It was a relief to be with Laura Arden again for an hour on the day
after his return, as Ghisleri felt when he was installed beside her in
the chair which had come to be regarded as his. She received him just as
usual, and he saw at once that if she had at all resented his visit to
Adele, she was not by any means inclined to let him know it. There was a
freshness and purity in the atmosphere that surrounded her which
especially appealed to him after his visit to Gerano. Whatever she said
she meant, and if she meant anything she took no trouble to hide it. He
compared her face with her step-sister's, and the jaded, prematurely
world-worn look of the one threw the calm beauty of the other into
strong relief. He felt no pity for Adele. What she was, she had made
herself, and if she suffered, it was as the direct and inevitable
consequence of the life she had led and of the things she had done. So,
at least, it seemed to him, and if he could have known the whole truth
at that time, he would have seen how right he was. The ruthless logic of
cause and effect had got Adele into its will and was slowly grinding her
whole existence to dust.
"It is strange," he said to Laura, "that you and your step-sister should
be so unlike in every way. It is true that you are not related, but you
were brought up in the same house, by the same people, and yet I do not
believe you have a single idea in common."
"No," answered Laura, "we have not. We do not like the same persons, nor
the same things, nor the same thoughts. We were made to be enemies--and
I suppose we are."
It was the first time she had ever said so much to him, and even now
there was no rancour in her tone.
"If all enemies were like you, at least, this would be a very peaceful
world."
"You do not know me," answered Laura, with a smile. "I have a bad
temper. I could tell you something about it. I once felt as though I
would like to strangle a certain person, and as though I could do it. Do
not imagine that I am all saint and no sinner."
"I like to imagine all sorts of nice things about you," said Ghisleri.
"But I could never make them nice enough."
"That is just it. It would need an enormous imagination."
"But I am not sure that I should like to think of you as being on very
good terms with Donna Adele, and I am almost glad to hear you admit that
you are enemies. There is a satisfaction in knowing that you are human,
as well as in believing you to be good."
"How is Adele?" Laura asked.
"The last I heard was that she was much worse. She behaves in the most
unaccountable way. She has the look of a woman in some very great mental
distress--pursued and haunted by something very painful from which she
cannot escape."
"I had the same feeling about her the last time I saw her. I know that
look very well. I have seen it in your face, sometimes, as well as in
hers."
"In mine?" Ghisleri looked keenly at her, as though to ascertain whether
she meant more than she said, for the first time in his acquaintance
with her. "When did I ever show you that I was in trouble?" he asked.
"That was some time ago. You have changed since your illness. You used
to look harassed sometimes, like a man who has a wound in the heart.
Perhaps it is only something which depends on the way your eyes are
made. The first time I ever noticed it was--yes, I remember very
well--it was more than a year ago, that night when you spoke your poem
in the Shrove Tuesday masquerade. It was not when you were talking to
me. You looked perfectly diabolical then. It was later. I saw you
standing alone in a doorway after a dance."
"What a memory you have! I was probably in a bad humour. I generally am,
even now."
"Why do you say even now?" asked Laura, watching his face.
"Oh, I hardly know," he answered. "All sorts of things have happened to
me since then, to simplify my existence. At that time it was very
particularly complicated."
"And how have you simplified it?" She put the question innocently
enough, and quite thoughtlessly, not even guessing at the truth.
"It has been simplified for me. It came near being simplified into being
no existence at all. A few inches made the difference."
"Yes," said Laura, thoughtfully, "the greatest of all differences to
you."
"And none at all to any one else," added Ghisleri, with a dry laugh.
She turned her great dark eyes upon him. The lids drooped a little as
she scrutinised his face somewhat coldly, but with an odd interest.
"I suppose that might be quite true," she said at last. "Perhaps it is.
But I do not like you any the better for saying it in that way."
Ghisleri was silent, but he met her gaze quietly and without flinching,
until she looked away. She sighed a little as she took up a bit of
embroidery she was doing for some garment of little Herbert's.
"Why do you sigh?" he asked, not expecting that she would answer the
question.
"For some one," she said simply, and she began to make a few stitches.
He knew that she was thinking of Maddalena dell' Armi, and his heart
smote him.
"I was wrong to say it," he answered, in a more gentle tone. "There was
perhaps one exception to the rule."
Ghisleri grew even more careful of his speech after that. But he did not
see Laura often before she went away northward for the summer. The
spring was going fast, and the time was coming when Rome would be its
quiet old-fashioned self again for those few who loved it well enough to
face the heat of July and August. Almost every one was thinking of going
away. The Prince and Princess of Gerano were going out to the castle
earlier than usual, for the news of Adele grew steadily worse. Francesco
now had the doctor out regularly three times a week, and was forced to
lead an existence he detested. His wife was by this time quite unable to
get rest without taking very large quantities of chloral, and at times
her sufferings were such that it seemed almost advisable to give her
morphia. Every one, however, who brought intelligence from Gerano agreed
in saying that she did her best to keep up, and seemed to dread the idea
of an illness which might keep her permanently in her room. Whenever
she felt able she insisted on driving out and on going through the
regular round of monotonous country occupations. Her father and
step-mother therefore determined to go out and help Francesco to take
care of her, and make her existence as bearable as possible. Amongst all
her friends she was spoken of with the utmost compassion, and no one
ever suggested that her illness could proceed from any such cause as
Ghisleri believed to be at the root of it.
A few days before Laura Arden was to go away Donald came to Pietro's
room in the morning, with a very grave face. Lady Herbert, he said,
thought that Ghisleri would understand why she did not write, but sent
Donald in person with a verbal message. She was going away, and was
about to give up the apartment in which she had spent the winter,
without any intention of taking it again in the following year. There
were certain things that had belonged to Lord Herbert--Lady Herbert had
no home and did not like to send them to Lord Lulworth--would Ghisleri
take charge of them in her absence? Pietro, of course, assented, and two
hours later Donald arrived with a large carriage load of boxes. Ghisleri
looked on with a very unpleasant sensation in his throat as his old
friend's effects were brought up stairs and deposited in a room where he
kept such things of his own. When they were all piled together in a
corner, he took an old green curtain and covered them with it, spreading
it carefully over them with his own hands. Then he locked the door and
went away. Some men and women when they die seem to leave something of
life behind them, which the mere sight of anything that has belonged to
them has power to recall most vividly to the perceptions of those who
have known them and loved them. Ghisleri understood Laura Arden's
feeling about her husband's belongings. He knew, or thought he knew,
that from the moment her child had been given to her, she had desired
that no material object should revive the sorrow she had felt so deeply.
The memory she cherished was wholly spiritual, and upon its remaining
so her peace of mind largely depended. The one Herbert was to live in
the other--and there must not be two. Not every one, perhaps, would have
understood her so readily.
The day came for bidding her good-bye. It was with a somewhat heavy
heart that he went up the stairs of her house for the last time. Much of
the little happiness he had known during the past months was associated
with the place and with her, and not a little of the sorrow as well. The
drawing-room was bare, and had lost the comfortable, inhabited look
which even a furnished lodging takes from all the little objects a woman
brings to it, and which she alone knows how to dispose and arrange as
though they were in constant use, thereby at once producing the
impression that the habitation she has chosen has been lived in long.
Once more Ghisleri sat in the familiar chair near the open window, and
once more Laura took her place in the corner of the great sofa.
"I have come to say good-bye," he began. "You are still decided to go
to-morrow, I suppose."
"Yes. I have not changed my plans. Please do not come to the station to
see me off, nor send flowers, nor do any of the things which are
generally done. I would rather not see any one I know after leaving this
house."
"May I write to you?" asked Ghisleri.
"Of course. Why not?"
"I do not know, I am sure. I thought it better to ask you. Some women
hate correspondence except with their nearest and dearest. I will give
you the news of Rome during the wild gaiety of July and August."
"Are you not going away at all?" asked Laura, in some surprise. "You
ought to; it will do you good."
"I hardly know. I like to be alone in summer. It gives one time to
think. One has a chance of leading a sensible life when nobody is here
to see. The days pass pleasantly--plenty of reading, a diet of
watermelon and sherbet, and a little repentance--it is magnificent
treatment for the liver."
Laura looked at him and then laughed very softly.
"You seem amused," said Ghisleri, gravely. "What I say is quite
true--the result of long experience."
"I was not laughing at what you said, but at the idea that you should
still think it worth while to make such speeches to me."
"If I can make you laugh at all it is worth while."
"At all events, it is good of you to say so. Which of the three subjects
do you mean to take for your letters to me--your reading, your food, or
your repentance?"
"The food would be the simplest and safest topic. You can read for
yourself what you please. Repentance, when it is not a habit, is rarely
well done. But one can say the most charming things about strawberries,
peaches, and figs, without ever offending any one's taste."
"I think you grow worse as you grow older," said Laura, still smiling.
"But if you would take your programme seriously, it would not be a bad
thing, I fancy. Seriously, however, you ought to get away from Rome."
"I should be tempted to go and stay a week near you, if I went away at
all," said Ghisleri.
Laura did not answer at once. She glanced at him with a vague suspicion
in her eyes which disappeared almost instantly, and then took two or
three stitches in her embroidery before she spoke.
"I would rather you should not do that," she said at last. "I may as
well tell you what I think about it. To me, and to you, it seems
thoroughly absurd that you should not see me whenever we choose to meet.
There are many reasons why I should look upon you as a friend, and why
you should come more often than any other man I know. But the world
thinks differently. My mother has spoken to me about it more than once,
and in one way she is right. You know what a place this is, and how
every one talks about everybody. Unfortunately, I believe that you are
one of the men about whose private affairs society is most busy. I
cannot help it now. I have no right to say anything about your life,
past or present, but you have told me enough about yourself to make me
understand why there is always gossip about you, and why there always
will be. Then, too, you will never make people believe that you did not
fight that duel about me, for you cannot tell any one what you told me.
The consequence is, that you and I look at it all from one point of
view, and the world sees it from quite another. I think it is better to
say all this once, and to be done with it. As we shall not meet for
several months, people will forget to talk. Am I right to speak to you?"
"Perfectly right," answered Ghisleri. An expression of pain had settled
on his lean face while she had been talking, and did not disappear at
once. Laura saw it and was silent for a moment.
"I am sorry if I have hurt you," she said presently. "Perhaps I was
wrong."
"No, you were quite right," Ghisleri replied. "You would have been very
wrong indeed not to tell me. If you did not, who would? But I had no
suspicion of all this. I believed that for once they might let me alone,
considering what you are--and what I am. The contrast might protect you
in the eyes of some persons. Lady Herbert Arden--and Pietro Ghisleri."
He pronounced his own name with the utmost bitterness.
"Please do not speak of yourself in that way," said Laura, with
something like entreaty in her voice.
"It is true enough," he answered. "An intelligent being might understand
that I could be useful to you, but not that you--" He stopped short, and
his tone changed. "I am talking nonsense," he said briefly, by way of
explaining the truth.
"I think you are, in a way," said Laura, quietly. "It is your old habit
of exaggeration. You make me an impossible creature between an archangel
and the good mamma in children's story books, and you refer to yourself
as to a satanic monster whom no honest woman could call her friend. You
are quite right. It is sheer nonsense. If you stay in Rome to repent,
as you suggest in fun, do it in earnest. I am not talking of your sins,
which are not half so bad as you pretend, but of this silly view you
insist upon taking of your own life. If you must think perpetually of
yourself, judge yourself by some reasonable standard. You live in the
world and you have no right to expect to find that you are a saint. If
that is what you wish, take vows, turn monk, and starve yourself up to
heaven if you can. And if you chance to think of me, do not set me on a
pedestal, and build a church over me, and pray at me. I do not like that
sort of thing--it is all unnatural and absurd. I am a woman and nothing
else, better than some by force of circumstances, and not so good as
some others, perhaps for the same reason. All the rest that you imagine
is sentimental trash, and not worth the time it takes you to think it.
You will not be wasting your summer if you can get rid of it all by the
time we meet in the autumn."
For once in his life, Ghisleri was taken by surprise. He had not had any
idea that Laura could express herself so strongly on any point, still
less that she could talk so plainly about himself. He was far too manly,
however, not to be pleased, and his expression changed as he listened to
her. She smiled as she finished, and began to make stitches again.
"No one ever gave me so much good advice in so short a time," he said,
with a laugh. "You have a wonderful power of condensing your meaning. Do
you often talk in that way?"
"Not often. I think I never did before. Do you not think there is some
sense in what I say?"
"Indeed, I begin to believe that there is a great deal," Ghisleri
answered. "At all events, I shall not forget it. Perhaps you will find
me partially reformed when you come back. You must promise to tell me."
"It will take me some time to find out. But if I succeed I will tell
you."
His mood had changed for the better, and he talked of Laura's plans
during nearly half an hour. At last he rose to go.
"Good-bye," he said, rather abruptly.
She looked up quietly as she took his hand, and pressed it without
affectation.
"Good-bye. I wish you a very pleasant summer--and--since we are
parting--I thank you with all my heart for the many kind and friendly
things you have done for me."
"I have done nothing. Good-bye, again."
He turned and she stood looking at his retreating figure until he had
disappeared through the door.
"I believe there is more good in that man than any one knows," she said
to herself. Then she also left the room and went to see whether little
Herbert were awake, and to busy herself with the last arrangements for
his comfort during the journey.
Ghisleri knew that another parting was before him in the near future. As
usual, Maddalena dell' Armi was going to spend a considerable part of
the summer with her father in Tuscany. He went to see her tolerably
often, and their relations had of late been to all appearances friendly
and undisturbed. But he doubted whether the final interview before they
separated for several months could pass off without some painful
incident. He knew Maddalena's character well, and if he did not know his
own, it was not for want of study. He almost wished that he might, on
that day, choose to call at a time when some other person was present,
for then, of course, there could be no show of emotion on either side,
nor any words which could lead to such weakness. He went twice to the
house during the week which intervened between Laura Arden's departure
and the day fixed for Maddalena's, saying each time that he would come
again, a promise to which the Contessa seemed indifferent enough. She
would always be glad to see as much of him as possible, she said. The
last day came. She was to leave for Florence on the following morning.
Ghisleri rang, was admitted, and found her alone.
"I knew you would come," she said, "though it is so late."
"Of course. Did I not say so? I suppose you are still decided to go
to-morrow."
He was conscious that he was saying the very same indifferent words
which he had said a few days earlier to Laura, and Maddalena answered
him almost as Laura had done.
"Yes. Of course you must not come to the station. That is understood, is
it not?"
"Since you wish it, I will certainly not come. So we are saying good-bye
until next season," he continued, breaking the ice as it were, since he
felt it must be broken. "I will try and not be emotional, and I ask you
to believe--this once--that I am in earnest. I have something to say to
you. May I? Will you listen to me? You and I cannot part with two words
and a nod of the head, like common acquaintances."
"I will hear all you care to say," answered Maddalena, simply. "And I
will try to believe you."
He looked at the pale face and the small, perfect features before he
spoke, to see if they were as hard as they often were. But for the
moment the expression was softened. The evening glow played softly upon
the bright hair, and threw a deep, warm light into the violet eyes, as
she turned towards him.
"What is it?" she asked, as he seemed to hesitate. "Has anything
happened? Are you going to be married?"
The question shocked him in a way he could not explain.
"No. I am not thinking of marrying. We have been a great deal to each
other, for a long time. But for my fault--and it is, of course, my
fault--we might be as much in one another's lives as ever. We used to
meet in the summer, but that will not happen this year. When you come
back, we may both be changed more than we think it possible to change at
present."
"In what way?"
"I do not know. Perhaps, when we meet again, we shall feel that we are
really and truly devoted friends. Perhaps you may hate me altogether--"
"And you me."
"No, that is not possible. I am not very sure of myself as a rule. But
that, at least, I know."
"I hope you are right. If you are not my friend, who should be? So you
think I hate you. You are very wrong. I am still very fond of you. I
told you so the other day. You should believe me. Remember, when it all
ended, it was you who had changed--not I. I am not reproaching you. I
might say that you should have known yourself better than to think that
you could be faithful; but you might tell me--and it would be quite as
just--that I, a woman, knew what I was doing and had been taught to look
upon my deeds as you never could. But it was you who changed. If you had
loved me, I should have loved you still. Little things showed me long
ago that your love was waning. It was never what it was in those first
days. And now I have changed, too. I love what was once, but if I could
have your love now as it was at its strongest and best, I would not ask
for it. Why should I? I could never trust it again, and anything is
better than that doubt. And I want no consolation."
"Indeed, I should have very little to offer you, worth your accepting,"
said Pietro, in a low voice.
"If I needed any, the best you could give me would be what I ask,--not
as consolation at all, but as something I still believe worth having
from you,--and that is your honest friendship."
Ghisleri was moved in spite of himself. His face grew paler and the
shadows showed beneath his eyes where Maddalena had so often seen them.
"You are too kind--too good," he said, in an unsteady tone.
The last time he had said almost the same words had been when he made
his first visit to her after his long illness. Then she had been
touched, far more than he. She looked at him for a few moments and saw
that he felt very strongly.
"Do not distress yourself," she said gently. "Pray do not--it hurts me,
too. I mean what I say. I do not believe you can be faithful in love
now--to any one. You gave all you had to give long ago. But I have
watched you since we became what we are now, and I will do you justice.
I do not know any man who can be a more true and devoted friend. You
see, I meant what I said."
"If it is true--if I can be a friend to any one, I will be one to you.
But that is not what I would have, if I could choose."
"What would you have, then?"
"What is impossible. That is what one would always like. Let us not talk
of it. It does no good to wish for what is beyond wishing. I thank you
for what you have said--dear. I shall not forget it. Few women could be
so good as you are to me. You would have the right to be very different
if you chose."
"No, I should not. There are reasons--well, as you say, let us not talk
about it. We have made up our minds to meet and part as we
should--kindly always, lovingly as friends love, truthfully now, since
there is nothing left for us to distrust."
She had never spoken to him in this way in all the meetings that had
followed his recovery. He wondered if there had been any real change in
her nature, or whether this were not at last the assertion of her
natural self. She spoke so seriously and quietly that he could not doubt
her.
"I have seen that you can act in that way," she continued presently.
"You have done more for the sake of the mere memory of your friend than
many men would do for love itself."
"Not so much as I would do for the memory of love," said Ghisleri,
turning his face away.
"Was it so sweet as that?" she asked.
"Yes."
"And yet you have loved better and longer in other days."
"As I was a better man," he said, finding no other answer, for he knew
it was true.
Maddalena sighed. Perhaps she had hoped that this last time he would say
what he had never said--that he had loved her better than Bianca
Corleone.
"You must have been different then." She spoke a little coldly, in spite
of herself. A moment later she smiled. "How foolish it is of me to think
of making comparisons, now that it is all over," she said. "So you are
not coming to Tuscany this summer, and I shall not see you till next
autumn. Why do you not come?"
"I want to be alone a long time," answered Ghisleri. "It is much better.
I am bad company, and besides, I am not strong enough to wander about
the world yet. I need a long rest."
"It seems so strange to think of you as not being strong."
"Yes--I who used to be so proud of my strength. I believe that was my
greatest vanity when I was very young."
"How full of contradictions you are!" Maddalena exclaimed, as she had
often done before.
Ghisleri said nothing, for he knew it better than she could. It was
growing late, for the sun had gone down and the twilight deepened in the
room. He rose to go, and took her hand as she stood up beside him.
"Good-bye," he said, almost in a whisper. "May God forgive me, and bless
you--always."
"Good-bye--dear."
He went out. It had been a strange meeting, and the parting was stranger
still. Very often, throughout the long summer months which followed,
Ghisleri thought of it, recalling every word and gesture of the woman
who had loved him so deeply, and for whom he had nothing left but the
poor friendship she was so ready to accept. But that at least he could
give her, kindly, lovingly, and truthfully, as she herself had said,
and he was grateful to her for asking it of him, though no kindness of
hers could heal the wound he had given himself in injuring her. He
thought less harshly of the world for half a year or so after that day,
and began to believe that it might not be so abominable a place as he
had sometimes been inclined to think it.
He wrote to Maddalena from time to time, short letters, which said
little, but which she was glad to receive and which she often answered
in the same strain, with a small chronicle of small doings made to bear
the weight of a sweeping comment now and then. Little enough of interest
there was in any of those epistles, but there was a general tone in them
which assured each that the other had not forgotten that last meeting.
Ghisleri did not write to Laura, though he could hardly have told why,
especially as he had spoken of doing so. Possibly he felt that she would
not understand him through a letter as she did when they were face to
face, and he feared to make a bad impression.
Of Adele Savelli he had news often, through people who were in intimate
correspondence with her and with her step-mother, who spent the greater
part of the summer at Gerano. From all accounts she had begun to improve
with the warm weather, and though she still looked ill and greatly
changed from her former self, she was said to be very much better. It
was commonly reported that morphia had saved her, and it was whispered
that she was a slave to it in consequence. Ghisleri cared very little.
He had almost given up the idea that she had been concerned in bringing
on Arden's illness, and even if he sometimes still thought she had been,
he saw the impossibility of going any further than he had gone already
in the attempt to discover the truth.