The doctor mounted his mule and rode away. San Giacinto closed and barred the great gate himself before he went back into the court. He found Orsino in the midst of a discussion with the sergeant, regarding the same question of the disposal of the body.
'I know his family,' Orsino was saying. 'Some of them are friends of mine. He must be decently buried by a priest. I insist upon it.'
The sergeant repeated what the doctor had said, namely, that a public funeral would produce something like a popular demonstration.
'I should not care if it produced a revolution,' answered Orsino. 'I killed the man like a dog, not knowing who he was, but I will not have him buried like one. If you are afraid of the village, let them send their priest down here, dig a grave under the floor of the church, and bury him there. But he shall not be dropped into a hole like a dead rat without a blessing. Besides, it is not legal—there are all sorts of severe regulations—'
'There is one against burying any one within a church,' observed the sergeant. 'But the worst that could happen would be that you might have to pay a fine. It shall be as you please, signore. In the morning we will get a priest and a coffin, and bury him under the church. I have the doctor's certificate in my pocket.'
Orsino was satisfied, and went away to be alone again, not caring where. But San Giacinto and the carabineers proceeded to turn the great court into something like a camp. There were all sorts of offices, kitchens, bake-houses, oil-presses, and storerooms, which opened directly upon the paved space. The men collected old wood and kindling stuff to make a fire, and prepared to cook some of the provisions which San Giacinto had brought for the night, while he and the sergeant determined on the best positions for sentries.
Orsino wandered about the great rooms upstairs. They were half dismantled and much dilapidated, but not altogether unfurnished. Ferdinando had retired some days previously to the village and had taken what he needed for his own use, but had left the rest. There was a tolerably furnished room immediately above the great gate. Orsino opened the window wide, and leaned out, breathing the outer air with a certain sense of relief from oppression. Watching the swallows that darted down from under the eaves to the weed-grown lawn, and up again with meteor speed, and catching in his face the last reflections of the sun, which was sinking fast between two distant hills, he could almost believe that it had all been a bad dream. He could at least try to believe it for a little while.
But the sun went down quickly, though it still blazed full on the enormous snowy dome of Etna, opposite the window; and the chill of evening came on while it was yet day, and with it came back the memory of the coldly smiling, handsome face of dead Ferdinando Pagliuca, and the terrible suggestion of a likeness to Vittoria, which had struck at Orsino's heart when he had found him in the bushes, shot through the head. It all came back with a sudden, drowning rush that was overwhelming. He turned from the window, and, to occupy himself, he went and got his belongings and tried to make the room habitable. He knew that it was in a good position for the night, since it was not likely that he should sleep much, and he could watch the gate from the window, for his share of the defence.
As was perhaps to be expected, considering the precautions taken, the friends of Ferdinando Pagliuca gave no sign during the night. The carabineers, when they are actually present anywhere, impose respect, though their existence is forgotten as soon as they are obliged to move on.
Orsino lay down upon a dusty mattress in the room he had chosen. He had been down to the court again, where San Giacinto ate his supper from the soldier's improvised kitchen, by the light of a fire of brush and scraps of broken wood, which one of the men replenished from time to time. But Orsino was not hungry, and presently he had gone upstairs again. About the middle of the night, San Giacinto, carrying a lantern, opened his door, and found him reading by the light of a solitary candle.
'Has all been quiet on this side?' asked the big man.
'All quiet,' answered Orsino.
San Giacinto nodded, shut the door, and went off, knowing that the young man would rather be alone. An hour later, Orsino's book dropped from his hand, and he dozed a little, in a broken way. Outside, the waning moon had risen high above the shoulders of Etna, not a breath was stirring, and only the distant roar of the water came steadily up from the other side of the old monastery. Orsino dreamed strange, shapeless dreams of vast desolateness and empty darkness, in which he had no perception by sight, and heard only the unbroken rush of water far away. Then, in the extreme blackness of nothing, a dead face appeared, with wide and sightless eyes that stared at him, and he woke and turned upon his side with a shudder, to doze again and dream again, and wake again. It was a horrible night.
Towards morning the dream changed. In the darkness, together with the sub-bass of the torrent, a voice came to him, in a low, long-drawn lamentation. It was Vittoria's voice, and yet unlike hers. He could hear the words:
'Me l'hanno ammazzato! Me l'hanno ammazzato!'
It was Vittoria d'Oriani wailing over her brother's body. Orsino heard the words and the voice distinctly. She was outside his door. She had dragged the corpse up from the church in the dark, all the long, winding way, to bring it to him and reproach him, and to weep over it. He refused to allow himself to awake, as one sometimes can in a dream, for he knew, somehow, that he was not altogether dreaming. There was an element of reality in the two sounds of the river and the voice, interfering with each other, and the voice came irregularly, always repeating the same words, but the river roared on without a break. Then there was a sound of moaning without words, and then the words began again, always the same.
Orsino started and sat up, wide awake. He was sure that he was awake now, for he could see that the light outside the window was gray. The dawn was beginning to drink the moonlight out of the air. He heard the voice distinctly.
'Me l'hanno ammazzato!' it moaned, but much less loudly than he had heard it in his dream. 'They have killed him for me,' is the meaning of the words.
Orsino sprang from the bed, and opened the door, which was opposite the window. The long corridor was dark and quiet, and he turned back and opened the casement, and looked out.
The words were half spoken again, but suddenly ceased as he threw the window open. In the dim gray dawn he saw a muffled figure crouching on the stones by the gate, slowly swaying forwards and backwards. The wail began again, very soft and low, and as though the woman half feared to be heard and yet could not control herself.
Orsino watched her intently for a few moments, and then understood. It was some woman who had loved Ferdinando Pagliuca, and who came in the simple old way to mourn at the door of the house wherein he lay dead. Her head was covered with a black shawl, and her skirts were black, too, but her hands were clasped about her knees, and visible, and looked white in the dawn.
The young man drew back softly from the window, and sat down upon the edge of the bed. He, of all men, had no right to silence the woman. She did no harm, wailing for the dead man out there in the cold dawn. She was not the only one who was to mourn him on that day. In a few hours his sister would know, his mother, his brothers, and all the world besides, though the rest of the world mattered little enough to Orsino. But this woman's grief was a sort of foretaste of Vittoria's. She was but a peasant woman, perhaps, or at most a girl of the small farmers' class, but she had loved him, and would hate for ever the man who had killed him. How much more should the slayer be hated by the dead man's own flesh and blood!
The light grew less gray by quick degrees, and there were heavy footsteps in the corridor. Then came a knock at the door, and a trooper appeared in his forage cap.
'We have made the coffee, signore,' he said, on the threshold.
He held out a bright tin pannikin from which the steam rose in fragrant clouds. The physical impression of the aromatic smell was the first pleasant sensation which Orsino had experienced since he had pulled the trigger of his rifle on the previous afternoon. If we could but look at things as they are, we should see that there is neither love nor hate, neither joy nor grief, nor hope nor fear, that will not at last efface itself for a moment before hunger and thirst; so effectually can this dying body mask and screen the undying essence.
Orsino drank the hot coffee with keen physical delight, though the woman's wailing came up to his ears through the open window, and though he had known a moment earlier that the stealing dawn was the beginning of a day which might end in a broken heart.
But the trooper heard the voice, and went to the window and looked out, while Orsino drank.
'Ho, there!' he cried roughly. 'Will you go or not?' He turned to Orsino. 'She has been there since two o'clock,' he explained. 'We heard her through the closed gate.'
'Let her alone,' said Orsino authoritatively. 'She is only a woman, and can do no harm; and she has a right to her mourning, God knows.'
'There will be a hundred before the sun has been up an hour, signore,' answered the soldier. 'The people will collect about her, for they will come out of curiosity, from many miles away. It will be better to get rid of them as fast as they come.'
'You might let that poor woman in,' suggested Orsino. 'After all, I have killed her lover—she has a right to see his body.'
'As you wish, signore,' answered the trooper, taking the empty pannikin.
Orsino got up and looked out again, as the man went away. The girl had risen to her feet, and stood looking up to the window. Her shawl had fallen back upon her shoulders, and disclosed a young and dishevelled but beautiful head, of the Greek type, though the eyes were somewhat long and almond-shaped. There was no colour in the olive-pale cheeks, and little in the parted lips; and the hand that gathered the shawl to the bosom was singularly white. The regular features were set in a tragic mask of grief, such as one very rarely sees in the modern world.
When she saw Orsino, she suddenly raised both hands to him, like a suppliant of old.
'They have killed him!' she cried. 'They have killed my bridegroom! Let me see him! let me kiss him! Are they Christians, and will not let me see him?'
'You shall see him,' answered Orsino. 'I will let you in myself.'
'God will render it to you, signore. And God will render also to his murderer a bad death.'
She sat down upon the stones, thinking, perhaps, that it would be long before the gate was opened; and she began her low moan again.
'They have killed him! They have murdered him!'
But Orsino had already left the window and the room. He had understood clearly from her words and face that she was no light creature, for whom Ferdinando had conceived a passing fancy. He had meant to marry her, perhaps within a few days. There was in her face the high stamp of innocence, and her voice rang fearless and true. Ferdinando had never been like his brothers. He had meant to marry this girl, doubtless a small farmer's daughter, from her dress; and he would have lived happily with her, sinking, perhaps, to a lower social level, but morally rising far higher than his scheming brothers. Orsino had guessed from his dead face, and from what he had heard, that Ferdinando had been the best of the family; and in a semi-barbarous country like the interior of Sicily, the young Roman did not blame him overmuch for having tried to resist the new owners of his father's house when they came to take possession.
San Giacinto and the sergeant objected on principle to admitting the girl, but Orsino insisted, and at last opened the gate himself. She had covered her head and face again, and followed him swiftly and noiselessly across the court to the door of the church. As though by instinct she turned directly to her lover's body, where it lay before the side altar, and with a low wail like a wounded animal, she fell beside it, with clasped hands. Orsino left her there alone, closing the door softly, and came out into the court, where it was almost broad daylight. The men had drunk their coffee and were grooming their black chargers tethered to rusty rings in the wall. The old stables were between the court and the rampart. The two foot-carabineers were despatched to Santa Vittoria to get a coffin for the dead man and a priest to come and bury him.
From the church came every now and then the piteous echo of the girl's lamentations. Then there was a knocking at the gate, and someone called from without. One of the troopers looked out through the narrow slit in the stone, made just wide enough to let the barrel of a gun pass. Half a dozen peasants were outside, and the soldiers could see two more coming down the drive towards the house. He asked what they wanted.
'We wish to speak with the master,' said one, and two or three repeated the words.
They were the men who had brought the tools on the previous evening, with a number of others, the small tenants of the little estate. San Giacinto went and spoke with them, assuring them that he would be a better landlord than they had ever had, if they would treat him well, but that if he met with any treachery, he would send every man of them to the galleys for life. It was his way of making acquaintance, and they seemed to understand it.
While he was speaking a number of men and women appeared in the drive, headed by the two soldiers who had gone to the village. Close behind them, swaying with the walk of the woman who carried the load upon her head, a white deal coffin caught the morning light. Then more people, and always more, came in sight, up the drive. Amongst them walked a young priest in his short white 'cotta' over his shabby cassock, and beside him came a big boy bearing a silver basin with holy water, and the little broom for sprinkling it. The two trudged along in a business-like way, and all the people were talking loudly. It seemed to San Giacinto that half the population of the village must have turned out. He stepped back and called to the troopers to keep the gate, and prevent the crowd from entering. Then he waited outside. The people became silent as they came near, and he looked at them, scrutinising their faces. Some of the men had their guns slung over their shoulders, but many were only labourers and had none.
Many scowling glances were turned on San Giacinto as the crowd came up to the gate, and he began to anticipate trouble of some sort. The troopers had their rifles in their hands as they formed up behind him. The tenants of Camaldoli mixed with the crowd, evidently not wishing to identify themselves with their new landlord.
'What do you want?' asked San Giacinto, in a harsh, commanding voice.
The priest came close to him, and bowed and smiled, as though the occasion of meeting were a pleasant one. Then he stood aside a little, and a strapping woman who carried the coffin on her head marched in under the gate between the soldiers, who made way for her. And behind her came her husband, a crooked little carpenter, carrying a leathern bag from which protruded the worn and blackened handle of a big hammer. The third comer was stopped by the sergeant. He was a ghastly pale old man, with a three-days' beard on his pointed chin, and he was dressed in dingy black.
'Who are you?' asked the sergeant sharply.
'I am one without whom people are not buried,' answered the old man, in a cracked voice. 'You have a carpenter and a priest, but there is a third—I am he, the servant of the dead, who give no orders.'
The sergeant understood that the man was the parish undertaker, and let him pass also. Meanwhile San Giacinto repeated his question.
'What do you all want?' he asked in a thundering tone, for he was annoyed.
'If it please you, Signor Marchese,' said the priest, 'these, my parishioners, desire the body of Don Ferdinando Corleone, in order to bury it in holy ground, for he was beloved of many. Pray do not be angry, Excellency, for they come in peace, having heard that Don Ferdinando had been killed by an accident. Grant their request, which is a proper one, and they shall depart quickly. I answer for them.'
As he spoke the last words in a tone which all could hear, he turned to the crowd, as though for their assent.
'He answers for us,' said many of them, in a breath. 'Good, Don Niccola! You answer for us. We are Christians. We wish to bury Don Ferdinando properly.'
'I have not the slightest objection,' said San Giacinto. 'On the contrary, I respect your wish, and I only regret that I have not the means of doing more honour to your friend. You must attend to that. Be kind enough to wait here while the priest blesses the body.'
The priest and the boy with the holy water passed in, and the gate closed upon the crowd. While they had been talking, the carpenter and his wife had entered the court. Basili's man led them to the door of the church and opened it. The woman marched in with her swinging stride, and one hand on her hips, while the other steadied the deal coffin.
'Where is he?' she asked in a loud, good-natured voice, for the church seemed very dark after the morning light outside.
She was answered by a low cry from the steps of the side altar, where the unhappy girl lay half across her lover's body, looking round towards the door, in a new horror.
The woman uttered an exclamation of surprise, and then slowly swung her burden round so that she could see her husband.
'Help me, Ciccio,' she said, in a matter-of-fact way. 'They are always inconvenient things.'
The man held up his hands and took the foot, while his wife raised her hands also and shifted the weight towards him little by little, until she got hold of the head. The loose lid rattled as they set the thing down on the floor. Then the woman took the rolled towel on which she had carried the weight, from her head, undid it, wiped her brow with it, and looked at the girl in some perplexity.
'It is the apothecary's Concetta,' she said, suddenly recognising the white features in the gloom. 'Oh, poor child! poor child!' she cried, going forward quickly, while her husband took the lid from the coffin and began to fumble in his leathern bag for his nails.
As the woman approached the step, Concetta threw her arms wildly over her head, stiffened her limbs straight out, and rolled over and over upon the damp pavement, in one of those strange fainting fits which sometimes seize women in moments of intense grief. The carpenter's wife tried to lift her, and to bend her arms, so as to get hold of her; but the girl was as rigid as though she were in a cataleptic trance.
'Poor child! Poor Concetta!' exclaimed the carpenter's wife, softly.
Then, bending her broad back, she raised the girl up by main strength, getting first one arm round her and then the other, till she got her weight up and could carry her. Her crooked little husband paid no attention to her. Women were women's business at such times. The big woman got the girl out into the morning sunshine in the court, meeting the eccentric undertaker and the priest, who were talking together outside. San Giacinto came forward instantly, followed by Orsino, who had been wandering about the rampart over the river when the crowd had come. San Giacinto took the unconscious girl's body from the woman, with ease.
'Come,' he said, carrying her before him on his arms. 'Get some water.'
He entered the room where the men had slept on some straw and laid Concetta down, her arms still stiffened above her head. One of the troopers brought water in a pannikin. San Giacinto dashed the cold drops upon the white face, and the features quivered nervously.
'Take care of her,' he said to the woman. 'Who is she?'
'She is Concetta, the daughter of Don Atanasio, the apothecary. She was to marry Don Ferdinando next week. But now that they have killed him, she will marry someone else.'
'Poor girl!' exclaimed San Giacinto compassionately, and he turned and went out.
Orsino was standing by the door, looking in, and he had heard what the woman had said. It confirmed what he had guessed from the girl's own words. He wondered how it was possible that the action of one second could really cause such terrible trouble in the world.
From the open door of the church came the sound of the regular blows of a hammer. The work had been quickly done and the carpenter was nailing down the lid of the coffin. The priest, who had stayed in the early sunshine for warmth, hung a shabby little stole round his neck, and took the holy water basin and the little broom from the boy, and entered the church to bless the body before it was taken away.
As it was not advisable to let in the crowd, the six soldiers lifted the coffin and bore it out of the gate. Then the peasants laid it on a bier which had been brought after them and covered it with a rusty black pall. The priest walked before it, and began to recite the psalms for the dead. The women covered their heads, and some of the men uncovered theirs, and a few joined in the priest's monotonous recitations. A quarter of an hour later, San Giacinto, watching from the gate, saw the last of the people disappear up the drive. But the carpenter's wife had stayed with Concetta.
'It is a bad business,' said the old giant to himself, as he turned and went in.
The taking possession of Camaldoli had turned out much more difficult and dangerous than even San Giacinto had anticipated, for the catastrophe of Ferdinando Pagliuca's death had at once aroused the anger and revengeful resentment of the whole neighbourhood. He made up his mind that it would be necessary for himself or Orsino to return to Rome at once, both in order to see the Minister of the Interior, with a view to obtaining special protection from the government, and to see the Pagliuca family, in the hope of pacifying them.
The latter mission would not be an easy nor an agreeable one, and San Giacinto would gladly have undertaken it himself. On the other hand, he did not trust Orsino's wisdom in managing matters in Sicily. The young man was courageous and determined, but he had not the knowledge of the southern character which was indispensable. Moreover, he was not the real owner of the lands, and would not feel that he had authority to act independently in all cases. It was, therefore, decided that Orsino should go back to Rome at once, while San Giacinto remained at Camaldoli to get matters into a better shape.
It was a dreary journey for Orsino. He telegraphed that he was coming, found that there was no steamer from Messina, crossed to Reggio, and travelled all night and all the next day by the railway, reaching Rome at night, jaded and worn.
He found, as he had expected, that all Rome was talking of his adventure with the brigands, and of the death of Ferdinando Pagliuca, and of the probable consequences. But he learned to his surprise how Tebaldo had been heard to say at the club on the previous afternoon that Ferdinando was no relation of his, and that it was a mere coincidence of names.
'Nevertheless,' said Sant' Ilario, 'we all believe that you have killed his brother. Tebaldo Pagliuca has no mind to have it said that his brother was a brigand and died like a dog. He says he is not in Sicily, but left some time ago. As no one in Rome ever saw him, most people will accept the statement for the girl's sake, if not for the rest of the family.'
Orsino looked down thoughtfully while his father was speaking. He understood at once that the story being passably discreditable to the d'Oriani, he had better seem to fall in with their view of the case, by holding his peace when he could. His father and mother, as well as the old Prince, insisted upon hearing a detailed account of the affair in the woods, however, and he was obliged to tell them all that had happened, though he said nothing about the fancied resemblance of Ferdinando to Vittoria, and as little as possible about the way in which the people had carried off the man's body with a public demonstration of sorrow. After all, no one had told him that Ferdinando was the brother of Tebaldo. He had taken it for granted, and it was barely possible that he might have been mistaken.
'There may be others of the name,' he said, as he concluded his story.
His mother looked at him keenly. Half an hour later he was alone with her in her own sitting-room.
'Why did you say that there might be others of the name?' she asked gravely. 'Why did you wish to imply that the unfortunate man may not have been the brother of Don Tebaldo and Donna Vittoria?'
Orsino was silent for a moment. There was reproach in Corona's tone, for she herself had not the slightest doubt in the matter. He came and stood before her, for he was a truthful man.
'It seemed to me,' he said, 'that I might let him have the benefit of any doubt there may be, though I have none myself. The story will be a terrible injury to the family.'
'You are certainly not called upon to tell it to everyone,' said Corona. 'I only wished to know what you really thought.'
'I am sorry to say that I feel sure of the man's identity, mother. And I want you to help me,' he added suddenly. 'I wish to see Donna Vittoria alone. You can manage it.'
Corona did not answer at once, but looked long and earnestly at her eldest son.
'What is it, mother?' he asked, at last.
'It is a very terrible thing,' she answered slowly. 'You love the girl, you wish to marry her, and you have killed her brother. Is not that the truth?'
'Yes, that is the truth,' said Orsino. 'Help me to see her. No one else can.'
'Does anyone know? Did you speak about it to her mother, or her brothers, before you left? Does Ippolito know?'
'No one knows. Will you help me, mother?'
'I will do my best,' said Corona thoughtfully. 'Not that I wish you to marry into that family,' she added. 'They have a bad name.'
'But she is not like them. It is not her fault.'
'No, it is not her fault, and she has not their faults. But for her brothers—well, we need not talk of that. For the sake of what there has been between you two, already, you have a sort of right to see Vittoria.'
'I must see her.'
'I went there yesterday, after we read the news in the papers,' said Corona. 'Her mother was ill. Later your father came in and said he had seen Don Tebaldo at the club. You heard what he said. They mean to deny the relationship. In fact, they have done so. I can therefore propose to take Vittoria to drive to-morrow afternoon, and I can bring her here to tea, in my own sitting-room. Then you may come here and see her, and I will leave you alone for a little while. Yes—you have a right to see her and to defend yourself to her, and explain to her how you killed that poor man, not knowing who he was.'
'Thank you—you are very good to me. Mother—' he hesitated a moment—'if my father had killed your brother by accident, would you have married him?'
He fixed his eyes on Corona's. She was silent for a moment.
'Yes,' she answered presently. 'The love of an honest woman for an honest man can go farther than that.'
She turned her beautiful face from Orsino as she spoke, and her splendid eyes grew dreamy and soft, as she leaned back in her chair beside her writing-table. He watched her, and a wave of hope rose slowly to his heart. But all women were not like his mother.
Early on the following morning she wrote a note to Vittoria. The answer came back after a long time, and the man sent up word that he had been kept waiting three-quarters of an hour for it. It was written in a tremulous hand, and badly worded, but it said that Vittoria would be ready at the appointed time. Her mother, she added, was ill, but wished her to accept the Princess's invitation.
Vittoria had grown thin and pale, and there was a sort of haunted look in her young eyes as she sat beside Corona in the big carriage. Corona herself hesitated as to what she should say, for the girl was evidently in a condition to faint, or break down with tears, at any sudden shock. Yet it was necessary to tell her that Orsino was waiting for her, and it might be necessary also to use some persuasion in inducing her to meet him.
'My dear,' said Corona, after a little while, 'I want you to come home with me when we have had a little drive. Do you mind? We will have tea together in my little room.'
'Yes—of course—I should like it very much,' answered Vittoria.
'We shall not be quite alone,' Corona continued. 'I hope you will not mind.'
Corona Saracinesca had many good qualities, but she was not remarkably clever, and when she wished to be tactful she often found herself in conflict with the singular directness of her own character. At the same time, she feared to let the girl at her side see how much she knew. Vittoria looked so pale and nervous that she might faint. Corona had never fainted. The girl naturally supposed that Orsino was still in Sicily.
They were near the Porta Salaria, and there was a long stretch of lonely road between high walls, just beyond it. Corona waited till they had passed the gate.
'My dear,' she began again, taking Vittoria's hand kindly, 'do not be surprised at what I am going to tell you. My son Orsino—'
Vittoria started, and her hand shook in her companion's hold.
'Yes—my son Orsino has come back unexpectedly and wishes very much to see you.'
Vittoria leaned back suddenly and closed her eyes. Corona thought that the fainting fit had certainly come, and tried to put her arm round the slight young figure. But as she looked into Vittoria's face, she saw that the soft colour was suddenly blushing in her cheeks. In a moment her eyes opened again, and there was light in them for a moment.
'I did not know how you would take it,' said Corona, simply, 'but I see that you are glad.'
'For him—that he is safe,' answered the young girl, in a low voice. 'But—'
She stopped, and gradually the colour sank away from her face again, and her eyes grew heavy once more. The trouble was greater than the gladness.
'Will you see him, in my own room?' asked the elder woman, after a pause.
'Oh, yes—yes! Indeed I will—I must see him. How kind you are!'
Corona leaned forward and spoke to the footman at once, and the carriage turned back towards the city. She knew well enough how desperately hard it would be for Vittoria to wait for the meeting. She knew also, not by instinct of tact, but by a woman's inborn charity, that it would be kind of her to speak of other things now that she had said what was necessary, and not to force upon Vittoria the fact that Orsino had revealed his secret, still less to ask her any questions about her true relationship to Ferdinando Pagliuca, which might put her in the awkward position of contradicting Tebaldo's public statement. But as they swept down the crowded streets, amongst the many carriages, Vittoria looked round into Corona's face almost shyly, for she was very grateful.
'How good you are to me!' she exclaimed softly. 'I shall not forget it.'
Corona smiled, but said nothing, and ten minutes later the carriage thundered under the archway of the gate. Corona took Vittoria through the state apartments, where they were sure of meeting no one at that time, and into her bedroom by a door she seldom used. Then she pointed to another at the other side.
'That is the way to my sitting-room, my dear,' she said. 'Orsino is there alone.'
With a sudden impulse she kissed her on both cheeks and pushed her towards the door.
Orsino heard the door of his mother's bedroom open, and rose to his feet, expecting to see Corona. He started as Vittoria entered, and he touched the writing-table with his hand as though he were unsteady. The young girl came forward towards him quickly, and the colour rose visibly in her face while she crossed the little room. Orsino was white and did not hold out his hand, not knowing what to expect, for it was the hand that had killed her brother but two days ago.
Vittoria had not thought of what she should do or say, for it had been impossible to think. But as she came near, both her hands went out instinctively to touch him. Almost instinctively, too, he drew back from her touch a little. But she did not see the movement, and her eyes sought his as she laid her fingers lightly upon his shoulders and looked up to him. Then the sadness in his face, that had been almost like fear of her, relaxed toward a change, and his eyes opened wide in a sort of hesitating surprise. Two words, low and earnest, trembled upon Vittoria's lips.
'Thank God!'
In an instant he knew that she loved him in spite of all. Yet, arguing against his senses that it was impossible, he would not take her at her word. He took both her hands from his shoulders and held them, so that they crossed.
'Was he really your brother?' he asked slowly.
'Yes,' she answered faintly, and looked down.
Perhaps it seemed to her that she should be ashamed of forgiving, before he had said one word of defence or uttered one expression of sorrow for what he had done. But she loved him, and since she had been a little child she had not seen her brother Ferdinando half a dozen times. It was true that when she had seen him she had been drawn to him, as she was not drawn to the two that were left, for he had not been like the others. She knew that she should have trusted Ferdinando if she had known him better.
Orsino began his defence.
'We were fired upon several times,' he said. Her hands started in his as she thought of his danger. 'I saw a man's coat moving in the brush,' he continued, 'and I aimed at it. I never saw the man's face till we found him lying dead. It was not an accident, for bullets cut the trees overhead and struck the carriage.' Again her hands quivered. 'It was a fight, and I meant to kill the man. But I could not see his face.'
She did not speak for a moment. Then, for the first time, she shrank a little, and withdrew her hands from his.
'I know—yes—it is terrible,' she said in broken tones; and she glanced at him, and looked down again. 'Do not speak of it,' she added suddenly, and she was surprised at her own words.
It was the woman's impulse to dissociate the man she loved from the deed, for which she could not but feel horror. She would have given the world to sit down beside him and talk of other things. But he wished the situation to be cleared for ever, as any courageous man would.
'I must speak of it,' he answered. 'Perhaps we shall never have the chance again—'
'Never? What do you mean?' she asked quickly. 'Why not?'
'You may forgive me,' he answered earnestly. 'You know that I would have let him shoot me ten times over rather than have hurt you—'
'Orsino—' She touched his arm nervously, trying to stop him.
'Yes—I wish I were in his grave to-day! You may forgive, but you cannot forget—how can you?'
'How? If—if you still love me, I can forget—'
Orsino's eyes were suddenly moist. It seemed as though something broke, and let in the light.
'I shall always love you,' he said simply; as men sometimes do when they are very much in earnest.
'And I—'
She did not finish the sentence in words, but her hand and face said the rest.
'Sit down,' she said, after a little silence.
They went to a little sofa and sat down together, opposite the window.
'Do you think that anything you could do could make me not love you?' she asked, looking into his face. 'Are you surprised? Did you think that I should turn upon you and accuse you of my brother's death, and say that I hated you? You should not have judged me so—it was unkind!'
'It has all been so horrible that I did not know what to expect,' he said. 'I have not been able to think sensibly until now. And even now—no, I have not judged you, as you call it, dear. But I expected that you would judge me, as God knows you have the right.'
'Why should I judge you?' asked Vittoria, softly and lovingly. 'If you had lain in wait for him and killed him treacherously, as he meant to kill you, it would have been different. If he had killed you, as he was there to kill you—as he might have killed you if you had not been first—I—well, I am only a girl, but even these little hands would have had some strength! But as it is, God willed it. Whom shall I judge? God? That would be wrong. God protected you, and my brother died in his treachery. Do you think that if I had been there, and had been a man, and the guns firing, and the bullets flying, I should not have done as you did, and shot my own brother? It would have been much more horrible even than it is, but of course I should have done it. Then why are you in such distress? Why did you think that I should not love you any more?'
'I did not dare to think it,' answered Orsino.
'You see, as I said, God willed it—not you. You were but the instrument, unconscious and innocent. It is only a little child that will strike the senseless thing that hurts it.'
'You are eloquent, darling. You will make me think as you do.'
'I wish you would, indeed I wish you would! I am sorry, I am grieved, I shall mourn poor Ferdinando, though I scarcely knew him. But you—I shall love you always, and for me, as I see it, you were no more the willing cause of his death than the senseless gun you held in your hand. Do you believe me?'
She took his hand again, as though to feel that he understood. And understanding, he drew her close to him and kissed her young eyes, as he had done that first time, out on the bridge over the street.
'You have my life,' he said tenderly. 'I give you my life and soul, dear.'
She put up her face suddenly, and kissed his cheek, and instantly the colour filled her own, and she shrank back, and spoke in a different tone.
'We will put away that dreadful thing,' she said, drawing a little towards her own end of the sofa. 'We will never speak of it again, for you understand.'
'But your mother, your brothers,' answered Orsino. 'What of them? I hear that they do not acknowledge—' he stopped, puzzled as to how he should speak.
'My mother is ill with grief, for Ferdinando was her favourite. But Tebaldo and Francesco have determined that they will act as though he were no relation of ours. They say that it would ruin us all to have it said that our brother had been with the brigands. That is true, is it not?'
'It would be a great injury to you,' answered Orsino.
'Yes. That is what they say. And Tebaldo will not let us wear mourning, for fear that people should not believe what he says. This morning when the Princess's note came, Tebaldo insisted that I should accept, but my mother said that I should not come to the house. They had a long discussion, and she submitted at last. What can she do? He rules everybody—and he is bad, bad in his heart, bad in his soul! Francesco is only weak, but Tebaldo is bad. Beware of him, for though he says that Ferdinando was not his brother, he will not forgive you. But you will not go back to Sicily?'
'Yes, I must go. I cannot leave San Giacinto alone, since I have created so much trouble.'
'Since poor Ferdinando is dead, you will be safer—I mean—' she hesitated. 'Orsino!' she suddenly exclaimed, 'I knew that he would try to kill you—that is why I wanted to keep you here. I did not dare tell you—but I begged so hard—I thought that for my sake, perhaps, you would not go. Tebaldo would kill me if he knew that I were telling you the truth now. He knew that Ferdinando had friends among the outlaws, and that he sometimes lived with them for weeks. And Ferdinando wrote to Tebaldo, and warned him that although he had signed the deed, no one should ever enter the gate of Camaldoli while he was alive. And no one did, for he died. But the Romans would think that he was a common brigand; and I suppose that Tebaldo is right, for it would injure us very much. But between you and me there must be nothing but the truth, so I have told you all. And now beware of Tebaldo; for, in spite of what he says, he will some day try to avenge his brother.'
'I understand it all much better now,' said Orsino, thoughtfully. 'I am glad you have told me. But the question is, whether your mother and your brothers will ever consent to our marriage, Vittoria. That is what I want to know.'
'My mother—never! Tebaldo might, for interest. He is very scheming. But my mother will never consent. She will never see you again, if she can help it.'
'What are we to do?' asked Orsino, speaking rather to himself than to Vittoria.
'I do not know,' she answered, in a tone of perplexity. 'We must wait, I suppose. Perhaps she will change, and see it all differently. We can afford to wait—we are young. We love each other, and we can meet. Is it so hard to wait awhile before being married?'
'Yes,' said Orsino. 'It is hard to wait for you.'
'I will do anything you like,' answered Vittoria. 'Only wait a little while, and see whether my mother does not change. Only a little while!'
'We must, I suppose,' said Orsino, reluctantly. 'But I do not see why your mother should not always think of me as she does to-day. I can do nothing to improve matters.'
'Let us be satisfied with to-day,' replied Vittoria, rather anxiously, and as though to break off the conversation. 'I was miserably unhappy this evening, and I thought you were in Sicily; and instead, we have met. It is enough for one day—it is a thousand times more than I had hoped.'
'Or I,' said Orsino, bending down and kissing her hand more than once.
The handle of Corona's door turned very audibly just then, and a moment later the Princess entered the room. Without seeming to scrutinise the faces of the two, she understood at a glance that Vittoria had accepted the tragic situation, as she herself would have done; and that if there had been any discussion, it was over.
Vittoria coloured a little, when she met Corona's eyes, realising how the older woman had, as it were, arranged a lovers' meeting for her. But Corona herself did not know whether to be glad or sorry for what had happened.
Nor was it easy for anyone to foresee the consequences of the present situation. It was only too clear that the young people loved each other with all their hearts; and Corona herself was very fond of Vittoria, and believed her to be quite unlike her family. Yet at best she was an exception in a race that had a bad name; and Corona knew how her husband and his father would oppose the marriage, even though she herself should consent to it. She guessed, too, that Vittoria's mother would refuse to hear of it. Altogether Orsino had fallen in love very unfortunately, and Corona could see no possible happy termination to the affair.
Therefore, against her own nature and her affection for her son, she was conscious of a certain disappointment when she saw that the love between the two was undiminished, even by the terrible catastrophe of Ferdinando's death. It would have been so much simpler if Vittoria had bidden goodbye for ever to the man who had killed her brother.
Ippolito Saracinesca was, perhaps, of all the household the most glad to see his favourite brother at home again so soon. He missed the companionship which had always been a large element in his life.
'I shall go with you when you return,' he said, sitting on the edge of Orsino's table, and swinging his priestly legs in an undignified fashion.
'Are you in earnest?' asked Orsino, with a laugh.
'Yes. Why not? You say that there is a church on the place, or a chapel. I will say mass there for the household on Sundays, and keep you company on week-days. You will be lonely when San Giacinto comes back. Besides, after what has happened, I hate to think that you are down there alone among strangers.'
'Have you nothing to keep you in Rome?' asked Orsino, much tempted by the offer.
'Nothing in the world.'
'There will be no piano at Camaldoli.'
'I suppose there is an organ in your church, is there not?'
'No. There is probably one in the church of Santa Vittoria. You could go and play on it.'
'How far is it?'
'Three-quarters of a mile, I was told.'
'As far as from the Piazza di Venezia to the Piazza del Popolo.'
'Less. That is a mile, they always used to say, when the loose horses ran the race in carnival.'
'It would be just a pleasant walk, then,' said Ippolito, already planning his future occupations at Camaldoli. 'I could go over in the afternoon, when the church is closed, and play on the organ an hour or two whenever I pleased.'
'I have no idea what sort of thing the Santa Vittoria organ will turn out to be,' answered Orsino. 'It is probably falling to pieces, and has not been tuned since the beginning of the century.'
'I will mend it and tune it,' said Ippolito, confidently.
'You?' Orsino looked at his brother's delicate hands and laughed.
'Of course. Every musician knows something about the instruments he plays. I know how an organ is tuned, and I understand the mechanism. The old-fashioned ones are simple things enough. When a note goes wrong you can generally mend the tracker with a bit of wire, or a stick, as the case may be—or if it is the wind chest—'
'It is not of the slightest use to talk to me about that sort of thing,' interrupted Orsino, 'for I understand nothing about organs, nor about music either, for that matter.'
'I will take some tools with me, and some kid, and a supply of fine glue,' said Ippolito, still full of his idea. 'How about the rooms? Is there any decent furniture?'
Orsino gave him a general idea of the state of Camaldoli, not calculated to encourage him in his intention, but the young priest was both very fond of his brother, and he was in love with the novelty of his idea.
'I daresay that they have not too many priests in that part of the country,' he said. 'I may be of some use.'
'We got one without difficulty to bury that poor man,' answered Orsino. 'But you may be right. You may be the means of redeeming Sicily.' He laughed.
He was, indeed, inclined to laugh rather unexpectedly, since his interview with Vittoria. He was far too manly and strong to be saddened for any length of time by the fact of having taken the life of a man who had, undoubtedly, attempted to murder him by stealth. He had been oppressed by the certainty that the deed had raised an insurmountable barrier between Vittoria and himself. Since he had found that he had been mistaken, he was frankly glad that he had killed Ferdinando Pagliuca, for the very plain reason that if he had not done so, Ferdinando Pagliuca would have certainly killed him, or San Giacinto, or both. He had no more mawkish sentiment about the horror of shedding human blood than had embarrassed his own forefathers in wilder times. If men turned brigands and dug pitfalls, and tried to murder honest folk by treachery, they deserved to be killed; and though the first impression he had received, when he had been sure that he had killed his man, had been painful, because he was young and inexperienced in actual fighting, he now realised that but for the relationship of the dead man, it had not only been excusable, but wise, to shoot him like a wild beast. His own people thought so too.
It was natural, therefore, that his spirits should rise after his interview with Vittoria. On that day he had already been busy in carrying out San Giacinto's directions, and on the following morning he went to work with increased energy.
Corona watched him when they met, and the presentiment of evil which had seized her when he had first spoken of going to Sicily became more oppressive. She told herself that the worst had happened which could happen, but she answered herself with old tales of Sicilian revenge after long-nourished hatred. She was shocked when Ippolito announced his intention of accompanying his brother. Ippolito was almost indispensable to her. The old Prince used to tell her that her priest son answered the purpose of a daughter with none of the latter's disadvantages, at which Ippolito himself was the first to laugh good-naturedly, being well aware that he had as good stuff in him as his rough-cast brothers. But Corona really loved him more as a daughter than a son, and because he was less strong than the others, she was not so easily persuaded that he was safe when he was away from her, and she half resented the old gentleman's jest. She especially dreaded anything like physical exposure or physical danger for him. She was a brave and strong woman in almost every way, and would have sent her other three sons out to fight for their country or their honour without fear or hesitation. But Ippolito was different. Orsino might face the brigands if he chose. She could be momentarily anxious about him, but the belief prevailed with her that he could help himself and would come back safe and sound. One of the reasons, an unacknowledged one, why she had been so ready to let Ippolito follow his inclination for the church, was that priests are less exposed to all sorts of danger than other men. San Giacinto's Sicilian schemes suddenly seemed to her quite mad since Ippolito wished to accompany his brother and share in any danger which might present itself.
But Ippolito was one of those gently obstinate persons whom it is hard to move and almost impossible to stop when they are moving. He had made up his mind that he would go to Camaldoli, and he met his mother's objections with gentle but quite unanswerable arguments.
Had there ever been an instance of a priest being attacked by brigands? Corona was obliged to admit that she could remember none. Was he, Ippolito, accomplishing anything in the world, so long as he stayed quietly in Rome? Might he not do some good in the half-civilised country about Camaldoli and Santa Vittoria? He could at least try, and would. There was no answer to this either. Was not Orsino, who was melancholic by nature, sure to be wretchedly lonely down there after San Giacinto left? This was undoubtedly true.
'But the malaria,' Corona objected at last. 'There is fever there, all summer, I am sure. You are not so strong as Orsino. You will catch it.'
'I am much stronger than anybody supposes,' answered Ippolito. 'And if I were not, it is not always the strong people that escape the fever. Besides, there can be none before June or July, and Orsino does not expect to stay all summer.'
He had his way, of course, and made his preparations. Orsino was glad for his own sake, and he also believed that the change of existence would do his brother good. He himself was not present when these discussions took place. Ippolito told him about them.
Orsino wished to see Vittoria again before leaving Rome, but Corona refused to help him any further.
'I cannot,' she said. 'You had a right to see her that once. At least, I thought so. It seemed to be a sort of moral right. But I cannot arrange meetings for you. I cannot put myself in such a position towards that family. One may do in a desperate situation what one would absolutely refuse to do every day and in ordinary circumstances.'
'Going away, not knowing when I may come back, does not strike me as an ordinary circumstance,' said Orsino, discontentedly.
'You must see that for me to cheat Vittoria's mother and brothers by bringing her here to see you secretly, is to sacrifice all idea of dignity,' answered Corona.
'I had not looked at it in that light, nor called it by that name.'
'But I had, and I do. I am perfectly frank with you, and I always have been. I like the girl very much, but I do not wish you to marry her on account of her family. It is one thing to object to a marriage on the score of birth or fortune. You know that I should not, though I hope you will marry in your own class. Happiness is, perhaps, independent of the details of taste which make up daily life, but it runs on them, as a train runs on rails—and if a bad jolting is not unhappiness, it is certainly discomfort.'
'You are wise, mother. I never doubted that. But this is different—'
'Very different. That is what I meant to say. There would, perhaps, be no question of that sort of moral discomfort with Vittoria; she has been well brought up in a convent of ladies, like most of the young girls you meet in the world, like me, like all the rest of us. It is different. It is her family—they are impossible, not socially, for they are as good as anybody in the way of descent. Bianca Campodonico married Vittoria's uncle, and no one thought it a bad match until it turned out badly. But that is just it. They are all people who turn out badly. Tebaldo Pagliuca has the face of a criminal, and his brother makes one think of a satyr. Their mother is a nonentity and does not count. Vittoria is charming. I suppose she is like someone on her mother's side, for she has not the smallest resemblance to any of the others. But all the charm in the world will not compensate you for the rest of them. And now you have had the frightful misfortune to kill their brother. Did you never hear of a vendetta? The southern people are revengeful. The Corleone will never acknowledge to the world that Ferdinando was one of them, but they will not forget it, against you and yours, and your children. I meet those young men in the street, and they bow as though nothing had happened, but I know well enough that if they could destroy every one of us, they would. Can I put myself in the position of cheating such people by bringing Vittoria here to see you secretly? It is impossible. You must see it yourself.'
'Yes,' answered Orsino. 'I suppose I must admit it. It would be undignified.'
'Yes, very. The word is not strong enough. You must help yourself. I do not propose any solution of the difficulty. You love the girl. Heaven forbid that I should stand in the way of honest love between honest man and woman. But frankly, I wish that you did not love her, and that she did not love you. And I cannot help you any more, because I will not humiliate myself to deceive people who hate me, and you, and all of us, even to our name.'
'Do you think they do? Would they not be glad to see Vittoria married to me? After all, I am a great match for a ruined family's only daughter, and if Tebaldo Pagliuca is anything, he is grasping, I am sure.'
'Yes, but he is more revengeful than grasping, and more cunning than revengeful—a dangerous enemy. That is why I hate to see Ippolito go with you to the south. Some harm will come to him, I am sure. The Corleone have the whole country with them.'
'I will answer for him,' said Orsino, smiling. 'Nothing shall happen to him.'
'How can you answer for him? How can you pledge yourself that he shall be safe? It is impossible. You cannot spend your life in protecting him.'
'I can provide people who will,' answered the young man. 'But you are wrong to be so timid about him. No one ever touches a priest, in the first place, and before he has been there a fortnight, all the people will like him, as everybody always does. It is impossible not to like Ippolito. Besides, Tebaldo Pagliuca has no reason for going to Sicily now that the place is sold. Why in the world should he go? Little by little we shall gain influence there, and before long we shall be much more popular than the Corleone ever were. San Giacinto has written to me already. He says that everything is perfectly quiet already,—that was twenty-four hours after I left,—that he had twenty men from the village at work on the house, making repairs, and that they worked cheerfully and seemed to like his way of doing things. Since Ferdinando is dead there is no one to lead an opposition. They are all very poor and very glad to earn money.'
'It may be as you say,' said Corona, only partially reassured. 'I do not understand the condition of life there, of course, and I know that when you promise to answer for Ippolito you are in earnest, and will keep your word. But I am anxious—very anxious.'
'I am sorry, mother,' replied Orsino. 'I am very sorry. But you will soon see that you have no reason to be anxious. That is all I can say. I will answer for him with my life.'
'That is a mere phrase, Orsino,' said Corona, gravely, 'like a great many things one says when one is very much in earnest. If anything happened to him, your life would be still more precious to me than it is, if that were possible. You all think that because I am often anxious about him, he is my favourite. You do not understand me, any of you. I love you all equally, but I am not equally anxious about you all, and my love shows itself most for the one who seems the least strong and able to fight the world.'
'For that matter, mother, Ippolito is as able to fight his own battles as the strongest of us. He is obstinate to a degree hardly anyone can understand. He has the quiet, sound, uncompromising obstinacy of the Christian martyrs. People who have that sort of character are not weak, and they are generally very well able to take care of themselves.'
'Yes, I know he is obstinate. That is, when he insists upon going with you.'
Corona was very far from being satisfied, and Orsino felt that in spite of what she had said she was in reality laying upon him the responsibility for his brother's safety. He himself felt no anxiety on that score, however. In Rome, many hundreds of miles away from Camaldoli, even the things which had really happened during his brief stay in Sicily got an air of improbability and distance which made further complications of the same sort seem almost impossible. Besides, he had the promise of the Minister of the Interior that a company of infantry should shortly be quartered at Santa Vittoria, which would materially increase the safety of the whole neighbourhood.
Orsino's principal preoccupation was to see Vittoria again, alone, before he left. In the hope of meeting her he went to a garden party, and in the evening to two houses where she had gone frequently during the winter with her mother. But she did not appear. Her mother was ill, and Vittoria stayed at home with her. Her brothers, on the contrary, were everywhere, always smiling and apparently well satisfied with the world.
It was said that Tebaldo was trying to marry an American heiress, and Orsino twice saw him talking with the young stranger, who was reported to have untold millions, and was travelling with an aunt, who seemed to have as many more of her own. He looked at the girl without much curiosity, for the type has become familiar in Europe of late years.
Miss Lizzie Slayback—for that was her name—was undeniably pretty, though emphatically not beautiful. She was refined in appearance, too, but not distinguished. One could not have said that she was 'nobody,' as the phrase goes, yet no one would have said, at first sight, that she was 'somebody.' Yet she had an individuality of her own, which was particularly apparent in her present surroundings, a sort of national individuality, which contrasted with the extremely denationalised appearance and manner of Roman society. For the Romans of the great houses have for generations intermarried with foreigners from all parts of Europe, until such strongly Latin types as the Saracinesca are rare.
Miss Slayback was neither tall nor short, and she had that sort of generally satisfactory figure which has no particular faults and which is extremely easy to dress well. Her feet were exquisite, her hands small, but not pretty. She had beautiful teeth, but all her features lacked modelling, though they were all in very good proportion. Her head was of a good shape, and her hair was of a glossy brown, and either waved naturally or was made to wave by some very skilful hand. She had dark blue eyes with strong dark lashes, which atoned in a measure for a certain uninteresting flatness and absence of character about the brows and temples, and especially below the eyes themselves and at the angles, where lies a principal seat of facial expression. She spoke French fluently, but with a limited and uninteresting vocabulary, so that she often made exactly the same remarks about very different subjects. Yet her point of view being quite different from that of Romans, they listened to what she said with surprise, and sometimes with interest.
Her aunt was not really her aunt, but her uncle's wife, Mrs. Benjamin Slayback, whose maiden name had been Charlotte Lauderdale—a fact which meant a great deal in New York and nothing at all in Rome. She was an ambitious woman, well born and well educated, and her husband had been a member of Congress, and was now a senator for Nevada. He was fabulously rich, and his wife, who had married him for his money, having been brought up poor, had lately inherited a vast fortune of her own. Miss Lizzie Slayback was the only daughter of Senator Slayback's elder brother.
Orsino was told a great many of these facts, and they did not interest him in the least, for he had never thought of marrying a foreign heiress. But he was quite sure from the first that Tebaldo had made up his mind to get the girl if he could. The Slaybacks had been in Rome about a month, but Orsino had not chanced to see them, and did not know how long Tebaldo might have known them. It was said that they did not mean to stay much longer, and Tebaldo was doing his best to make good his running in the short time that remained.
It chanced that the first time Orsino came face to face with Tebaldo was when the latter had just been talking with Miss Slayback and was flattering himself that he had made an unusually good impression upon her. He was, therefore, in a singularly good humour, for a man whose temper was rarely good and was often very bad indeed. The two men met in a crowded room. Without hesitation Tebaldo held out his hand cordially to Orsino.
'I am very glad to see you safely back,' he said, with a great appearance of frankness. 'You are the hero of the hour, you know.'
For a moment even Orsino was confused by the man's easy manner. Even the eyes did not betray resentment. He said something by way of greeting.
'I have had some difficulty in making out who the brigand was whom you shot,' continued Tebaldo. 'It is an odd coincidence. We think it must have been one of the Pagliuca di Bauso. There is a distant branch of the family—rather down in the world, I believe—it must have been one of them.'
'I am glad it was no nearer relation,' answered Orsino, not knowing what to say.
'No near relative of mine would have been likely to be in such company,' answered the Sicilian, rather stiffly, for he was a good actor when not angry.
'No—of course not—I did not mean to suggest such a thing. It was an odd coincidence, of course.' Orsino tried not to look incredulous.
Tebaldo was about to pass on, when an idea presented itself to Orsino's mind, of which he had not thought before now. Slow men sometimes make up their minds suddenly, and not having the experience of habitually acting upon impulses, they are much more apt to make mistakes, on the rare occasions when they are carried away by an idea, and do so. It seemed to him that if he were ever to speak to either of Vittoria's brothers about marrying her, this was the moment to do so. It would be impossible for Tebaldo, in an instant, to deny what he had just now said, and it would be hard for him to find a pretext for refusing to give his sister to such a man. The whole thing might be carried through by a surprise, and Orsino would take the consequences afterwards, and laugh at them, if he were once safely married.
Tebaldo had already turned away to speak to someone else, and Orsino went after him and called him back.
'There is a matter about which I should like to speak to you, Don Tebaldo,' he said. 'Can we get out of this crowd?'
Tebaldo looked at him quickly and sharply, before he answered by a nod. The two men moved away together to the outer rooms, of which there were three or four, stiffly furnished with pier tables and high-backed gilt chairs, as in most old Roman houses. When they were alone, Orsino stopped.
'It is an important matter,' he said slowly. 'I wish to speak with you, as being the head of your family.'
'Yes,' answered Tebaldo, and the lids drooped, vulture-like, at the corners of his eyes, as he met Orsino's look steadily. 'By all means. We shall not be interrupted here. I am at your service.'
'I wish to marry your sister, and I desire your consent,' said Orsino. 'That is the whole matter.'
It would have been impossible to guess from the Sicilian's face whether he had ever anticipated such a proposition or not. There was absolutely no change in his expression.
'My sister is a very charming and desirable young girl,' he said rather formally. 'As there seems to be a good deal of liberty allowed to young girls in Rome, as compared with Sicily, you will certainly pardon me if I ask whether you have good reason to suppose that she prefers you in any way.'
'I have good reason for supposing so,' answered Orsino, but he felt the blood rising to his face as he spoke, for he did not like to answer such a question.
'I congratulate you,' said Tebaldo, smiling a little, but not pleasantly. 'Personally, I should also congratulate myself on the prospect of having such a brother-in-law. I presume you are aware that my sister has no dowry. We were ruined by my uncle Corleone.'
'It is a matter of perfect indifference,' replied Orsino.
'You are generous. I presume that you have inherited some private fortune of your own, have you not?'