The Inevitable

The Marchesa Belloni's boarding-house was situated in one of the healthiest, if not one of the most romantic quarters of Rome. One half of the house had formed part of a villino...

She had hired a victoria after lunch and had driven through Rome, to make her first acquaintance with the city for which she had longed so eagerly. This first impression was a g...

At dinner there was a buzz of voices; the three or four long tables were all full; the marchesa sat at the head of the centre table. Now and then she beckoned impatiently to Giu...

Those first days in Rome tired Cornélie greatly. She did too much, as every one does who has just arrived in Rome; she wanted to take in the whole city at once; and the distance...

One evening Cornélie made the acquaintance of the Dutch family beside whom the Marchesa had first wished to place her at table: Mrs. van der Staal and her two daughters. They to...

She remained indoors for a day or two and had her meals served in her room. One morning, however, she was going for a stroll in the Villa Borghese, when she met young Van der St...

At the hotel, however, he spoke to Cornélie politely, as though there had been no embarrassment, no wrangling interchange of words between them, and he even asked her quite simp...

Duco van der Staal had taken a large, vault-like studio, with a chilly north light, up three flights of stairs in the Via del Babuino. Here he painted, modelled and studied and...

It was Christmas Day, on which occasion the Marchesa Belloni entertained her boarders with a Christmas-tree in the drawing-room, followed by a dance in the old Guercino dining-r...

The day after the dance, at table, Cornélie received a strange impression: suddenly, as she sipped her delicious Genzano, ordered for her by Rudyard, she became aware that it wa...

They were sitting in his studio: Mrs. van der Staal, Cornélie and the girls, Annie and Emilie. Annie was pouring out the tea; and they were discussing Miss Taylor and Urania.

One morning when Cornélie stayed indoors she went through the books that lay scattered about her room. And she found that it was useless for her to read Ovid, in order to study...

as he had seen them in his unfinished water-colour sketches. She had never seen the ruins transfigured in glory as he did in his hours of dreaming on the Palatine or in the Foru...

It was then, after a few days, that Cornélie conceived the idea of leaving the boarding-house and going to live in rooms. The hotel-life disturbed her budding thoughts, like a w...

Nevertheless Cornélie recovered her calmness when her pamphlet was finished. She unpacked her trunks, arranged her rooms a little more snugly and, now more at her ease, rewrote...

Cornélie's premonition regarding Mrs. van der Staal's opinion of her intercourse with Duco was confirmed: mevrouw spoke to her seriously, saying that she would compromise hersel...

The idea had long fixed itself in Cornélie's mind that she must speak to Urania Hope; and one morning she sent her a note asking for an appointment that afternoon. Miss Hope wro...

A coolness had arisen between Mrs. van der Staal and Cornélie; and Cornélie no longer went to dine at Belloni's. She did not see mevrouw and the girls again for weeks; but she s...

Cornélie now saw no one except Duco. Mrs. van der Staal had broken with her and would not allow her daughters to have any further intercourse with her. A coolness had arisen eve...

The undertaking which Urania had given was so vague, however, that Cornélie felt uneasy and spoke of it to Duco that evening, when she met him at the restaurant. But he was not...

Next day, when Duco met Cornélie at the osteria, she was very cheerful and excited. She told him that she had already received a reply from the woman's paper to which she had se...

When she came home she found the prince's card. It was an ordinary civility after yesterday evening, her unexpected visit to the Palazzo Ruspoli, and she did not give it a secon...

A few days later, Cornélie was expecting a visit from the prince, who had asked her for an appointment. She was sitting at her writing-table, correcting proofs of her article. A...

Duco had at first wished to decline the invitation, but Cornélie said that she would think it pleasanter if he came. And it was an exquisite dinner in the restaurant of the Gran...

"With the prince. You've seen through him and yet ... yet you go on putting up with him, yet you're always meeting him. Let me finish," he said, looking around him: there was no...

They did not alter their mode of life. Duco, however, after a scene with his mother, no longer slept at Belloni's but in a little room adjoining his studio and at first filled w...

The months dreamed past. And their happiness caused such a summer to bloom in them that she ripened in beauty and he in talent; the pride in them broke into expression: in her i...

At the same time Duco developed great powers of work: so much thought dimly took shape before him that he was constantly discovering another motive and symbolizing it in another...

It was a couple of months after Easter, in the spring days of May. The flood of tourists had ebbed away immediately after the great church festivities; and Rome was already very...

"That is so, Duco," she agreed, laughing. "But I asked yesterday what I should get for a pair of bracelets; and I'll dispose of those to-day. And that will keep us going for qui...

"I have a favour to ask of you. Yesterday you were so good as to offer me help. I thought then that I was in a position to decline your kind offer. But I hope that you will not...

In those hot May days, the big studio facing north was cool while the town outside was scorching. Duco and Cornélie did not go out before nightfall, when it was time to think of...

Urania wrote most charmingly. She said that they were having a very quiet time with the old prince at San Stefano, as they were not inviting visitors because the castle was too...

Cornélie had changed her dress and now left her room. She went down the corridor and saw nobody. She did not know the way, but walked on. Suddenly a wide staircase fell away bef...

Urania asked Cornélie to come in, because it was not healthy out of doors now, at sunset, with the misty exhalations from the lake. The marchesa bowed coldly and stiffly, pinche...

They were in the great sombre dining-room, with the almost black tapestries, with the almost black panels of the ceiling, with the almost black oak carvings, with the black, mon...

Next morning Urania's maid was showing Cornélie through a maze of galleries to the garden, where breakfast was to be served, when she met Gilio on the stairs. The maid turned back.

A week had passed. Duco had arrived. After the solemn dinner in the gloomy dining-room, where Duco had been presented to Prince Ercole, the summer evening, when Cornélie and Duc...

Gilio hated the villeggiatura at San Stefano. Every morning he had to be up and dressed by six o'clock, with Prince Ercole, Urania and the marchesa, to hear mass said by the cha...

Gilio had followed the advice of his cousin, the Countess di Rosavilla. Immediately after dinner, he had stolen outside; and he walked along the pergola to the rotunda, into whi...

"Urania," she said, seriously, "I know I am a coquette. I thought it pleasant to talk with Gilio; call it flirting, if you like. I never made a secret of it, either to Duco or t...

In the train, in the scorching morning heat, they were silent; and they found Rome as it were bursting out of its houses in the blazing sunshine. The studio, however, was cool,...

They were very economical; they had a little money; and all through the scorching Roman summer the months passed as in a dream. They went on living their lonely, happy life, wit...

She wrote regularly to Urania, in Switzerland, at Ostend; and Urania always wrote back very kindly and offered her assistance. But Cornélie always declined, afraid of hurting Du...

But the life of constraint returned, the hovering hands reappeared, like a gentle mysterious force. Cornélie wept bitterly and admitted to herself and admitted to Duco: it could...

It was all severely regulated, as by rule, and there was no possibility of the least alteration: everything was done in accordance with a fixed law. The reading of the newspaper...

Two months had passed like this. It was January; and these were busy days for Cornélie, because Mrs. Uxeley was soon to give one of her celebrated evenings and Cornélie's free h...

She had suddenly turned very pale, as though under the stress of a sudden emotion. She covered her face with her fluttering fan and her fingers trembled violently; her whole bod...

She had seized Urania by the hand and dragged her away from De Breuil into one of the deserted rooms. The suite of rooms was almost entirely deserted; the dense throng of guests...

It was twelve o'clock when Cornélie woke that morning. The sun was piercing the golden slit in the half-parted curtains with tiny eddying atoms. She felt dog-tired. She remember...

She stayed at home for a day, feeling tired and, deep down within herself, almost unconsciously, afraid, in spite of all, of meeting him. But Mrs. Uxeley, who would never hear o...

She had but one thought: to take to flight. To fly from his mastery, to fly from the emanation of that dominion which, mysteriously but irrevocably, wiped away with his caress a...

"There is nothing to be afraid of, Cornélie," he said, convincingly. "That man has no power over you if you refuse, if you refuse with a firm will. I do not see what he could do...

Next day, when Cornélie walked with Duco through Florence, when they entered the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio, saw the Loggia dei Lanzi and looked in at the Uffizi to see Me...

She was now alone in the train. By tipping the guard lavishly, they had travelled by themselves through the night and been left undisturbed in their compartment. Oh, the melanch...