When at length Rossi was gone, Roma ran into her bedroom to look at her
face in the glass. The golden complexion was heightened by a bright spot
on either cheek, and a teardrop was glistening in the corner of each of
her eyes.
She went back to the boudoir. David Rossi was no longer there, but the
room seemed to be full of his presence. She sat in the chair again, and
again she stood by the window. At length she opened her desk and wrote a
letter:--
"DEAREST,--You are only half-an-hour gone, and here I am sending
this letter after you, like a handkerchief you had forgotten. I
have one or two things to say, quite matter-of-fact and simple
things, but I cannot think of them sensibly for joy of the
certainty that you love me. Of course I knew it all the time, but
I couldn't be at ease until I had heard it from your own lips; and
now I feel almost afraid of my great happiness. How wonderful it
seems! And, like all events that are long expected, how suddenly
it has happened in the end. To think that a month ago--only a
little month--you and I were both in Rome, within a mile of each
other, breathing the same air, enclosed by the same cloud, kissed
by the same sunshine, and yet we didn't know it!
"Soberly, though, I want you to understand that I meant all I said
so savagely about going on with your work, and not letting your
anxiety about my welfare interfere with you. I am really one of
the women who think that a wife should further a man's aims in
life if she can; and if she can't do that, she should stand aside
and not impede him. So go on, dear heart, without fear for me. I
will take care of myself, whatever occurs. Don't let one hour or
one act of your life be troubled by the thought of what would
happen to me if you should fall. Dearest, I am your beloved, but I
am your soldier also, ready and waiting to follow where my captain
calls:
"'Teach me, only teach, Love!
As I ought
I will speak thy speech, Love!
Think thy thought.'
"And if I was not half afraid that you would think it bolder than
is modest in your bride to be, I would go on with the next lines
of my sweet quotation.
"Another thing. You went away without saying you forgive me for
the wicked duplicity I practised upon you. It was very wrong, I
suppose, and yet for my life I cannot get up any real contrition
on the subject. There's always some duplicity in a woman. It is
the badge of every daughter of Eve, and it must come out
somewhere. In my case it came out in loving you to all the lengths
and ends of love, and drawing you on to loving me. I ought to be
ashamed, but I'm not--I'm glad.
"I _did_ love first, and, of course, I knew you from the
beginning, and when you wrote about being in love with some one
else, I knew quite well you meant me. But it was so delicious to
pretend not to know, to come near and then to sheer off again, to
touch and then to fly, to tempt you and then to run away, until a
strong tide rushed at me and overwhelmed me, and I was swooning in
your arms at last.
"Dearest, don't think I made light of the obstacles you urged
against our union. I knew all the time that the risks of marriage
were serious, though perhaps I am not in a position even yet to
realise how serious they may be. Only I knew also that the dangers
were greater still if we kept apart, and that gave me courage to
be bold and to defy conventions.
"Which brings me to my last point, and please prepare to be
serious, and bend your brow to that terrible furrow which comes
when you are fearfully in earnest. What you said of your enemies
being merciless, and perhaps watching me and putting pressure upon
me to injure you, is only too imminent a danger. The truth is that
I have all along known more than I had courage to tell, but I was
hoping you would understand, and now I tremble to think how I have
suffered myself to be silent.
"The Minghelli matter is an alarming affair, for I have reason to
believe that the man has lit on the name you bore in England, and
that when he returns to Rome he will try to fix it upon you by
means of me. This is fearful to contemplate, and my heart quakes
to think of it. But happily there is a way to checkmate such a
devilish design, and it is within your own power to save me from
life-long remorse.
"I don't think the laws of any civilized country compel a man's
_wife_ to compromise him, and thinking of this gives me courage to
be unmaidenly and say: Don't let it be long, dearest! I could die
to bring it to pass in a moment. With all my great, great
happiness, I shall have the heartache until it is done, and only
when it is over shall I begin to live.
"There! You didn't know what a forward hussy I could be if I
tried, and really I have been surprised at myself since I began to
be in love with you. For weeks and weeks I have been thin and
haggard and ugly, and only to-day I begin to be a little
beautiful. I couldn't be anything but beautiful to-day, and I've
been running to the glass to look at myself, as the only way to
understand why you love me at all. And I'm glad--so glad for your
sake.
"Good-bye, dearest! You cannot come to-morrow or the next day, and
what a lot I shall have to live before I see you again! Shall I
look older? No, for thinking of you makes me feel younger and
younger every minute. How old are you? Thirty-four? I'm twenty-four
and a half, and that is just right, but if you think I ought to be
nearer your age I'll wear a bonnet and fasten it with a bow.
"ROMA.
"P.S.--Don't delay the momentous matter. Don't! Don't! Don't!"
She dined alone that night that she might be undisturbed in her thoughts
of Rossi. Ordinary existence had almost disappeared from her
consciousness, and every time Felice spoke as he served the dishes his
voice seemed to come from far away.
She went to bed early, but it was late before she slept. For a long time
she lay awake to think over all that had happened, and, when the night
was far gone, and she tried to fall asleep in order to dream of it also,
she could not do so for sheer delight of the prospect. But at last amid
the gathering clouds of sleep she said "Good-night," with the ghost of a
kiss, and slept until morning.
When she awoke it was late, and the sun was shining into the room. She
lay on her back and stretched out both arms for sheer sweetness of the
sensation of health and love. Everything was well, and she was very
happy. Thinking of yesterday, she was even sorry for the Baron, and told
herself she had been too bold and daring.
But that thought was gone in a moment. Body and soul were suffused with
joy, and she leapt out of bed with a spring.
A moment afterwards Natalina came with a letter. It was from the Baron
himself, and it was dated the day before:--
"Minghelli has returned from London, and therefore I must see you
to-morrow at eleven o'clock. Be so good as to be at home, and give
orders that for half-an-hour at least we shall be quite undisturbed."
Then the sun went out, the air grew dull, and darkness fell over all the
world.
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