Part 25 (1/2)

”You are the master,” she said quietly enough. ”You will do as you will.”

He was surprised, and he felt a little resentment at her tone. He liked her better when she dominated him, as on that night in Paris when she had made him promise to come away, and had refused to let him drink more wine, and had sent him to bed like a child. Now she spoke as her forefathers, serfs born to the plough and bound to the soil, must have spoken to their lords and owners. There was no ancient aristocratic blood in his own veins; he was simply a middle-cla.s.s Italian gentleman who chanced to be counted with the higher cla.s.s because he had been born very rich, had been brought up by a lady, and had been more or less well educated. That was all. It did not seem natural to him that she should call him ”the master” in that tone. He knew that she was not his equal, but somehow it was a little humiliating to have to own it, and he often wished that she were. Often, not always; for he had never been sure that he should have cared to make her his wife, had she been ever so well born. He scarcely knew what he really wanted now, for he had lost his hold on himself, and was content with mere enjoyment from day to day. He could no longer imagine living without her, and while he was conscious that the present state of things could not last very long, he could not face the problem of the future.

He did not answer at once, and she sat quite still, almost closing her eyes.

”Why should you be displeased because I am going to see Folco?” he asked after a while.

”He comes to take you away from me,” she answered, without moving.

”That is absurd!” cried Marcello, annoyed by her tone.

”No. It is true. I know it.”

”You are unreasonable. He is the best friend I have in the world. Do you expect me to promise that I will never see him again?”

”You are the master.”

She repeated the words in the same dull tone, and her expression did not change in the least. Marcello moved and sat up opposite to her, clasping his hands round his knees. He was very thin, but the colour was already coming back to his face, and his eyes did not look tired.

”Listen to me,” he said. ”You must put this idea out of your head. It was Folco who found the little house in Trastevere for you. He arranged everything. It was he who got you Settimia. He did everything to make you comfortable, and he has never disturbed us once when we have been together. He never so much as asked where I was going when I used to go down to see you every afternoon. No friend could have done more.”

”I know it,” Regina answered; but still there was something in her tone which he could not understand.

”Then why do you say that he means to separate us?”

Regina did not reply, but she opened her eyes and looked into Marcello's long and lovingly. She knew something that he did not know, and which had haunted her long. When Folco had come to the bedside in the hospital, she had seen the abject terror in his face, the paralysing fear in his att.i.tude, the trembling limbs and the cramped fingers. It had only lasted a moment, but she could never forget it. A child would have remembered how Folco looked then, and Regina knew that there was a mystery there which she could not understand, but which frightened her when she thought of it. Folco had not looked as men do who see one they love called back from almost certain death.

”What are you thinking?” Marcello asked, for her deep look stirred his blood, and he forgot Folco and everything in the world except the beautiful creature that sat there, within his reach, in the lonely pine-woods.

She understood, and turned her eyes to the distance; and she saw the quiet room in the hospital, the iron bedstead painted white, the smooth pillow, Marcello's emaciated head, and Corbario's face.

”I was thinking how you looked when you were ill,” she answered simply.

The words and the tone broke the soft little spell that had been weaving itself out of her dark eyes. Marcello drew a short, impatient breath and threw himself on his side again, supporting his head on his hand and looking down at the brown pine-needles.

”You do not know Folco,” he said discontentedly. ”I don't know why you should dislike him.”

”I will tell you something,” Regina answered. ”When you are tired of me, you shall send me away. You shall throw me away like an old coat.”

”You are always saying that!” returned Marcello, displeased. ”You know very well that I shall never be tired of you. Why do you say it?”

”Because I shall not complain. I shall not cry, and throw myself on my knees, and say, 'For the love of heaven, take me back!' I am not made like that. I shall go, without any noise, and what must be will be.

That is all. Because I want nothing of you but love, I shall go when you have no more love. Why should I ask you for what you have not? That would be like asking charity of the poor. It would be foolish. But I shall tell you something else.”

”What?” asked Marcello, looking up to her face again, when she had finished her long speech.

”If any one tries to make me go before you are tired of me, it shall be an evil day for him. He shall wish that he had not been born into this world.”

”You need not fear,” Marcello said. ”No one shall come between us.”

”Well, I have spoken. It does not matter whether I fear Signor Corbario or not, but if you like I will tell him what I have told you, when he comes. In that way he will know.”