Part 12 (1/2)

”You manage things very well, caro mio, so long as they are under your hand. But you hate to go and look after business when you want to be doing something else.”

”After all,” he argued, ”when a man is just married”--

”He ought to be specially careful of his affairs, for his children's sake,” interrupted Donna Diana with remarkable good sense.

She wanted a day or two in Rome, and she thought he was really remiss in his management. She had rather a contempt for a man who cast everything to the winds in order to be one more day with his wife. She did not believe that his wife would have done as much for him.

The end of it was that he agreed to stay a little longer, at least one day more than he had at first proposed; and he wrote an affectionate letter to Leonora, half loving, half playful, explaining his position, and telling her of his sister's coming, that she might be ready to receive her. He added that he hoped to see them very affectionate and intimate, for that Diana was the best friend his wife could have. If Batis...o...b.. had wanted to make a friends.h.i.+p between two women he would not have gone about it in that way. Marcantonio was very young and inexperienced, though he was also very good and honest. His sister saw both sides of his character and understood them. Leonora saw, but only understood the honesty of him. His inexperience she supposed to be a sort of paternal, philistine, prosaic, humdrum capacity for harping on unimportant things, and she already felt the most distinct aversion for that phase of his nature.

Diana and Marcantonio went down by the night train, having stayed the better half of a week in Rome. Marcantonio sent a telegram to Leonora in the afternoon, to say that they would come. They had a compartment to themselves, and as they sat with the windows all open, rus.h.i.+ng along through the quiet night, they fell into conversation about Sorrento.

Madame de Charleroi had taken off her hat, and the breeze fanned the smooth ma.s.ses of her hair into rough gold under the light of the lamp, like the ripple on the sea at sunset. She was a little tired with the many doings that had occupied her in Rome, and her face was pale as she leaned back in the corner. Her brother looked at her as he spoke. 'Of course,' he thought, 'there was never any one so beautiful as Diana.'

What he said was different.

”You should see Leonora; she is a perfect miracle,--more beautiful every day. And though she has been on the water several times, she is not the least sunburnt.”

”Have you sailed much?” inquired Diana.

”A good deal. I bought Leonora a very good boat in Naples, and had it fitted. It is so pretty. And before it came Monsieur Batis...o...b.. took us to Castellamare.”

”Ah!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Diana half interrogatively.

”Yes,” answered Marcantonio. ”He was very amiable, and then we had him to dinner. You know him, Diana?” he asked, as one often asks questions of which one knows the answer.

He did not remember having ever mentioned Batis...o...b.. to her, but his solitary journey to Rome a week earlier had set him thinking, in a lazy fas.h.i.+on, and he wondered whether his sister ever thought of the man after all these years.

”Oh yes,” answered Madame de Charleroi. ”I have known Batis...o...b.. a long time,--long before he was famous.”

”Yes,” said her brother, ”I remember to have heard that he was once so bold as to want you to marry him. Imagine to yourself a little! The wife of an author.”

There was nothing ill-natured in what Marcantonio said. In the prejudice of his ancient name he was simply unable to imagine such a match. Diana turned her grey eyes full upon him.

”My dear boy, do not say such absurd things. We are not in the age of Colonna and Orsini any more. I came very near to marrying Julius Batis...o...b.., in spite of your fifty t.i.tles, my dear brother.”

Diana was a loyal woman, from the outer surface that the world saw, down to the very core and holy of holies of her n.o.ble soul. She would not let her brother believe that, if she had chosen it, she would have feared to marry a poor literary hack.

”Do you mean to say, Diana, that you loved him?” asked Marcantonio in great surprise.

”Even you must not ask me questions like that,” said Diana, a little coldly. ”But this I will tell you,--it was not for any consideration of birth, nor out of any regard of our dear father's anger, that I did not marry Batis...o...b... Once I was very near it. We are very good friends now.”

She turned a little in her seat and drew the blue woollen curtain across the window to s.h.i.+eld her from the draught.

”You do not mind meeting him?” asked Marcantonio, rather doubtfully.

To tell the truth he feared he had committed a mortal error, and was taking his sister into the jaws of danger and unhappiness. He had never suspected that she had entertained any idea of marrying Batis...o...b...

Julius was a very agreeable man, very amiable, as Marcantonio would have said. What a fearful thing if Diana were to take a fancy to him! Loyal as she was to Charleroi, she did not care a straw for him,--her brother knew it very well. Italian brothers are very watchful and Argus-eyed about their sisters.

”Why should I mind?” asked Diana, looking at him again. ”We are very good friends. He comes to see me in Rome, every now and then. I do not object in the least, and he is really very agreeable.”

'Worse and worse!' thought Marcantonio. 'She wants to meet him and is glad of the chance. But then, she is so good--what harm can it do?'