Part 24 (1/2)

”Meanwhile,” said Marcantonio, ”you will oblige me by giving up your harmless habit of going out with him every day. I should have supposed that you would at least have had the pride to deny it, after what occurred when he was here.” Marcantonio was angry, but he reasoned rightly.

”You would have preferred that I should lie to you, my dear,” said his wife disdainfully, in the full virtue of having told half the truth--the first half.

”I would not permit myself to apply such a word to anything you say,”

answered Marcantonio, with cold courtesy. ”But I would have you observe that you are mistaken with regard to my sister, and that if she told me she heard the man insult you, he did. Perhaps you did not understand what he said. It is the same. You will not meet him again at the rocks--nor anywhere else.”

”Why not? Why shall I not meet him?” she inquired, raising her eyebrows in disdain.

”Because I forbid you.” He spoke shortly, as if that ended the matter.

Leonora shrugged her shoulders a little, with an expression of pity, and s.h.i.+fted her position, so as to face him.

”You forbid me, do you?” she asked, lowering her voice.

”Mais oui! I forbid you to see him anywhere.”

”Do you know what you are saying?” she asked, and there was a tone of menace in her words.

”Oh, perfectly,” answered her husband calmly; ”and I will also take care that you obey me--bien entendu!”

”Then it is war?” asked Leonora, as though she hoped it might be, and to the knife.

”If you disobey, it is war,” said Marcantonio, ”but you will not.”

”Why not?”

”Because I will prevent you. It is useless to prolong this discussion.”

”Mon Dieu, I ask nothing better than to finish it as soon as possible,”

said Leonora.

”In that case, good-night,” replied Marcantonio, rising.

”Good-night,” answered Leonora, still seated. ”I am not sleepy yet. You are not afraid that Monsieur Batis...o...b.. will be announced after you are gone to bed?”

She spoke scornfully, as though trying to drive a wound with every word.

She thought she knew her husband, and she felt triumphant.

Marcantonio did not answer, and withdrew in silence. In a few hours his whole character had developed, and he was a very different man from the Marcantonio of that morning. He had pa.s.sed through a few hours of a desperate crisis, and had come out of it with an immovable determination to clear up the whole affair, and to force his wife to break off her intimacy with Batis...o...b... Even now he could believe no evil,--only the foolish infatuation of a young woman for a man who had the romantic faculty strongly developed. It would cost an effort to break it off,--and Leonora would be very much annoyed, of course,--but it must be done. And so Marcantonio had gone about it in the boldest and simplest way, by attacking her directly. He congratulated himself, for at one stroke he had ascertained the truth of the servant's statement, and had gone through the much dreaded scene with his wife. Henceforth she knew what to expect; he had declared himself as a jealous husband, and had said he would be obeyed. He went to bed in the consciousness that he had done the best thing possible under the circ.u.mstances, and promising himself an early explanation with Batis...o...b...

But for all the success of this first move, he was wretchedly unhappy.

He still loved Leonora, as he would always love her, whatever she did, with all his might and main, though he saw well enough that she did not love him. But he was furiously jealous, and he swore by all the saints in the calendar that she should never love any one else. His jealousy had made a man of him.

CHAPTER XVI.

It was clear that after what had pa.s.sed between Leonora and her husband, the relations must a.s.sume the aspect described in diplomatic language as ”strained,” to say the least of it. The two met many times in the course of the day, and never referred to the subject of their difference; but Leonora was well aware that she was watched. If ever she sallied out into the garden, hoping to escape observation, her husband was at hand, offering to accompany her. She once even went so far as to go down some distance with him towards the rocks, she could not tell why,--perhaps because it would have been a comfort to her to catch a glimpse of Julius in the boat. But he was probably lurking behind the rocks, just out of sight, and she could not see him. She knew that he still kept his watch during half the day, not having yet invented a better plan,--for she was in correspondence with him,--and in the meanwhile, until new arrangements could be made, there was a bare chance that she might escape for a moment in the morning and be able to see him. Her husband never left her side in the afternoon.

Temistocle, the knave, had failed in his attempt to gain Marcantonio's favour, as has been seen, but he now reaped a golden harvest from the lovers, who paid him handsomely for carrying letters, with a reckless feeling that if he betrayed them the deluge might come,--but that without him they were utterly cut off from each other. He had at first carefully opened one or two letters and skilfully closed them again, but had desisted on finding that they were written in English, a language he unfortunately did not understand. It was now his business to encourage the correspondence to the best of his ability, in order that whenever it should be convenient to spring the mine, he might have some letter pa.s.sing through his hands, which he could show to Marcantonio. He made a bargain with an old man who had a little donkey cart, to hang about the lane leading to the villa in the afternoon hours, when Temistocle, being free from the cares of the pantry, found it convenient to play postman.