Part 21 (1/2)

What could add to the combination?'

'The secret of an ill.u.s.trious birth,' whispered the Marquise.

'I lean to the other view. I 'd rather fancy nature had some subtle design of her own, some deep-wrought scheme to work out by this strange counterfeit.'

'Yes, Gherardi,' as the youth looked suddenly around; 'yes, Gherardi,'

said she, 'we were talking of you, and of your likeness to one with whom we were both acquainted.'

'If it be to that prince whose picture I saw last night,' replied he, 'I suspect the resemblance goes no further than externals. There can be, indeed, little less like a princely station than mine.'

'Ah, boy!' broke in the poet, 'there will never be in all your history as sad a fate as has befallen him.'

'I envy one whose fortune admits of reverses!' said Gerald peevishly.

'Better be storm-tossed than never launched.'

'I declare,' whispered the Marquise, 'as he spoke there, I could have believed it was Monsieur de Saint George himself I was listening to.

Those little wayward bursts of temper----'

'Summer lightnings,' broke in Alfieri.

'Just so: they mean nothing, they herald nothing:

'”They flash like anger o'er the sky, And then dissolve in tears.”'

'True,' said the poet; 'but, harmless as these elemental changes seem, we forget how they affect others--what blights they often leave in their track:

'”The sport the G.o.ds delight in Makes mortals grieve below.”'

'It was Fabri wrote that line,' said Gerald, catching at the quotation.

'Yes, Madame la Marquise,' said Alfieri, answering the quickly darted glances of the lady's eyes, 'this youth has read all sorts of authors.

A certain Signor Gabriel, with whom he sojourned months long in the Maremma, introduced him to Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau: his own discursive tastes added others to the list.'

'Gabriel! Gabriel! It could not be that it was----' and here she bent over and whispered a word in Alfieri's ear.

A sudden start and an exclamation of surprise burst from the poet.

'Tell us what your friend Gabriel was like.'

'I can tell you how he described himself,' said Gerald. 'He said he was:

”Un sanglier marque de pet.i.te verole.”'

'Oh, then, it was he!' exclaimed the Marquise. 'Tell us, I pray you, how fortune came to play you so heartless a trick as to make you this man's friend?'

Half reluctantly, almost resentfully, Gerald replied to this question by relating the incidents that had befallen him in the Maremma, and how he had subsequently lived for months the companion of this strange a.s.sociate.

'What marvellous lessons of evil, boy, has he not instilled into you! Tell me frankly, has he not made you suspectful of every one--distrusting all friends.h.i.+p, disowning all obligations, making affection seem a mockery, and woman a cheat?'