Part 62 (1/2)
”I should not have spoken!” he said--”And yet, why not! You were my first friend!--you found me working in the fields, a peasant lad, untrained and sullen, burning up my soul with pa.s.sionate thoughts which, but for you, might never have blossomed into action,--you rescued me--you made me all I am! So why should I not confess to you at once that there is a woman I love!--yes, love with all my soul, though I have seen her but once!--and she is too far off, too fair and great for me: she does not know I love her--but I heard she had been murdered--that she was dead--”
”Angela Sovrani!” cried Aubrey.
Cyrillon bent his head as a devotee might at the shrine of a saint.
”Yes--Angela Sovrani!”
Aubrey looked at his handsome face glowing with enthusiasm, and saw the pa.s.sion, the tenderness, the devotion of a life flas.h.i.+ng in his fine eyes.
”Love at first sight!” he said with a smile--”I believe it is the only true fire! A glance ought to be enough to express the recognition of one soul to its mate. Well! Angela Sovrani is a woman among ten thousand--the love of her alone is sufficient to make a man better and n.o.bler in every way--and if you can win her--”
”Ah, that is impossible! She is already affianced--”
Aubrey took his arm.
”Come with me, and I will tell you all I know,” he said--”For there is much to say,--and when you have heard everything, you may not be altogether without hope.”
They turned, and went towards the Corso, which they presently entered, and where numbers of pa.s.sers-by paused involuntarily to look at the two men who offered such a marked contrast to each other,--the one brown-haired and lithe, with dark, eager eyes,--the other with the slim well set up figure of an athlete, and the fair head of a Saxon king.
And of the many who so looked after them, none guessed that the one was destined in a few years' time to create a silent and bloodless French Revolution, which should give back to France her white lilies of faith and chivalry,--or that the other was the upholder of such a perfect form of Christianity as should soon command the following of thousands in all parts of the world.
And while they thus walked through the Roman crowd, the two women they severally loved were talking of them. In Angela's sick-room, softly shaded from the light, with a cheery wood fire burning, Sylvie sat by her friend, telling her all she could think of that would interest her, and rouse her from the deep gravity of mood in which she nearly always found her. The weary days of pain and illness had given Angela a strange, new beauty,--her face, delicate and pale, seemed transfigured by the working of the soul within,--and her eyes, tired as they were and often heavy with tears, had a serenity in their depths which was not of earth, but all of Heaven. She was able now to move from her bed, and lie on a couch near the fire,--and her little white hands moved caressingly and with loving care among the bunches of beautiful flowers which Sylvie had laid on her coverlet,--daffodils, anemones, narcissi, violets, jonquils, and all the sweet-scented flowers of early spring which come to Rome in December from the blossoming fields of Sicily.
”How sweet they are!” she said with a half sigh,--”They almost make me in love with life again!”
Sylvie said nothing, but only kissed her.
”How good you are to me, dearest Sylvie!” she then said--”You deserve to be very happy!”
”Not half so much as you do!” responded Sylvie tenderly--”I am of no use at all to the world; and you are! The world would not miss me a bit, but it would not find an Angela Sovrani again in a hurry!”
Angela raised a cl.u.s.ter of narcissi and inhaled their fine and delicate perfume. There were tears in her eyes, but she hid them with a spray of the flowers.
”Ah, Sylvie, you think too well of me! To be famous is nothing. To be loved is everything!”
Sylvie looked at her earnestly.
”You are loved,” she said.
”No, no!” she said--”No, I am not loved. I am hated! Hush, Sylvie!--do not say one word of what is in your mind, for I will not hear it!”
She spoke agitatedly, and her cheeks flushed a sudden feverish red.
Sylvie made haste to try and soothe her.
”My darling girl, I would not say anything to vex you for the world!
You must not excite yourself--”
”I am not excited,” said Angela, putting her arms round her friend and drawing her fair head down till it was half hidden against her own bosom--”No--but I must speak--bear with me for a minute, dear! We all have our dreams, we women, and I have had mine! I dreamt there was such a beautiful thing in the world as a great, unselfish love,--I fancied that a woman, if gifted with a little power and ability above the rest of her s.e.x, could make the man she loved proud of her--not jealous!--I thought that a lover delighted in the attainments of his beloved--I thought there was nothing too high, too great, too glorious to attempt for the sake of proving oneself worthy to be loved! And now--I have found out the truth, Sylvie!--a bitter truth, but no doubt good for me to know,--that men will kill what they once caressed out of a mere grudge of the pa.s.sing breath called Fame! Thus, Love is not what I dreamed it; and I, who was so foolishly glad to think that I was loved, have wakened up to know that I am hated!--hated to the very extremity of hate, for a poor gift of brair and hand which I wish--I wish I had never had!”