CHAPTER XXVIII

"PITY THAT PAINS"

Anne's villa delighted Alexis, especially the small music room with its frescoed walls and paucity of furniture. It was, he said, the ideal room for music, and they spent their evenings there and many afternoons.

To-day, an outburst of spring rain had driven them gustily indoors. It fell from the skies like a sable veil through which smiling hillsides showed ashen like a woman in mourning. In the garden the cypresses dripped heavily. Water foamed down the gutters in amber cataracts.

A shower of slanting missiles, the rain hurled itself against the windows, drumming upon the panes with the beat of a thousand nervous fingers. Anne shivered a little. From a stool at her side Alexis looked up into her face anxiously. It was pale, and the large eyes gleamed from out dark circles. He took her relaxed hand and stroked it tenderly.

"You look tired, dearest one. Aren't you well this afternoon?"

"My head aches a little."

It was palpable to Alexis that her smile came with an effort. He laid his cheek against her hand with a low, crooning caress.

"Poor darling! What could have caused it? I've never known you to have one before."

She passed a hand over her forehead in the futile gesture that accompanies headache. "I have only had one or two in my whole life."

Her tired smile went to his heart.

"What do you think brought it on?" he persisted. "Have I worn you completely out?"

"Of course not, silly boy!" The over-brilliant eyes hovered upon him restlessly.

"Well, what is it then?" Anxiety rendered him brusque.

"I suppose it was my visit to the Marchesa this morning. It wasn't an easy thing to do, Alexis."

"Telling her about us, you mean?"

She nodded wearily. "You see, she has hoped for years that I would marry her son, and it was rather a blow."

"Poor old lady, of course it was. But didn't she know that you had no intention of marrying him anyway?"

Anne avoided the searching eyes, with elaborate carelessness. "Yes, but so long as I remained single, she always felt there was a chance of my changing my mind."

"Ah, poor old thing! I don't blame her for being upset at losing you. If I were she, I'd want to commit murder. Was she nasty?"

"No-o." Anne frowned a little. In her delicate way the Marchesa had certainly been a trifle ironic. But you couldn't blame her for that, as Anne had not felt it incumbent upon herself to tell the truth in its entirety. Yes, she had been a little cutting and the sting of her words lingered in Anne's heart. Particularly the inference about the nursemaid wives of erratic geniuses. But the pinched look about her mouth, the added pallor upon the frail ivory face had more than excused her. If one chose to wound one's dearest friends by indulging in what must seem like inexplicable freaks, one must suffer the consequences.

"You seem a little uncertain?" During Anne's silence, Alexis' eyes had darkened with renewed suspicion.

His persistence troubled her. She shrugged fatigued shoulders. "Let's forget it, dear. What's the good of rubbing it in? The Marchesa took my news a little harder than necessary perhaps. Our conversation was a very unhappy, miserable affair. You see, I couldn't tell her everything. And so she doesn't quite understand. She merely thinks I've lost my silly old head over a handsome violinist who will some day leave me high and dry for a fresher and prettier woman. Her point of view is natural, quite refreshingly cynical in fact. She suggested I indulge my infatuation by a temporary liaison rather than in marriage, which couldn't fail to be fatal!"

She burst into a hysterical little laugh, which Alexis resented furiously.

"Wicked old witch! And I was sorry for her a little while ago!"

He drew the stool to Anne's knees, and leaned his weight against her. "You do love and trust me don't you, dearest?"

"Of course. Why not?" She used a light tone purposely. Her fatigue would permit of no other.

"I've never looked at any other woman but you, Anne. I never even notice women on the street. In my audiences they are just so many blank discs that come to life under my music, and then melt back again into the common mass. No, I shall never be a woman-chasing man. You and my music and the poor little child whom between us, we're going to make a happy little child, will more than fill my life."

His enraptured expression struck Anne with a pang. Poor Alexis, there was so much more good in him than he had ever been given credit for. That he was neither light nor sensual she had surmised from the beginning. But even she had never plumbed the depths of nobility that lay concealed beneath the child-like and difficult temperament. Perhaps, after all, the future might turn out to be less dark than she feared. She threw her arms about his shoulders.

"We're going to be happy, aren't we?" Her voice unconsciously pleaded.

Eyes closed, he snuggled against her.

"Happy? I shall be exultant as a god. As for you, you're such an angel that my joy may be enough for you! But I shall try, how I shall try to make you happy, too. How proud I shall be of my wife. When people see you sitting in a box at my concerts, they will ask who is that radiant creature? And the answer will be 'Mme. Alexis Petrovskey.' 'Is she not wonderful?' Men will go mad over you. They will want to fight duels over you with me. But I shall laugh in their faces. For you will be mine."

"Silly boy!" Her hand caressed his shoulder.

"In another six weeks we will be in Paris together. Anne and music and Paris! I don't dare think of it! I'm afraid something will happen, that I'll burst of joy perhaps first!"

"You ought to be able to count on lasting through the next few weeks without asking too much of the gods," laughed Anne.

"I don't know. They are said to be jealous! But enough gloom! Do you still like your ring dear?"

"I'm crazy about it. It's the most beautiful I have ever seen!"

She held out her hand and they admired the ring with rather comical gravity. An enormous emerald cut square and set in a delicate lacework of diamonds and platinum, it etherealized the white hand to the point of fragility.

"My collection of emeralds ought to be complete. First my bracelet, then the pendant, and now my ring."

He protested scornfully. "Complete, I should say not! I intend to hang ropes of emeralds all over you yet, when I'm really famous," he boasted with boyish glee.

"Until I fall dead beneath their weight, like the princess in the fairy tale!" Her arm dropped from about his shoulder wearily.

With a remorseful look at her pale face, he left her and walked to the window.

"Look, the rain has stopped. It was only a shower after all. The hillsides are smiling again. And the garden is as fresh and dewy as a pretty woman after her bath. Shall we go out?"

He opened the French window and they stepped out on to the flagged terrace. Polished by rain, diamond-studded, in the late afternoon sun, the garden sent up renewed incense, a symphony of rare fragrance, that mounted into the air like music.

"It reminds me of one of Liszt's rhapsodies," said Alexis, his fingers wielding an imaginary bow.

"Some day I shall compose a rhapsody of my own and call it, 'To a Tuscan Garden.'"

"Ah, but next month when the roses are out, that is the most enchanting of all," sighed Anne dreamily.

"But we shall not be here then," he retorted. "We shall already be on our way to Paris--I mean to Paradise!" He laughed unsteadily. "Anne, think of it. Think of you and me alone in the wagon-lit. Won't it be deliciously improper? I shall boast before the guards. It will be my wife desires this, and that. 'Please close the window. My wife doesn't like a draught!'" He was so comic in his pantomime that Anne laughed until the tears came.

"You young rogue!"

He pressed her arm against his side.

"How is the poor head, dear? How would you like to lie down in the hammock and let me play to you, while the sun sinks back of the city, and sets the old Duomo on fire!"

"What a Neronic inspiration!" She smiled with an effort. "But dear, would you think it beastly of me if I sent you home now? My head is really rather bad and if I don't make an effort to get rid of it, it may get the better of me."

Immediately, he was full of remorse.

"Of course not. Why didn't you send me packing a long time ago? I'll run right along and you go to bed like a good girl. Shall I see you in the morning?"

"Weren't we going to the Uffizi? I know you detest sightseeing as much as I do. But there are some things you simply mustn't miss."

He looked doubtful. "But are you fit to go, darling?"

"Indeed I am. All I need to put me on my feet is a good night's rest. To-morrow I shall be right as rain."

"Well, if you aren't, I'll come up and nurse you myself. Shall I take my violin back with me, or leave it here as usual?"

"Oh, leave it. You won't need it to-night. And it's safer here than at the hotel. Well, good-by. You're a dear to put up with all my pains and aches."

"Such dear aches and pains, all caused by my own brutal self!"

She held out her hands. He kissed the palms lingeringly, and then swung down the terrace towards the courtyard, where his car was waiting by the tall iron gates. Slim, flexible as a steel blade, small shapely head, aureoled in the setting sun, he trod the air like a young god.

Anne looked after him wistfully. As he disappeared around the angle of the house, fatigue mounted about her in dizzy waves, sucked her down, engulfed her in a dark, pulsating embrace, like the swirl of black waters.

* * * * *

Brilliant afternoon faded into dark, moonless night. Gun-metal clouds obscured, one by one, the beckoning stars. A breeze, warm and sweet-smelling as the breath of cattle, stirred in the tops of the trees.

From her deck upon the garden terrace, Anne watched the clouds as, with swollen sails, they scurried like miraged galleons upon an inverted sea. Her headache eased, it had left behind a trail of lassitude. She lay back in her chair, too weary for thought, spent to the point of serenity, at truce with an unsubstantial world.

When footsteps cut crisply upon the brick stairway, she did not even trouble to turn her head.

"Is that you, Alexis?" she called languidly.

Vittorio's voice broke upon her lethargy with the abruptness of a stone thrown into a stagnant pool.

"No, it is I, Vittorio."

Pierced as by a blade, her numbness fell from her like a mantle. She rose, and leaning against the balustrade, gave vent to a thin cry. "I told you not to come!"

"But surely, you didn't expect to be obeyed?" Etched against the sombre heavens, Vittorio loomed disproportionately large. He approached and seized her hands almost roughly.

"My mother says you are going to marry this Petrovskey. Tell me it isn't true, Anna mia?"

"Yes." She made a feeble effort to withdraw her hands.

"But I thought he had a wife already."

"She--she died a few weeks ago. Won't you please let go my hands?"

His grasp tightened. "How do you know he is telling you the truth?"

She threw back her head proudly. The curve of her throat shone through the dusk like a white pillar. "Alexis is not a liar!"

Vittorio laughed grimly. It was worse than he had feared. "But you cannot mean to marry him. He is entirely out of your class, an artist, a Bohemian. If you cannot protect yourself from such people, I must do it for you."

Anne succeeded in wrenching away her hands.

"I have not asked for your protection, Vittorio Torrigiani."

"No, madonna mia, but you need it. You suddenly decide to throw away your life and expect me to sit calmly by. I warn you I am desperate. I cannot permit this sacrilege."

"Sacrilege? You call this sacrilege? If you had used that word a few months ago you might have come nearer to the truth. But now----!"

He broke in quickly. "Ah, that was different. That was only for the time being. This is for life. That was a whim, a condescension. Not to be taken seriously like marriage."

"I took it seriously," her voice was quick with reproach.

"I know you did, and I loved you for it, although it nearly broke my heart. To feel that you belonged to another man, that you had given yourself of your own free will was the most fearful hell I hope to ever have to undergo. But this is ten times worse. It isn't only that I am going to lose you forever, that is bad enough, God knows, but to know that you will be miserable, unhappy, completely out of your sphere. Ah, that is more than I can bear."

She laid her hand upon his sleeve pleadingly. "But if I can bear it, if I feel that it is the right thing to do? Won't that help at all, Vittorio?"

"But how can I know that you are not sacrificing yourself again? There is something mysterious about this. You are keeping something back, Anne."

She turned from him with a hopeless shrug and leaned her elbows on the balustrade.

"There's nothing mysterious about it, Vittorio. Alexis is alone in the world. He needs me and I am fond of him."

He went towards her impulsively. "Fond of him! You call that love? Fond, is that a word to build a marriage upon?"

"I'm only quoting you. Haven't you told me many times that love wasn't necessary to a happy marriage?"

"If I did I was lying and you knew it, my Anne, or you would have taken me a dozen times over. And I was always patient because I felt that love would come to you finally. And lately, I was so happy, happier than for years. Your letters were so wonderful. I could hear you calling to me between the lines. I felt the time was rapidly approaching when you would awaken to your need of me. Oh, Anne, you're not a capricious woman. You couldn't have written to me like that just out of caprice. I feel I have the right to ask for an explanation."

She turned towards him blindly as he leaned beside her on the parapet. Their groping hands met and clung. "You have a right to all I can tell you, Vittorio." Her fingers trembled in his strong clasp. "But there isn't much to say. When I wrote you I thought I was free. And--then he came--and I discovered that I had made a mistake. So I telegraphed to you not to come."

The grasp upon her hand tightened nervously. "You mean you discovered that it was he and not I whom you loved after all?"

"Perhaps," her voice came muffled.

"But don't you know, dear heart?"

The fingers in his fluttered. "Yes--I know."

The words were almost inaudible. And he was forced to lean close in order to hear them at all. Then almost before she knew it, his arms were about her. His lips rained kisses upon her averted face.

"Carissima, it is I whom you love. I, Vittorio! How many times shall I have to tell it to you?"

The exultant voice deafened her. Giddy, on the point of defeat, she pushed him away with the palms of her hands, and fell into a chair.

"Don't. Don't." Face hidden in her fingers, she began to sob weakly.

"Yes, yes. It is the only way to save you from yourself."

Falling on his knees beside the chair, he removed the hands from her tear-wet face. "Now--tell me all," he commanded.

She faltered out the pitiful story of Claire's death and Alexis's remorse.

"So you see how he needs me," she ended.

"But I--I need you too," he insisted desperately, crushed by the tragedy of it all.

"Not the way he does," she interposed. "Oh, Vittorio, I have promised. I cannot break my word even----" her voice faltered--"even for you! Nothing but Alexis' own will can ever separate us now!"

He groaned. "But you are not happy. You do not love him. You love me. Even he wouldn't ask you to keep your word if he knew that," he said miserably.

"But he doesn't know. He doesn't dream that I don't love him, poor boy. I'd rather tear myself in pieces than have him guess. He has been so unhappy, so miserable!"

"But Anne, doesn't my unhappiness, my misery, mean as much to you as his?"

She turned an anguished face towards him, laying her hands upon his shoulders. "You know what it means to me," she gasped. "I--I love you, Vittorio."

His arms closed about her frantically. "This is horrible. You say you love me and yet you are going to marry another man."

"I have given my word," she whispered, against his heart.

They were silent for a moment, while the perfumed breeze rustled in the tree-tops and played with the vines upon the wall.

"What was that?" exclaimed Anne, starting up nervously. A new sound, like a stealthy footstep had risen from the path beneath them.

"Nothing, dearest." Vittorio rose and peered over the parapet, into the black pit that was the garden, "Nothing at all. It must have been a fallen branch."

"For a moment I thought it was Alexis," she breathed, hand on bounding heart.

He strolled back to her. "Ah, you see, he frightens you already. He is in the back of your mind constantly. Give him up before it is too late, cara. If you don't, I shall have to go to him myself and tell him the truth. If he doesn't release you then, he is a cad."

She stood up and faced him. "If you do that, I shall never see you again. It would be the act of a fiend. It would kill every spark of love that I ever felt for you."

"Anne, Anne, are you asking me to give you up again?" He stretched famished arms towards her.

She wrung her hands against a sudden, smiting anguish, that left her weak and trembling. "Yes----" she whispered. "Vittorio!"

She slipped into his outstretched arms with a strangled cry. Their lips met, lingered, then parted unsatisfied.

* * * * *

Only a few words, a woman's smothered cry, but sufficient to quench forever Alexis' joy. Only a few words in fewer moments, but enough to send tottering the entire foundation of his being, which less than a minute before had towered to the limitless heavens.

A pæan upon the lips, nectar in his veins, he had approached the terrace as if on air. Anne's head was better, so Regina had told him. She had gone out into the garden, was sitting alone under the scattered stars. How surprised she would be when the notes of his violin stole upon her through the night! He would play the Canzonetta from Tchaikowsky's Concerto, the one they both loved the best. It was just the thing for a night like this. A heavy, mysterious night. A night weighted with warm perfume and the promise of hidden rapture. A quivering, mischievous smile upon his lips, he had tiptoed to the bottom of the terrace. Violin tucked beneath his chin, bow raised, ready to sweep the strings, he had suddenly paused. From the terrace above a man's voice had cut into the silence. Alexis held his breath. So Anne was not alone after all? A caller, some unknown man had chosen to-night of all nights to make her a visit. How annoying! And yet how absurd of him to be upset. Why shouldn't Anne have a visitor? It was the most natural thing in the world. Only a monopolist like himself could possibly grudge it her. Besides, it would be a good opportunity to become acquainted with one of Anne's friends. He decided to mount the steps and meet the intruder as cordially as possible, when the sound of Anne's voice, vibrant and agitated, had reached his ears, and he had listened in spite of himself.

"But he doesn't know, he doesn't dream that I don't love him, poor boy!" Then the man's voice, pleading, but masterful. "But, Anne, doesn't my unhappiness mean as much to you as his?"

That answer of Anne's! Those flaying words that laid bare Alexis' soul! That confession of love, which had undermined his whole structure of being!

And the entire horror had passed within the space of a moment. The air still vibrated with Anne's words, was heavy with their import. Stunned, Alexis had crawled out of hearing and leaned against the base of the terrace. Dismembered, leaden, his limbs rocked beneath him sickeningly. Presently, when the strength flowed back into them again, he would creep away to the gates where his car was waiting. Meanwhile, he must be very silent. A single, uneven breath, a smothered sob might betray him. And they must not guess his presence until he was beyond reach or recall. To steal away was the least he could do. He would steal away out of Anne's life, like a thief who has stolen another man's treasure, and then come back surreptitiously, to return it. He, Alexis, was a thief. He had tried to take what did not belong to him. He was an unsuccessful thief, moreover, for Anne's love had never been his. From the bottomless abyss, he knew it now if never before. The woman who had lain in his arms, whose body he had called his own, had never belonged to him at all. She had remained remote as a condescending goddess. Pitiful, without doubt, but fundamentally untouched. "And yet it is her pity that pains me most."

Anne, his Anne, he had made her suffer! She was suffering at this moment, only a few feet away. God, how he hated himself! He must get away immediately, before the sight of her weakened him, the beloved voice shattered his resolution to tatters. Violin clasped mechanically to his breast, he crept along the wall and cut across the grass to the gates. They were still ajar and he slipped through to his car unnoticed.

Haggard, unkempt, he entered his hotel and regardless of curious glances, strode to the bureau and secured his berth on the midnight express for Paris.

Two hours later he was on his way.

But he had left behind him a letter for Anne. A taciturn, incoherent letter that strove to conceal the pain that he knew would wound her so cruelly. She must not be sad for him. She must not blame herself at all. It was not her fault that he had overheard her confession. Above all, she must not be afraid that he would do anything desperate like killing himself. Those old, unbalanced days were gone forever. He must live for his child now and his music. He prayed her not to write or to follow him, as out of her immense pity and charity he was afraid she might be tempted to do. But to give him this chance to prove himself a man to them both. He had played with her magnanimity for the last time. He hoped that she would forgive him all the suffering he had so stupidly caused her. And finally, he begged her to think of him sometimes and to keep his gifts for the sake of the great love he would always bear her.

An incoherent letter, every word of which revealed to Anne his bleeding hurt. With anguished eyes, she visualized, relived his agony. Saw him as he crouched beneath the terrace and overheard her confess her love to Vittorio. Followed on his mad ride back to the city. Stood behind him while he labored over the scrawl which was to conceal from her his pain, his utter desolation. Accompanied and sat beside him in the wagon-lit as he steamed put of Florence, out of her life. That same wagon-lit of which he had spoken so joyously only yesterday. That wagon-lit he had hoped to share with her as his companion, but in which he had been destined to ride alone. Behind scalding tears, she saw him throw himself onto his berth, watched him as he lay wide-eyed and motionless into the dawn. Passed with him into the future, as exalted, fawned-upon, his child and his violin by his side, he disappeared over the horizon and out of her sight, a pathetic, solitary figure.

EPILOGUE

PURPLE AND GOLD

Urged by a placid breeze, the small boat sped forward with the graceful glide of a swan, its henna-sail reflected in the rippleless waters like tarnish on green bronze. Almost grazing the lush banks it passed the large hotels on the mainland and skirted the island, where the gardens of the villas sprawl luxuriantly down to the Nile.

Anne settled herself in the stern with a sigh of sheer joy. Beneath a large sun hat, her shadowed eyes looked like shining green pools in a dark forest.

"Wail of shadoof, song of sakieh, how I love it," she murmured. She gazed upon the shore, where polished brown bodies bent rhythmically over their world-old task. "If you hadn't taken a holiday this year, Vittorio, I don't know how I should ever have borne it. Let me see, it's three years since we were last in Assuan, isn't it?"

"Yes, but you know you hated to leave the boys, Anne. As for me, I wouldn't have enjoyed it without you." His eyes rested upon her fondly. "How are you enjoying your second honeymoon, cara?" He slipped a proprietary arm about her slim waist.

Anne laughed happily and looked askance at the gorgeously-appareled dragoman sitting in the bow with the two sailors. "Really, Vittorio, after ten years of the matrimonial yoke, your devotion deserves honorable mention." One eye still upon the dragoman, she squeezed his hand surreptitiously. "Will you never remember you're married to an old woman? I'll be forty-three in a few months. Heigh-ho!"

Above the mock-tragic sigh her smile was divinely careless, divinely assured. The smile of a woman who knows in every fiber of her being that she is loved. And indeed the years had changed Anne almost not at all. A trifle less slim, her beauty had deepened and perfected in the mold. Brilliant, undimmed, her hair shone like beaten copper beneath the drooping brim of the leghorn.

A little lined, quite gray, certainly more distinguished than before, Vittorio pressed against her side. "Forty-three! Do you call that a great age, foolish one? You are fishing! You know perfectly well that you are as beautiful as ever. If I were jealous, I shouldn't have a moment's peace with the raft of men you always have about you, at home in Florence--and the idle brutes at the hotel here, who seem to have nothing to do but to ogle you from the time you appear in the morning until you disappear at night with my most fortunate self. Some day I expect to be murdered by one of your miserable victims!"

"Old villain, if one of your revered colleagues could hear you now! The celebrated Torrigiani, discoverer of famous relics of infamous royalties, making love to his own wife as they float along the Nile. Why, even the Pharaohs would laugh at you for an old-fashioned frump, although it couldn't have been such a terrible task to be faithful to as many wives as they had!"

As they neared the end of the long island, the branching Nile curved broadly. Myriads of tiny islands like diving seals glutted the waters. Beyond on the shore, the green stopped abruptly, and rolling amber sands stretched palely golden beneath a sky of melted turquoise. Girdled by palms, shod with roses, a pink villa nestled within its garden. From the awninged terrace the sound of faint music wafted upon the scented air, rose above the wail of the shadoof.

Anne and Vittorio looked at each other in surprise.

"A violin," Anne murmured, and listened. The exquisite tones hummed an air unfamiliar to her ears, an air at once heart-breaking and unspeakably beautiful.

"How lovely!" A shade of sadness crept over her face. "The man certainly knows how to play," she clasped her hands closely. The sound of a violin still moved her to the marrow.

The gorgeous dragoman turned about abruptly.

"Ah, Madame, ze music please 'er? Zat ees ze mad Englissman."

"The mad Englishman?"

"Ah, yes. 'E is great artiste. But 'e is seek, very seek. He 'ave ze consump', you know. Eet ees very bad. 'E spit zee blood. 'E seet all day outside 'e's 'ouse and play ze veolon, and never speak to no ones. 'E's man, 'e good friend mine, 'e tell me."

Hands still clasped together nervously, Anne leaned forward. "What is his name?"

"'Ees name? I forget eet. Very strange for Englis name. More like ze Russie. Pe, Pet, but I forgot how eet finis!"

Pale beneath her large hat, Anne prodded him almost angrily. "Try to think, Abdul. Is--is it Petrovskey?"

The dragoman beamed. "Ah, yes, zat ees eet. Per'aps Madame, she 'ave 'eard of 'eem?"

Speechless, Anne nodded. Her long white throat worked spasmodically. Vittorio put an arm about her quivering shoulders.

"Cara mia, perhaps it is not the same man at all. Do not grieve, dearest."

She shook her head, while the music rose to a crescendo, and stopped momentarily. "I'm almost sure it must be, Vittorio. Don't you remember reading in the paper over a year ago that he had retired from the concert stage on account of ill health? And that I wanted to write to him, but decided that after all these years it would be better not to?"

Vittorio nodded. A look of suffering crept into his eyes.

"Perhaps you are right, Anne. Maybe it is Petrovskey. What do you want to do? Would you like to get off and see him?"

She looked at her husband with startled eyes. Was she to see Alexis again after all these years? Did she have the courage to reopen old wounds? He might be horribly changed from the boy she had known. Illness plays such cruel tricks with one. And she wanted so frightfully to remember him as she had seen him last, when he left her garden over ten years ago. Then his beauty had been triumphant. Aureoled by setting sun, his indelible image had stamped itself upon her memory.

Vittorio's eyes rested upon her pityingly. "Darling, I know it will be hard. If you don't feel able to face it, you mustn't force yourself."

"But if he is ill and lonely?" Her eyes wandered up the garden bank almost fearfully. She turned a pleading face toward her husband. "Vittorio, help me! What shall I do? Do you think seeing me again might do him harm if he is not well?"

Honesty conquering fear, he shook his head. "Why should it? It may even be good for him. Come coraggio, Anne!"

His noble simplicity shamed her. A lump in her throat, she nodded dumbly. Vittorio signed to the delighted dragoman. They swung about and put in at the small landing place. Knees trembling beneath her, Anne disembarked, and she and Vittorio strolled up the grassy bank towards the villa.

The music, stilled for the last few minutes, smote the air once more with a tragic, persistent monotony. The player was evidently improvising upon some doleful, Arabic theme, perhaps a song of the boatmen. Anne pressed against Vittorio. "It makes my very soul shed tears," she murmured.

They had neared the house. Low, rectangular, surrounded by palms and rosebushes, it rose directly in front of them. Upon the awninged terrace, iron chair tip-tilted against the pinkish walls, the violinist suddenly ceased playing. He laid his instrument upon the table next to him and looked idly into the distance.

Although unspeakably altered, it was undoubtedly Alexis.

Two great tears gliding down her cheeks, Anne signed to Vittorio to wait for her. She mounted the shallow steps alone and approached Alexis, touching him lightly where the slim shoulders showed gaunt beneath the loose linen coat.

"Alexis?"

As if galvanized by the sound of her voice, the motionless figure sprang suddenly to life. The sunken eyes leaped to Anne's, widened, then remained fixed. She came a little closer.

"It is I, Anne. Don't you know me, Alexis?" she murmured very gently.

The dilated eyes traveled over her face. He passed an emaciated hand over his forehead, beneath dampened locks. "Have I the delirium again?" His voice was hoarse, almost toneless, not the boyish voice she remembered so well. More altered, in fact, than the poor face which, at a distance, still appeared youthful, although near to, it showed lined and haggard, dry skin stretched taut over hectic cheek-bones.

Anne's heart yearned over him sorrowfully. She sat down beside him, and took one of the feverish hands between her cool palms. "No, no, don't be frightened, dear. You are not dreaming. It is really Anne in the flesh. We--that is to say I, was passing by on the water. I heard your violin and stopped to listen. From what my dragoman told me, I guessed it must be you. So I came. Will you forgive me?"

"Forgive you?" The altered voice was full of wonder. He still looked at her as if he scarcely believed in her reality. The great suffering eyes, like those of a stray dog who has found a master, wrung her heart. "Forgive you?" he repeated monotonously.

"Yes. For disobeying you and coming to you after all these years?" Her voice was tremulous. As he listened the stiff figure suddenly relaxed, leaned forward with a choked, comprehending cry.

"Anne, Anne, it is really you! Thank God! I have prayed that I might see you once more before I died. God is merciful after all!"

He grasped her hands, at first timidly, then eagerly with hungry insatiability. Ran feverish fingers up her arms to her shoulders, attained her face, caressed it with the groping, seeking gestures of a blind man. Then, with a smothered cry, he fell back limply in his chair.

"Alexis, my poor boy!" The gaunt, dry hands in hers, Anne pressed them to her heart.

Cracked lips parted over set teeth, he leaned back, gasping a little.

"Forgive me," he whispered. "I am still rather weak."

She was frightened.

"Isn't there something I can do for you? Some medicine you can take?"

With a feeble movement of the still-graceful hands, he brushed the idea aside. "The sight of you--is all--I want to cure me completely," he articulated between difficult, hissing breaths. "You are more beautiful than ever, Anne."

Her smile was wistful. "Dear Alexis, I am getting old now."

"Old?" He looked genuinely surprised. "I see no difference," he added with no attempt at compliment. "Oh, Anne, the years, how long they have been in passing!"

She choked back a sob.

"And yet you shouldn't be too unkind to them, dear Alexis, for they have brought you fame."

A wan smile rode the gaunt face. "Fame? What is that? A bubble which dissipates as you grasp it," he snatched at the air. "A flower in your buttonhole that smells sweet at first, but becomes rank before nightfall. A nothing for which you pay with your heart's sweat." He paused and the thin fingers drummed rhythmically on the iron table. "But you mustn't think I am ungrateful, Anne. The work itself, I love, but only for itself. It has kept me sane. That--and the boy." His face brightened. He turned eagerly towards Anne.

"Tell me about him," she whispered. "He must be a big boy by now."

"Almost eleven." The hoarse voice was full of pride. "He is in school in England--I don't dare to keep him with me now." He pointed to his chest. "I miss him every minute, Anne. He has always spent his vacations with me ever since he started going away to school. Before that, we were together constantly. When he was a baby the little beggar would go to sleep for my violin, when his nurse could do nothing with him."

Anne smiled through tears. "You must love each other very much."

"Oh, we do. He went with me on all my long tours. We have been inseparable ever since----" he choked.

She nodded. "Yes, Alexis, I know."

He looked at her somberly. The pent-up tragedy of the years passed by in his dilated pupils. "We will not speak of that," he whispered.

She shook her head. "No, Alexis, but it was ghastly for me, too. I feel I must tell you that, at least. I was ill, not myself, for months. I was on the point of writing you many times but----" she stopped while the crimson spread to her forehead. It seemed too brutal to tell him about Vittorio and the children.

He understood her hesitation and smiled bravely.

"So I did the right thing after all! Anne, dearest, don't be afraid to tell me the truth. Are you happy at last?"

Words were beyond her for the moment. She nodded.

He sighed contentedly. "I am glad--so glad," he breathed. "Are you married and have you children?" he continued with eager simplicity.

"Vittorio and I have been married for almost ten years," she replied brokenly. "We have two little boys," she added quickly.

Longing swept the drawn features. "How I should love to see them," he sighed wearily.

"When you are better you must come to Florence and pay us a long visit," she replied, trying to speak brightly.

He spread his hands, in careless fatalism. He smiled oddly. "When I am better? Yes, when I am better, I'll come."

"And bring the boy," she continued, sturdily ignoring his implication. "What is his name?"

A light dawned back of the misery in his eyes. "Jack. Just a simple English name, as unlike his father's as possible. And oh, Anne, he is unlike me. He cannot play a single musical instrument, although he has been surrounded by musicians all his life. He has no temperament at all. And he loves sports. He has won a lot of medals already. He isn't even very good in his studies."

His naïve pleasure in the latter fact struck Anne as so comical that she actually laughed.

"Funny Alexis!" she said tenderly. "You certainly make an odd father. But tell me, what school is Jack in? You must give me his address. Do you think he would like to come to us for the holidays? That is----" she added hastily, Alexis was sensitive over receiving favors--"if he has made no other plans?"

His face was almost radiant. "He is at Eton. He would love to go to you, I know. If you really want him. I can't have him here----" the smile faded. "And I was worrying about where to send him. But--are you sure your husband wouldn't mind?"

"Vittorio? Never," said Anne confidently. "He loves children. And--and he admires you tremendously, Alexis. There is no, no hard feeling in his heart for you. Vittorio is a very noble man and he appreciates nobility in others!"

Alexis bowed his head upon his chest. "Thank you, my Anne. May I call you that?"

"Oh, yes, of course, Alexis," she patted the hand near hers. She hesitated a moment. "Vittorio is here with me now. Would you like to see him, dear? Or would it be too much for you?"

Alexis' face paled. The dry lips quivered. There was a pause before he replied.

"I should like to see him," he said firmly. "I want to thank him for--for making you so happy."

"You are sure?" she insisted, a little frightened at her temerity in bringing the two men together. The two men whose lives had crossed so fatally, and yet who had never, in the course of events, actually met face to face. Yet, if she were really to help Alexis during the next few weeks of their stay, the meeting was inevitable. Her hesitation was palpable. Alexis reassured her, with pathetic vehemence.

"Of course I am sure. Please call him, Anne darling. Can't you see I've passed beyond all stage of jealousy? My illness seems to have extinguished the evil fire forever."

She smiled at him tenderly. "I'll call him, then."

She walked to the edge of the terrace and beckoned towards the garden. "Vittorio!"

The crystalline tones resounded purely. A tall figure rose from a bench back of the palms and approached them.

"This is my husband, Alexis." Anne's voice rang slightly tremulous.

Alexis got to his feet rather feebly and the two men clasped hands. Vittorio was the first to speak.

"I am sorry you are not well," he said gently, as they all sat down.

Alexis smiled. "That is good of you, Marchese. And it is doubly good of you to permit the Marchesa to see me. I--I am very grateful." The smiling lips quivered.

Vittorio was touched. The stooping figure, the prematurely haggard young face filled him with pity. He made an effort to speak casually.

"I hope you will let us both come to see you very often. We shall be here for at least six weeks."

"You don't know what it will mean to me," said Alexis eagerly. "I've hardly seen a soul for months," he caught himself up sharply, "but I'm sure you must be thirsty. I'll order something to drink at once."

"Please don't bother," cried Anne.

With a smiling shake of the head, he struck an iridescent little gong on the table beside him. Very correct in semitropical livery, an English servant appeared in the doorway.

"What would you like?" said Alexis, turning to his guests. "Some whisky and soda, Marchese? Or would you prefer iced sherbet? Hopkins keeps some on hand for me all the time, as I find it very soothing. Then there is always Turkish coffee, for which we are famous, aren't we, Hopkins?"

"Yes, sir." The man bowed with the flicker of a pleased smile.

They chose the sherbet. Little spiced cakes from the bazaar were passed with it. The conversation became light and unstrained. Since the old days, Alexis had mixed much with the world. Had been a big figure and had progressed beyond ill-ease. After they finished the sherbet, he looked longingly at Anne, and asked if she would not like to try some Slovakian dances with him.

She looked doubtful. "Do you think you ought to to-day, Alexis? Haven't we tired you sufficiently?"

He shook his head gayly. "Oh, no, I haven't felt so fit for ages. Have I, Hopkins?"

"No, sir."

Sherbet cups in his hands, Hopkins coughed discreetly. His mild eyes met Anne's full of respectful warning. She nodded at him behind Alexis' shoulder.

"I think you've had enough excitement for this afternoon," she said firmly. "Suppose I come to-morrow for a little while?"

He looked radiant. "To-morrow, and every day while you are here!" he said with the tyrannical air of a spoiled child. "But you must play with me now, this minute. The music only arrived yesterday and I haven't tried it yet." He looked at once so wistful and so happy that Anne relented.

"Very well, but only for a little while, mind!"

They entered the house. Rather over-elaborate, the long drawing room was furnished in the French Algerian style with several large divans and an immense Bokhara rug that covered the entire floor. In the corner stood a grand piano brought by Alexis from Cairo. Anne seated herself before it and gave Alexis the key. Hopkins brought up a chair and placed it by the piano for Alexis. He dropped into it with a sulky little air, and commenced to tune up.

"Hopkins thinks it tires me to stand," he apologized crossly.

Then he broke into the dance, ancient fire unquenched, technique magnificently perfected. Plying the keyboard mechanically, Anne listened, shaken to the very marrow. For a moment it seemed as if time had never existed and she was back again in Long Island, young lover by her side, their souls welded in an ecstasy of sound.

Then Alexis stopped suddenly. He reeled in his chair. "I'm--a bit giddy," he gasped. The violin dropped on to the floor from inert fingers. Then came the cough, the racking typhoon of a cough that shattered the frail body in its gust.

Speechless with terror, Anne and Vittorio looked at each other helplessly. Hopkins poured some medicine into a wine-glass and held it ready. He shook his head sorrowfully.

"He shouldn't 'ave done it, ma'am. 'Is cough do be cruel such times."

A stained handkerchief to his lips, Alexis lay back in his chair. Anne's eyes fixed themselves upon the blood with a shudder of pity. The medicine administered, she took Hopkins aside.

"Tell me the worst," she said below her breath. "Is--is he dying?"

Tears gathered in the man's eyes.

"Oh, yes, ma'am. 'Es very bad. The doctor says 'e can't last six months."

"Ah!" Anne stifled a cry, "Have you been with him long?"

The puckered lips trembled. "Hit'll be goin' on seven years, ma'am. H'im sure hi don't know 'at'll become of me when 'es gone. Hi'll feel kinder lost-like."

Anne looked at him gratefully.

"Hadn't you better get the doctor now?" she whispered above the lump in her throat.

He shook his head sadly.

"Oh, no, ma'am. There h'ain't nothin' 'e could do for 'im. Jest to lay down and be quiet like is what 'e needs, ma'am."

Anne took the hint meekly. She went up to the two men, and took hold of Vittorio's arm where he stood leaning over Alexis.

"We must go now, Vittorio. Alexis needs rest. I'm afraid we should never have come!" Her sorrowful eyes met Alexis' apologetic gaze.

"Oh, don't say that," he pleaded weakly. "I have an attack like this very often now."

She held out her hand and he grasped it with feeble fingers.

"It has been heaven to see you again," he whispered. "Now I can die happy."

Anne knelt down by the chair. From her aching eyes brimmed scalding tears.

"You are going to get well, dear," she murmured, "we are going to make him, aren't we, Vittorio?"

But the end was not yet. Several weeks were to pass first. Meanwhile, Anne went to the villa every day. Once or twice, when Alexis felt stronger, they played a little. But he tired almost immediately. After a while they gave it up tragically, tacitly. She read to him instead. And they talked a little. But day by day he grew perceptibly weaker, and the coughing spells racked him with greater ferocity.

One day a letter came from Jack at Eton, accepting with glee Anne's invitation for the holidays. And Alexis, realizing that the end was near, listened with joy as Anne read it to him, and added of her own accord that she and Vittorio wanted to look after the boy in the future.

"In that way," she added almost timidly, "I can be a mother to him after all."

Alexis made no reply. He merely raised emaciated hands to his face, and Anne saw that he wept.

* * * * *

That afternoon the sunset was unusually resplendent. Purple and gold, it spread to the horizon where rolling, amber sands merged into saffron skies. Anne's boat, its henna sail lurid against heaven, floated upon a sheet of solid gold. Solid gold, Anne's gleaming hair as, hatless, she crouched weeping in the stern beside Vittorio. While purple clouds faded into black and black and gold fused into lacquer.

That afternoon the sunset was unusually resplendent, but Anne wept because Alexis was no longer there to see.