Part 26 (1/2)

”Apropos of mayonnaise?” Leonora could not help asking the question. His conversation was so absurd.

”Ma foi! mayonnaise--vegetables--gardens--gardeners and the gardener's boy--all that holds together. As I was saying, he cut his finger, and I sent your maid to get something to bind it with.”

”I hope she did not take one of my lace handkerchiefs,” remarked Leonora. ”It would be just like her.”

”It was not lace, I am sure,” said Marcantonio, with an air of conviction, as he helped himself to the salad which Temistocle handed him. ”But it looked very new. I hope she made no mistake.”

The comic side of the situation suddenly forced itself on Leonora, as it often will happen with people on the eve of great danger. A lackey in Paris once danced a jig on the scaffold before he was broken on the wheel. Leonora laughed aloud.

”Would it amuse you, for instance,” inquired Marcantonio with a puzzled look, ”to have a good handkerchief destroyed to tie up the boy's finger?”

It seemed so funny to Leonora to think that on the morrow her entire stock of handkerchiefs would be at the disposal of all the gardeners in Sorrento if they chanced to cut their fingers.

”No--not that,” she said. ”It is so odd that you should take so much trouble about it--or care.”

”Poor people,” said Marcantonio, ”one must do what one can for them.”

And so their last conversation tottered to its end in a round of domestic triviality, so that Leonora wondered how she could have borne it so long. But, in truth, Marcantonio was so much afraid of rousing her opposition that evening, after the scene that had taken place, that he purposely avoided every intelligent subject, and did violence to his own preference for the sake of keeping the peace. He liked to talk politics, he liked to talk of Rome, of society, of a hundred things, but of late he had found it very hard to talk peaceably about anything.

After dinner Marcantonio smoked, and Leonora sat beside him, with a little worsted work which she did with a huge ivory needle. Her heart beat fast as the hour approached when she must part from her husband.

She glanced at him from time to time, sitting there so unsuspecting of any surprise, with his cigarette and his ”Fanfulla,” the witty Roman paper that amused him so much. His delicate, dark features, a little weak perhaps, looked handsome enough in the lamplight, and Leonora thought for a moment that she had never seen him look so well. She was already so far from him in her thoughts that she regarded him as from a distance, with a certain abstracted consideration of his merits that was new to her. Poor Marcantonio! A certain curiosity, which would have been pity if she had allowed it, came over her. She wondered how he would look when she was gone. Ten o'clock--two hours to midnight, and he never saw her before nine in the morning now. Nine and two were eleven. In eleven hours he must know--unless something happened. Would he rage and storm, like a wild beast? Or would he break down and shed tears?

Neither, she thought. He did not love her--he was only jealous. Heavens!

thought she, if Julius had been in his position, and he in Julius's, could things have ever got to this pa.s.s without some fearful outbreak?

Ah no! Julius was so hot-tempered and strong. Her thoughts went away with her, and she heaved a quick short breath, suddenly interrupted in the recollection of where she was. Marcantonio looked round.

”What is it, my dear?” he asked.

”Nothing--I was going to sneeze,” said Leonora with a ready excuse.

”There is too much air,” said he, rising and going toward the window.

He looked out for a moment. The first breath of the easterly wind was coming over the mountains and just stirring a ripple on the moonlit bay.

It had rained early in the afternoon, and they had sat indoors on account of the dampness. Marcantonio sniffed the breeze, said it was damp, and closed the window.

”It must be late,” said he. ”En verite, it is twenty minutes to eleven!

I should not have thought it.”

Leonora's heart beat fast.

”I suppose it is time to go to bed,” she said, with enough indifference to escape notice.

Marcantonio had not enjoyed the evening much, and was sleepy. Leonora moved slowly about the room, touching a book here and a photograph there as though to make the room comfortable for the night. Some women always do it. Her blood was throbbing wildly--the last strong effort of conscience was upon her. A great pity sprang up in her--a terrible regret--a horror of great evil. Her resolutions, her love, her determination to fly, her better self, all struggled and reeled furiously together. She felt an irresistible impulse to throw herself at her husband's feet, to confess everything, to implore his protection, and forgiveness, and help. She turned towards him suddenly. He was in the act of ringing the bell.

The sharp tinkle, sounding from far away through the open doors of the house, checked her when she was on the very point of speaking. Almost instantly, the quick tread of the servant was heard. He came, and the supreme moment was over. The reality of her situation returned, and with it the hardness it needed. The man had the candles ready in his hands, and stood waiting to accompany Leonora to her door.

”Good-night, Marcantoine,” said she, holding out her hand.

It was cold and clammy with intense excitement, and her face was pale to the lips.