Masin was very much relieved when his master came home, looking much
calmer than when he had gone out and evidently having all his senses
about him. Malipieri sent to ask at what time the mails left Rome for
Florence, and he sat down to his table without remembering that he had
eaten nothing that day.
It was not easy to write out in a concise form the story of all that
has here been told in detail. Besides, he had not the habit of writing
to the Signora Malipieri, except such brief acknowledgments of her
regular letters to him as were necessary and kind. For years she had
been to him little more than a recollection of his youth, a figure that
had crossed his life like a shadow in a dream, taking with it a promise
which he had never found it hard to keep. He remembered her as she had
been then, and it had not even occurred to him to consider how she
looked now. She sometimes sent him photographs of the pretty little
girl, and Malipieri kept them, and occasionally looked at them, because
they reminded him of his friend, of whom he had no portrait.
He found it very hard to tell this half-mythical woman and wholly
mythical wife of all that had happened, while scrupulously avoiding the
main fact, which was that he and Sabina loved each other. To have told
that, too, would have seemed like a reproach, or still worse, like a
request to be set at liberty.
He wrote carefully, reading over his sentences, now and then correcting
one, and even entertaining a vague idea of copying the whole when he
had finished it. The important point was that she should fully
understand the necessity of announcing his engagement to marry Donna
Sabina Conti, together with his firm intention of breaking it off as
soon as the story should be so far forgotten as to make it safe to do
so, having due regard for Donna Sabina's reputation and good name.
He laid so much stress on these points, and expressed so strongly his
repentance for having led the girl into a dangerous scrape, that many a
woman would have guessed at something more. But of this he was quite
unaware when he read the letter over, believing that he could judge it
without prejudice, as if it had been written by some one else. The
explanation was thorough and logical, but there was a little too much
protest in the expressions of regret. Besides, there were several
references to Sabina's unhappy position as the daughter of an
abominably worldly and heartless woman, who would lock her up in a
convent for life rather than have the least trouble about her. He could
not help showing his anxious interest in her future, much more clearly
than he supposed.
The consequence was that when the Signora Malipieri read the letter on
the following morning, she guessed the truth, as almost any woman
would, without being positively sure of it; and she was absent-minded
with her pupils all that day, and looked at her watch uneasily, and was
very glad when she was able to go home at last and think matters over.
It was not easy to decide what to do. She could not write to Malipieri
and ask him directly if he was in love with Sabina Conti and wished to
marry her. She answered him at once, however, telling him that she
fully understood his position, and thanking him for having written to
her before she could have heard the story from any other source.
He showed the letter to Sabina, and it pleased her by its frank
simplicity, and perfect readiness to accept Malipieri's statement
without question, and without the smallest resentment. Somehow the girl
had felt that this shadowy woman, who stood between her and Malipieri,
would make some claim upon him, and assert herself in some disagreeable
way, or criticise his action. It was hateful to think she really had a
right to call herself his wife, and was therefore legally privileged to
tell him unpleasant truths. Sabina always connected that with
matrimony, remembering how her father and mother used to quarrel when
he was alive, and how her brother and sister-in-law continued the
tradition. If the Volterra couple were always peaceful, that was
because the Baroness was in mortal awe of her fat husband, a state of
life to which Sabina did not wish to be called. It was true that
Malipieri's position with regard to his so-called wife had nothing to
do with a real marriage, but Sabina had felt the disapproving presence
of the woman she had never seen, and whom she imagined to be
perpetually shaking a warning finger at Malipieri and reminding him
sourly that he could not call his soul his own. The letter had
destroyed the impression.
Meanwhile Malipieri was appalled by the publicity of a betrothal which
was never to lead to marriage. The Princess took care that as much
light as possible should be cast upon the whole affair, and to the
Baroness Volterra's stupefaction and delight, told every one that the
match had been made under her auspices, and that the Conti family owed
her eternal gratitude for it and for her care of Sabina during nearly
three months. The Princess told the story of the night in the vaults
again and again, to her friends and relations, extolling everything
that Malipieri had done, and especially his romantic determination to
show the girl he was going to marry the treasures which should have
belonged to her, before any one else should see them.
The Princess told Volterra, laughingly and quite frankly, that her
lawyer would do everything possible to get for her a share in the value
of the statues discovered, and Volterra, following her clever cue,
laughed with her, and said it should be a friendly suit, and that the
lawyers should decide among themselves how it should be settled,
without going into court. Volterra was probably the only man in Rome
who entertained a profound respect for the Princess's intelligence; yet
he was reckoned a good judge in such matters. He himself was far too
wise to waste regrets upon the failure of his tactics, and the stake
had not been large, after all, compared with his great fortune.
Magnanimity was a form of commodity which could be exchanged for
popularity, and popularity was ready money. A thousand votes were as
good as two million francs, any day, when one was not a senator for
life, and wished to be re-elected; and a reputation for spotless
integrity would cover a multitude of financial sins. Since it had been
impossible to keep what did not belong to him, the next best thing was
to restore it to the accompaniment of a brass band and a chorus of
public approval. The Princess, clever woman, knew exactly how he felt
and helped him to do the inevitable in a showy way; and it all helped
her to carry her daughter and herself out of a difficult position in a
blaze of triumph.
"My dear," she said to the girl, "you may do anything you please, if
you will only do it in public. Lock your door to say your prayers, and
the world will shriek out that you have a scandal to conceal."
It dawned upon Sabina that her cynical, careless, spendthrift,
scatter-brained mother had perhaps after all a share of the cunning and
the force which rule the world to-day, and which were so thoroughly
combined in Volterra's character. That would account for the way in
which she sailed through storms that would have wrecked the Baroness
and drowned poor little Sabina herself.
Meanwhile a hundred workmen had dug down to the vault under the
courtyard of the Palazzo Conti, the statues had been lifted out intact,
with cranes, and had been set upon temporary pedestals, under a
spacious wooden shed; and the world, the flesh and the devil, including
royalty, went to see them and talked of nothing else. All Europe heard
the story of Malipieri's discovery, and of his adventure with his
betrothed wife, and praised him and called him and her an "ideal
couple."
Sabina's brother came up from the country to be present at the Embassy
dinner, and of course stopped at the Grand Hotel, and made up his mind
to have an automobile at once. His wife stayed in the country with the
delicate little child, but sent Sabina a note of congratulation.
Clementina, writing from her convent, said she hoped that Sabina might
redeem the follies of her youth in a respectable married life, but the
hope was not expressed with much conviction. Sabina need not disturb
the peace of a religious house by coming to see her.
The Princess boldly gave out that the marriage would take place in the
autumn, and confided to two or three gossips that she really meant to
have a quiet wedding in the summer, because it would be so much more
economical, and the young couple did not like the idea of waiting so
long. As for a dowry, everybody knew that Sassi, dear, kind-hearted old
man, had left Sabina what he had; and there were the statues.
Prince Conti came to the Embassy as soon as he arrived, and met
Malipieri, to whom he was overpoweringly cordial in his weak way. On
the whole, at their first interview, he judged that it would not be
easy to borrow money of him, and went away disappointed.
Society asked where Malipieri's father was, and learned that he was
nearly seventy and was paralysed, and never left his house in Venice,
but that he highly approved of his son's marriage and wished to see his
future daughter-in-law as soon as possible. The Princess said that
Sabina and Malipieri would live with him, but would come to Rome for
the winter.
Prince Rubomirsky, Sabina's uncle, sent her a very handsome diamond
necklace, which the Princess showed to all her friends, and some of
them began to send wedding presents likewise, because they had been
privately informed that the marriage was to take place very soon.
Sabina lived joyously in the moment, apparently convinced that fate
would bring everything right, and doing her best to drive away the
melancholy that had settled upon Malipieri. Something would happen, she
said. It was impossible that heaven could be so cruel as to part them
and ruin both their lives for the sake of a promise given to a man dead
long ago. Malipieri wished that he could believe it.
He grew almost desperate as time went on and he saw how the Princess
was doing everything to make the engagement irrevocable. He grew thin,
and nervous, and his eyes were restless. The deep tan of the African
sun was disappearing, too, and sometimes he looked almost ill. People
said he was too much in love, and laughed. Little by little Sabina
understood that she could not persuade him to trust to the future, and
she grew anxious about him. He wondered how she could still deceive
herself as to the inevitable end.
"We can go on being engaged as long as we please," she said hopefully.
"There are plenty of possible excuses."
"You and I are not good at lying," he answered, with a weary smile. "We
told each other so, that night."
"But it is perfectly true that I am almost too young to be married,"
said she; "and really, you know, it might be more sensible to wait till
I am nineteen."
"We should not think it sensible to wait a week, if there were no
hindrance. You know that."
"Of course! But when there is a hindrance, as you call it, it is very
sensible indeed to wait," retorted Sabina, with a truly feminine sense
of the value of logic. "I shall think so, and I shall say so, if I
must. Then you will have to wait, too, and what will it matter, so long
as we can see each other every day? Have people never waited a year to
be married?"
"You know that we may wait all our lives."
"No. I will not do that," Sabina said with sudden energy. "If nothing
happens, I will make something happen. You know what I told you. Have
you forgotten? And I am sure your father will understand."
"I doubt it," Malipieri answered, smiling in spite of himself.
To tell the truth, since her mother had cleared away so many dangers,
and showed no intention of shutting her up in a convent, Sabina had
begun to see that it would be quite another matter to run away and
follow Malipieri to the ideal desert island, especially after they had
been openly engaged to be married and the engagement had been broken.
The world would have to know the story of his marriage then, and it
would call him dishonourable for having allowed himself to be engaged
to her when he was not free. It would say that she had found out the
truth, and that he was a villain, or something unpleasant of that sort.
But she meant to keep up the illusion bravely, as long as there was any
life in it at all, and then "something must happen."
"It seems so strange that I should be braver than you," she said.
He did not wonder at that as much as she did. Her reputation was saved
now, but his honour was in the balance, and at the mercy of a worldly
and unscrupulous woman. When he broke the engagement, the Princess
would tell the story of his marriage and publish it on the housetops.
He told Sabina so.
"You are safe," he added; "but when I lose you, I shall lose my place
among honourable men."
"Then I shall tell the truth, and the whole truth, to every one I
know," Sabina answered, in the full conviction that truth, like faith,
could perform miracles, and that a grain of it could remove mountains
of evil. "I shall tell the whole world!" she cried. "I do not care what
my mother says."
He was silent, for it was better, after all, that she should believe in
her happiness as long as she could. She said nothing more for some time
and they sat quite still, thinking widely opposite thoughts. At last
she laid her hand on his; the loving little way had become familiar to
her since it had come instinctively the first time.
"Marino!"
"Yes?"
"You know that I love you?"
"Indeed I know it."
"And you love me? Just as much? In the same way?"
"Perhaps more. Who knows?"
"No, that is impossible," she answered. "Now listen to me. It is out of
the question that we should ever be parted, loving each other as we do,
is it not?"
The door opened and a servant entered, with a card.
"The lady told me to inform your Excellency that she is a connection of
Signor Malipieri," said the man. "She hopes that she may be received,
as she is in Rome for only a few hours."
Sabina looked at the card and handed it silently to Malipieri, and her
fingers trembled.
"Angelica Malipieri."
That was the name and there was the address in Florence, in Via del
Mandorlo.
"Ask the lady to come here," said Sabina, quietly; but her face was
suddenly very white.