Part 54 (1/2)
”And you haven't changed?” he inquired, wistfully.
”Not at all, I am quite the same--quite the same girl you knew in Sicily!” He did not relish her undertone, and wondered if illness had quickened his imagination, if he was forever seeing more in her manner, hearing more in her words than she meant. There was something intangibly cold and distant about her, or seemed to be. During the first feverish hours after his return to consciousness he had seen her hanging over him with a wonderful loving tenderness--it was that which had closed his wounds and brought him back toward health so swiftly; but as his brain had cleared and he had grown more rational this vision had disappeared along with his other fancies.
He wondered whether knowledge of his pseudo-engagement to Myra Nell had anything to do with her manner. He knew that she was in the girl's confidence. Naturally, he himself was not quite at his ease in regard to Miss Warren. The rumor about his advancing the money for her Carnival expenses had been quieted through Bernie's efforts, and the knowledge of it restricted to a necessary few. Although Myra Nell had refused his offers of marriage and treated the matter lightly, he could not help feeling that this att.i.tude was a.s.sumed or exaggerated to cover her humiliation--or was it something deeper? It would be terrible if she really cared for him in earnest. Her own character protected her from scandal. The breaking-off of his supposed engagement with her could not hurt her--unless she really loved him.
He closed his eyes, cursing Bernie inwardly. After a time he again addressed Vittoria.
”Tell me,” he said, ”how Maruffi came to spare you. My last vision was of him aiming--”
”He had but four shots.”
”Four?”
”Yes, he had used two in his escape from the officers--before he came here.”
”I see! It was horrible. I felt as if I had failed you at the critical moment, just as I failed--”
”As you failed whom?”
”Martel!” The word sounded in his ears with a terrible significance; he could hardly realize that he had spoken it. He had always meant to tell her, of course, but the moment had taken him unawares. His conscience, his inmost feeling, had found a voice apart from his volition. There was a little silence. At length she said in a low, constrained tone.
”Did you fail--him?”
”I--I did,” he said, chokingly; and, the way once opened, he made a full and free confession of his craven fear that night on the road to Terranova, told her of the inherent cowardice which had ever since tortured and shamed him, and of his efforts to reconstruct his whole being. ”I wanted to expiate my sin,” he finished, ”and, above all, I have longed to prove myself a man in your sight.”
She listened with white, set face, slightly averted. When she turned to him at last, he saw that her eyes were wet with tears.
”I cannot judge of these matters,” she said. ”You--you were no coward the other night, amico mio. You were the bravest of the brave. You saved my life. As for that other time, do not ask me to turn back and judge. You perhaps blame yourself too much. It was not as if you could have saved Martel. It is rather that you should have at least tried-- that is how you feel, is it not? You had to reckon with your own sense of honor. Well, you have won your fight; you have become a new person, and you are not to be held responsible for any action of that Norvin Blake I knew in Sicily, who, indeed, did not know his own weakness and could not guard against it. Ever since I met you here in New Orleans I have known you for a brave, strong man. It is splendid--the way in which you have conquered yourself--splendid! Few men could have done it. Be comforted,” she added, with a note of tenderness that answered the pleading in his eyes--”there is no bitterness in my heart.”
”Margherita,” he cried, desperately, ”can't you--won't you--”
”Oh,” she interposed, peremptorily, ”do not say it. I forbid you to speak.” Then, as he fell silent, she continued in a manner she strove to make natural: ”That dear girl, Myra Nell Warren, has inquired about you daily. She has been distracted, heartbroken. Believe me, caro Norvin, there is a true and loving woman whom you cannot cast aside.
She seems frivolous on the surface, I grant you. Even I have been deceived. But at the time of Mr. Dreux's dreadful faux pas she was so hurt, she grieved so that I couldn't but believe she felt deeply.”
Norvin flushed dully and said nothing.
Vittoria smiled down upon him with a look that was half maternal in its sweetness.
”All this has been painful for you,” she said, ”and you have become over-excited. You must not talk any more now. You are to be moved soon.”
”Aren't you going to be my nurse any more?”
”You are to be taken home.”
His hand encountered hers, and he tried to thank her for what she had done, but she rose and, admonis.h.i.+ng him to sleep, left the room somewhat hurriedly.
In the short time which intervened before Norvin was taken to his own quarters Vittoria maintained her air of cool detachment. Myra Nell came once, bringing Bernie with her, much to the sick man's relief; his other friends began to visit him in rapidly increasing numbers; he gradually took up the threads of his every-day life which had been so rudely severed. Meanwhile, he had ample time to think over his situation. He could not persuade himself that Vittoria had been right in her reading of Myra Nell. Perhaps she had only put this view forward to s.h.i.+eld herself from the expression of a love she was not ready to receive. He could not believe that he had been deluded, that there was in reality no hope for him.
Mardi Gras week found him still in bed and unable to witness Myra Nell's triumph. During the days of furious social activity she had little time to give him, for the series of luncheons, of pageants, of gorgeous tableaux and brilliant masked b.a.l.l.s kept her in a whirl of rapturous confusion, and left her scant leisure in which to s.n.a.t.c.h even her beauty sleep.