Part 18 (1/2)
”So you gave the Abbe Vergniaud a rose the other day, my child?”
”Yes,” replied Manuel, ”He looked sad when I met him,--and sometimes a flower gives pleasure to a person in sorrow.”
The Cardinal thought of his own roses far away, and sighed with a sensation of longing and homesickness.
”Flowers are like visible messages from G.o.d,” he said, ”Messages written in all the brightest and loveliest colours! I never gather one without finding out that it has something to say to me.”
”There is a legend,” said Manuel, ”which tells how a poor girl who has lost every human creature she loved on earth, had a rose-tree she was fond of, and every day she found upon it just one bloom. And though she longed to gather the flower for herself she would not do so, but always placed it before the picture of the Christ. And G.o.d saw her do this, as He sees everything. At last, quite suddenly she died, and when she found herself in Heaven, there were such crowds and crowds of angels about her that she was bewildered, and could not find her way. All at once she saw a pathway edged with roses before her, and one of the angels said, 'These are all the roses you gave to our Lord on earth, and He has made them into a pathway for you which will lead you straight to those you love!' And so with great joy she followed the windings of the path, seeing her roses blossoming all the way, and she found all those whom she had loved and lost on earth waiting to welcome her at the end!”
”A pretty fancy,” said the Cardinal smiling, ”And, as not even a thought is wasted, who knows if it might not prove true?”
”Surely the beautiful must be the true always!” said Manuel.
”Not so, my child,--a fair face may hide an evil soul.”
”But only for a little while,” answered the boy, ”The evil soul must leave its impress on the face in time, if life lasts long enough.”
”That is quite possible,” said Bonpre, ”In fact, I think it often happens,--only there are some people who simulate the outward show of goodness and purity perfectly, while inwardly 'they are as ravening wolves,' and they never seem to drop the mask. Others again--” Here he paused and looked anxiously at his young companion, ”I wonder what you will be like when you grow up, Manuel!”
”But if I never grow up, what then?” asked Manuel with a smile.
”Never grow up? You mean--”
”I mean if I die,” said Manuel, ”or pa.s.s through what is called dying before I grow up?”
”G.o.d forbid!” said the Cardinal gently, ”I would have you live--”
”But why,” persisted Manuel, ”since death is a better life?”
Bonpre looked at him wistfully.
”But if you grow up and are good and great, you may be wanted in the world,” he said.
An expression of deep pain swept like a shadow across the boy's fair open brow.
”Oh no!” he said quietly, ”the world does not want me! And yet I love the world--not because it is a world, for there are millions upon millions of worlds,--they are as numerous as flowers in a garden--but because it is a sorrowful world,--a mistaken world,--and because all the creatures in it have something of G.o.d in them. Yes, I love the world!--but the world does not love me.”
He spoke in a tone of gentle pathos, with the resigned and patient air of one who feels the burden of solitude and the sense of miscomprehension. And closing the Testament he held he rested his clasped hands upon it, and for a moment seemed lost in sorrowful reverie.
”I love you,” said the Cardinal tenderly, ”And I will take care of you as well as I can.”
Manuel looked up at him.
”And that will be well indeed, my lord Cardinal!” he said softly, ”And you serve a Master who will hereafter say to you, remembering your goodness,--'Verily, in asmuch as ye have done it unto the least of my brethren ye have done it unto Me.'”
He smiled; and the Cardinal meeting his glance wondered whether it was the strong level light of the sinking sun through the window-pane that made such a glory s.h.i.+ne upon his face, and gave such a brilliancy to his deep and steadfast eyes.
XI.
Meanwhile, Angela Sovrani was detained in her studio by the fascinating company and bewildering chatter of a charming and very well-known personage in Europe,--a dainty, exquisitely dressed piece of femininity with the figure of a sylph and the complexion of a Romney ”Lady Hamilton,”--the Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein, an Austro-Hungarian of the prettiest and most bewitching type, who being a thorough bohemienne in spirit, and having a large fortune at her disposal, travelled everywhere, saw everything, and spent great sums of money not only in amusing herself, but in doing good wherever she went. By society in general, she was voted ”thoroughly heartless,”--when as a matter of fact she had too much heart, and gave her ”largesse” of sympathy somewhat too indiscriminately. Poor people wors.h.i.+pped her,--the majority of the rich envied her because most of them had ties and she had none. She might have married scores of times, but she took a perverse pleasure in ”drawing on” her admirers till they were just on the giddy brink of matrimony,--then darting off altogether she left them bewildered, confused, and not a little angry.