Part 16 (1/2)

He looked at her, for he seemed to have preserved his self-control, and he saw that if matters went much further the poor sobbing woman would reach a state which might be dangerous. He withdrew his hands from the table and waited.

”She is gone, but she will come again now, whenever you call her,” he said gently.

”No, do not go!” cried the Princess, clutching at the smooth wood frantically. ”Come back, come back and speak to me once more!”

”She is gone, for to-night,” said Monsieur Leroy, in the same gentle tone. ”I am very much exhausted.”

He pressed his handkerchief to his forehead and to his temples, again and again, while the Princess moaned, her cheek upon the table, as she had once let it rest upon the breast of her dead child.

Monsieur Leroy rose cautiously, fearing to disturb her. He was trembling now, as men sometimes do who have escaped alive from a great danger. He steadied himself by the back of the arm-chair, behind which the candle was burning steadily. With an effort, he stooped and took up the candlestick and set it on the table. Then he looked at his watch and saw that it was past eleven o'clock.

CHAPTER VII

It was some time since Guido had seen Lamberti, but the latter had written him a line to say that he was going with a party of men to stop in an old country house near the seash.o.r.e, not far from Civita Vecchia.

The quail were very abundant in May that year, and Lamberti was a good shot. He had left home suddenly on the morning after telling Guido the story of his adventure in the Forum. Guido had at first been mildly surprised that his friend should not have spoken of his intention on that evening; but some one had told him that the party had been made up at the club, late at night, which accounted for everything.

Guido was soon too much occupied to miss the daily companions.h.i.+p, and was glad to be alone, when he could not be with Cecilia. He no longer concealed from himself that he was very much in love with her, and that, compared with this fact, nothing in his previous life had been of any importance whatever. Even the circ.u.mstances of his position with regard to his aunt sank into insignificance. She might do what she pleased, she might try to ruin him, she might persecute him to the extreme limit of her ingenuity, she might invent calumnies intended to disgrace him; he was confident of victory and sure of himself.

One of the first unmistakable signs of genuine love is the certainty of doing the impossible. An hour before meeting Cecilia, Guido had been reduced to the deepest despondency, and had talked gravely of ending a life that was not worth living. A fortnight had pa.s.sed, and he defied his aunt, Monsieur Leroy, the whole world, an adverse fate, and the powers of evil. They might do their worst, now, for he was full of strength, and ten times more alive than he had ever been before.

It was true that he could not see the smallest change in Cecilia's manner towards him since the memorable evening on which she had laughingly agreed to take advantage of what was thrust upon them both.

Her colour did not change by the least shade of a blush when she met him; there was not the slightest quivering of the delicate eyelids, there was nothing but the most friendly frankness in the steady look of welcome. But she liked him very much, and was at no pains to conceal it.

She liked him better than any one she had ever met in her short life, except her stepfather, and she told Guido so with charming unconcern.

As he could not be jealous of the dead amba.s.sador, he was not at all discouraged by the comparison. Sometimes he was rather flattered by it, and he could not but feel that he had already acquired a position from which any future suitor would find it hard to dislodge him.

The Countess Fortiguerra looked on with wondering satisfaction. Her daughter had not led her to believe that she would readily accept what must soon be looked upon by society as an engagement, and what would certainly be one before long. When Guido went to see his aunt, she received him with expansive expressions of affection.

He noticed a change in the Princess, which he could only explain by the satisfaction he supposed she felt in his conduct. There were times when her artificial face softened with a look of genuine feeling, especially when she was silent and inattentive. Guido knew her well enough, he thought, to impute these signs to her inward contentment at the prospect of his marriage, from which she was sure of extracting notable financial advantage. But in this he was not just, though he judged from long experience. Monsieur Leroy alone knew the secret, and he kept his own counsel.

An inquisitive friend asked the Countess Fortiguerra boldly whether she intended to announce the engagement of her daughter at the garden party.

”No,” she answered, without hesitation, ”that would be premature.”

She was careful, in a way, to do nothing irrevocable--never to take Guido into her carriage, not to ask him to dinner when there were other guests, not to leave him alone with Cecilia when there was a possibility of such a thing being noticed by the servants, except by the discreet Petersen, who could be trusted, and who strongly approved of Guido from the first. But when it was quite safe, the Countess used to go and sit in a little boudoir adjoining the drawing-room, leaving the doors open, of course, and occupying herself with her correspondence; and Guido and Cecilia talked without restraint.

The Countess had enough womanly and instinctive wisdom not to ask questions of her daughter at this stage, but on the day before the long-expected garden party she spoke to Guido alone, in a little set speech which she had prepared with more conscientiousness than diplomatic skill.

”You have seen,” she said, ”that I am always glad to receive you here, and that I often leave you and Cecilia together in the drawing-room.

Dear Signor d'Este, I am sure you will understand me if I ask you to--to--to tell me something.”

She had meant to end the sentence differently, rounding it off with ”your intentions with regard to my daughter”; but that sounded like something in a letter, so she tried to make it more vague. But Guido understood, which is not surprising.

”You have been very kind to me,” he said simply. ”I love your daughter sincerely, and if she will consent to marry me I shall do my best to make her happy. But, so far, I have no reason to think that she will accept me. Besides, whether you know it already or not, I must tell you that I am a poor man. I have no fortune whatever, though I receive an allowance by my father's will, which is enough for a bachelor. It will cease at my death. Your daughter could make a very much more brilliant marriage.”

The good Countess had listened in silence. The Princess, for reasons of her own, had explained Guido's position with considerable minuteness, if not with scrupulous accuracy.