CHAPTER III
San Giacinto and his wife came to the dinner, and two or three others, and the d'Oriani made a sort of formal entry into Roman society under the best possible auspices. In spite of Corona's good taste and womanly influence, festivities at the Palazzo Saracinesca always had an impressive and almost solemn character. Perhaps there were too many men in the family, and they were all too dark and grave, from the aged Prince to his youngest grandson, who was barely of age, and whose black eyebrows met over his Roman nose and seemed to shade his eyes too much. Ippolito, the exception in his family, as Vittoria d'Oriani was in hers, did not appear at table, but came into the drawing-room in the evening. The Prince himself sat at the head of the table, and rarely spoke. Corona could see that he was not pleased with the Pagliuca tribe, and she did her best to help on conversation and to make Flavia San Giacinto talk, as she could when she chose.
From time to time, she looked at Orsino, whose face that evening expressed nothing, but whose eyes were almost constantly turned towards Vittoria. It had happened naturally enough that he sat next to her, and it was an unusual experience for him. Of course, in the round of society, he occasionally found himself placed next to a young girl at dinner, and he generally was thoroughly bored on such occasions. It was either intentional or accidental on the part of his hosts, whoever they might be. If it was intentional, he had been made to sit next to some particularly desirable damsel of great birth and fortune in the hope that he might fall in love with her and make her the future Princess Saracinesca. And he resented in gloomy silence every such attempt to capture him. If, on the other hand, he chanced to be accidentally set down beside a young girl, it happened according to the laws of precedence; and it was ten to one that the young lady had nothing to recommend her, either in the way of face, fortune, or conversation. But neither case occurred often.
The present occasion was altogether exceptional. Vittoria d'Oriani had never been to a dinner-party before, and everything was new to her. It was quite her first appearance in society, and Orsino Saracinesca was the first man who could be called young, except her brothers, with whom she had ever exchanged a dozen words. It was scarcely two months since she had left the convent, and during that time her mind had been constantly crowded with new impressions, and as constantly irritated by her mother's manner and conversation. Her education was undoubtedly very limited, though in this respect it only differed in a small degree from that of many young girls whom Orsino had met; but it was liberal as compared with her mother's, as her ideas upon religion were broad in comparison with Donna Maria Carolina's complicated system of superstition.
Vittoria's brown eyes were very wide open, as she sat quietly in her place, listening to what was said, and tasting a number of things which she had never seen before. She looked often at Corona, and wished that she might be like her some day, which was quite impossible. And she glanced at Orsino from time to time, and answered his remarks briefly and simply. She could not help seeing that he was watching her, and now and then the blood rose softly in her cheeks. On her other side sat Gianbattista Pietrasanta, whose wife was a Frangipani, and who was especially amused and interested by Vittoria's mother, his other neighbour, but paid little attention to the young girl herself.
A great writer has very truly said that psychological analysis, in a book, can never be more than a series of statements on the part of the author, telling what he himself fancies that he might have felt, could he have been placed in the position of the particular person whom he is analysing. It is extremely doubtful whether any male writer can, by the greatest effort of imagination, clothe himself in the ingenuous purity of thought and intention which is the whole being of such a young girl as Vittoria d'Oriani when she first enters the world, after having spent ten years in a religious community of refined women.
The creature we imagine, when we try to understand such maiden innocence, is colourless and dull. Her mind and heart are white as snow, but blankly white, as the snow on a boundless plain, without so much as a fence or a tree to relieve the utter monotony. There is no beauty in such whiteness in nature, except when it blushes at dawn and sunset. Alone on snow, and with nothing but snow in sight, men often go mad; for snow-madness is a known and recognised form of insanity.
Evidently our imagination fails to evoke a true image in such a case. We are aware that maiden innocence is a state, and not a form of character. The difficulty lies in representing to ourselves a definite character in just that state. For to the word innocence we attach no narrow meaning; it extends to every question that touches humanity, to every motive in all dealings, and to every purpose which, in that blank state, a girl attributes to all human beings, living and dead. It is a magic window through which all good things appear clearly, though not often truly, and all bad things are either completely invisible, or seen in a dull, neutral, and totally uninteresting shadow of uniform misunderstanding. We judge that it must be so, from our observation. This is not analysis, but inspection.
Behind the blank lies, in the first place, the temperament, then the character, then the mind, and then that great, uncertain element of heredity, monstrous or god-like, which animates and moves all three in the gestation of unborn fate, and which is fate itself in later life, so far as there is any such thing as fatality.
Behind the blank there may be turbulent and passionate blood, there may be a character of iron and a man-ruling mind. But the blank is a blank, for all that. Catherine of Russia was once an innocent and quiet little German girl, with empty, wondering eyes, and school-girl sentimentalities. Goethe might have taken her for Werther's Charlotte. Good, bad, or indifferent, the future woman is at the magic window, and all that she is to be is within her already.
Vittoria d'Oriani was certainly not to be a Catherine, but there was no lack of conflicting heredities beneath her innocence. Orsino had thought more than most young men of his age, and he was aware of the fact, as he looked at her and talked with her, and carried on one of those apparently empty conversations, of which the recollection sometimes remains throughout a lifetime, while he quietly studied her face, and tried to find out the secret of its rare charm.
He began by treating her almost as a foreigner. He remembered long afterwards how he smiled as he asked her the first familiar question, as though she had been an English girl, or Miss Lizzie Slayback, the heiress from Nevada.
'How do you like Rome?'
'It is a great city,' answered Vittoria.
'But you do not like it? You do not think it is beautiful?'
'Of course, it is not Palermo,' said the young girl, quite naturally. 'It has not the sea; it has not the mountains—'
'No mountains?' interrupted Orsino smiling. 'But there are mountains all round Rome.'
'Not like Palermo,' replied Vittoria, soberly. 'And then it has not the beautiful streets.'
'Poor Rome!' Orsino laughed a little. 'Not even fine streets! Have you seen nothing that pleases you here!'
'Oh yes,—there are fine houses, and I have seen the Tiber, and the Queen, and—' she stopped short.
'And what else?' inquired Orsino, very much amused.
Vittoria turned her brown eyes full upon him, and paused a moment before she answered.
'You are making me say things which seem foolish to you, though they seem sensible to me,' she said quietly.
'They seem original, not foolish. It is quite true that Palermo is a beautiful city, but we Romans forget it. And if you have never seen another river, the Tiber is interesting, I suppose. That is what you mean. No, it is quite reasonable.'
Vittoria blushed a little, and looked down, only half reassured. It was her first attempt at conversation, and she had said what she thought, naturally and simply. She was not sure whether the great dark young man, who had eyes exactly like his mother's, was laughing at her or not. But he did not know that she had never been to a party in her life.
'Is the society in Palermo amusing?' he inquired carelessly.
'I do not know,' she answered, again blushing, for she was a little ashamed of being so very young. 'I left the convent on the day we started to come to Rome. And my mother did not live in Palermo,' she added.
'No—I had forgotten that.'
Orsino relapsed into silence for a while. He would willingly have given up the attempt at conversation, so far as concerned any hope of making it interesting. But he liked the sound of Vittoria's voice, and he wished she would speak again. On his right hand was Tebaldo, who, as the head of a family, and not a Roman, sat next to Corona. He seemed to be making her rather bold compliments. Orsino caught a phrase.
'You are certainly the most beautiful woman in Italy, Princess,' the Sicilian was saying.
Orsino raised his head, and turned slowly towards the speaker. As he did so, he saw his mother's look. Her brows were a little contracted, which was unusual, but she was just turning away to speak to San Giacinto on her other side, with an otherwise perfectly indifferent expression. Orsino laughed.
'My mother has been the most beautiful woman in Europe since before I was born,' he said, addressing Tebaldo rather pointedly, for the latter's remark had been perfectly audible to him.
Tebaldo had a thin face, with a square, narrow forehead, and heavy jaws that came to an overpointed chin. His upper lip was very short, and his moustache was unusually small, black and glossy, and turned up at the ends in aggressive points. His upper teeth were sharp, long, and regular, and he showed them when he smiled. The smile did not extend upwards above the nostrils, and there was something almost sinister in the still black eyes. In the front view the lower part of the face was triangular, and the low forehead made the upper portion seem square. He was a man of bilious constitution, of an even, yellow-brown complexion, rather lank and bony in frame, but of a type which is often very enduring. Such men sometimes have violent and uncontrolled tempers, combined with great cunning, quickness of intelligence, and an extraordinary power of taking advantage of circumstances.
Tebaldo smiled at Orsino's remark, not at all acknowledging that it might be intended as a rebuke.
'It is hard to believe that she can be your mother,' he said quietly, and with such frankness as completely disarmed resentment.
But Orsino in his thoughts contrasted Tebaldo's present tone with the sound of his voice when speaking to the Princess an instant earlier, and he forthwith disliked the man, and believed him to be false and double. Corona either had not heard, or pretended not to hear, and talked indifferently with San Giacinto, whose vast, lean frame seemed to fill two places at the table, while his energetic gray head towered high above everyone else. Orsino turned to Vittoria again.
'Should you be pleased if someone told you that you were the most beautiful young lady in Italy?' he enquired.
Vittoria looked at him wonderingly.
'No,' she answered. 'It would not be true. How should I be pleased?'
'But suppose, for the sake of argument, that it were true. I am imagining a case. Should you be pleased?'
'I do not know—I think—' She hesitated and paused.
'I am very curious to know what you think,' said Orsino, pressing her for an answer.
'I think it would depend upon whether I liked the person who told me so.' Again the blood rose softly in her face.
'That is exactly what I should think,' answered Orsino gravely. 'Were you sorry to leave the convent?'
'Yes, I cried a great deal. It was my home for so many years, and I was so happy there.'
The girl's eyes grew dreamy as she looked absently across the table at Guendalina Pietrasanta. She was evidently lost in her recollections of her life with the nuns. Orsino was almost amused at his own failure.
'Should you have liked to stay and be a nun yourself?' he inquired, with a smile.
'Yes, indeed! At least—when I came away I wished to stay.'
'But you have changed your mind since? You find the world pleasanter than you expected? It is not a bad place, I daresay.'
'They told me that it was very bad,' said Vittoria seriously. 'Of course they must know, but I do not quite understand what they mean. Can you tell me something about it, and why it is bad, and what all the wickedness is?'
Orsino looked at her quietly for a moment, realising very clearly the whiteness of her life's unwritten page.
'Your nuns may be right,' he said at last. 'I am not in love with the world, but I do not believe that it is so very wicked. At least, there are many good people in it, and one can find them if one chooses. No doubt, we are all miserable sinners in a theological sense, but I am not a theologian. I have a brother who is a priest, and you will see him after dinner; but though he is a very good man, he does not give one the impression of believing that the world is absolutely bad. It is true that he is rather a dilettante priest.'
Vittoria was evidently shocked, for her face grew extraordinarily grave and a shade paler. She looked at Orsino in a startled way and then at her plate.
'What is the matter?' he asked quickly. 'Have I shocked you?'
'Yes,' she answered, almost in a whisper and still looking down. 'That is,' she added with hesitation, 'perhaps I did not quite understand you.'
'No, you did not, if you are shocked. I merely meant that although my brother is a very good man, and a very religious man, and believes that he has a vocation, and does his best to be a good priest, he has other interests in life for which I am sure that he cares more, though he may not know it.'
'What other interests?' asked Vittoria, rather timidly.
'Well, only one, perhaps—music. He is a musician first, and a priest afterwards.'
The young girl's face brightened instantly. She had expected something very terrible, perhaps, though quite undefined.
'He says mass in the morning,' continued Orsino, 'and it may take him an hour or so to read his breviary conscientiously in the afternoon. The rest of his time he spends over the piano.'
'But it is not profane music?' asked Vittoria, growing anxious again.
'Oh no!' Orsino smiled. 'He composes masses and symphonies and motetts.'
'Well, there is no harm in that,' said Vittoria, indifferently, being again reassured.
'Certainly not. I wish I had the talent and the interest in it to do it myself. I believe that the chief real wickedness is doing nothing at all.'
'Sloth is one of the capital sins,' observed Vittoria, who knew the names of all seven.
'It is also the most tiresome sin imaginable, especially when one is condemned to it for life, as I am.'
The young girl looked at him anxiously, and there was a little pause.
'What do you mean?' she asked. 'No one is obliged to be idle.'
'Will you find me an occupation?' Orsino asked in his turn, and with some bitterness. 'I shall be gratified.'
'Is not doing good an occupation? I am sure that there must be plenty of opportunities for that.'
She felt more sure of herself when upon such ground. Orsino did not smile.
'Yes. It might take up a man's whole life, but it is not a career—'
'It was the career of many of the saints!' interrupted Vittoria, cheerfully, for she was beginning to feel at her ease at last. 'Saint Francis of Assisi—Saint Clare—Saint—'
'Pray for us!' exclaimed Orsino, as though he were responding in a litany.
Vittoria's face fell instantly, and he regretted the words as soon as he had spoken them. She was like a sensitive plant, he thought; and yet she had none of the appearance of an over-impressionable, nervous girl. It was doubtless her education.
'I have shocked you again,' he said gravely. 'I am sorry, but I am afraid that you will often be shocked, at first. Yes; I have no doubt that to the saints doing good was a career, and that a saint might make a career of it nowadays. But you see I am not one. What I should like would be to have a profession of some sort, and to work at it with all my might.'
'What a strange idea!' Vittoria looked at him in surprise; for though her three brothers had been almost beggars for ten years, it had never struck them that they could possibly have a profession. 'But you are a noble,' she added thoughtfully. 'You will be the Prince Saracinesca some day.'
Orsino laughed.
'We do not think so much of those things as we did once,' he answered. 'I would be a doctor, if I could, or a lawyer, or a man of business. I do not think that I should like to be a shopkeeper, though it is only a matter of prejudice—'
'I should think not!' cried Vittoria, startled again.
'It would be much more interesting than the life I lead. Almost any life would be, for that matter. Of course, if I had my choice—' He stopped.
Vittoria waited, her eyes fixed earnestly on his face, but she said nothing. Somehow she was suddenly anxious to know what his choice would be. He felt that she was watching him, and turned towards her. Their eyes met in silence, and he smiled, but her face remained grave. He was thinking that this must certainly be one of the most absurd conversations in which he had ever been engaged, but that somehow it did not appear absurd to himself, and he wondered why.
'If I had my choice—' He paused again. 'I would be a leader,' he added suddenly.
He was still young, and there was ambition in him. His dark eyes flashed like his mother's, a warmer colour rose for one instant under his olive skin; the fine, firm mouth set itself.
'I think you could be,' said Vittoria, almost under her breath and half unconsciously.
Then, all at once, she blushed scarlet, and turned her face away to hide her colour. If there is one thing in woman which more than any other attracts a misunderstood man, it is the conviction that she believes him capable of great deeds; and if there is one thing beyond others which leads a woman to love a man, it is her own certainty that he is really superior to those around him, and really needs woman's sympathy. Youth, beauty, charm, eloquence, are all second to these in their power to implant genuine love, or to maintain it, if they continue to exist as conditions.
It mattered little to Vittoria that she had as yet no means whatever of judging whether Orsino Saracinesca had any such extraordinary powers as might some day make him a leader among men. She had been hardly conscious of the strong impression she had received, and which had made her speak, and she was far too young and simple to argue with herself about it. And he, on his part, with a good deal of experience behind him and the memory of one older woman's absolute devotion and sacrifice, felt a keen and unexpected pleasure, quite different from anything he remembered to have felt before now. Nor did he reason about it at first, for he was not a great reasoner and his pleasures in life were really very few.
A moment or two after Vittoria had spoken, and when she had already turned away her face, Orsino shook his head almost imperceptibly, as though trying to throw something off which annoyed him. It was near the end of dinner before the two spoke to each other again, though Vittoria half turned towards him twice in the mean time, as though expecting him to speak, and then, disappointed, looked at her plate again.
'Are you going to stay in Rome, or shall you go back to Sicily?' he asked suddenly, not looking at her, but at the small white hand that touched the edge of the table beside him.
Vittoria started perceptibly at the sound of his voice, as though she had been in a reverie, and her hand disappeared at the same instant. Orsino found himself staring at the tablecloth, at the spot where it had lain.
'I think—I hope we shall stay in Rome,' she answered. 'My brother has a great deal of business here.'
'Yes. I know. He sees my cousin San Giacinto about it almost every day.'
'Yes.'
Her face grew thoughtful again, but not dreamily so as before, and she seemed to hesitate, as though she had more to say.
'What is it?' asked Orsino, encouraging her to go on.
'Perhaps I ought not to tell you. The Marchese wishes to buy Camaldoli of us.'
'What is Camaldoli?'
'It is the old country house where my mother and my brothers lived so long, while I was in the convent, after my father died. There is a little land. It was all we had until now.'
'Shall you be glad if it is sold, or sorry?' asked Orsino, thoughtfully, and watching her face.
'I shall be glad, I suppose,' she answered. 'It would have to be divided among us, they say. And it is half in ruins, and the land is worth nothing, and there are always brigands.'
Orsino laughed.
'Yes. I should think you might be very glad to get rid of it. There is no difficulty about it, is there?'
'Only—I have another brother. He likes it and has remained there. His name is Ferdinando. No one knows why he is so fond of the place. They need his consent, in order to sell it, and he will not agree.'
'I understand. What sort of a man is your brother Ferdinando?'
'I have not seen him for ten years. They are afraid of—I mean, he is afraid of nothing.'
There was something odd, Orsino thought, about the way the young girl shut her lips when she checked herself in the middle of the sentence, but he had no idea what she had been about to say. Just then Corona nodded slightly to the aged Prince at the other end of the table, and dinner was over.
'I should think it would be necessary for San Giacinto to see this other brother of yours,' observed Orsino, finishing the conversation as he rose and stood ready to take Vittoria out.
The little ungloved hand lay like a white butterfly on his black sleeve, and she had to raise her arm a little to take his, though she was not short. Just before them went San Giacinto, darkening the way like a figure of fate. Vittoria looked up at him, almost awe-struck at his mere size.
'How tall he is!' she exclaimed in a very low voice. 'How very tall he is!' she said again.
'We are used to him,' answered Orsino, with a short laugh. 'But he has a big heart, though he looks so grim.'
Half an hour later, when the men were smoking in a room by themselves, San Giacinto came and sat down by Orsino in the remote corner where the latter had established himself, with a cigarette. The giant, as ever of old, had a villainous-looking black cigar between his teeth.
'Do you want something to do?' he asked bluntly.
'Yes.'
'Do you care to live in Sicily for a time?'
'Anywhere—Japan, if you like.'
'You are easily pleased. That means that you are not in love just at present, I suppose.'
San Giacinto looked hard at his young cousin for some time, in silence. Orsino met his glance quietly, but with some curiosity.
'Do you ever go to see the Countess Del Ferice?' asked the big man at last.
Orsino straightened himself in his chair and frowned a little, and then looked away as he answered by a cross-question, knocking the ash off his cigarette upon a little rock crystal dish at his elbow.
'Why do you ask me that?' he inquired rather sternly.
'Because you were very much attracted by her once, and I wished to know whether you had kept up the acquaintance since her marriage.'
'I have kept up the acquaintance—and no more,' answered Orsino, meeting his cousin's eyes again. 'I go to see the Countess from time to time. I believe we are on very good terms.'
'Will you go to Sicily with me if I need you, and stay there, and get an estate in order for me?'
'With pleasure. When?'
'I do not know yet. It may be in a week, or it may be in a month. It will be hot there, and you will have troublesome things to do.'
'So much the better.'
'There are brigands in the neighbourhood just now.'
'That will be very amusing. I never saw one.'
'You may tell Ippolito if you like, but please do not mention it to anyone else until we are ready to go. You know that your mother will be anxious about you, and your father is a conservative—and your grandfather is a firebrand, if he dislikes an idea. One would think that at his age his temper should have subsided.'
'Not in the least!' Orsino smiled, for he loved the old man, and was proud of his great age.
'But you may tell Ippolito if you like, and if you warn him to be discreet. Ippolito would let himself be torn in pieces rather than betray a secret. He is by far the most discreet of you all.'
'Yes. You are right, as usual. You have a good eye for a good man. What do you think of all these Pagliuca people, or Corleone, or d'Oriani—or whatever they call themselves?' Orsino looked keenly at his cousin as he asked the question.
'Did you ever meet Corleone? I mean the one who married Norba's daughter,—the uncle of these boys.'
'I met him once. From all accounts, he must have been a particularly disreputable personage.'
'He was worse than that, I think. I never blamed his wife. Well—these boys are his nephews. I do not see that any comment is necessary.' San Giacinto smiled thoughtfully.
'This young girl is also his niece,' observed Orsino rather sharply.
'Who knows what Tebaldo Pagliuca might have been if he had spent ten years amongst devout old women in a convent?' The big man's smile developed into an incredulous laugh, in which Orsino joined.
'There has certainly been a difference of education,' he admitted. 'I like her.'
'You would confer a great benefit upon a distressed family, by falling in love with her,' said San Giacinto. 'That worthy mother of hers was watching you two behind Pietrasanta's head, during dinner.'
'Another good reason for going to Sicily,' answered Orsino. 'The young lady is communicative. She told me, this evening, that you were trying to buy some place of theirs,—I forget the name,—and that one of her brothers objects.'
'That is exactly the place I want you to manage. The name is Camaldoli.'
'Then there is no secret about it,' observed Orsino. 'If she has told me, she may tell the next man she meets.'
'Certainly. And mysteries are useless, as a rule. I do not wish to make any with you, at all events. Here are the facts. I am going to build a light railway connecting all those places; and I am anxious to get the land into my possession, without much talk. Do you understand? This place of the Corleone is directly in my line, and is one of the most important, because it is at a point through which I must pass, to make the railway at all, short of an expensive tunnel. Your management will simply consist in keeping things in order until the railway makes the land valuable. Then I shall sell it, of course.'
'I see. Very well. Could you not give my old architect something to do? Andrea Contini is his name. The houses we built for Del Ferice have all turned out well, you know.' Orsino laughed rather bitterly.
'Remind me of him at the proper time,' said San Giacinto. 'Tell him to learn something about building small railway stations. There will be between fifteen and twenty, altogether.'
'I will. But—do you expect that a railway in Sicily will ever pay you?'
'No. I am not an idiot.'
'Then why do you build one, if that is not an indiscreet question?'
'The rise in the value of all the land I buy will make it worth while, several times over. It is quite simple.'
'It must take an enormous capital,' said Orsino, thoughtfully.
'It needs a large sum of ready money. But the lands are generally mortgaged for long periods, and almost to two-thirds of their selling value. The holders of the mortgages do not care who owns the land. So I pay about one-third in cash.'
'What becomes of the value of a whole country, when all the land is mortgaged for two-thirds of what it is worth?' asked Orsino, carelessly, and half laughing.
But San Giacinto did not laugh.
'I have thought about that,' he answered gravely. 'When the yield of the land is not enough to pay the interest on the mortgages, the taxes to the government, and some income to the owners, they starve outright, or emigrate. There is a good deal of starvation nowadays, and a good deal of emigration in search of bread.'
'And yet they say that the value of land is increasing almost all over the country,' objected Orsino. 'You count on it yourself.'
'The value rises wherever railways and roads are built.'
'And what pays for the railways?'
'The taxes.'
'And the people pay the taxes.'
'Exactly. And the taxes are enormous. The people in places remote from the projected railway are ruined by them, but the people who own land where the railways pass are indirectly very much enriched by the result. Sometimes a private individual like myself builds a light road. I think that is a source of wealth, in the end, to everyone. But the building of the government roads, like the one down the west coast of Calabria, seems to destroy the balance of wealth and increase emigration. It is a necessary evil.'
'There are a good many necessary evils in our country,' said Orsino. 'There are too many.'
'Per aspera ad astra. I never knew much Latin, but I believe that means something. There are also unnecessary evils, such as brigandage in Sicily, for instance. You can amuse yourself by fighting that one, if you please; though I have no doubt that the brigands will often travel by my railway—and they will certainly go in the first class.'
The big man laughed and rose, leaving Orsino to meditate upon the prospect of occupation which was opened to him.
CHAPTER IV
Orsino remained in his corner a few minutes, after San Giacinto had left him, and then rose to go into the drawing-room. As he went he passed the other men, who were seated and standing, all near together and not far from the empty fireplace, listening to Tebaldo Pagliuca, who was talking about Sicily with a very strong Sicilian accent. Orsino paused a moment to hear what he was saying. He was telling the story of a frightful murder committed in the outskirts of Palermo not many weeks earlier, and about which there had been much talk. But Tebaldo was on his own ground and knew much more about it than had appeared in the newspapers. His voice was not unpleasant. It was smooth, though his words were broken here and there by gutturals which he had certainly not learned on his own side of the island. There was a sort of reserve in the tones which contrasted with the vividness of the language. Orsino watched him and looked at him more keenly than he had done as yet. He was struck by the stillness of the deep eyes, which were slightly bloodshot, like those of some Arabs, and at the same time by the mobility and changing expression of the lower part of the face. Tebaldo made gestures, too, which had a singular directness. Yet the whole impression given was that he was a good actor rather than a man of continued, honest action, and that he could have performed any other part as well. Near him stood his brother Francesco. There was doubtless a family resemblance between the two, but the difference of constitution was apparent to the most unpractised eye. The younger man was stouter, more sanguine, less nervous. The red blood glowed with strong health under his brown skin, his lips were scarlet and full, his dark moustache was soft and silky like his short, smooth hair, and his eyes were soft, too, and moistly bright, very long, with heavy drooping lids that were whiter than the skin of the rest of the face. Francesco was no more like his sister than was Tebaldo.
Orsino found himself by his father as he paused in passing, and he suddenly realised how immeasurably nearer he was to this strong, iron-gray, middle-sized, silent man beside him, than to any other one of all the men in the room, including his own brothers. Sant' Ilario had perhaps never understood his eldest son; or perhaps there was between them the insurmountable barrier of his own solid happiness. For it is sorrow that draws men together. Happiness needs no sympathy; happiness is not easily disturbed; happiness that is solidly founded is itself a most negative source of the most all-pervading virtue, without the least charity for unhappiness' sins; happiness suffices to itself; happiness is a lantern to its own feet; it is all things to one man and nothing to all the rest; it is an impenetrable wall between him who has it and mankind. And Sant' Ilario had been happy for nearly thirty years. In appearance, as was to be anticipated, he had turned out to be like his father, as the latter had been at the same age. In temper, he was different, as the conditions of his life had been of another sort. The ancient head of the house had lost his Spanish wife when very young, and had lived many years alone with his only son. Giovanni had met with no such misfortune. His wife was alive and still beautiful at an age when many women have forgotten the taste of flattery; and his four sons were all grown men, straight and tall, so that he looked up to their faces when they stood beside him. Strong, peaceable, honest, rather hard-faced young men, they were, excepting Ippolito, the second of them, who had talent and a lovable disposition in place of strength and hardness of character.
They were fond of their father, no doubt, and there was great solidarity in the family. But what they felt for Sant' Ilario was perhaps more like an allegiance than an affection, and they looked to him as the principal person of importance in the family, because their grandfather was such a very old man. They were accustomed to take it for granted that he was infallible when he expressed himself definitely in a family matter, whereas they had no very high opinion of his judgment in topics and questions of the day; for they had received a modern education, and were to some extent imbued with those modern prejudices compared with which the views of our fathers hardly deserved the name of a passing caprice.
Orsino thought that there was something at once cunning and ferocious about Tebaldo's way of telling the story. He had a fine smile of appreciation for the secrecy and patience of the two young men who had sought occasion against their sister's lover, and there was a squaring of the angular jaws and a quick forward movement of the head, as of a snake when striking, to accompany his description of the death-blow. Orsino listened to the end and then went quietly out and returned to the drawing-room.
Vittoria d'Oriani was seated near Corona, who was talking to her in a low tone. The other ladies were standing together before a famous old picture. The Marchesa di San Giacinto was smoking a cigarette. Orsino sat down by his mother, who looked at him quietly and smiled, and then went on speaking. The young girl glanced at Orsino. She was leaning forward, one elbow on her knee, and her chin supported in her hand, her lips a little parted as she listened with deep interest to what the elder woman said. Corona was telling her of Rome many years earlier, of the life in those days, of Pius the Ninth, and of the coming of the Italians.
'How can you remember things that happened when you were so young!' exclaimed Vittoria, watching the calm and beautiful face.
'I was older than you even then,' answered Corona, with a smile. 'And I married very young,' she added thoughtfully. 'I was married at your age, I think. How old are you, my dear?'
'I am eighteen—just eighteen,' replied Vittoria.
'I was married when I was scarcely seventeen. It was too young.'
'But you have always been so happy. Why do you say that?'
'What makes you think that I have always been happy?' asked the Princess.
'Your face, I think. One or two of the nuns were very happy, too. But it was different. They had quite another look on their faces.'
'I daresay,' answered Corona, and she smiled again, and looked proudly at Orsino.
She rose and crossed the room, feeling that she was neglecting her older guests for the young girl, who was thus left with Orsino again. He did not see Donna Maria Carolina's quick glance as she discovered the fact, and made sure of it, looking again and again at the two while she joined a little in the conversation which was going on around her. She was very happy, just then, poor lady, and almost forgot to struggle against the accumulated provincialisms of twenty years, or to be anxious lest her new friends should discover that her pearls were false. For the passion for ornament, false or real, had not diminished with the improvement in her fortunes.
But Orsino was not at all interested in Vittoria's mother, and he had seen too much to care whether women wore real jewelry or not. He had almost forgotten the young girl after dinner when he had sat down in a corner of the smoking-room, but San Giacinto's remark had vividly recalled her face to his memory, with a strong desire to see her again at once. Nothing was easier than to satisfy such a wish, and he found himself by her side.
Once there, he did not trouble himself to speak to her for several moments. Vittoria showed considerable outward self-possession, though it was something of an ordeal to sit in silence, almost touching him and not daring to speak, while he was apparently making up his mind what to say. It had been much easier during dinner, she thought, because she had been put in her place without being consulted, and was expected to be there, without the least idea of attracting attention. Now, she felt a little dizzy for a moment, as though the room were swaying; and she was afraid that she was going to blush, which would have been ridiculous.
Now, he was looking at her, while she looked down at her little white fan that lay on the white stuff of her frock, quite straight, between her two small, white-gloved hands. The nuns had not told her what to do in any such situation. Still Orsino did not speak. Two minutes had crawled by, like two hours, and she felt a fluttering in her throat.
It was absurd, she thought. There was no reason for being so miserable. Very probably, he was not thinking of her at all. But it was of no use to tell herself such things, for her embarrassment grew apace, till she felt that she must spring from her seat and run from the room without looking at him. The fluttering became almost convulsive, and her hands pressed the little fan on each side, clenching themselves tightly. Still he did not speak.
In utter despair she began to recite inwardly the litany of the saints, biting her lips lest they should move and he should guess what she was doing. In her suppressed excitement the holy personages raced and tumbled over each other at a most unseemly rate, till the procession was violently checked by the gravely indifferent tones of Orsino's voice. Her hands relaxed, and she turned a little pale.
'Have you been to Saint Peter's?' he enquired calmly.
He was certainly not embarrassed, but he could think of nothing better to say to a young girl. On the first occasion, at dinner, he had asked her how she liked Rome. At all events it had opened the conversation. He remembered well enough the half dozen earnest words they had exchanged; and there was something more than mere memory, for he knew that he half wished they might reach the same point again. Perhaps, if the wish had been stronger and if Vittoria had been a little older, it might have been easier.
'Yes,' she said. 'My mother took me as soon as we came. She was very anxious that we should pay our devotion to the patron saint.'
Orsino smiled a little.
'Saint Peter is not the patron of Rome,' he observed. 'Our protector is San Filippo Neri.'
Vittoria looked up in genuine surprise.
'Saint Peter is not the patron saint of Rome!' she exclaimed. 'But—I always thought—'
'Naturally enough. All sorts of things in Rome seem to be what they are not. We seem to be alive for instance. We are not. Six or seven years ago we were all in a frantic state of excitement over our greatness. We have turned out to be nothing but a set of embalmed specimens in glass cases. Do not look so much surprised, signorina—or shocked—which is it?'
He laughed a little.
'I cannot help it,' answered Vittoria simply, her brown eyes still fixed on him in wonder. 'It is—it is all so different from what I expected—the things people say—' She hesitated and stopped short, turning her eyes from him.
The light was strong in the room, for the aged Prince hated the modern fashion of shading lamps almost to a dusk. Orsino watched Vittoria's profile, and the graceful turn of her young throat as she looked away, and the fine growth of silky hair from the temples and behind the curving little ear. The room was warm, and he sat silently watching her for a moment. She was no longer embarrassed, for she was not thinking of herself, and she did not know how he was thinking of her just then.
'I wonder what you expected us to be like,' he said at last. 'And what you expected us to say,' he added as an afterthought.
It crossed his mind that if she had been a married woman three or four years older he might have found her very amusing in conversation. He could certainly not have been talking in detached and almost idiotic phrases, as he was actually doing. But if she had been a young married woman, her charm would have been different, and of a kind not new to him. There was a novelty about Vittoria, and it attracted him strongly. There was real freshness and untried youth in her; she had that sort of delicacy which some flowers have, and which is not fragility, the bloom of a precious thing fresh broken from the mould and not yet breathed upon. He wondered whether all young girls had this inexpressible something, and if so, why he had never noticed it.
'I am not quite sure,' answered Vittoria, blushing a little at the thought that she could have had a preconceived idea of Orsino Saracinesca.
The reply left everything to be desired in the way of brilliancy, but the voice was soft and expectant, as some women's voices are, that seem just upon the point of vibrating to a harmonic while yielding the fundamental tone in all its roundness. There are rare voices that seem to possess a distinct living individuality, apart from the women to whom they belong, a sort of extra-natural musical life, of which the woman herself cannot control nor calculate the power. It is not the 'golden voice' which some great actresses have. One recognises that at the first hearing; one admits its beauty; one hears it three or four times, and one knows it by heart. It will pronounce certain phrases in a certain way, inevitably; it will soften and swell and ring with mathematical precision at the same verse, at the identical word, night after night, year after year, while it lasts. Vittoria's voice was not like that. It had the spontaneity of independent life which a passion itself has when it takes possession of a man or a woman. Orsino felt it, and was conscious of a new sensitiveness in himself.
On the whole, to make a very wide statement of a general truth, Italian men are moved by sense and Italian women are stirred by passion. Between passion and sense there is all the difference that exists between the object and the idea. Sense appreciates, passion idealises; sense desires all things, passion hungers for one; sense is material, though ever so æsthetised and refined, but passion clothes fact with unearthly attributes; sense is singly selfish, passion would make a single self of two. The sensual man says, 'To have seen much and to have little is to have rich eyes and poor hands'; the passionate man or woman will 'put it to the test, to win or lose it all,' like Montrose. Sense is vulgar when it is not monstrous in strength, or hysterical to madness. Passion is always noble, even in its sins and crimes. Sense can be satisfied, and its satisfaction is a low sort of happiness; but passion's finer strings can quiver with immortal pain, and ring with the transcendent harmony that wakes the hero even in a coward's heart.
Vittoria first touched Orsino by her outward charm, by her voice, by her grace. But it was his personality, or her spontaneous imagination of it, which made an indelible impression upon her mind before the first evening of their acquaintance was over. The woman who falls in love with a man for his looks alone is not of a very high type, but the best and bravest men that ever lived have fallen victims to mere beauty, often without much intelligence, or faith, or honour.
Orsino was probably not aware that he was falling in love at first sight. Very few men are, and yet very many people certainly begin to fall in love at a first meeting, who would scout the idea as an absurdity. For love's beginnings are most exceedingly small in the greatest number of instances. Were they greater, a man might guard himself more easily against his fate.
CHAPTER V
At that time a young Sicilian singer had lately made her first appearance in Rome and had been received with great favour. She was probably not destined ever to become one of the chief artists of the age, but she possessed exactly the qualifications necessary to fascinate a Roman audience. She was very young, she was undeniably beautiful, and she had what Romans called a 'sympathetic' voice. They think more of that latter quality in Italy than elsewhere. It is what in English we might call charm, and to have it is to have the certainty of success with an Italian public.
Aliandra Basili was the daughter of a respectable notary in the ancient town of Randazzo, which lies on the western slope of Mount Etna, on the high road from Piedimonte to Bronte and Catania, within two hours' ride of Camaldoli, the Corleone place. It is a solemn old walled town, built of almost black tufo, though many of the houses on the main street have now been stuccoed and painted; and it has a very beautiful Saracen-Norman cathedral.
Aliandra's life had been very like that of any other provincial girl of the middle class. She had been educated in a small convent, while her excellent father, whose wife was dead, laboured to accumulate a little dowry for his only child. At fifteen years of age, she had returned to live with him, and he had entertained good hopes of marrying her off before she was seventeen. In fact, he thought that he had only to choose among a number of young men, of whom any one would be delighted to become her husband.
Then, one day, Tebaldo and Francesco Pagliuca came riding down from Camaldoli, and stopped at the notary's house to get a small lease drawn up; and while they were there, in the dusty office, doing their best to be sure of what old Basili's legal language meant, they heard Aliandra singing to herself upstairs. After that they came to Randazzo again, both separately and together, and at last they persuaded old Basili that his daughter had a fortune in her voice and should be allowed to become a singer. He consented after a long struggle, and sent her to Messina to live with a widowed sister of his, and to be taught by an old master of great reputation who had taken up his abode there. Very possibly Basili agreed to this step with a view to removing the girl to a distance from the two brothers, who made small secret of their admiration for her, or about their jealousy of each other; and he reflected that she could be better watched and guarded by his sister, who would have nothing else to do, than by himself. For he was a busy man, and obliged to spend his days either in his office, or in visits to distant clients, so that the motherless girl was thrown far too much upon her own resources.
Tebaldo, on the other hand, realised that so long as she lived in Randazzo, he should have but a small chance of seeing her alone. He could not come and spend a week at a time in the town, but he could find an excuse for being longer than that in Messina, and he trusted to his ingenuity to elude the vigilance of the aunt with whom she was to live. In Messina, too, he should not have his brother at his elbow, trying to outdo him at every turn, and evidently attracting the young girl to a certain extent.
To tell the truth, Aliandra's head was turned by the attentions of the two young noblemen, though her father never lost an opportunity of telling her that they were a pair of penniless good-for-nothings and otherwise dangerous characters, supposed to be on good terms with the brigands of the interior, and typical 'maffeusi' through and through. But such warnings were much more calculated to excite the girl's interest than to frighten her. She had an artist's nature and instincts, and the two young gentlemen were very romantic characters in her eyes, when they rode down from their dilapidated stronghold, on their compact little horses, their beautiful Winchester rifles slung over their shoulders, their velvet coats catching the sunlight, their spurs gleaming, and their broad hats shading their dark eyes. Had there been but one of them, her mind would soon have been made up to make him marry her, and she might have succeeded without much difficulty. But she found it hard to decide between the two. They were too different for comparison, and yet too much alike for preference. Tebaldo was a born tyrant, and Francesco a born coward. She was dominated by the one and she ruled the other, but she was not in love with either, and she could not make up her mind whether it would on the whole be more agreeable to love her master or her slave.
Meanwhile she made rapid progress in her singing, appeared at the opera in Palermo, and almost immediately obtained an engagement in Rome. To her father, the sum offered her appeared enormous, and her aunt was delighted by the prospect of going to Rome with her during the winter. Aliandra had been successful from the first, and she seemed to be on the high road to fame. The young idlers of rich Palermo intrigued to be introduced to her and threw enormous nosegays to her at the end of every act. She found that there were scores of men far handsomer and richer than the Pagliuca brothers, ready to fall in love with her, and she began to reflect seriously upon her position. Artist though she was, by one side of her nature, there was in her a touch of her father's sensible legal instinct, together with that extraordinary self-preserving force which usually distinguishes the young girl of southern Italy.
She soon understood that no one of her new admirers would ever think of asking her to be his wife, whereas she was convinced that she could marry either Tebaldo or Francesco, at her choice and pleasure. They were poor, indeed, but of as good nobility as any of the rich young noblemen of Palermo, and she was beginning to find out what fortunes were sometimes made by great singers. She dreamed of buying back the old Corleone estates and of being some day the Princess of Corleone herself. That meant that she must choose Tebaldo, since he was to get the title. And here she hesitated again. She did not realise that Francesco was actually a physical coward and rather a contemptible character altogether; to her he merely seemed gentle and winning, and she thought him much ill used by his despotic elder brother. As for the third brother, Ferdinando, of whom mention has been made, she had rarely seen him. He was probably the best of the family, which was not saying much, and he was also by far the least civilised. He was undoubtedly in close communication with the brigands, and when he was occasionally absent from home, he was not spending his time in Messina or Randazzo.
Time went on, and in the late autumn Aliandra and her aunt went to Rome for the season. As has been seen, it pleased fortune that the Pagliuca brothers should be there also, with their mother and sister, Ferdinando remaining in Sicily. When the question of selling Camaldoli to San Giacinto arose, Ferdinando at first flatly refused to give his consent. Thereupon Tebaldo wrote him a singularly temperate and logical letter, in which he very quietly proposed to inform the government of Ferdinando's complicity with the brigands, unless he at once agreed to the sale. Ferdinando might have laughed at the threat had it come from anyone else, but he knew that Tebaldo's thorough acquaintance with the country and with the outlaws' habits would give him a terrible advantage. Tebaldo, if he gave information, could of course never return to Sicily, for his life would not be safe, even in broad daylight, in the Macqueda of Palermo, and it was quite possible that the mafia might reach him even in Rome. But he was undoubtedly able to help the government in a raid in which many of Ferdinando's friends must perish or be taken prisoners. For their sakes Ferdinando signed his consent to the sale, before old Basili in Randazzo, and sent the paper to Rome; but that night he swore that no Roman should ever get possession of Camaldoli while he was alive, and half a dozen of the boldest among the outlaws swore that they would stand by him in his resolution.
Aliandra knew nothing of all this, for Tebaldo was far too wise to tell anyone how he had forced his brother's consent. She would certainly have been disgusted with him, had she known the truth, for she was morally as far superior to him and to Francesco as an innocent girl brought up by honest folks can be better than a pair of exceedingly corrupt young adventurers. But they both had in a high degree the power of keeping up appearances and of imposing upon their surroundings. Tebaldo was indeed subject to rare fits of anger in which he completely lost control of himself, and when he was capable of going to any length of violence; but these were very unusual, and as a general rule he was reticent in the extreme. Francesco possessed the skill and gentle duplicity of a born coward and a born ladies' man. They both deceived Aliandra, in spite of her father's early warning and her old aunt's anxious advice.
Aliandra was successful beyond anyone's expectations during her first engagement in Rome, and she was wise enough to gain herself the reputation of being unapproachable to her many admirers. Only Tebaldo and Francesco, whom she now considered as old friends of her family, were ever admitted to her room at the theatre, or received at the quiet apartment where she lived with her aunt.
On the night of the dinner-party at the Palazzo Saracinesca, Aliandra was to sing in Lucia for the first time in Rome. Both the brothers had wished that they could have been at the theatre to hear her, instead of spending the evening in the society of those very stiff and mighty Romans, and both made up their minds separately that they would see her before she left the Argentina that night. Tebaldo, as usual, took the lead of events, and peremptorily ordered Francesco to go home with their mother and sister in the carriage.
When the Corleone party left the palace, therefore, Francesco got into the carriage, but Tebaldo said that he preferred to walk, and went out alone from under the great gate. He was not yet very familiar with the streets of Rome, but he believed that he knew the exact situation of the palace, and could easily find his way from it to the Argentina theatre, which was not very far distant.
The old part of the city puzzled him, however. He found himself threading unfamiliar ways, dark lanes, and winding streets which emerged suddenly upon small squares from which three or four other streets led in different directions. Instinctively he looked behind him from time to time, and felt in his pocket for the pistol which, like a true provincial, he thought it as necessary to carry in Rome as in his Sicilian home. Presently he looked at his watch, saw that it was eleven o'clock, and made up his mind to find a cab if he could. But that was not an easy matter either, in that part of the city, and it was twenty minutes past eleven when he at last drew up to the stage entrance at the back of the Argentina. A weary, gray, unshaven, and very dirty old man admitted him, looked at his face, took the flimsy currency note which Tebaldo held out, and let him pass without a word. The young man knew his way much better within the building than out in the streets. In a few moments he stopped before a dingy little door, the last on the left in a narrow corridor dimly lit by a single flame of gas, which was turned low for economy's sake. He knocked sharply and opened the door without waiting for an answer.
There were three persons in the small, low dressing-room, and all three faced Tebaldo rather anxiously. Aliandra Basili, the young Sicilian prima donna who had lately made her appearance in Rome, was seated before a dim mirror which stood on a low table covered with appliances for theatrical dressing. Her maid was arranging a white veil on her head, and beside her, very near to her, and drawing back from her as Tebaldo entered sat Francesco.
Tebaldo's lips moved uneasily, as he stood still for a moment, gazing at the little group, his hand on the door. Then he closed it quickly behind him, and came forward with a smile.
'Good evening,' he said. 'I lost my way in the streets and am a little late. I thought the curtain would be up for the last act.'
'They have called me once,' answered Aliandra. 'I said that I was not ready, for I knew you would come.'
She was really very handsome and very young, but the mask of paint and powder changed her face and expression almost beyond recognition. Even her bright, gold-brown eyes were made to look black and exaggerated by the deep shadows painted with antimony below them, and on the lids. The young hand she held out to Tebaldo was whitened with a chalky mixture to the tips of the fingers. She was dressed in the flowing white robe which Lucia wears in the mad scene, and the flaring gaslights on each side of the mirror made her face and wig look terribly artificial. Tebaldo thought so as he looked at her, and remembered the calm simplicity of Corona Saracinesca's mature beauty. But he had known Aliandra long, and his imagination saw her own face through her paint.
'It was good of you to wait for me,' he said. 'I daresay my brother helped the time to pass pleasantly.'
'I have only just come,' said Francesco, quickly. 'I took our mother home—it is far.'
'I did not know that you were coming at all,' replied Tebaldo, coldly. 'How is it going?' he asked, sitting down by Aliandra. 'Another ovation?'
'No. They are waiting for the mad scene, of course—and my voice is as heavy as lead to-night. I shall not please anyone—and it is the first time I have sung Lucia in Rome. My nerves are in a state—'
'You are not frightened? You—of all people?'
'I am half dead with fright. I am white under my rouge. I can feel it.'
'Poor child!' exclaimed Francesco, softly, and his eyes lightened as he watched her.
'Bah!' Tebaldo shrugged his shoulders and smiled. 'She always says that!'
'And sometimes it is true,' answered Aliandra, with a sharp sigh.
A double rap at the door interrupted the conversation.
'Signorina Basili! Are you ready?' asked a gruff voice outside.
'Yes!' replied the young girl, rising with an effort.
Francesco seized her left hand and kissed it. Tebaldo said nothing, but folded his arms and stood aside. He saw on his brother's dark moustache a few grains of the chalky dust which whitened Aliandra's fingers.
'Do not wait for me when it is over,' she said. 'My aunt is in the house, and will take me home. Good night.'
'Goodbye,' said Tebaldo, looking intently into her face as he opened the door.
She started in surprise, and perhaps her face would have betrayed her pain, but the terribly artificial rouge and powder hid the change.
'Come and see me to-morrow,' she said to Tebaldo, in a low voice, when she was already in the doorway.
He did not answer, but kept his eyes steadily on her face.
'Signorina Basili! You will miss your cue!' cried the gruff voice in the corridor.
Aliandra hesitated an instant, glancing out and then looking again at Tebaldo.
'To-morrow,' she said suddenly, stepping out into the passage. 'To-morrow,' she repeated, as she went swiftly towards the stage.
She looked back just before she disappeared, but there was little light, and Tebaldo could no longer see her eyes.
He stood still by the door. Then his brother passed him.
'I am going to hear this act,' said Francesco, quietly, as though unaware that anything unusual had happened.
Before he was out of the door, he felt Tebaldo's hand on his shoulder, gripping him hard and shaking him a little. He turned his head, and his face was suddenly pale. Tebaldo kept his hand on his brother's shoulder and pushed him back against the wall of the passage, under the solitary gaslight.
'What do you mean by coming here?' he asked. 'How do you dare?'
Francesco was badly frightened, for he knew Tebaldo's ungovernable temper.
'Why not?' he tried to ask. 'I have often been here—'
'Because I warned you not to come again. Because I am in earnest. Because I will do you some harm, if you thrust yourself into my way with her.'
'I shall call for help now, unless you let me go,' answered Francesco, with white lips. Tebaldo laughed savagely.
'What a coward you are!' he cried, giving his brother a final shake and then letting him go. 'And what a fool I am to care?' he added, laughing again.
'Brute!' exclaimed Francesco, adjusting his collar and smoothing his coat.
'I warned you,' retorted Tebaldo, watching him. 'And now I have warned you again,' he added. 'This is the second time. Are there no women in the world besides Aliandra Basili?'
'I knew her first,' objected the younger man, beginning to recover some courage.
'You knew her first? When she was a mere child in Randazzo,—when we went to her father about a lease, we both heard her singing,—but what has that to do with it? That was six years ago, and you have hardly seen her since.'
'How do you know?' asked Francesco, scornfully.
He had gradually edged past Tebaldo towards the open end of the passage.
'How do you know that I did not often see her alone before she went to Messina, and since then, too?' He smiled as he renewed the question.
'I do not know,' said Tebaldo, calmly. 'You are a coward. You are also a most accomplished liar. It is impossible to believe a word you say, good or bad. I should not believe you if you were dying, and if you swore upon the holy sacraments that you were telling me the truth.'
'Thank you,' answered Francesco, apparently unmoved by the insult. 'But you would probably believe Aliandra, would you not?'
'Why should I? She is only a woman.'
Tebaldo turned angrily as he spoke, and his eyelids drooped at the corners, like a vulture's.
'You two are not made to be believed,' he said, growing more cold, 'I sometimes forget, but you soon remind me of the fact again. You said distinctly this evening that you would go home with our mother—'
'So I did,' interrupted Francesco. 'I did not promise to stay there—'
'I will not argue with you—'
'No. It would be useless, as you are in the wrong. I am going to hear the act. Good night.'
Francesco walked quickly down the passage. He did not turn to look behind him, but it was not until he was at the back of the stage, groping his way amidst lumber and dust towards the other side, that he felt safe from any further violence.
Tebaldo had no intention of following. He stood quite still under the gaslight for a few seconds, and then opened the door of the dressing-room again. He knew that the maid was there alone.
'How long was my brother here before I came?' he asked sharply.
The woman was setting things in order, packing the tinsel-trimmed gown which the singer had worn in the previous scene. She looked up nervously, for she was afraid of Tebaldo.
'A moment, only a moment,' she answered, not pausing in her work, and speaking in a scared tone.
Tebaldo looked at her and saw that she was frightened. He was not in the humour to believe anyone just then, and after a moment's silence, he turned on his heel and went out.