Half-an-hour later Giovanni Severi entered the gate below in
civilian's dress and asked if he could see Madame Bernard, the French
teacher, who had let him know that she was stopping in the palace. The
porter told him to ring at the right-hand door on the second landing,
but added that it was doubtful whether any one would let him in, as
there was 'confusion in the house.'
Madame Bernard was waiting for him, however; he had arrived punctually
and she let him in herself.
'Have you heard, Monsieur?' she asked, before he could speak. 'Do you
know what is happening?'
'Yes,' he answered. 'All Rome knows it by this time, for the story was
in the morning papers. May I see Donna Angela?'
'Come, Monsieur.'
She had fastened the outer door while he was speaking, and she now led
the way without any more words.
Angela knew Giovanni's step at a distance, and when he entered she was
standing in the middle of the room. He had never before seen her in
black, and she was paler than usual; he looked anxiously into her face
as he took her hand, and she, meeting his eyes expectantly, saw a
change in them. Neither Angela nor Severi spoke at first, and in the
silence Madame Bernard passed them and went into the next room,
shutting the door after her.
'Have you heard?' Angela asked, still standing and still holding
Giovanni's hand.
'Yes. It is in all the papers to-day. There is an outcry. If your aunt
shows herself in the streets she will be hissed. But she has the law
on her side. I have been to two lawyers to inquire.'
He spoke in short sentences, nervously, and when he stopped he bit his
moustache.
'There is something else,' Angela answered. 'I see it in your eyes.
There is something I do not know, some still worse news. Sit down
there by the fire opposite me and tell me everything, for I am not
afraid. Nothing can frighten me now.'
She seated herself where she had sat more than half the day, and he
took the chair to which she had pointed. She poked the small green
logs with the antiquated tongs and watched the sparks that flew
upwards with every touch while she waited for him to speak. But he
looked at her in silence, forgetting everything for a while except
that he was really alone with her, almost for the first time in his
life. He changed his position and bent forward with his elbows on his
knees and his hands together, so that he was nearer to her. Without
turning her face from the fire she saw him in a side-glance, but made
no answering motion.
'Tell me what it is,' she said softly. 'Only one thing could hurt me
now.'
'It is hard to tell,' he answered in rather a dull voice.
She misunderstood, and turned to him slowly with wondering and
frightened eyes. Her hand weakened, without quite losing its hold, and
the ends of the clumsy tongs clattered on the brick hearth. The doubt
that had sprung upon her like a living thing as soon as she saw him,
began to dig its claws into her heart.
'If it is so hard to tell,' she said, 'it must be that one thing.' She
turned resolutely to the fire again. 'If it is to be good-bye, please
go away quietly and leave me alone.'
The words were not all spoken before he had caught her arm, so
suddenly that the old tongs fell on the bricks with a clang. Like him,
she had been leaning forward in her low chair, and as he drew her to
him she involuntarily slipped from her seat and found herself kneeling
on one knee beside him. She gave a little cry, more of surprise than
of displeasure or timidity, but he did not heed her. It was the first
time they had ever been left alone together, and while he still held
her with his right hand his left stole round her neck, to bring her
face nearer.
But she resisted him almost fiercely; she set both her hands against
his chest and pushed herself from him with all her might, and the red
blush rose even to her forehead at the thought of the kiss she almost
saw on his lips, a kiss that hers had never felt. He meant nothing
against her will, and when he felt that she was matching her girl's
strength against his, as if she feared him, his arms relaxed and he
let her go. She sprang to her feet like a young animal released, and
leaned against the mantelpiece breathing hard, and fixing her burning
eyes on the old engraving of Saint Ursula, asleep in a queer four-post
bedstead with her crown at her feet, that hung over the fireplace. But
instead of rising to stand beside her, Giovanni leaned back in his
chair, his hands crossed over one knee; and instead of looking up to
her face, he gazed steadily down at the hem of her long black skirt,
where it lay motionless across the wolf's skin that served for a
hearth-rug.
'What is it?' she asked, after a long pause, and rather unsteadily.
He understood that she was going back to the question she had asked
him at first, but still he did not answer. She kept her eyes steadily
on Saint Ursula while she spoke again.
'If it is not good-bye, what is it that is so hard to say?'
'I have had a long talk with my father.'
Angela moved a little and looked down at his bent head, for he spoke
in an almost despairing tone. She thought she understood him at last.
'He will not hear of our marriage, now that I am a beggar,' she said,
prompting him.
But Giovanni raised his face at once, and rather proudly.
'You are unjust to him,' he said. 'He is not changed. It is a very
different matter. He has had a great misfortune, and has lost almost
all he had, without much hope of recovering anything. We were very
well off, and I should have had a right to marry you, though you had
not a penny, if this had not happened. As it is, my father is left
with nothing but his General's pension to support my mother. My
brothers will both need help for years to come, for they are much
younger than I am, and I must live on my pay if I mean to stay in the
service.'
'Is that all?' Angela's voice trembled a little.
'Yes, my pay, and nothing more----'
'I did not mean that,' she hastened to say, interrupting him, and
there was a note of returning gladness in her voice. 'I meant to ask
if that was all the bad news.'
'It is enough, surely, since it half ruins our lives! What right have
I to ask you to keep your promise and marry me, since I have not
enough for us to live on?'
Angela turned quite towards him now and repeated his own words.
'And what right have I to ask you to keep your promise and marry me?
When you gave your word, you thought I had a great name and was heir
to a splendid fortune. You were deceived. I am a "destitute
foundling"--the lawyers have proved it, and the proof of their proofs
is that I am obliged to accept the charity of my old governess, God
bless her! If ever a man had a right to take back his word, you have.
Take it, if you will. You are free!'
Giovanni stood up beside her, almost angry.
'Do you think I wanted your fortune?' he asked, a little pale under
his tan.
'Do you think I am afraid of poverty?'
Her lips were still parted in a smile after she had asked the
question, and with the gesture of an older woman she tapped his arm
half reproachfully. The colour came back to his brown face.
'I fear poverty for you,' he answered, 'and I am going to fight it for
your sake if you have the courage to wait for me. Have you?'
'I will wait for ever,' she said simply as she laid her hand in his.
'Then I shall leave the army at once,' he replied. 'So far, I have
made what is called a good career, but promotion is slow and the pay
is wretched until a man is very high up. An artillery officer is an
engineer, you know, and a military engineer can always find well-paid
work, especially if he is an electrician, as I am. In two years I
promise you that we shall be able to marry and be at least
comfortable, and there is no reason why I should not make a fortune
quite equal to what my father has lost.'
He spoke with the perfect confidence of a gifted and sanguine man,
sure of his own powers, and his words pleased her. Perhaps what had
attracted her most in him from the beginning had been his enthusiasm
and healthy faith in the world, which had contrasted brilliantly with
her father's pessimism and bigoted political necrolatry, if I may coin
a word from the Greek to express an old-fashioned Roman's blind
worship of the dead past.
Angela was pleased, as any woman would have been, but she protested
against what she knew to be a sacrifice.
'No,' she said decidedly, 'you must not give up the army and your
career for the sake of making money, even for me. Do no officers marry
on their pay? I am sure that many do, and manage very well indeed. You
told me not long ago that you were expecting promotion from day to
day; and in any case I could not marry you within a year, at the
least.'
'If I do not begin working at once, that will be just a year lost,'
objected Giovanni.
'A year! Will that make much difference?'
'Why not ten, then? As if a year would not be a century long, while I
am waiting for you--as if it were not already half a lifetime since
last month, when we told each other the truth! Wait? Yes, if I must;
for ever, as you said awhile ago, if there is no other way. But if it
can be helped, then not an hour, not a minute! Why should we let
happiness pass us by and not take it when we may and can? There is not
enough in the world, as it is; and you cannot even pretend that you
are generous if you do not take your share, since what fate means for
you is useless for any one else! No, dear, no! We will take the fruit
there is on the tree, and leave none to rot on the branch after we are
gone. Promise to marry me a year from to-day, and leave the rest to
me--will you?'
'Yes--but promise me one thing, too. Do not resign to-morrow, nor next
week, as I know you mean to do. Take a month to think it over, and to
look about you. You are so impulsive--well, so generous--that you are
capable of sending in your resignation to-morrow.'
'It is already written,' Giovanni answered. 'I was going to send it in
to-night.'
'I knew it! But you must not. Please, please, take a little time--it
will be so much wiser. I will wait for you for ever, or I will promise
to marry you a year from to-day, even if we have to live on bread and
water. Indeed I will! But, at least, be a little cautious! It will be
far better to marry on your pay--and you will surely get your captaincy
in a few months--than to be stranded without even that, in case you do
not find the work you hope for. Don't you see? I am sure it is good
advice.'
Giovanni knew that it was, if caution were ever worth practising
in human affairs; but that has often been doubted by brave and
light-hearted men. Giovanni yielded a little reluctantly. If she had
asked him to make it two months instead of one, he would have refused,
for it seemed to him intolerable to lose a moment between decision and
action, and his thoughts doubled their stride with every step, in a
geometrical progression; a moment hence, a minute would be an hour, an
hour a month, a month a lifetime. Men have won battles in that temper;
but it has sometimes cost them their life.
'I know you are sensible,' Giovanni said, taking Angela's hand between
his, 'but it is to please you that I agree to wait a month. It is not
because it looks wise, as it does. For one man who succeeds by wisdom,
ten win by daring. Who knows what may chance in a month, or what may
happen to put out of reach what I could do to-day?'
'Nothing!'
Angela gave her answer with the delicious little smile of superiority
which the youngest woman and even the merest girl can wear, when she
is sure that she is right and that the man she loves is wrong. It may
be only about sewing on a button, or about the weather, or it may
concern great issues; but it is always the same when it comes: it
exasperates weak men, and the stronger sort like it, as they more
especially delight in all that is womanly in woman, from heroic virtue
to pathetic weakness.
'Nothing can happen in a month to prevent you from resigning then, as
you could to-day,' Angela said confidently.
The faint smile disappeared, and she grew thoughtful, not for herself,
but for him, and looked at Saint Ursula again. Her hand still lay in
his, on the edge of the mantelpiece, and while she gazed at the
engraving she knew that he was looking at her and was moving nearer;
she felt that he was going to kiss her, but she did not resist this
time though the colour was rising in her throat, and just under the
exquisitely shaped petal of peach-blossom on which his eyes were
fixed, and which was really only the tip of her ear, though it was so
like the leaf of a flower that the scent of the bloom came to his
memory when his lips touched the spot at last.
His hand shut closer over hers at the same moment, and hers fluttered
under his fingers like a small soft bird; but there was no resistance.
He kissed the tip of her ear, and she turned towards him a little; his
kiss pressed her cool cheek, and she moved again; their eyes met, very
near, and dark, and full of light, and then his lips touched hers at
last.
Destiny has many disguises and many moods. Sometimes, as on that day
at the telephone, the unexpected leaps up from its hiding-place and
strikes stunning blows, right and left, like Orestes among the steers
in Tauris, or a maniac let loose among sane men; but sometimes Fate
lurks in her lair, silently poring over the tablets of the future, and
she notes all we say, scrawling 'Folly' against our wisest speeches,
and stamping 'So be it' under the carelessly spoken jest.
She was busy while the young lovers kissed for the first time, by the
mantelpiece; but no inward warning voice had told Angela that she
herself was sealing the order of her life irrevocably when she gave
Giovanni the best advice she could, and he accepted it to please her,
making his instinct obey his judgment for her sake. A man is foolish
who takes an important step without consulting the woman who loves him
most dearly, be she mother, sister, wife, or sweetheart; but he is
rarely wise if he follows her advice, like a rule, to the letter, for
no woman goes from thought to accomplishment by the same road as a
man. You cannot make a pointer of a setter, nor teach a bulldog to
retrieve.
If Giovanni had sent in his resignation that evening, or even during
the next day, as he was ready to do, it would have been accepted in
the ordinary course of things; he would then, without doubt, have
found employment for his talents and energy, either at home or abroad.
He would in all probability have succeeded in life, because he
possessed the elements of success; he would have married Angela in due
time, and the two would probably have lived happily for many years,
because they were suited to each other in all ways and were possessed
of excellent constitutions. If all this had happened, their story
would have little interest except for themselves, or as an example to
young couples; and it is a deplorable fact that there is hardly
anything so dull and tiresome in the world as a good example. The
hoardings along life's dusty roads are plentifully plastered with good
examples, in every stage of preservation, from those just fresh from
the moral bill-poster's roll, redolent of paste, to the good old ones
that are peeling off in tatters, as if in sheer despair because nobody
has ever stopped to look at them. May the gods of literature keep all
good story-tellers from concocting advertisements of the patent
virtues!
The most important and decisive moment in Angela's life, from its
beginning to its end, had passed so quietly that she never suspected
its presence, and almost the very next instant brought her the first
kiss of the only man she had ever loved, or was to love thereafter.