Part 46 (1/2)

”My love, my love, what a frightful duty! Is it necessary?”

”It is necessary that my father should know, certainly.”

”But what responsibility!”

”You have no responsibility whatever. Anneli will go with me. All that I ask of you, dear Madame Potecki, is to take the message to my father.

You will; will you not?”

”More than that I will do for you,” said the little woman, boldly. ”I see there is unhappiness; you are suffering, my child. Well, I will plunge into it; I will see your father: this cannot be allowed. It is a dangerous thing to interfere--who knows better than I? But to sit near you is to be inspired; to touch your hand is to gain the courage of a giant. Yes, I will speak to your father; all shall be put right.”

The girl scarcely heard her.

”There is another thing I would ask of you,” she said, slowly and wistfully, ”but not here. May I come to you when the lesson is over?”

”At two: yes.”

So it was that Natalie called on her friend shortly after two o'clock and was shown into the little parlor. She was rather pale. She sat down at one side of the table.

”I wished to ask your advice, dear Madame Potecki,” she said, in a low voice, and with her eyes down. ”Now you must suppose a case. You must suppose that--that two people love each other--better--better than anything else in the world, and that they are ready to sacrifice a great deal for each other. Well, the man is ordered away! it is a banishment from his own country, perhaps forever; and he is very brave about it, and will not complain. Now you must suppose that the girl is very miserable about his going away, and blames herself; and perhaps--perhaps wishes--to do something to show she understands his n.o.bleness--his devotion; and she would do anything in the world, Madame Potecki--to prove her love to him--”

”But, child, child, why do you tremble so?”

”I wish you to tell me, Madame Potecki--I wish you to tell me--whether--you would consider it unwomanly--unmaidenly--for her to go and say to him, 'You are too brave and unselfish to ask me to go with you. Now I offer myself to you. If you must go, why not I--your wife?”

Madame Potecki started up in great alarm.

”Natalie, what do you mean?”

”I only--wished to--to ask--what you would think.”

She was very pale, and her lips were tremulous; but she did not break down. Madame Potecki was apparently far more agitated than she was.

”My child, my child, I am afraid you are on the brink of some wild thing!”

”Is that that I have repeated to you what a girl ought to do?” Natalie said, almost calmly. ”Do you think it is what my mother would have done, Madame Potecki? They have told me she was a brave woman.”

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

IN A GARDEN AT POSILIPO.

”--Prends mon coeur, me dit-elle, Oui, mais a la chapelle, Sois mon pet.i.t....

--Plait-il Ton pet.i.t?

--Sois mon pet.i.t mari!”

--It was Calabressa who was gayly humming to himself; and it was well that he could amuse himself with his _chansons_ and his cigarettes, for his friend Edwards was proving anything but an attentive companion. The tall, near-sighted, blond-faced man from the British Museum was far too much engrossed by the scene around him. They were walking along the quays at Naples; and it so happened that at this moment all the picturesque squalor and lazy life of the place were lit up by the glare reflected from a wild and stormy sunset. The tall, pink-fronted houses; the mules and oxen with their brazen yokes and tinkling bells; the fruit-sellers, and fish-sellers, and water-carriers, in costumes of many hues; the mendicant friars with their cloak and hood of russet-brown; the priests black and clean-shaven; the groups of women, swarthy of face, with head-dresses of red or yellow, cl.u.s.tered round the stalls; the children, in rags of brown, and scarlet, and olive-green, lying about the pavement as if artists had posed them there--all these formed a picture which was almost bewildering in its richness of color, and was no doubt rendered all the more brilliant because of the powerful contrast with the dark and driven sea. For the waters out there were racing in before a stiff breeze, and springing high on the fortresses and rocks; and the clouds overhead were seething and twisting, with many a sudden flash of orange; and then, far away beyond all this color and motion and change, rose the vast and gloomy bulk of Vesuvius, overshadowed and thunderous, as if the mountain were charged with a coming storm.

Calabressa grew impatient, despite his careless song.

”--Me seras tu fidele....

--Comme une tourterelle.