San Pietro and Bertuccio were waiting at the doorway, both blinking
sleepily in the morning air. At San Pietro's right side hung a tiny
pannier, covered by a fringed white napkin, above which lay a small
flask decorated with corn husk and gay yarn, where red wine sparkled
like rubies in the sunshine. The varying degrees of the donkey's
resignation were registered exactly in the changing angles at which his
right ear was cocked.
"Pronta!" called Assunta, who was putting the finishing touches on
saddle and luncheon basket. "If the Signorina means to climb the Monte
Altiera she must start before the sun is high."
On the hillside above Daphne heard, but her feet strayed only more
slowly. She was wandering with a face like that of a sky across which
thin clouds scud, in the grass about Hermes' grave. In her hand was the
letter of yesterday, and in her eyes the memory of the days before.
"It is all too late," said Daphne, who had learned to talk aloud in
this world where no one understood. "The Greeks were right in thinking
that our lives are ruled by mocking fate. I wonder what angry goddess
cast forgetfulness upon my mind, so that I forgot to tell Apollo what
this letter says."
Daphne looked to the open sky, but it gave no answer, and she paused by
the laurel tree with head bent down. Then, with a sudden, wistful
little laugh, she held out the letter and fastened it to the laurel,
tearing a hole in one corner to let a small bare twig go through. With
a blunt pencil she scribbled on it in large letters: "Let Apollo read,
if he ever wanders this way."
"He will never find it," said the girl, "and the rain will come and
soak it, and it will bleach in the sun. But nobody else knows enough
to read it, and I shall leave it there on his sacred tree, as my last
offering. I suppose there is some saving grace even in the sacrifices
that go astray."
Then she descended the hill, climbed upon San Pietro's back, and rode
through the gateway.
An hour later, Assunta, going to find a spade in the tool-house, for
she was transplanting roses, came upon the Signorina's caller of
yesterday standing near the tool-house with something in his hand. The
peasant woman's face showed neither awe nor fear; only lively curiosity
gleamed in the blinking brown eyes.
"Buon' giorno," said Apollo, exactly as mortals do.
"Buon' giorno, Altezza," returned Assunta.
"Is the Signorina at home?" asked the intruder.
"But no!" cried Assunta. "She has started to climb the very sky
to-day, Monte Altiera, and for what I can't make out. It only wears
out Bertuccio's shoes and the asinetto's legs."
"Grazia," said Apollo, moving away.
"Does his Highness think that the Signorina resembles her sister, the
Contessa?" asked the peasant woman for the sake of a detaining word.
"Not at all," answered the visitor, and he passed into the open road.
Then he turned over in his hand the letter which he had taken from the
laurel. Though he had read it thee times he hardly understood as yet,
and his face was the face of one who sees that the incredible has come
to pass. The letter was made up of fifteen closely written pages, and
it told the story of a young clergyman, who, convinced at last that
celibacy and the shelter of the Roman priesthood were his true
vocation, had, after long prayer and much mediation, decided to flee
the snares of the world and to renounce its joys for the sake of bliss
the other side of life.
"When you receive this letter, my dear Daphne," wrote Eustace Denton,
"I shall have been taken into the brotherhood of Saint Ambrose, for I
wish to place myself in a position where there will be no retracing my
steps."
The face of the reader on the Roman hills, as it was lifted from the
page again to the sunshine, was full of the needless pity of an alien
faith.
Along the white road that led up the mountain, and over the grass-grown
path that climbed the higher slopes, trod a solitary traveler. Now his
step was swift, as if some invisible spirit of the wind were wafting
him on; and again the pace was slow and his head bent, as if some deep
thought stayed his speed. There were green slopes above, green slopes
below, and the world opened out as he climbed on and up. Out and out
sketched the great Campagne, growing wider at each step, with the gray,
unbroken lines of aqueduct leading toward Rome and the shining sea
beyond.
* * * * *
On a great flat stone far up on the heights sat two motionless figures:
below them, partly veiling the lower world, floated a thin mist of
cloud.
"This must be Olympus," said Daphne.
"Any mountain is Olympus that touches the sky," answered Apollo.
"Where are the others?" demanded the girl. "Am I not to know your
divine friends?"
"Don't you see them?" he asked as in surprise,--"Aphrodite just yonder
in violet robe, and Juno, and Hermes with winged feet"--
"I am afraid I am a wee bit blind, being but mortal," answered Daphne.
"I can see nothing but you."
Beside them on the rock, spread out on oak leaves, lay clusters of
purple grapes, six black ripe olives, and a little pile of biscotti
Inglesi. The girl bent and poured from the curving flask red wine that
bubbled in the glass, then gave it to her companion, saying: "Quick,
before Hebe gets here," and the sound of their merriment rung down the
hillside.
"Hark!" whispered Daphne. "I hear an echo of the unquenchable laughter
of the gods! They cannot be far away."
From another stone near at hand Bertuccio watched them with eyes that
feigned not to see. Bertuccio did not understand English, but he
understood everything else. Goodly shares of the nectar and ambrosia
of this feast had fallen to his lot, and Bertuccio in his own way was
almost as happy as the lovers. In the soft grass near San Pietro
Martire nibbled peacefully, now and then lifting his eyes to see what
was going on. Once he brayed. He alone, of all nature, seemed
impervious to the joy that had descended upon earth.
It was only an hour since Daphne had been overtaken. Few words had
sufficed for understanding, and Bertuccio had looked away.
"My only fear was that I should find you turned into a laurel tree,"
said Apollo. "I shall always be afraid of that."
"Apollo," said Daphne irrelevantly, holding out to him a bunch of
purple grapes in the palm of her hand, "there is a practical side to
all this. People will have to know, I am afraid. I must write to my
sister."
"I have reason to think that the Countess Accolanti will not be
displeased," he answered. There was a queer little look about his
mouth, but Daphne asked for no explanation.
"There is your father," he suggested.
"Oh!" said Daphne. "He will love you at once. His tastes and mine are
very much alike."
The lover-god smiled, quite satisfied.
"You chose the steepest road of all to-day, little girl," he said. "But
it is not half so long nor so hard as the one I expected to climb to
find you."
"You are tired!" said Daphne anxiously. "Rest."
Bertuccio was sleeping on his flat rock; San Pietro lay down for a
brief, ascetic slumber. The lovers sat side by side, with the mystery
of beauty about them: the purple and gold of nearness and distance;
bright color of green grass near, sombre tint of cypress and stone pine
afar.
"I shall never really know whether you are a god or not," said Daphne
dreamily.
"A very proper attitude for a woman to have toward her husband," he
answered with a smile. "I must try hard to live up to the character.
You will want to live on Olympus, and you really ought, if you are
going to wear gowns woven of my sunbeams like the one you had on
yesterday. How shall I convince you that Rome must do part of the
time? You will want me to make you immortal: that always happens when
a maiden marries a god."
"I think you have done that already," said Daphne.