Part 23 (1/2)
Curious as to what so enthralled the stranger the man of the ink-horn tiptoed behind him, read the t.i.tle over his shoulder, and laughed aloud.
Brandilancia surprised, laid down the volume and demanded the cause of this demonstration.
”Pardon me, Signor,” replied the secretary, ”but I could not refrain, your absorption pays me a great compliment for I am the author of that book.”
”You, sir?” exclaimed the half incredulous reader.
”I, Celio Malespini, Secretary to his Excellency, the Grand Duke, a man of letters who has tried his quill in sundry other fields, as well.”
”Then, Signor Malespini, accept my congratulations, for this story of the company of the Calza of Venice is one of the merriest I have ever read, and makes me eager to see their festival. Have you written other books as entertaining?”
”I have as yet written no others,” replied Celio, flattered and wholly won by the stranger's praise, ”but since you care for my poor efforts I can lay before your wors.h.i.+p those of other authors more worthy of your attention.”
From inconspicuous nooks and corners he dragged them forth and piled them before the appreciative Brandilancia, who forgot all else until a servant announced that his hostesses would receive him in the grand salon a half hour before the hour of dining.
Even then he would have turned again to the fascinating volumes had not the valet's added information that the luggage of the Signor was in his room reminded him that dinner in such a house was a function and not simply an opportunity for absorbing the provender necessary to sustain life.
Fortunately, Brandilancia was an accomplished actor as well as writer, and his theatrical experience had taught him to make quick changes not only of costume, but of mental points of view and characteristics, and Ess.e.x's wardrobe became him no more than the grace and manner of the gallant young n.o.bleman which he a.s.sumed with equal ease.
The transformation effected within the next hour was even deeper than this, for as his eyes met those of Marie de' Medici he knew that here, either for good or evil, was a woman destined to exert a compelling influence upon his life.
It was not love, he told himself, for he was on his guard against that pa.s.sion. She did not impress him as beautiful. Her eyes were overbold and searching but cold; but her bearing arrogant at first, softened as the days went by into a frank comrades.h.i.+p, and he discovered that she possessed a cultured and an appreciative mind.
Hitherto Brandilancia had hidden a sensitive heart craving the sympathy that no woman had ever given him, under a gay and sportive exterior which made him a prince of good fellows, a man's man, and a loyal lover of his comrades, though they were far from appreciating his genius and his aims. But every serious conversation held with his young hostess confirmed him in his delusion that he had found a friend capable of understanding him. That she did not as yet wholly do so was the fault of his cursed disguise, which confused her perceptions of his real character with preconceived ideas of Ess.e.x. He longed to reveal himself to her, and did so to a greater degree than he realised.
Especially was this the case upon one memorable morning when, piqued that he should spend so much time in the library, she had followed him to that retreat.
She had found him absorbed in Luigi da Porto's novel _La Giulietta_, ”a pitiable history that occurred at Verona in the time of Bartolommeo Scala,” and she watched him slyly for some minutes amused by his preoccupation before interrupting his feast.
”Ah!” she exclaimed at length in pleased surprise, ”you have chanced upon my favourite of all the books in my uncle's library. How many tears have I shed for these poor lovers but chiefly because I knew no Romeo so brave and n.o.ble and handsome to tempt me to die for him, or so devoted as to die for me. That was when I was a child of ten, my lord. I have learned since that such love exists only in novels, and have ceased to cry for it.”
”You are very cynical, sweet lady,” he replied, ”and unkind to the novelists, whom I hold in wors.h.i.+pful esteem.”
”And I also esteem them. It is precisely because the life they tell of is so different from my own, in which nothing ever happens, that a book-cover is for me a magic door by whose opening I escape out of the unendurable present. Even more than the novels do I love the plays, and to see them acted is better than to read them, best of all it must be to act in one. Ah! that would indeed be like living another life.”
”True, dear lady,” he answered eagerly, ”but there is a form of diversion which to my mind is the most fascinating of all, and that is the writing of a drama, for in so doing we create a little world of our own, and control the destinies of the men and women whom we bring into being.”
She shrugged her shoulders. ”But I care only to be the author of my own role.”
”And what,” he asked, ”would you choose that role to be?”
”I would be a Princess beloved by the King of the greatest nation in the world. Beloved, mark you, not bargained for, but sought out personally by the King who should love me for myself alone, a manifestly impossible plot even for a play.”
”On the contrary, 't is a good one. Let us collaborate now in the planning of such a scheme. Let us suppose that for political reasons the King could not come in his proper person, but having learned to love you from report, were to seek you out incognito. Let us also imagine him so happy as to win your love. Would you be capable of the devotion which you demand of him?”
”Would I wed such a King whom I had learned to love, though in disguise?
Most certainly.”
”Ah! dear lady, you wilfully disregard the point I make. Would you wed this true lover, not knowing that he was a King? Let me put it still more strongly. Would you give yourself to the _man_ you loved knowing that he was not of royal birth?”