Part 27 (1/2)
”How much longer are you going to treat me in this way, Faith?” he said.
”You make me very unhappy. You are wearing yourself out, and it troubles me greatly. If you should fall ill I think that would be the end. I should then take matters into my own hands, and I don't believe you would be able to keep me off. But why should we wait for illness? It is too great a risk.”
They were approaching her door. She said nothing, only hastened her steps.
”I have been doing my best to convince you, without annoying you, that you were mistaken about me. And the reason I have been doing it is that I am convinced myself. If I was not entirely sure last spring that I loved you, I certainly am sure now. I spent the summer thinking of it. I know now, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that I love you above all and everything. There is no 'duty' or 'generosity' in this, but simply my own feelings. I could perfectly well have let the matter drop; you gave me every opportunity to do so. That I have not done it should show you--a good deal. For I am not of the stuff of which heroes are made. I should not be here unless I wanted to; my motive is the selfish one of my own happiness.”
They had entered the dark hallway.
”Do you remember the morning when you stood here, with two tears in your eyes, saying 'Never mind; you will come another time'?” (Here the cobbler came down the stairs.) ”Why not let the demolition of the street of the Hyacinth be the crisis of our fate?” he went on, returning the cobbler's bow. (Here the cobbler departed.) ”If you refuse, I shall not give you up; I shall go on in the same way. But--haven't I been tried long enough?”
”You have not,” she answered. ”But, unless you will leave Rome, and--me, I cannot bear it longer.”
It was a great downfall, of course; Noel always maintained that it was.
”But the heights upon which you had placed yourself, my dear, were too superhuman,” he said, excusingly.
The street of the Hyacinth experienced a great downfall, also. During the summer it was demolished.
Before its demolition Mrs. Lawrence, after three long breaths of astonishment, had come to offer her congratulations--in a new direction this time.
”It is the most fortunate thing in the world,” she said to everybody, ”that Mrs. Spurr is now confined to her bed for life, and is obliged to wear mourning.”
But Mrs. Spurr is not confined to her bed; she drives out with her daughter whenever the weather is favorable. She wears black, but is now beginning to vary it with purple and lavender.
A CHRISTMAS PARTY
In 188- the American Consul at Venice was occupying the second story of an old palace on the Grand Ca.n.a.l. It was the story which is called by Italians the _piano n.o.bile_, or n.o.ble floor. Beneath this _piano n.o.bile_ there is a large low ground, or rather water, floor, whose stone pavement, only slightly above the level of the ca.n.a.l outside, is always damp and often wet. At the time of the Consul's residence this water-floor was held by another tenant, a dealer in antiquities, who had part.i.tioned off a shallow s.p.a.ce across its broad front for a show-room.
As this dealer had the ground-floor, he possessed, of course, the princ.i.p.al entrance of the palace, with its broad marble steps descending into the rippling wavelets of the splendid azure street outside, and with the tall, slender poles, irregularly placed in the water, which bore testimony to the aristocracy of the venerable pile they guarded.
One could say that these blue wands, ornamented with heraldic devices, were like the spears of knights; this is what Miss Senter said. Or one could notice their strong resemblance to barbers' poles; and this was what Peter Senter always mentioned.
Peter Senter was the American Consul, and his sister Barbara was the Consuless; for she kept house for her brother, who was a bachelor. And she not only kept house for him, but she a.s.sisted him in other ways, owing to her knowledge of Italian. The Consul, a man of fifty-seven, spoke only the language of his native place--Rochester, New York. That he could not understand the speech (gibberish, he called it) of the people with whom he was supposed to hold official relations did not disturb him; he thought it patriotic not to understand. There was a vice-consul, an Italian, who could attend to the business matters; and as for the rest, wasn't Barbara there--Barbara, who could chatter not only in Italian, but in French and German also, with true feminine glibness? (For Peter, in his heart, thought it unmasculine to have a polyglot tongue.) He knew how well his sister could speak, because he had paid her bills during the six years of her education abroad. These bills had been large; of course, therefore, the knowledge must be large as well.
Miss Senter was always chronically annoyed that she and her brother did not possess the state entrance. As the palace was at present divided, the tenants of the n.o.ble floor descended by an outside stairway to a large inner court, and from this court opened the second water-door.
Their staircase was a graceful construction of white marble, and the court, with the blue sky above, one or two fretted balconies, and a sculptured marble well-curb in the centre, was highly picturesque. But this did not reconcile the American lady to the fact that their door was at the side of the palace; she thought that by right the gondola of the Consul should lie among the heraldic poles on the Grand Ca.n.a.l. But, in spite of right, nothing could be done; the antiquity-dealer held his premises on a long lease. Miss Senter, therefore, disliked the dealer.
Her dislike, however, had not prevented her from paying a visit to his establishment soon after she had taken possession of the high-ceilinged rooms above. For she was curious about the old palace, and wished to see every inch of it; if there had been cellars, she would have gone down to inspect them, and she was fully determined to walk ”all over the roof.”
The dealer's name was Pelham--”Z. Pelham” was inscribed on his sign. How he came by this English t.i.tle no one but himself could have told. He was supposed to be either a Pole or an Armenian, and he spoke many languages with equal fluency and incorrectness. He appeared to have feeble health, and he always wore large arctic over-shoes; he was short and thin, and the most noticeable expression of his plain, small face was resignation.
Z. Pelham conducted the Consuless through the dusky s.p.a.ce behind his show-room, a vast, low, open hall with ma.s.sive squat columns and arches, and the skeletons of two old gondolas decaying in a corner. At the back he opened a small door, and pointed out a flight of stone steps going up steeply in a spiral, enclosed in a circular shaft like a round tower.
”It leads to the attic floor. Her Excellency wishes to mount?” he inquired, patiently. For, owing to the wares in which he dealt, he had had a large acquaintance with eccentric characters of all nations.
”Certainly,” replied Miss Senter. ”Carmela, you can stay below, if you like,” she said to the servant who accompanied her.
But no; Carmela also wished to mount. Z. Pelham preceded them, therefore, carrying his small oil-lamp. They went slowly, for the steps were narrow, the spiral sharp. The attic, when they reached it, was a queer, ghostly place; but there was a skylight with a ladder, and the Consuless carried out her intention of traversing the roof, while Mr.
Pelham waited calmly, seated on the open scuttle door. Carmela followed her mistress. She gave little cries of admiration; there never were such wonderful ladies anywhere as those of America, she declared. On the way down, the stairs were so much like a corkscrew that Miss Senter, feeling dizzy, was obliged to pause for a moment where there was a landing.
”Isn't there a secret chamber?” she demanded of the dealer.