Part 6 (2/2)
”Ma che!” she answered, with an expressive gesture. ”I suppose I did--for a week or two. As much as one ever loves a husband! What does one marry for at all? For convenience--money--position--he gave me these things, as you know.”
”You will gain nothing by marrying me, then,” he said, jealously.
She laughed, and laid her little white hand, glittering with rings, lightly against his lips.
”Of course not! Besides--have I said I will marry you? You are very agreeable as a lover--but otherwise--I am not sure! And I am free now--I can do as I like; I want to enjoy my liberty, and--”
She was not allowed to complete her sentence, for Ferrari s.n.a.t.c.hed her close to his breast and held her there as in a vise. His face was aflame with pa.s.sion.
”Look you, Nina,” he said, hoa.r.s.ely, ”you shall not fool me, by Heaven!
you shall not! I have endured enough at your hands, G.o.d knows! When I saw you for the first time on the day of your marriage with that poor fool, Fabio--I loved you, madly--ay, wickedly as I then thought, but not for the sin of it did I repent. I knew you were woman, not angel, and I waited my time. It came--I sought you--I told you my story of love ere three months of wedded life had pa.s.sed ever your head. I found you willing--ready--nay, eager to hear me! You led me on; you know you did! You tempted me by touch, word and look; you gave me all I sought!
Why try to excuse it now? You are as much my wife as ever you were Fabio's--nay--you are more so, for you love me--at least you say so--and though you lied to your husband, you dare not lie to me. I tell you, you DARE NOT! I never pitied Fabio, never--he was too easily duped, and a married man has no right to be otherwise than suspicious and ever on his guard; if he relaxes in his vigilance he has only himself to blame when his honor is flung like a ball from hand to hand, as one plays with a child's toy. I repeat to you, Nina, you are mine, and I swear you shall never escape me!”
The impetuous words coursed rapidly from his lips, and his deep musical voice had a defiant ring as it fell on the stillness of the evening air. I smiled bitterly as I heard! She struggled in his arms half angrily.
”Let me go,” she said. ”You are rough, you hurt me!”
He released her instantly. The violence of his embrace had crushed the rose she wore, and its crimson leaves fluttered slowly down one by one on the ground at her feet. Her eyes flashed resentfully, and an impatient frown contracted her fair level brows. She looked away from him in silence, the silence of a cold disdain. Something in her att.i.tude pained him, for he sprung forward and caught her hand, covering it with kisses.
”Forgive me, carina mia” he cried, repentantly. ”I did not mean to reproach you. You cannot help being beautiful--it is the fault of G.o.d or the devil that you are so, and that your beauty maddens me! You are the heart of my heart, the soul of my soul! Oh, Nina mia, let us not waste words in useless anger. Think of it, we are free--free! Free to make life a long dream of delight--delight more perfect than angels can know! The greatest blessing that could have befallen us is the death of Fabio, and now that we are all in all to each other, do not harden yourself against me! Nina, be gentle with me--of all things in the world, surely love is best!”
She smiled, with the pretty superior smile of a young empress pardoning a recreant subject, and suffered him to draw her again, but with more gentleness, into his embrace. She put up her lips to meet his--I looked on like a man in a dream! I saw them cling together--each kiss they exchanged was a fresh stab to my tortured soul.
”You are so foolish, Guido mio” she pouted, pa.s.sing her little jeweled fingers through his cl.u.s.tering hair with a light caress--”so impetuous--so jealous! I have told you over and over again that I love you! Do you not remember that night when Fabio sat out on the balcony reading his Plato, poor fellow!”--here she laughed musically--”and we were trying over some songs in the drawing--room--did I not say then that I loved you best of any one in the world? You know I did! You ought to be satisfied!”
Guido smiled, and stroked her s.h.i.+ning golden curls.
”I AM satisfied,” he said, without any trace of his former heated impatience--”perfectly satisfied. But do not expect to find love without jealousy. Fabio was never jealous--I know--he trusted you too implicitly--he was nothing of a lover, believe me! He thought more of himself than of you. A man who will go away for days at a time on solitary yachting and rambling excursions, leaving his wife to her own devices--a man who reads Plato in preference to looking after HER, decides his own fate, and deserves to be ranked with those so-called wise but most ignorant philosophers to whom Woman has always remained an unguessed riddle. As for me--I am jealous of the ground you tread upon--of the air that touches you--I was jealous of Fabio while he lived--and--by heaven!”--his eyes darkened with a somber wrath--”if any other man dared now to dispute your love with me I would not rest till his body had served my sword as a sheath!”
Nina raised her head from his breast with an air of petulant weariness.
”Again!” she murmured, reproachfully, ”you are going to be angry AGAIN!”
He kissed her.
”Not I, sweet one! I will be as gentle as you wish, so long as you love me and only me. Come--this avenue is damp and chilly for you--shall we go in?”
My wife--nay, I should say OUR wife, as we had both shared her impartial favors--a.s.sented. With arms interlaced and walking slowly, they began to retrace their steps toward the house. Once they paused.
”Do you hear the nightingales?” asked Guido.
Hear them! Who could not hear them? A shower of melody rained from the trees on every side--the pure, sweet, pa.s.sionate tones pierced the ear like the repeated chime of little golden bells--the beautiful, the tender, the G.o.d-inspired birds sung their love-stories simply and with perfect rapture--love-stories untainted by hypocrisy--unsullied by crime--different, ah! so very different from the love-stones of selfish humanity! The exquisite poetic idyl of a bird's life and love--is it not a thing to put us inferior creatures to shame--for are we ever as true to our vows as the lark to his mate?--are we as sincere in our thanksgivings for the sunlight as the merry robin who sings as blithely in the winter snow as in the flower-filled mornings of spring? Nay--not we! Our existence is but one long impotent protest against G.o.d, combined with an insatiate desire to get the better of one another in the struggle for base coin!
Nina listened--and s.h.i.+vered, drawing her light scarf more closely about her shoulders.
”I hate them,” she said, pettishly; ”their noise is enough to pierce one's ears. And HE used to be so fond of them! he used to sing--what was it?
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