Part 20 (1/2)

A scornful gesture of disbelief, one of those movements which, with Italians, have a significance no words ever convey, interrupted his protestation.

'This is too bad!' he cried; 'nor had you ever conceived such distrust of me if your own heart did not give the prompting. There, there,' cried he, as he pointed his finger at her, while her eyes flashed and sparkled with a wild and l.u.s.trous expression, 'your very looks betray you.'

'Betray me! this is no betrayal,' said she haughtily. 'I have no shame in declaring that I too covet fame, even as you do. Were some mighty patron to condescend to favour _me_--to fancy that _I_ resembled, I know not what great personage--to imagine that in _my_ traits of look and voice theirs were reflected, it is just as likely I should thank fortune for the accident, and bid adieu to _you_, as you intend, to-morrow or next day, to take leave of _me_.'

She spoke boldly and defiantly, her large, full eyes gazing at his with a steadfast and unflinching look, while Gerald held down his head in sorrow and in shame.

Nor was it alone with himself that Gerald was at war, for Marietta had shocked and startled him by qualities he had never suspected in her.

In her pa.s.sion she had declared that her heart was set upon ambitions daring as his own; and, even granting that much of what she said was prompted by wounded pride, there was in her wildly excited glances and her trembling lips the sign of a temperament that knew little of forgiveness. If he was then amazed by discovering Marietta to be different from all he had ever seen her, he was more in love with her than ever.

She had opened the window, and, with her face between her hands, gazed out upon the silent street. Gerald took his place at her side, and thus they remained for some time without a word. A low, faint sigh at last came from the girl, and, placing his arm around her, Gerald drew her gently to him, murmuring softly in her ear:

'L'onda che mormora, Tra sponda e sponda; L'aura che tremola, Tra fronda e fronda.

E meno instabile, Del vostro cor.'

She never spoke, but, averting her head still farther from him, screened herself from his view. At last a low, soft murmuring broke from her lips, and she sang, in accents scarcely above her breath, one of those little native songs she was so fond of. It was a wild but plaintive air, sounding like the wayward cadences of one who left her fancy free to give music to the verse, each stanza ending with the words:

'Non ho piu remi, Non ho piu vele, E al silo talento Mi porta il mar.'

With a touching tenderness that thrilled through Gerald's heart she sung, with many a faltering accent, and in a tremulous tone, the simple words:

'In a lone, frail hark, forsaken, I float on a nameless sea, Nor care to what morrow I waken; I drift where the waves bear me.

'I look not up to the starry sky, For I have no course to run, Nor eagerly wait, as the dawn draws nigh, To watch for the rising sun.

'For noon is drear as the night to me, To-day is as dark as to-morrow: Forsaken, I float on the nameless sea, To think and weep over my sorrow.*

'Oh, Marietta, if thou wouldst not wring my heart, do not sing that sad air,' cried Gerald, pressing her tenderly to him. 'I bore it ill in our happiest hours, when all went well and hopefully with us.'

'It bettor suits the present, then,' said she calmly; then added, with a sudden energy--'at all events, it suits my humour!'

'Thou wouldst break with me, then, Marietta?' said Gerald, relaxing his hold on her, and turning his eyes fully upon her face.

'Look down there,' cried she, pointing with her finger: 'that street beneath us is narrow enough, but it has two exits: why shouldn't _you_ take one road, and _I_ the other?'

'Agreed: so be it, then!' said Gerald pa.s.sionately, 'only remember, this project never came from _me_.'

'If there be blame for it, I accept it all,' said she calmly. 'These things come ever of caprice, and they go as they come. As your own poet has it:

'”Si sente che diletta Ma non si sa perche.”'

And with a cold smile and a light motion of the hand, as in adieu, she turned away and left the room. Gerald buried his face between his hands and sobbed as though his heart was breaking. Alternately accusing Marietta and himself of cruelty and injustice, his mind was racked by a conflict, to which nothing offered consolation.

He tried to compose himself to sleep: he lay down on his bed, and endeavoured in many ways to induce that calm spirit which leads to slumber; he even murmured to himself the long-forgotten litanies he had learned, as a student, in the college; but the fever that raged within defied all these attempts, and, foiled in his efforts, he arose and left the house. The day was just dawning, and a pinkish streak of sky could be seen over the mountains of Vail' Ombrosa, while all the vale of the Arno and Florence itself lay in deep shadow, the great 'Duomo' and the tall tower at its side not yet catching the first gleam of the rising sun.

Gerald left the gates of the city, and strode on manfully till he gained the crest of the 'Bello Sguardo,' whence the view of the city and its environs is peculiarly fine. Here he sat down to gaze on the scene beneath him; that wondrous map, whose history contains records of mingled greatness, crime, genius, n.o.ble patriotism, and of treachery so base that all Europe cannot show its equal; and thus gazing, and thus musing, he sank into deep sleep.

CHAPTER XVIII. THE DROP