WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE
All that evening Nina was tense and nervous, not only because of her
experience at the Palazzo Scorpa, but because of something portentous in
Giovanni's unexplained demand for silence. He was not at the same dinner
party with her, but she went on to a dance at the Marchese Valdeste's,
feeling sure that she would have a chance to speak with him there. He
always danced with her several times during a ball, and, as he was not
very much taller than she, she could easily talk to him without danger
of any one's overhearing.
Her partners undoubtedly found her _distraite_; her attention vacillated
from one side of the ballroom to the other, as she searched for a
well-known, graceful figure and a small, sleek black head. All the time,
too, she was fearful of seeing a square-jawed face that kept recurring
to her memory as she had last seen it that afternoon--distorted, with
mouth open, and eyes protruding from their sockets. Vivid pictures of
the terrible incident flashed before her as she tried to listen to her
partners; now she was swept with horror and revulsion, and again she
felt a strange thrill at thought of the steely strength of Giovanni's
arms, as he had half carried her down the stairway. But she looked in
vain for her protector--neither he nor the duke appeared.
"What is it, Signorina?" Prince Allegro's voice broke jarringly upon her
recollections. "I am afraid I dance too fast!"
Nina recovered herself with a start. "Oh, no! But I feel--a little
tired; I wish we might sit down."
"Let me conduct you into the next room--or shall I take you to the
princess? Perhaps it would be better for you to go home."
Nina smiled. "No," she said, "I am all right. The room is very warm,
I think."
The Contessa Potensi, walking for once with her husband, passed through
the adjoining room just as Nina had finally succeeded in focusing her
attention upon Allegro's sprightly chatter. As they passed, the contessa
stopped a moment to say to Nina, "I am so glad to see that you have
recovered from your sudden indisposition of this afternoon." But her
tone was neither solicitous nor sincere, and she hid her hands in such a
way that she might have been making with her fingers the little horns
that are supposed to be a protection against the evil eye.
"I am much better, thank you," Nina answered simply.
"Don't let me keep you standing. I merely wanted to be assured that you
are recovered. I would not interrupt a _tête-à-tête_!"
The contessa's manner suggested to Nina that it was perhaps questionable
taste for a young girl to sit out part of a dance. Instead, therefore, of
resuming her place on the sofa, she asked Allegro to take her to the
princess.
During the rest of the evening she had an uncomfortable conviction that
the Contessa Potensi was talking about her. She always had this impression
in some degree whenever the contessa was present, but to-night it was
strong and unmistakable. And after a while she became aware that other
people's eyes were upon her with a new expression, that was not idle
conjecture nor unmeaning curiosity. The old ladies against the wall
whispered together and glanced openly in her direction, as their gray
heads bobbed above their fans.
At the end of the evening, as she was descending the staircase with her
aunt and uncle, she was joined by Zoya Olisco, who whispered excitedly,
"Tell me, _cara mia_--what happened this afternoon?"
Nina started. "What have you heard?" She tried to look unconcerned, but
her face was troubled, and she drew Zoya out of her aunt's hearing.
"It is rumored that you lost your temper--oh, but entirely! and walked
yourself out of the Palazzo Scorpa without so much as saying good-by or
waiting for your chaperon."
Nina hesitated, then said in an undertone, "Yes, I am afraid it is true.
Was it a dreadful thing to do?"
The contessa laughed softly. "I told you that you were a girl after my
own heart. In your place I should have walked myself out of that house
as quickly as I had entered, but all the same--that would not be my
advice. However, this is not the serious part of the story." Even Zoya's
buoyancy became restrained as she concluded: "All Rome is asking what
you have done with the duke. He followed you out of the room and has not
been seen since. Giovanni is said to have spoken of seeing him at the
club--and that is known to be untrue. Carlo was at the Circolo d'Acacia
all the afternoon; so was that Ugo Potensi, as well as a dozen others--and
neither Scorpa nor Giovanni was there! So where is the duke? Come, tell
me!"
A look of terror came into Nina's eyes, and the young contessa darted
her a swift returning glance of comprehension. "Listen, _carissima_,"
she said, "I am your friend, therefore don't look so frightened--you are
a regular baby! The situation is not difficult to read. Obviously there
was a scene between you, the thick duke, and the agile Giovanni. Just
what it was all about, of course, I can only surmise; but I _do_ know
that Giovanni is deep in it, and, what is more important, I know also
that the result is likely to be troublesome for you. For men to quarrel
between themselves is one thing; but when a _woman_ comes into it, one
can never see the end."
"Woman? I know nothing of any woman." Nina shook her head.
"I told you that you were a baby! But we can't talk here. I shall come
to see you to-morrow, but not until late in the afternoon. I shall then
perhaps be useful, for in the meantime I am going about like the wolf in
the sheep's pelt, to see what news I can pick up. Till then--have
courage!"
Just then the Sansevero carriage was announced, and Nina was obliged to
hasten after her aunt. At the door she glanced back at Zoya with a
half-questioning look, which the contessa answered by blowing her a
kiss.
That night the little sleep Nina was able to get was fitful and broken
by dreams. The duke and his mother appeared to her as cuttlefish in a
cave under perpendicular cliffs that ran into the sea. Nina was out in a
little boat alone, and the waves dashed the tiny craft nearer and nearer
to the cave where the cuttlefish were waiting; finally she came so close
that one tentacle seized her. Terrified, she awoke. After hours of
half-waking, half-sleeping, formless confusion, she dreamed again. In
this dream she and Giovanni were on horseback. She was sitting in a most
precarious position on the horse's shoulder, but was held securely by
Giovanni's arm around her waist. Behind them she heard the pounding of
many horses in pursuit. The whole dream had the underlying terror of a
nightmare, and just as the distance diminished, and they were nearly
caught, the ground gave way and they pitched over a precipice. As they
were falling and about to be dashed on the rocks at the bottom of the
ravine, she heard a woman's laugh, and recognized it as that of the
Contessa Maria Potensi.
She awoke, trembling, and lit her lamp. It was nearly four o'clock, and
she had slept but half an hour. Near her bed was an American magazine;
she read the advertisements, to fill her mind with thoughts commonplace
and practical enough to banish dreams. The sun was rising when at last
she fell asleep, and she did not awake until nearly noon.
The morning's mail brought her a letter from John Derby--a good letter,
simple and frank, like himself, full of enthusiasm and of plans for
making the "Little Devil" a model settlement. He would arrive in Rome,
he told her, within a week. But even John's letter gave her only a few
moments' relief from her distressing memories.
Knowing that she had to pay visits with her aunt again that afternoon,
she put on her hat before lunch, in the hope of securing an opportunity
to speak with Giovanni while waiting for Eleanor, who always dressed
after luncheon. When she was nearly ready to go down, Celeste answered a
knock at the door, but, instead of delivering a package or message,
disappeared. After at least five minutes she returned, and, with a
noticeable air of mystery, locked the door, and then gave Nina a letter.
"I was told to give this into Mademoiselle's hands, without letting any
one know," she said.
Nina felt an undefined misgiving as she tore open the envelope. Though
she had never seen Giovanni's handwriting, she had no doubt that it was
his. It looked as though it might not be very legible at best; but on
the sheet before her the shaking, uneven letters trailed off into such
filiform indistinctness that she had to go through it several times
before she could decipher the following, written in French:
"Mademoiselle, I understand you well enough to be
sure that you will ask for the truth at all costs,
but in giving it to you, I also depend upon your
honor to divulge to no one, not even Eleanor, what
I tell you: I fought Scorpa this morning and have
sustained a bullet wound in the arm. Unfortunately,
it was impossible to hide, as the bone is broken
and it had to be put in plaster. Scorpa's condition
is, I am told, serious. If it goes badly, I shall
have to leave the country, though I doubt if he
allows the real cause to be known. I rely upon your
discretion as completely as you may rely upon my
having avenged an insult offered to the purest and
noblest of women.
"I beg you to believe, Mademoiselle, in the
respectful devotion of the humblest of your
servants.
"DI VALDO."
Nina folded the letter and locked it away in her jewel case, moving as
if in a daze. She felt faint and suffocated. Giovanni had risked his
life--for her sake! He was hurt--what if the wound should prove serious,
what if he should lose his arm! Oh, if only she might go to her aunt and
pour out the whole story! But she was in honor bound to say nothing
without Giovanni's permission, and she must master herself at once in
order to appear as usual at luncheon.
A little later, as she entered the dining-room, she heard the prince
saying--"Pretty serious accident." He turned at once to her:
"You have heard?" he said, and as she merely inclined her head, he
hastened to explain: "Giovanni, it seems, slipped this morning and broke
his arm. But, though the fracture is a very serious one, he is in no
danger."
Nina tried to speak, but her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her
mouth. Naturally enough, both Eleanor and Sansevero interpreted her
pallor and agitation as a sign of interest in Giovanni. "He broke the
elbow," the prince continued; "a 'T' break, it is called, which may
leave the joint stiff. There was a piece of bone splintered." Nina
gripped the under edge of the table--she knew what had splintered the
bone! She almost screamed aloud, but she set her lips, held tight to the
table, and tried to appear calm; while Sansevero, in spite of his
anxiety for his brother's condition, could not help feeling great
satisfaction in what looked so encouraging to Giovanni's suit.
"Giovanni went to the surgeon's," he continued. "Imagine--he walked
there! He should never have attempted such a thing. He had quite an
operation, for the splintered portions of the bone had to be cut away.
The arm is now in plaster, and they won't be able to tell for weeks
whether he ever can move his elbow again. They brought him home a couple
of hours ago. He is now a little feverish, but a sister has come to
nurse him, and we have left him to rest." Then Sansevero turned to his
wife: "It all sounds very queer to me, Leonora. What was the matter with
the boy, anyway? Why did he not send for me? And why did he not go to
bed like a sensible human being and stay there?"
Nina was on tenterhooks. She so wanted to ask her aunt and uncle what
they really thought! She wondered if they truly had no suspicions. Or
were they perhaps dissimulating as she herself was trying with poor
success to do? She could not understand how the princess, who was
usually quick of perception, could possibly be blind to the real facts
of the case. She felt choked--as if she herself had fired the shot that
might bring far more horrible consequences than her aunt and uncle knew.
The princess, seeing Nina's face grow whiter and whiter, asked anxiously
if she felt ill.
"No--not a bit!" Nina answered, looking as though she were about to
faint. After several unsuccessful attempts to turn the conversation into
happier channels, the princess met with some success in the topic of
John Derby and the miracles with which rumor credited him. Nina listened
with half-pathetic interest, but her hands trembled, and the few
mouthfuls she took almost refused to go down her throat. In her heart,
at that moment, everything gave way to Giovanni. She reproached herself
deeply for lack of belief in him. Always she had acknowledged that he
was charming, but the doubt of his sincerity had weighed against her
really caring for him. She had accepted John Derby's casual words, "The
Europeans do a lot of beautiful talking and picturesque posing, but when
it comes to real devotion you will find that one of your Uncle Samuel's
nephews will come out ahead."
All that was ended; there was no more question about what the Europeans
would do when it came to a test. Giovanni had done far more than say
beautiful, graceful things--he had proved to her that her honor was
dearer to him than his life, and she was stirred to the very depths of
her soul. In the midst of Eleanor's talk of John Derby, she tried to
imagine what John would have done in Giovanni's place. He would have
thrashed the man within an inch of his life--that she knew. But, manly
as that would have been, it could not compare with Giovanni's course in
silently waiting fourteen or fifteen hours and then deliberately going
out in the dull gray dawn and standing up at forty paces as a target for
Scorpa's bullet. She thought how, while she had been merely tossing in
her bed, unable to sleep, intent on herself, dwelling on her injured
dignity and the horror of that brute's touch, Giovanni had been sitting
up through the same long night, putting his affairs in order, and
looking death in the face! And she found herself forced to realize that
Giovanni--whose instability had been the strongest argument against
allowing herself to love him--had paid a price so high that his right to
her faith must henceforward be unquestioned.
She had only a vague idea when luncheon ended, or what visits she and
her uncle and aunt paid that afternoon. She went through the rest of the
day as though dazed. Fortunately, her agitation seemed natural to the
prince and princess, and her apparent interest in Giovanni was so near
to the truth that she did not mind. Late that afternoon she and Zoya
Olisco sat together behind the tea table, for most of the time alone.
Zoya had the story pretty straight, but Nina simply looked at her
dumbly--answering nothing. She was relieved, however, to hear that, so
far, people had evidently not ferreted out the facts.
They were not to find out through the papers. On the morning after the
duel, the _Tribunale_ had this paragraph:
"Society of Rome will be sorry to learn that the
Duke Scorpa is seriously ill at his Palazzo. The
doctor's bulletins announce that their illustrious
patient is suffering from a malignant case of
fever which at the best will mean an illness of
many weeks."
But it was not until the next day that there was a paragraph to the
effect that the Marchese di Valdo had met with an accident. A passer-by
had seen him slip in front of his club, the Circolo d'Acacia. It seems
the wind carried his hat off suddenly, and, as he put his hand out to
catch it, he fell and broke his arm. Following this came several other
social items, and then the second day's bulletin about the Duke Scorpa,
saying that the gravity of his condition remained unchanged.
Nina quite refused to be moved to pity by the news of Scorpa's critical
state. Her only anxiety in connection with him was, what would they do
to Giovanni, in case Scorpa should die? For _how_ was Giovanni to be got
out of the country, when he was said to be delirious in bed! By day she
thought, and by night she dreamed, that they were going to cut off his
arm.
As the excitement was dying down, John Derby returned from Sicily. He
noticed that Nina looked nervous and ill, but she tried to convince him
that it was the result of late hours and dancing. Besides, he had no
opportunity of talking to her alone, for in consequence of his success,
all who were interested in Sicily or mines flocked to the Palazzo
Sansevero as soon as it became known that Derby was there. The fuss made
over him pleased him, of course; for, after all, he was quite human and
quite young, and there was great exhilaration in being the bearer of
good news. He would not promise any definite amount to the holders of
the "Little Devil." There would be some money, but that was all he could
say. He did not yet know how much. To Nina's delight, he actually got
Carpazzi to accept the position of Tiggs, who had to return to America.
The plant, once started, no longer needed both engineers. And Carpazzi's
tumble-down castle not far from Vencata, enabled him to go without hurt
to his European ideas of dignity to "look after his own property."
In spite of her explanations, John was very much worried about Nina. She
certainly was not herself. Several times he caught a half-appealing look
in her eyes, as though she had something weighing on her mind. Yet she
gave him no chance to ask her confidence. Finally he had the good luck
to be left with her for a few moments alone, but there was a lack of
frankness in her face that he had never seen there before, and she had
an apprehensive, frightened manner that alarmed him.
The question he was almost ready to put, in spite of his resolution,
remained unasked, and he said instead: "Look here, Nina, I don't think
you are well! You're awfully jumpy. I never saw you like this at home.
Has anything happened?"
Nina shook her head.
"Honest and straight?"
She looked at him with a distracted expression that reminded him of a
child afraid of losing its way.
"Jack"--she hesitated; her voice sounded constrained--"please don't look
so--so serious. It is nothing--that I can tell you! Don't notice that I
am any different. Really, I am not. You are my best friend, and the
first I would go to if I needed help."
Yet, as she said the words, she felt with a sudden, poignant pain that
they were no longer true. Her mind was in a turmoil, and at that very
moment, had she followed her inclination, she would have screamed aloud.
She did not understand why she was so wretched; but one thing was
certain--it was Giovanni who filled her thoughts!
Perhaps Derby interpreted the change in her. He put a question suddenly,
"Nina, you couldn't really care for an Italian, could you?"
Nina flushed. "I don't know whether I could or not," she said. "I think
there may be just as wonderful men over here as at home. I know there
are some that are quite as brave."
Derby frowned. "Nina, Nina----"
But Nina did not even hear his interruption. "I wish you knew Don
Giovanni, Jack," she said. "You would like Italians better, I think!"
"It is not that I think ill of Italians--quite the contrary; but--I
should not like to think of your marrying Don Giovanni."
"And why shouldn't I?" The question came near to summing up the problem
of her own meditations, and his opposition--with its carefully
maintained impersonal quality--piqued her and made the smoldering
consideration of marrying Giovanni suddenly flame into a definite
intention.
"Well?" she repeated.
"Because I think American men make the best husbands."
Nina was brutal. "You say that because you are an American yourself!"
He let the injustice of her remark pass unnoticed. "I merely repeat," he
said calmly, "that, married to the Marchese di Valdo, you would be a
very unhappy woman. That is my straight opinion. If you don't like it,
I can't help it."
"Why should I be unhappy?"
"Don't let's discuss it."
"That is just like an American. Do you wonder women care for Europeans?
A man over here would sit down sensibly and tell you every sort of
reason."
"Yes, and one sort of reason as well as another. For, or against,
whichever way the wind might happen to be blowing!"
In spite of herself, Nina was disagreeably conscious of the truth of his
judgment. But she shut her mind to it, as she exclaimed, "And you say
you don't dislike Italian men!"
"No, I don't! You are altogether wrong. I have been over here often
enough to admire them tremendously, in a great many ways. But I don't
like to see the girl I--the girl I have known all her life, marry a man
that I feel sure will break her heart."
"Aunt Eleanor's heart is not broken!"
Derby walked up and down the floor, then stood still, stuffed his hands
into his pockets, and looked down at his shoes as though their varnish
were the only thing in life that interested him.
"Well? Is Aunt Eleanor's heart broken?"
"Perhaps not; but, even so, you and she are very different women. From
her girlhood she was more or less trained for the life she leads. She
went from a convent school to the house of a brother-in-law--in other
words, from one dependence to another. She is the type of woman who
weathers change and storm by bending to the wind."
"Aunt Eleanor! Hers is the strongest character I know!"
"Of course it is! But it is exactly because she is apparently
unresisting and pliant to surrounding conditions that her spirit is
unassailable. You, on the contrary, would snap in the first tempest! Or,
to change the simile, have you ever seen a young bull calf tied to a
tree, and, in a frantic effort to get loose, wind itself up tighter,
until its head was pulled close to the tree? That is exactly what you
would be over here. No girl has ever had her own way all her life more
than you! Believe me, you have no idea what it would mean to be tied to
a rope of convention that would tighten like a noose at any struggle on
your part. As the wife of a man like di Valdo, you would be bound by
endless petty formalities. Another thing--which your aunt has made me
realize--as an American, you would have to excel the Italians in dignity
in order to be thought to equal them. Things perfectly pardonable for
them would finish you. You need only take your aunt and Kate Masco for
your examples. Kate's behavior is not any worse than that of plenty of
the born countesses, even. But that's just it--she _isn't_ a countess
born, and her ways won't do! Your aunt, on the other hand, is '_grande
dame_' in every fiber of her being. Hardly another woman in Rome has her
graciousness and dignity. These qualities were hers, doubtless, from
the beginning, but you needn't tell me even she found it as easy to be a
princess as it would seem!"
Nina looked up at Derby in open-eyed amazement. "Gracious, John! I never
dreamed you were so observing! In a way, I imagine you are right, too.
But at least, if a woman has to follow conventions to earn a position
over here, that position is real and worth while when she does get it.
And a woman like Aunt Eleanor is far more appreciated here than she
would be at home."
"Humph!" was Derby's retort. "You needn't think that all the
appreciating of women is done in Italy, though the men at home may not
put things so gracefully as these over here, who have nothing else to do
but learn to turn beautiful phrases. I don't think that I am flattering
myself in saying that if I were to give up my life to the one
accomplishment of artistic love-making, I might make good, too! However,
that is pretty far out of my line. I'm a blunt sort of person, but
I--well, I care a lot for you, Nina! I'd rather see you marry--Billy
Dalton, any day!"
As Derby brought in Billy Dalton's name, Nina had a sense of flatness
that she would have been at a loss to explain.
"Jack!" she cried suddenly, her surface vanity piqued, but before even
the sentence which crowded back of her exclamation could frame itself,
Giovanni's image flashed before her mind and pushed out every other
impression. She seemed to see him racked with suffering, and all for
her! She hated her own vacillation. She despised herself for a fickle
flirt. What else was she? Here she was imagining all sorts of vague
heartaches that were utterly unworthy of her loyalty either to
Giovanni's love or to Jack's friendship. Jack was her best friend,
almost her brother, and she had no right to feel so limp because--she
did not finish the sentence even to herself; yet she was swept into such
a turmoil of emotion--friendship, love, pique, doubt--that she could
restore nothing to order. She knew Derby thought Giovanni wanted her
money--instinctively her mouth hardened as she thought of it--but
then--every one wanted it except Jack! And at once, with an
unaccountable baffling ache, she was brought face to face with the fact
that Jack, as it happened, did not want her at all!
Then, hating herself because she had for a moment thought of Jack as a
possible suitor, and more especially because of the detestable and
unworthy chagrin that his not being a suitor had caused her, she became
hysterically erratic, aloof, and impossible, and began suddenly to talk
like a paid guide about the sculptures at the Vatican! At the end of
some minutes, during which Derby failed to get anything in the way of a
natural remark from her, he arose to go. He left with a strong desire to
send a doctor and a trained nurse to take Nina in hand.
Down at the entrance of the palace a very pretty woman was speaking with
the porter. She was talking vehemently and with much accompanying
gesticulation. As Derby passed out, she looked up into his face. He put
his hand to his hat, in a vague remembrance of her features, wondering
where he had met her, and what her name might be. As he went through the
archway into the street, the recognition came to him. She was the
celebrated dancer, La Favorita.