Volume Ii Part 11 (1/2)

She walked on a few yards and added, 'The Padrone! ah, yes, that is another sort of weaving! The Padrone is a banker in the city: when he comes to shoot, he brings his luncheon with him in his pocket; two hard-boiled eggs; that's for fear he should leave any bones behind him.

Is it not true, Isola?'

Valdez laughed, and the girl walking beside Dino opened her blue eyes frankly and looked up in his face. 'That is true what my mother says.

But you are not like your friend there, you do not care for the schools?'

She was pretty, even in this dim light it was easy to see how pretty, with a round babyish face and crisp fair hair. She wore a bright cotton handkerchief knotted over her head, and in her hand she carried a large bundle.

'No. I am not so wise as my friend. But at least I am good for some things,' said Dino, smiling down at her. He put out his hand, 'If you will trust me with it, we are going the same way. I can carry your bundle.'

The peasant girl drew back. 'Nay. What should you do that for?' she objected quickly. Then after a pause for reflection she suggested, 'Perhaps that is the fas.h.i.+on in the country that you come from, to carry other people's burdens?'

'Surely.'

'_Guardate_! But that is quite different. No one would do it here; not even the _sposo_?

'Are you going to be married soon, Isola? I think I heard your mother call you Isola.'

'Ah, yes; Isolina; that is what they call me. I shall not be married until next Carnival. It is a long time off, but what would you have?

When one is poor one must learn to make oneself small enough to pa.s.s through the cat's hole. That is what I tell my Pio.' She ended with a laugh, a clear ringing bird-like sound.

'Tell me about him,' said Dino, smiling sympathetically, with a sense of pure comrades.h.i.+p in her youth, such as he had never felt before.

All that was living and joyous and young a.s.serted its claim over him; he looked across the road at the two middle-aged faces of their companions with an exaggerated perception of what they had outlived.

Life, young buoyant life, seemed the one thing to be valued. He was sick of tragedy. What he wanted was easy youthful laughter, and the warm bright satisfaction of being. The innocent chatter of this little peasant girl satisfied him better than all the theories about all the universe. He listened in a sort of vague dream to the rippling flow of her talk. When she ceased speaking he yielded to the impulse that was strong within him; he told her about Italia. What he said was very little, only that he and his sweetheart were parted; he put it in the simplest words which she would understand.

She listened; then she turned her bright face towards him, glowing with spirit and brave interest. 'Oh,' she said, 'I know what it is like, for there was a time, one week, when they would not let me speak to my Pio.'

She talked to him now of herself as to an old friend; with the unhesitating frankness of a child; the young man was strangely touched and pleased by her simple confidence.

When the footpath grew narrower she walked on in front of him. She walked well, with an easy carriage; her firm bare ankles gleamed in the moonlight below the hem of her short cotton gown; her loose wooden shoes made a short quick tapping at each step which she took.

The night was very warm and still. On one side of the road the Arno flowed past silently; the pale light in the sky was reflected upon its gla.s.sy surface as upon a sheet of metal; it looked like a river of lead. As the moon rose a faint wind stirred softly among the budding branches of the lime-trees which edge the fields, and the delicate shadows of the moving stems fell upon ploughed land. In each isolated farmyard the hay-ricks, cut close for last winter's fodder, a.s.sumed a curiously velvety texture as the moonlight rested on their blanched and weather-beaten tops.

As they drew nearer the mouth of the Arno the spreading pines of the Gombo made a dark line against the sky to their right and across the river. The fields grew wider; the night was full of a new sound which was not the sound of the wind. Dino listened more intently; his quick ear could distinguish the m.u.f.fled beat of the waves upon the sandy sh.o.r.e.

Presently they reached the borders of the wood; the footpath ended; the soil grew sandy underfoot. At the turning of the road there were lights burning in some cottages. The peasant women stopped at the door of one of the houses.

'Good-night,' Isolina called out in her friendly voice; 'good-night again; and thank you for the civil company.'

She disappeared amidst a rapturous chorus of welcome from the farmyard dogs. She had brought to Dino a charmed hour of forgetfulness; he watched her turning away from him with an air of regret.

Later, as they lounged upon the beach, smoking their pipes in the still moonlight, Valdez said, laying his hand affectionately upon Dino's shoulder, 'I liked hearing you laugh with that little girl to-night, my lad. You were such a light-hearted lad in the old days. You're fretting now. Courage! my Dino, courage! There are no depths for a brave heart from which hope cannot mount; hope which outlasts gold and the grave. And, for a man, whatever the consequence of his action may be, even to have meant well, is sufficient excuse in the eyes of the woman who loves him. Excuse? it's a vindication which, nine times out of ten, will make her end by asking him to forgive her suspicion.'

'I know it; but it won't save Italia from suffering,' said Dino quickly.

Valdez was silent. Then he said, 'Did it never occur to you that there is a chance, just a chance, of your getting away after all? Think of the crowd and the confusion. And if you once get outside of Rome the Society will soon find means of taking you safely beyond the frontier.

There is always that chance, you know.'