Part 5 (1/2)

Angela turned quite towards him now and repeated his own words.

'And what right have I to ask you to keep your promise and marry me?

When you gave your word, you thought I had a great name and was heir to a splendid fortune. You were deceived. I am a ”dest.i.tute foundling”--the lawyers have proved it, and the proof of their proofs is that I am obliged to accept the charity of my old governess, G.o.d bless her! If ever a man had a right to take back his word, you have.

Take it, if you will. You are free!'

Giovanni stood up beside her, almost angry.

'Do you think I wanted your fortune?' he asked, a little pale under his tan.

'Do you think I am afraid of poverty?'

Her lips were still parted in a smile after she had asked the question, and with the gesture of an older woman she tapped his arm half reproachfully. The colour came back to his brown face.

'I fear poverty for you,' he answered, 'and I am going to fight it for your sake if you have the courage to wait for me. Have you?'

'I will wait for ever,' she said simply as she laid her hand in his.

'Then I shall leave the army at once,' he replied. 'So far, I have made what is called a good career, but promotion is slow and the pay is wretched until a man is very high up. An artillery officer is an engineer, you know, and a military engineer can always find well-paid work, especially if he is an electrician, as I am. In two years I promise you that we shall be able to marry and be at least comfortable, and there is no reason why I should not make a fortune quite equal to what my father has lost.'

He spoke with the perfect confidence of a gifted and sanguine man, sure of his own powers, and his words pleased her. Perhaps what had attracted her most in him from the beginning had been his enthusiasm and healthy faith in the world, which had contrasted brilliantly with her father's pessimism and bigoted political necrolatry, if I may coin a word from the Greek to express an old-fas.h.i.+oned Roman's blind wors.h.i.+p of the dead past.

Angela was pleased, as any woman would have been, but she protested against what she knew to be a sacrifice.

'No,' she said decidedly, 'you must not give up the army and your career for the sake of making money, even for me. Do no officers marry on their pay? I am sure that many do, and manage very well indeed. You told me not long ago that you were expecting promotion from day to day; and in any case I could not marry you within a year, at the least.'

'If I do not begin working at once, that will be just a year lost,'

objected Giovanni.

'A year! Will that make much difference?'

'Why not ten, then? As if a year would not be a century long, while I am waiting for you--as if it were not already half a lifetime since last month, when we told each other the truth! Wait? Yes, if I must; for ever, as you said awhile ago, if there is no other way. But if it can be helped, then not an hour, not a minute! Why should we let happiness pa.s.s us by and not take it when we may and can? There is not enough in the world, as it is; and you cannot even pretend that you are generous if you do not take your share, since what fate means for you is useless for any one else! No, dear, no! We will take the fruit there is on the tree, and leave none to rot on the branch after we are gone. Promise to marry me a year from to-day, and leave the rest to me--will you?'

'Yes--but promise me one thing, too. Do not resign to-morrow, nor next week, as I know you mean to do. Take a month to think it over, and to look about you. You are so impulsive--well, so generous--that you are capable of sending in your resignation to-morrow.'

'It is already written,' Giovanni answered. 'I was going to send it in to-night.'

'I knew it! But you must not. Please, please, take a little time--it will be so much wiser. I will wait for you for ever, or I will promise to marry you a year from to-day, even if we have to live on bread and water. Indeed I will! But, at least, be a little cautious! It will be far better to marry on your pay--and you will surely get your captaincy in a few months--than to be stranded without even that, in case you do not find the work you hope for. Don't you see? I am sure it is good advice.'

Giovanni knew that it was, if caution were ever worth practising in human affairs; but that has often been doubted by brave and light-hearted men. Giovanni yielded a little reluctantly. If she had asked him to make it two months instead of one, he would have refused, for it seemed to him intolerable to lose a moment between decision and action, and his thoughts doubled their stride with every step, in a geometrical progression; a moment hence, a minute would be an hour, an hour a month, a month a lifetime. Men have won battles in that temper; but it has sometimes cost them their life.

'I know you are sensible,' Giovanni said, taking Angela's hand between his, 'but it is to please you that I agree to wait a month. It is not because it looks wise, as it does. For one man who succeeds by wisdom, ten win by daring. Who knows what may chance in a month, or what may happen to put out of reach what I could do to-day?'

'Nothing!'

Angela gave her answer with the delicious little smile of superiority which the youngest woman and even the merest girl can wear, when she is sure that she is right and that the man she loves is wrong. It may be only about sewing on a b.u.t.ton, or about the weather, or it may concern great issues; but it is always the same when it comes: it exasperates weak men, and the stronger sort like it, as they more especially delight in all that is womanly in woman, from heroic virtue to pathetic weakness.

'Nothing can happen in a month to prevent you from resigning then, as you could to-day,' Angela said confidently.

The faint smile disappeared, and she grew thoughtful, not for herself, but for him, and looked at Saint Ursula again. Her hand still lay in his, on the edge of the mantelpiece, and while she gazed at the engraving she knew that he was looking at her and was moving nearer; she felt that he was going to kiss her, but she did not resist this time though the colour was rising in her throat, and just under the exquisitely shaped petal of peach-blossom on which his eyes were fixed, and which was really only the tip of her ear, though it was so like the leaf of a flower that the scent of the bloom came to his memory when his lips touched the spot at last.