Dinner, served with that same stiff stateliness that characterised
everything in the Morini household, was over, and the three men had
rejoined the ladies in the drawing-room.
Mary, in a pretty _decollete_ dinner-gown of pale pink chiffon, with a
single tea-rose in her corsage, had, at Dubard's suggestion, gone to the
piano, and in a sweet contralto had sung some of those old Florentine
folk-songs, or _stornelli_, as they are called, those weirdly mediaeval
songs that are still sung by the populace in the streets of Florence
to-day. Then as conclusion she ran her fingers lightly over the keys
and sang--
"Fiorin Fiorello!
Di tutti i fiorellin che fioriranno,
Il fior del' amor mio sara il piu bello?"
"Brava! Brava!" cried the young Frenchman standing by the piano, and as
she raised her eyes to his, it was patent that the pair entertained a
regard for each other.
"Your songs of old Florence are so charming, so different from
everything else in music, mademoiselle," he declared. "We have nothing
like them in France. Our _chansons_ are, after all, inharmonious
rubbish. It is not surprising that you in Italy have a contempt for our
literature, our music, and our drama, for it cannot compare with yours.
We have had no poet like Dante, no composer like Verdi, no musician like
Paganini--and," he added, dropping his voice to a low whisper as he bent
quickly to her ear, "no woman so fair as Mary Morini."
She blushed, and busied herself with her music books in order to conceal
her confusion. The general was chatting with her father and mother at
the farther end of the long room, and therefore did not notice that
swift passage of admiration on the part of Jules Dubard.
The Frenchman was a friend of the family, mainly because he had been
helpful to Morini in a variety of ways, and also on account of his
pleasant, easy-going manner and quiet elegance. He was from the South.
The old family chateau--a grey, dismal place full of ghostly memories
and mildewed pictures of his ancestors--stood high up in the Pyrenees
above Bayonne, five miles from the Spanish frontier; yet he had always
lived in Paris, and from the days when he left college on his father's
death he had led the gay, irresponsible life of the modern Parisian of
means, was a member of the Jockey Club, and a well-known figure at the
Cafe Americain and at Maxim's.
As a young man about the French capital he gave frequent bachelor
parties at his cosy flat in the Avenue Macmahon, and possessing a very
wide circle of friends, he had been able to render the Italian Minister
of War several confidential services.
Two years ago, while in Rome, he had received an invitation to dine one
evening at His Excellency's splendid old palace--once the residence of a
Roman prince--and from that time had been on terms of intimacy with the
family and one of Mary's most ardent admirers. He spent a good deal of
his time in the Eternal City, and had during the past season become a
familiar figure in society.
His Excellency, quick of observation, had, however, detected Borselli's
antipathy towards the young man, even though it was so cleverly
concealed. And he had wondered. As fellow-guests beneath his roof they
had that evening chatted and laughed together across the dinner-table,
had referred to each other by their Christian names, and had fraternised
as though they were the best friends in the world. Yet those words
uttered by Angelo Borselli while awaiting the ladies had been full of
hidden meaning.
The Morinis were in ignorance of the truth--and Mary most of all.
Dubard was not a handsome man--for it is difficult to find a man of the
weak, anaemic type of modern Parisian who can be called good-looking
from an English standpoint. He was thin-featured, lantern-jawed, with a
pale complexion, dark eyes, and a brown moustache. He wore his hair
parted in the centre, and as an _elegant_ was proud of his white almost
waxen hands and carefully manicured finger-nails. His dress, too, often
betrayed those signs of effeminacy which in Paris just now are
considered the height of good form in a man. His every movement seemed
studied, yet his stiff elegance was on the most approved model of the
Bois and the ballroom. He played frequently at his _cercle_, he wore
the most hideous goggles and fur coat and drove his motor daily, and he
indulged in _le sport_ in an impossible get-up, not because he liked
tramping about those horrid muddy fields, but because it was the correct
thing for a gentleman to do.
But his greatest success of all had, he told himself, been the
attraction of Mary Morini. All through the past winter in Rome he had
danced with her, flirted with her, raised his hat to her as she had
driven on the Pincio, and had joined her in her mother's box at the
Constanzi. To the Quirinale he had, of course, not been bidden, but he
lived in the hope of next season receiving the coveted royal command.
With Camillo Morini as his friend, everything in Italy was possible.
Yet Angelo Borselli's presence disturbed him that evening. He knew the
man who had been given the post of Under-Secretary. They had met long
before he had known Morini--under circumstances that in themselves
formed a strange and remarkable story--a story which he feared might one
day be made public.
And then?
Bah! Why anticipate such a terrible _contretemps_? he asked himself.
Then he bit his under lip as he glanced at his enemy standing beneath
the light of the rose-shaded lamp talking with madame, and afterwards
turned again to laugh and chat with mademoiselle.
"I lunched at the Junior United Service Club to-day with a friend of
yours," he was saying; for she had risen from the piano and they had
gone out upon the moon-lit verandah together, where, obtaining her
permission, he lit a cigarette.
"A friend of mine?"
"Captain Houghton, the British naval attache at Rome. He is home for a
month's leave, and sent his compliments to you."
"Oh, Freddie Houghton?" she exclaimed. "He was longing to get home all
the winter, but couldn't get leave. He's engaged, they say, and of
course he wanted to see his enchantress. He's the best dancer in Rome."