Chapter 10

"Oh, well, until she sends me away, or leaves herself," said he, "and so my fool's paradise achieves its inevitable end."

Lady Blanchemain laughed--a long, quiet laugh of amused contentment.

"Come in to luncheon," she said, putting her soft white hand upon his arm, "and tell me all about it." And when they were established at her table, a round table, gay with flowers, in a window at the far end of the cool, terazza-paved, stucco-columned dining-room of the Hotel Victoria, "Why do you call it a fool's paradise?" she asked.

"Well, you see, I'm in love," said he.

"You really are?" she doubted, with sprightliness, looking gleeful.

"All too really," he assured her, in a sinking voice.

"What an old witch I was!" mused she, with satisfaction. "Accept my heart-felt felicitations." She beamed upon him.

"I should prefer your condolences," said he, in a voice from the depths.

"_Allons donc!_ Cheer up," laughed she, dallying with her bliss. "Men have died, and worms have eaten them, but not for love."

"I wonder," said John. "That is a statement, it seems to me, which would be the better for some proving."

"At all events," said she, "you, for one, are not dead yet."

"No," admitted he; "though I could almost wish I was."

"Do you mean to say she has definitely rejected you?" she demanded, alarmed.

"Fortune has spared her that necessity," said John. "I haven't asked her, and I never shall. I haven't any money."

"Pooh! Is that all?" scoffed her ladyship, relieved. "You have prospects."

"Remote ones--the remoter the better. I won't count on dead men's shoes," said John.

"What is it your little fortune-teller at the Castle calls you?" asked Lady Blanchemain, shrewdly, her dark old eyebrows up.

"She calls me _lucus a non lucendo_," was John's quick riposte; and the lady laughed.

But in a moment she pulled a straight face. "I seriously counsel you to have more faith," she said. "Go home and ask her to marry you; and if she accepts,--you'll see. Money will come. Besides, your rank and your prospective rank are assets which you err in not adding to the balance. Go home, and propose to her."

"'Twould do no good," said John, dejectedly. "She regards me with imperturbable indifference. I've made the fieriest avowals to her, and she's never turned a hair."

Lady Blanchemain looked bewildered. "You've made avowals--?" she falteringly echoed.

"I should rather think so," John affirmed. "Indirect ones, of course, and I hope inoffensive, but fiery as live coals. In the third person, you know. I've given her two and two; she has, you may be sure, enough skill in mathematics to put 'em together."

"And she never turned a hair?" the lady marvelled.

"She jeered at me, she mocked me, she laughed and rode away," said he.

"She's probably in love with you," said Lady Blanchemain. "If a woman will listen, if a woman will laugh! If you don't propose to her now, having ensnared her young affections, you'll be something worse than the wicked nobleman of song and story."

"Oh, well," John responded, conciliatory, "I dare say some of these days a proposal will slip out when I least intend it. So I shall have done the honourable thing--and I'm sure I can trust her to play fair and say me nay."

Lady Blanchemain slowly shook her head. "I'm glad you're not _my_ lover," she devoutly murmured, plying her fan.

"Oh, but I am," cried John, with a bow, and an admiring flash of the eyes.

Her soft old face lighted up; then it took on an expression of resolution, and she set her strong old jaws.

"In that case," she remarked, "you will have the less reluctance in granting a favour I'm about to ask you."

"What's the favour?" said John, in a tone of readiness.

"I want you to buy a pig in a poke," said she.

"Oh?" questioned he.

"Yes," said she. "I want you to make me a promise blindfold. I want you to promise in the dark that you will do something. What it is that you're to do you're not to know till the time comes. Will you promise?"

"Dearest lady," said the trustful young man, "I'm perfectly confident that you would never ask me to do anything that I couldn't do with profit to myself. Buy a pig in a poke? From you, without a moment's hesitation. Of course I promise."

"Bravo, bravo," applauded Lady Blanchemain, glowing at her easy triumph. "In a few days you'll receive a letter. That will tell you what it is you're pledged to. And now, to reward you, come with me to my sitting-room, and I will make you a little present."

When they had reached her sitting-room (dim and cool, with its half-drawn blinds and the straw-coloured linen covers of its furniture), she put into his hands a small case of shagreen, small and hard, and at the edges white with age.

"Go to the window and see what's in it," she said.

And obeying, "By Jove, what a stunner!" he exclaimed. The case contained a ring, a light circle of gold, set with a ruby, surrounded by a row of diamonds,--for my part, I think the most beautiful ruby I have ever seen. It was as big as a hazel-nut, or almost; it was cut, with innumerable facets, in the shape of a heart; and it quivered and burned, and flowed and rippled, liquidly, with the purest, limpidest red fire.

"'Tis the spirit of a rose, distilled and crystallized," said Lady Blanchemain.

"'Tis a drop of liquid light," said John. "But why do you give it to me? I can't wear it. I don't think I ought to accept it."

"Nobody asks you to wear it," said Lady Blanchemain. "It's a woman's ring, of course. But as for accepting it, you need have no scruples. It's an old Blanchemain gem, that was in the family a hundred years before I came into it. It's properly an heirloom, and you're the heir. I give it to you for a purpose. Should you ever become engaged, I desire you to placcit upon the finger of the adventurous woman."

IV

Under a gnarled old olive, by the river's brim, Annunziata sat on the turf, head bowed, so that her curls fell in a tangle all about her cheeks, and gazed fixedly into the green waters, the laughing, dancing, purling waters, green, and, where the sun reached them, shot with seams and cleavages of light, like fluorspar. In the sun-flecked, shadow-dappled grass near by, violets tried to hide themselves, but were betrayed by their truant sweetness. The waters purled, a light breeze rustled the olive-leaves, and birds were singing loud and wild, as birds will after rain.

Maria Dolores, coming down the path that followed the river's windings, stood for a minute, and watched her small friend without speaking. But at last she called out, "_Ciao_, Annunziata. Are you dreaming dreams and seeing visions?"

Annunziata started and looked up. "Sh-h!" she whispered, with an admonitory gesture. She stole a wary glance roundabout, and then spoke as one fearful of being overheard. "I was listening to the music of Divopan," she said.

Maria Dolores, who had come closer, appeared at a loss. "The music of--what?" she questioned.

"Sh-h!" whispered Annunziata. "I would not dare to say it aloud. The music of Divopan."

"Divopan?" Maria Dolores puzzled, compliantly guarding her tone. "What is that?"

"Divo--Pan," said Annunziata, dividing the word in two, and always with an air of excessive caution.

But Maria Dolores helplessly shook her head. "I'm afraid I don't understand. What is Divo--Pan?"

"Don't you know what a _divo_ is?" asked Annunziata, her clear grey eyes surprised.

"Oh, a _divo?_" said Maria Dolores, getting a glimmer of light. "Ah, yes, a divo is a saint, I think?

"Not exactly," Annunziata discriminated, "but something like one. The saints, you see, are always very good, and _divi_ are sometimes bad. But they are powerful, like saints. They can do anything they wish. Divo Pan is the divo who makes all the music that you hear out of doors,--the music of the wind and the water and the bird-songs. But you must be careful never to praise his music aloud, lest Divo Apollone should hear you. He is the divo that makes all the music you hear on instruments--on harps and violins and pianos. He is very jealous of Divo Pan, and if he hears you praising him, will do something to you. You know what he did to King Mida, don't you?"

"What did he do?" asked Maria Dolores.

Annunziata stole another wary glance about.

"Once upon a time," she recounted, always in her lowest voice, "many years ago, hundreds of years ago, the King of this country was named Mida. And he loved very much the music of Divo Pan. He loved to sit by the river here, and to listen to the music of the water, and of the leaves, and of the birds. I love to do it too, and I think he was quite right. But one day, in his house, there came a musician with a harp, and began to play to him. And the King listened for a while, and then he told the musician to stop. 'Your music is very good,' he said, 'but now I am going into the fields and by the river, where I can hear a music I like better.' But the musician with the harp was really Divo Apollone himself; disguised. And this made him very angry and jealous. And to punish King Mida he changed his ears to long hairy ears, like an ass's. So, if you love the music of Divo Pan, you must be very careful not to let Divo Apollone hear you praise it, or he will do something to you."

And to drive home this application of her theme, she held up a warning finger.

Maria Dolores had listened, smiling. Now she gave a gay little laugh, and then for a moment mused. "That is a very curious bit of history," she said, in the end. "How ever did it come to your knowledge?"

Annunziata shrugged. "Oh," she answered, "everybody knows that. I have known it for years. My grandmother who lived in Milan told it to me. Doesn't the water look cool and pleasant?" was her abrupt digression, as she returned her gaze to the Rampio. "When it is hot like this, I should like to lie down in the water, and go to sleep. Wouldn't you?"

"I'm not so sure," said Maria Dolores. "I should rather fear I might be drowned."

"Oh, but that wouldn't hurt," said Annunziata, with security. "To be drowned in such beautiful green water, among all those beams of light, would be nice."

"Perhaps you are not aware," said Maria Dolores, "that when people are drowned they die?"

"Oh, yes, I know that," said Annunziata. "But"--she raised calm pellucid eyes--"wouldn't you like to die?"

"Certainly not," said Maria Dolores, a shadow on her face.

"I would," said Annunziata, stoutly. "It must be lovely to die."

"Hush," Maria Dolores rebuked her, frowning. "You must not say such things."

"Why not say them, if you think them?" asked Annunziata.

"You mustn't think them either," said Maria Dolores.

"Oh, I can't help thinking them," said Annunziata, with a movement. "It surely must be lovely to die and go to Heaven. If I were perfectly sure I should go to Heaven, I would shut my eyes and die now. But I should probably have to wait some time in Purgatory. And, of course, I might go to Hell."

Maria Dolores' face was full of trouble. "You must not talk like that," she said. "You must not. It is wicked of you."

"Then, if I am wicked, I _should_ go to Hell?" inquired Annunziata, looking alertly up.

Maria Dolores looked about her, looked across the river, down the valley, as one in distress scanning the prospect for aid. "Of course you would not," she said. "My dear child, can't we find something else to talk of?"

"Do you think I shall have a very long and hard Purgatory?" asked Annunziata.

Maria Dolores threw a despairing glance at the horizon.

"No, no, dear," she answered uneasily. "You will have a very short and gentle one. Anyhow, you'll not have to consider that for years to come. Now shall we change the subject?"

"Well," said Annunziata, with an air of deliberation, "if you are perfectly sure I shall not go to Hell, and that my Purgatory will not be long and hard, I think I will do what I said. I will lie down in the water and go to sleep, and the water will drown me, and I shall die."

Maria Dolores' face was terrified. "Annunziata!" she cried. "You don't know what you are saying. You are cruel. You won't do anything of the sort. You must give me your solemn word of honour that you won't do anything of the sort. It would be a most dreadful sin. Come. Come with me now, away from here, away from the sight of the river. You must never come here alone again. Give me your hand, and come away."

Annunziata got up, gave her hand, and moved off at Maria Dolores' side, towards the Castle. "Of course," she said, "if I want to die, I don't need to lie down in the water. I can die at any moment I wish, by just shutting my eyes, and holding my breath, and telling my heart seven times to stop beating. Heart, stop beating; heart, stop beating;--that way, seven times."

"For the love of Mercy," wailed poor Maria Dolores, almost writhing in her misery.... Then, suddenly, she breathed a deep sigh of relief, and fervently exclaimed, "Thank God." John was advancing towards them, down the rugged pathway.

"Do please come and help me with this perverse and maddening child," she called to him, in English. "She's frightening me half out of my wits by threatening to die. She even threatened to drown herself in the Rampio."

"Children of her complexion can't die," said John, in Italian, (and Annunziata pricked up her ears). "They can only turn into monkeys, and then they have to live in the forests of Africa, where it is always dark, and all the men and women are negro savages, and all the other animals (except the mosquitos and the snakes) are lions and tigers. Besides, if Annunziata were to turn into a monkey, she couldn't have the sugared chestnuts that somebody or other has brought her from Roccadoro. On the chest of drawers in my room there has mysteriously appeared a box of sugared chestnuts. I thought they were for her, but they're not, unless she will promise never to turn into a monkey."

Annunziata's eyes had clouded.

"Of course I won't turn into a monkey," she said, in accents at once of disillusion and disdain. "I did not know there was any such danger. I should hate to be a monkey." Then her eyes brightened again. "May I go and get them now?" she asked, wistful and impatient.

"Yes," said John; "be off with you." And she went running lightly up the hill.

He turned to Maria Dolores. Her face (clear-cut, with its dark hair, against the red background of her sunshade) was white and drawn with pain. But she smiled, rather wanly, as her gaze met his, and said, in a weak voice, "Oh, I am so glad you came. I can't tell you how she was frightening me." And all at once her eyes filled with tears.

I needn't say whether John was moved, whether it was his impulse to take her in his arms and dry her tears with kisses. He did actually, on that impulse, give a perceptible start towards her, but then he restrained himself. "The child ought to be whipped," he broke out angrily. "You must not take her prattle so seriously."

"But _she_ was so serious," said Maria Dolores. "Oh, when she threatened to lie down in the river, and let herself be drowned--!" Her voice failed her, as at the inexpressible.

"No fear of that," said John. "The first touch of the cold water (and icy-cold it is, a glacier-stream, you know) would bring her to her senses. But come! You must not think of it any more. You have had a bad shock, but no bones are broken, and now you must try to banish it all from your mind."

"What an unaccountable child she is!" said Maria Dolores. "Surely it is unnatural and alarming for a child to have her head so teeming with strange freaks and fancies. Oh, I pray God to grant that nothing may happen to her."

"The most serious evil that's likely to happen to her for the present," said John, "will be an indigestion of marrons glacés."

Maria Dolores' tears had gone now. She smiled. But afterwards she looked grave again. "Oh, I wish I could get the dread of something happening to her out of my heart. I wish she wasn't so pale and fragile-looking," she said. Then there came a gleam in her eyes. "But you were going for a walk, and I am detaining you."

"The object of my walk has been accomplished," said John.

"Oh?" questioned she.

"I was walking in the hope, on the chance, that I might meet you," he hardily explained. "It's such an age since I've seen you. Are you making for the garden? I pray you to be kind, and let me go with you. I've been an exile and a wanderer--I've been to Roccadoro."

She had rebegun her ascension of the hill. The path was steep, as well as rugged. Sometimes John had to help her over a hard bit. The touch of her hand, soft and warm, and firm too, in his; the sense of her closeness; the faint fragrance of her garments, of her hair,--these things, you may be sure, went to his head, went to his heart. The garden lay in a white blaze of sunshine, that seemed almost material, like an incandescent fluid; but the entrance to the avenue was dark and inviting. "Let us," he proposed, "go and sit on a marble bench under the glossy leaves of the ilexes, in the deep, cool shade; and let's play that it's a thousand years ago, and that you're a Queen (white Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies), and that I'm your minstrel-man."

"What song will you sing me?" asked she gaily, as they took their places on the marble bench. It was semicircular, with a high carved back, (carved with the armorials of the Sforzas), and of course it was lichen-stained, grey and blue and green, yellow and scarlet.

"_White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies, Fairer and dearer than dearest and fairest, To hear me sing, if it her sweet will is,-- Sing, minstrel-man, of thy love, an thou darest_,"

trolled John, in his light barytone, to a tune, I imagine, improvised for the occasion. "But if it's a thousand years ago," he laughed, "that song smacks too much perhaps of actuality, and I had best choose another."

Maria Dolores joined in his laugh. "I did not know you sang," she said. "Let me hear the other."

"A song," reflected he, "that I could sing with a good deal of feeling and conviction, would be 'Give her but the least excuse to love me.'"

Maria Dolores all at once looked sober.

"Oughtn't you to be careful," she said, "to give her no excuse at all to love you, if you are really resolved never to ask her to be your wife?"

"That is exactly what I have given her," answered John, "no excuse at all. I should sing in a spirit purely academic,--my song would be the utterance of a pious but hopeless longing, of the moth's desire for the star."

"But she, I suppose, isn't a star," objected Maria Dolores. "She's probably just a weak human woman. You may have given her excuses without meaning to." There was the slightest quaver in her voice.

John caught his breath; he turned upon her almost violently. But she was facing away from him, down the avenue, so that he could not get her eyes.

"In that case," she said, "wouldn't you owe her something?"

"I should owe myself a lifetime's penance with the discipline," John on a solemn tone replied, hungrily looking at her cheek, at the little tendrils of dark hair about her brow. "God knows what I should owe to her."

"You would owe it to her," said Maria Dolores, always facing away, "to tell her your love straightforwardly, and to ask her to marry you."

John thrilled, John ached. His blue eyes burned upon her. "What else do you think I dream of, night and day? But how could I, with honour? You know my poverty," he groaned.

"But if she has enough, more than enough, for two?" softly urged Maria Dolores.

"Ah, that's the worst of it," cried he. "If we were equals in penury, if she had nothing, then I might honourably ask her, and we could live on herbs together in a garret, and I could keep her respect and my own. Oh, garret-paradise! But to marry a woman who is rich, to live in luxury with her, and to try to look unconscious while she pays the bills,--she would despise me, I should abhor myself."

"Why should she despise you?" asked Maria Dolores. "The possession of wealth is a mere accident. If people are married and love each other, I can't see that it matters an atom whether their money belonged in the first place to the man or to the woman,--it would belong henceforward to them both equally."

"That is a very generous way of looking at it, but it is a woman's way. No decent man could accept it," said John.

"Up to a certain point," said Maria Dolores, slowly, "I understand your scruples. I understand that a poor man might feel that he would not like to make the advances, if the woman he loved was rich. But suppose the woman loved him, and knew that he loved her, and knew that it was only his poverty which held him back, then _she_ might make the advances. She might put aside her pride, and go halfway to meet him, and to remove his difficulties and embarrassments. If, after that, he still did not ask her, I think his scruples would have become mere vanity,--I think it would show that he cared more for his mere vanity than for her happiness."

Her voice died out. John could see that her lip quivered a little. His throat was dry. The pulses were pounding in his temples. His brain was all a confusion. He hardly knew what had befallen him, he hardly knew what she had said. He only knew that there was a great ball of fire in his breast, and that the pain of it was half an immeasurable joy.

"God forgive me," the absurd and exaggerated stickler for the dignity of his sex wildly cried. "God knows how I love her, how I care for her happiness. But to go to her empty-handed,--but to put myself in the position of being kept by a woman,--God knows how impossible it is."

Maria Dolores stood up, still looking away from him.

"Well, let us hope," she said, changing her tone to one of unconcerned detachment, "that we have been discussing baseless suppositions. Let us hope that her heart is quite untouched. And for both your sakes," she concluded, her head in the air, "let us hope that you and she will never meet again. Good-bye."

She gave him a curt little nod, and walked lightly, rapidly up the avenue.

John's brain was all a confusion. He looked after her helplessly. He only knew that there was a great ball of fire in his breast, and that the pain of it was now unmixed.

V

Maria Dolores tripped into Frau Brandt's sitting-room, merrily singing a snatch of song.

"_Gardez vous d'être sévère Quand on vous park d'amour_,"

she carolled. Then she stopped singing, and blithely laughed.

Frau Brandt raised her good brown face from her knitting, and her good brown eyes looked anxiously upwards, slantwise over her tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles.

"What is the matter now?" she asked. "What has happened to vex you now?"

"To vex me!" cried Maria Dolores, in apparent astonishment. "Wasn't I singing aloud from sheer exuberance of high spirits?"

"No," said Frau Brandt, with a very positive shake of her white-capped head. "You were singing to conceal your low spirits. What has happened?"

"Ah, well, then, if you know so much and must know all," said Maria Dolores, "I've just proposed to the man I'm in love with, and been sent about my business."

"What do you mean?" asked Frau Brandt, phlegmatic. "What nonsense is this?"

"I mean my cobbler's son," Maria Dolores answered. "I, a Princess of the Empire, humbly offered him, a cobbler's son, my hand, heart, and fortune,--and the graceless man rejected them with scorn."

"That is a likely story," said Frau Brandt, wagging her chin. Her blunt brown fingers returned to their occupation. "I see your Serene Highness offering her hand."

"At all events, will you kindly tell Josephine to pack our boxes. To-morrow we'll be flitting," her Serene Highness in a casual way announced.

"What say you?" cried Frau Brandt, dropping her knitting into her lap.

"Yes--to Mischenau, to my brother," the Princess pursued. "Of course you'll have to come with us, poor dear. You can't let me travel alone with Josephine."

"No," said Frau Brandt. "I will go with you."