If he couldn't tell exactly what devil
possessed that creature he remembered perfectly her mother, a rash sort
of girl who was found drowned years ago in a remarkably shallow pond
amongst some rocks not quite a mile away from the presbytery. It might
have been an accident. He had consented to bury her in consecrated
ground not from any compassion, but because of the revolutionary spirit
which had penetrated even the thick skulls of his parishioners and
probably would have caused a riot and shaken the precarious power of the
Church in his obscure valley. He stood erect by the head of the couch,
looking down at the girl's uncovered eye whose sombre iris swam on the
glistening white. He could have laughed with contempt and fury. He
regulated his deep voice so that it reached Count de Montevesso at the
other side of the room only as a solemn admonishing murmur.
"You miserable little wretch," he said, "can't you behave yourself? You
have been a torment to me for years."
The sense of his own powerlessness overcame him so completely that he
felt tempted for a moment to throw everything up, walk out of the room,
seek refuge amongst sinners that would believe either in God or in the
devil.
"You are a scourge to us all," he continued in the same equable murmur.
"If you don't speak out, you little beast, and put an end to this scene
soon I will exorcise you."
The only effect of that threat was the sudden immobility of the rolling
eye. Father Carpi turned towards the Count.
"It is probably some sort of malady," he said coldly. "Perhaps a doctor
could prescribe some remedy."
Count Helion came out of his listless attitude. A moment ago a doctor
was in the house in conference with M. le Marquis. Perhaps he was still
there. Count Helion got up impetuously and asked the Abbé to go along
to the other side and find out.
"Take a light with you. All the lights are out down there. Knock at the
Marquis's door and inquire from Bernard, and if the doctor is still
there bring him along."
Father Carpi went out hastily and Count de Montevesso, keeping the women
outside, paced the whole length of the room. The fellow called himself a
doctor whatever else he might have been. Whether he did any good to the
child or not--Count de Montevesso stopped and looked fixedly at the
bed--this was an extremely favourable opportunity to get in touch with
him personally. Who could tell what use could be made of him in his
other capacities, apart from the fact that he probably could really
prescribe some remedy? Count de Montevesso's heart was softened
paternally. His progress from European barrack-rooms to an Eastern
palace left on his mind a sort of bewilderment. He even thought the girl
attractive. There she was, a prey of some sort of illness. He bent over
her face and instantly a pair of thin bare arms darted from under the
blankets and clasped him round the neck with a force that really
surprised him. "That one loves me," he thought. He did not know that she
would have hung round anybody's neck in the passion of obtaining what
she wanted. He thought with a sort of dull insight that everybody was a
little bit against her. He abandoned his neck to the passionate clasp
for a little time, then disengaged himself gently.
"What makes you behave like this?" he asked. "Do you feel a pain
anywhere?"
No emotion could change the harshness of his voice, but it was very low
and there was an accent in it which the girl could not mistake. She sat
up suddenly with her long wild hair covering her shoulders. With her
round eyes, the predatory character of her face, the ruffled fury of her
aspect, she looked like an angry bird; and there was something bird-like
in the screech of her voice.
"Pain? No. But if I didn't hate them so I would like to die. I would . . ."
Count de Montevesso put one hand at the back of her head and clapped the
other broad palm over her mouth. This action surprised her so much that
she didn't even struggle. When the Count took his hands away she
remained silent without looking at him.
"Don't scream like this," he murmured harshly but with obvious
indulgence. "Your aunts are outside and they will tell the priest all
about it."
Clelia drew up her knees, clasped her hands round them outside the
blanket, and stared.
"It is just your temper!" suggested Count Helion reproachfully.
"All those dressed-up witches despise me. I am not frightened. And the
worst of them is that yellow-haired witch, your wife. If I had gone in
there in my bare feet they could not have stared more down on me. . . .
I shall fly at their faces. I can read their thoughts as they put their
glasses to their eyes. 'What animal is this?' they seem to ask
themselves. I am a brute beast to them."
A shadow seemed to fall on Count de Montevesso's face for the moment.
Clelia unclasped her fingers, shook her fists at the empty space, then
clasped her legs again. These movements, full of sombre energy, were
observed silently by the Count of Montevesso. He uttered the word
"_Patienza_," which in its humility is the word of the ambitious, of the
unforgiving who keep a strict account with the world; a word of
indomitable hope. "You wait till you are a little older. You will have
plenty of people at your feet; and then you will be able to spurn
anybody you like."
"You mean when I am married," said Clelia in a faraway voice and staring
straight over her knees.
"Yes," said the Count de Montevesso, "but you will first have to learn
to be gentle."
This recommendation apparently missed the ear for which it was destined.
For a whole minute Clelia seemed to contemplate some sort of vision with
her predatory and pathetic stare. One side of her nightgown had slipped
off her shoulder. Suddenly she pushed her scattered hair back, and
extending her arm towards Count Helion patted him caressingly on the
cheek.
When she had done patting him he asked, unmoved: "Now, what is it you
want?"
She was careful not to turn her face his way while she whispered: "I
want that young signor that came to-day to make eyes at my aunt."
"Impossible."
"Why impossible? I was with them in the morning. They did nothing but
look at each other. But I went for him myself."
"That Englishman! You can't have an Englishman like this. I am thinking
of something better for you, a marquis or a count."
This was the exact truth, not a sudden idea to meet a hopeless case.
"You have hardly had time to have a good look at him," added Count
Helion.
"I looked at him this evening with all my eyes, with all my soul. I
would have sat up all night to look at him. But he got up and turned his
back on me. He has no eyes for anybody but my aunt."
"Did you speak together, you two?"
"Yes," she said, "he sat down by me and all those witches stared as if
he had been making up to a monster. Am I a monster? He too looked at me
as if I had been one."
"Was he rude to you?" asked the Count de Montevesso.
"He was as insolent as all the people I have seen since we came to this
town. His heart was black as of all the rest of them. He was gentle to
me as one is gentle to an old beggar for the sake of charity. Oh, how I
hated him."
"Well, then," said Count de Montevesso in a harsh unsympathetic tone,
"you may safely despise him."
Clelia threw herself half out of bed on the neck of Count Helion, who
preserved an unsympathetic rigidity though he did not actually repulse
her wild and vehement caress.
"Oh, dearest uncle of mine," she whispered ardently! into his ear, "he
is handsome! I must have him for myself."
There was a knocking at the door. Count Helion tore the bare arms from
his neck and pushed the girl back into bed.
"Cover yourself up," he commanded hurriedly. He arranged the blanket at
her back. "Lie still and say nothing of all this, and then you need have
no fear. But if you breathe a word of this to anybody, then . . . Come
in," he shouted to the renewed knocking and had just time to shake his
finger at Clelia menacingly before the Abbé and the doctor entered the
room.