Part 7 (1/2)
”But it is the feeling she has for the entire palace,” said the Baron.
”Father!” again implored f.a.n.n.y.
”Come, compose yourself, I will not betray you,” said Hafner, while Alba, taking advantage of having risen, left the group. She walked toward a table at the other extremity of the room, set in the style of an English table, with tea and iced drinks, saying to Julien, who followed her:
”Shall I prepare your brandy and soda, Dorsenne?”
”What ails you, Contessina?” asked the young man, in a whisper, when they were alone near the plateau of crystal and the collection of silver, which gleamed so brightly in the dimly lighted part of the room.
”Yes,” he persisted, ”what ails you? Are you still vexed with me?”
”With you?” said she. ”I have never been. Why should I be?” she repeated. ”You have done nothing to me.”
”Some one has wounded you?” asked Julien.
He saw that she was sincere, and that she scarcely remembered the ill-humor of the preceding day. ”You can not deceive a friend such as I am,” he continued. ”On seeing you fan yourself, I knew that you had some annoyance. I know you so well.”
”I have no annoyance,” she replied, with an impatient frown. ”I can not bear to hear lies of a certain kind. That is all!”
”And who has lied?” resumed Dorsenne.
”Did you not hear Ardea speak of his chapel just now, he who believes in G.o.d as little as Hafner, of whom no one knows whether he is a Jew or a Gentile!... Did you not see poor f.a.n.n.y look at him the while? And did you not remark with what tact the Baron made the allusion to the delicacy which had prevented his daughter from visiting the Palais Castagna with us? And did that comedy enacted between the two men give you no food for thought?”
”Is that why Peppino is here?” asked Julien. ”Is there a plan on foot for the marriage of the heiress of Papa Hafner's millions and the grand-nephew of Pope Urban VII? That will furnish me with a fine subject of conversation with some one of my acquaintance!”.... And the mere thought of Montfanon learning such news caused him to laugh heartily, while he continued, ”Do not look at me so indignantly, dear Contessina.
But I see nothing so sad in the story. f.a.n.n.y to marry Peppino? Why not?
You yourself have told me that she is partly Catholic, and that her father is only awaiting her marriage to have her baptized. She will be happy then. Ardea will keep the magnificent palace we saw yesterday, and the Baron will crown his career in giving to a man ruined on the Bourse, in the form of a dowry, that which he has taken from others.”
”Be silent,” said the young girl, in a very grave voice, ”you inspire me with horror. That Ardea should have lost all scruples, and that he should wish to sell his t.i.tle of a Roman prince at as high a price as possible, to no matter what bidder, is so much the more a matter of indifference, for we Venetians do not allow ourselves to be imposed upon by the Roman n.o.bility. We all had Doges in our families when the fathers of these people were bandits in the country, waiting for some poor monk of their name to become Pope. That Baron Hafner sells his daughter as he once sold her jewels is also a matter of indifference to me. But you do not know her. You do not know what a creature, charming and enthusiastic, simple and sincere, she is, and who will never, never mistrust that, first of all, her father is a thief, and, then, that he is selling her like a trinket in order to have grand-children who shall be at the same time grandnephews of the Pope, and, finally, that Peppino does not love her, that he wants her dowry, and that he will have for her as little feeling as they have for her.” She glanced at Madame Maitland. ”It is worse than I can tell you,” she said, enigmatically, as if vexed by her own words, and almost frightened by them.
”Yes,” said Julien, ”it would be very sad; but are you sure that you do not exaggerate the situation? There is not so much calculation in life.
It is more mediocre and more facile. Perhaps the Prince and the Baron have a vague project.”
”A vague project?” interrupted Alba, shrugging her shoulders. ”There is never anything vague with a Hafner, you may depend. What if I were to tell you that I am positive--do you hear--positive that it is he who holds between his fingers the largest part of the Prince's debts, and that he caused the sale by Ancona to obtain the bargain?”
”It is impossible!” exclaimed Dorsenne. ”You saw him yourself yesterday thinking of buying this and that object.”
”Do not make me say any more,” said Alba, pa.s.sing over her brow and her eyes two or three times her hand, upon which no ring sparkled--that hand, very supple and white, whose movements betrayed extreme nervousness. ”I have already said too much. It is not my business, and poor f.a.n.n.y is only to me a recent friend, although I think her very attractive and affectionate.... When I think that she is on the point of pledging herself for life, and that there is no one, that there can be no one, to cry: They lie to you! I am filled with compa.s.sion. That is all. It is childis.h.!.+”
It is always painful to observe in a young person the exact perception of the sinister dealings of life, which, once entered into the mind, never allows of the carelessness so natural at the age of twenty.
The impression of premature disenchantment Alba Steno had many times given to Dorsenne, and it had indeed been the princ.i.p.al attraction to the curious observer of the feminine character, who still was struck by the terrible absence of illusion which such a view of the projects of f.a.n.n.y's father revealed. Whence did she know them? Evidently from Madame Steno herself. Either the Baron and the Countess had talked of them before the young girl too openly to leave her in any doubt, or she had divined what they did not tell her, through their conversation. On seeing her thus, with her bitter mouth, her bright eyes, so visibly a prey to the fever of suppressed loathing, Dorsenne again was impressed by the thought of her perfect perspicacity. It was probable that she had applied the same force of thought to her mother's conduct. It seemed to him that on raising, as she was doing, the wick of the silver lamp beneath the large teakettle, that she was glancing sidewise at the terrace, where the end of the Countess's white robe could be seen through the shadow. Suddenly the mad thoughts which had so greatly agitated him on the previous day possessed him again, and the plan he had formed of imitating his model, Hamlet, in playing in Madame Steno's salon the role of the Danish prince before his uncle occurred to him.
Absently, with his customary air of indifference, he continued:
”Rest a.s.sured, Ardea does not lack enemies. Hafner, too, has plenty of them. Some one will be found to denounce their plot, if there is a plot, to lovely f.a.n.n.y. An anonymous letter is so quickly written.”
He had no sooner uttered those words than he interrupted himself with the start of a man who handles a weapon which he thinks unloaded and which suddenly discharges.
It was, really, to discharge a duty in the face of his own scepticism that he had spoken thus, and he did not expect to see another shade of sadness flit across Alba's mobile and proud face.