Part 16

"Of course I should be glad--I should be delighted," returned Silvio. "If it were not for her money," he continued, "it would all have been so simple--do you not see what I mean? Of course there are the titles--but anybody can have titles. I know a cab-driver in Naples who is a _marchese_, an absolutely genuine _marchese_, of Bourbon creation. But the money makes it another affair altogether."

"The money makes it another affair altogether," repeated Don Agostino; "that is very true." He spoke more as though talking to himself than to Silvio.

"Perhaps," continued Silvio, "if the princess and her Belgian confessor could be made to understand that I do not want Bianca's money--that I have enough of my own both for her and for myself--they would not be so anxious to marry her to that old baron. So you see, Don Agostino, my reason for being glad if there has been some mismanagement of the Montefiano properties."

Don Agostino looked at him with a smile.

"Yes, Silvio," he said, "I see your reason--it is one that I should have expected from you. But it is not a good reason."

Silvio glanced at him with surprise.

"Not a good reason!" he repeated. "And why not? It seems to me to be a very natural reason. I want Bianca Acorari herself. I do not want her money, and I would not accept one of her titles."

"It is a very natural reason, yes--for a _galantuomo_," returned Don Agostino, "but it is not one that will appeal to those who are not _galantuomini_. You must remember that dishonest people do not easily credit others with honesty. In this case I cannot help suspecting--it is a suspicion only--that Monsieur d'Antin has some hold over his sister, and perhaps also over the Abbe Roux. Moreover, you must recollect that Donna Bianca has evidently aroused--well, a certain passion in him; and the passion of an elderly man for a young girl--"

Silvio Rossano muttered something under his breath. It was not complimentary to Baron d'Antin.

"It is no use to fly into a rage--none at all," proceeded Don Agostino, tranquilly. "We must look at things as they are, and human nature is a complicated affair. What we have to do is to find out, so to speak, all the cards that Monsieur d'Antin holds in his hand. I do not wish to be uncharitable, but it is scarcely credible that the princess would encourage, or even tolerate, her brother's aspirations, were he not able to bring some more convincing argument to bear upon her and the Abbe Roux than the mere fact that he had conceived a sudden passion for her step-daughter."

"Yes," said Silvio, thoughtfully; "I see what you mean. You are more clever at reasoning than I am," he added.

Don Agostino smiled. "I am considerably older than you are, _ragazzo mio_," he replied; "and," he continued, "I am not in love with Bianca Acorari, though her welfare is very dear to me, for--for her mother's sake." He paused, and Silvio saw him make the sign of the cross almost imperceptibly.

"I think," Don Agostino continued, "that you would do well not to return with me to Montefiano to-morrow. If Baron d'Antin knew that you were in the neighborhood, and especially if he knew that you were in my house--it would certainly not make things easier."

Silvio's face fell. "But what am I to do?" he exclaimed. "I had meant--"

"Yes," interrupted Don Agostino, "let us hear what you had meant to do at Montefiano--or rather, I will tell you. You had meant by some means to obtain another interview with Donna Bianca--to persuade her to escape with you, perhaps--and that I should marry you. In fact, you had a whole romance in your head. Is it not true?"

Silvio laughed. "Something of the sort, I admit," he answered.

"Well," continued Don Agostino, decidedly, "it will not do; it will not do at all. We are not characters in a novel, and we can afford to act like ordinary human beings who are face to face with a difficulty, but who are also not quite sure of their ground. In real life it is wonderful how things settle themselves if we will only be patient and allow them to do so. No; you are not the hero in a romance, and it is not necessary for you to bring about a situation lest the public should become tired of you. The situation will probably come of itself--_per forza maggiore_."

"And am I to sit down and do nothing, and leave the field clear for Baron d'Antin?" asked Silvio.

"For a short time--for a few days, perhaps--yes."

"But you forget," Silvio interrupted, quickly. "Bianca is expecting to hear from me in some way. I promised her I would communicate with her. That is now nearly a month ago, and as yet I have been unable to send her a single word, for a letter would certainly never reach her--that is to say, until I can find some trustworthy person who would give it to her."

"Write your letter, and I will undertake that it reaches her," said Don Agostino.

"You!" exclaimed Silvio.

"Yes; I will be your messenger. Yesterday I would not have undertaken to help you so far. You can probably guess why, Silvio."

"Because you were not sure of me--that I was worthy of your help?"

"Oh, as to that, I was always sure from the first," said Don Agostino, quietly. "I am very seldom mistaken in my first impressions of people whom I care to study, and I studied you. But I was determined not to act on my impressions until they should have been confirmed by your father. I always told you as much, if you remember."

"And now they are confirmed? I am glad," said Silvio, simply.

Don Agostino smiled. "Amply," he replied, laying his hand affectionately on Silvio's shoulder. "Be guided by me, _figlio mio_," he continued. "Remain quietly here in Rome until I tell you to come to Montefiano. In the mean time, I will do all I can for you. It may be very little, or it may be more than you think; I cannot tell as yet. Write your letter to-night, and I will take it with me to-morrow morning. You quite understand, however, that it may be some days before I have an opportunity of conveying it safely to its destination, so you must not be impatient."

"You will see that I shall be patient," said Silvio. "It was the apparent impossibility of being able to communicate with Bianca that has made me impatient. It was natural, for the weeks were passing, and after what you told me about Baron d'Antin, I dared not leave Bianca much longer without fulfilling my promise that she should hear from me. However, now that I know that our affairs are in your hands, I will be as patient as you please."

"That is well," replied Don Agostino, briefly. "And, above all, Silvio," he added, "do not confide in anybody. Do not move from Rome until you receive a letter from me bidding you come to Montefiano, or to some other place in its neighborhood that I will name in the letter. _Dunque, siamo intesi_? Then let us catch up with the others. It is growing late, and I must return to my hotel. You can bring me your letter to-morrow morning. I shall leave Rome by the eight-o'clock train, and it will be wiser for you to come only to the hotel, and not accompany me to the railway station. The less we are seen together now the better. It is a strange thing, but the accident of having met those two individuals to-night has made me feel uncomfortable."

"What harm can they do?" said Silvio, carelessly. "If Monsieur d'Antin had seen us together at Montefiano, then he might well have been suspicious; but here, in Rome, we are--"

"In Rome," interrupted Don Agostino, dryly; and he said no more than might be implied by a slight shrug of the shoulders and a quick gesture with the hands.

The professor and Giacinta had halted at this moment. By this time they had reached the upper end of the Forum, and a few paces more would bring them out into the Via S. Teodoro, close to the narrow flight of steps leading up to the piazza of the Capitol.

As soon as Don Agostino and Silvio joined them, Professor Rossano begged the former to return with them to Palazzo Acorari, but Don Agostino declined. It was time for him to go back to his hotel, he declared, and Silvio, rightly guessing that he did not wish to run any risks of again being seen with them, forebore from seconding his father's invitation. After bidding the professor and Giacinta a cordial farewell, Don Agostino stopped a passing cab, and directed the driver to the Albergo Santa Chiara, a modest little hotel near the Minerva, largely frequented by foreign priests and pilgrims.

"I will be with you at seven o'clock to-morrow morning," said Silvio to him as he got into the cab. Don Agostino nodded, and, raising his broad beaver hat, drove away.

"There," said the professor, jerking his head in the direction of the disappearing _botte_, "is another of them."

"Another of whom, Babbo?" asked Giacinta.

"Why, another honest man, with a head upon his shoulders, too, whom those priests across the Tiber have driven away!" replied Professor Rossano, angrily.

"Why did he leave the Vatican?" asked Silvio. "He would never tell me his story at Montefiano, but always said that you would remember it well enough."

"Remember it? Of course I remember it!" returned the professor. "At one time all Rome was talking of Monsignor Lelli. They declared at the Vatican that he had speculated and lent money on bad security from the funds intrusted to him; accused him, in short, of a carelessness almost equivalent to fraud. But everybody knew that he had been forced to use the money in the way it was used, and that he was afterwards disgraced when things went contrary to expectations. _Che vuoi?_"

Silvio said nothing. His thoughts were occupied with the letter he would write to Bianca Acorari that night, and he wondered how Don Agostino would find the means of giving it, or causing it to be safely delivered. It was a disappointment to him not to return to Montefiano on the morrow, but he could not but feel that Don Agostino was right in advising him to remain quietly in Rome. It would certainly not help matters were his only friend at Montefiano to be suddenly transferred to some other post; and Silvio knew enough of his world fully to realize how important a part intrigue and personal animosities played, not only at the Vatican, but also in every phase of Roman life.

The clocks were striking ten when they reached Palazzo Acorari, and though nobody thinks of going home at ten o'clock on a summer night in Rome, or anywhere else in Italy, Silvio Rossano accompanied his father and sister up the dimly lighted staircase to their apartment. The professor was anxious to continue the correction of his proofs, and Silvio was longing to begin his letter to Bianca Acorari.

Apparently, however, he had something else on his mind; for, after the professor had retired to his library, he followed Giacinta into her sitting-room, a little room opening off the drawing-room. Giacinta, who was tired after her walk, took off her hat and the light wrap she was wearing, and settled herself comfortably in an arm-chair; while Silvio, after lighting a cigarette, began to pace somewhat restlessly up and down the room. It was very evident that he had something to say, and Giacinta, who knew her brother's moods, sat waiting for it in silence.

"I am not going back to Montefiano with Don Agostino to-morrow," he began, presently.

"I did not know that you intended to do so," observed Giacinta.

"Of course I intended to do so!" Silvio returned. "However," he continued, "Don Agostino thinks it wiser that I should not return just yet, and I believe he is right. He is going to take a letter from me to Bianca."

Giacinta glanced at him with a smile. "No doubt you think he is right in that also," she observed.

Silvio laughed. "How like you are to Babbo, sometimes!" he exclaimed. "Yes, I think he is quite right. The only thing is, Giacinta--" and he paused, hesitatingly.

"That you would not know what to say in the letter?"

"Ah, no! Well, perhaps I do not know what to say. If it amuses you to think so, I am quite content. The question is, that I want to send something to Bianca--something that I value. You understand? I have given her nothing as yet--I have not even written to her. I want to send her something--with my letter--something that belonged to our mother. It is so easy to walk into a shop and buy a bit of jewelry, but it is not the same thing--"

"I understand," said Giacinta, quietly.

"And so," continued Silvio, a little hurriedly, "I thought that if I sent her one of our mother's rings--you have all her jewelry, Giacinta, have you not? You could spare me one of the rings, perhaps?"

"They are as much yours as mine," answered Giacinta. "Babbo gave the jewelry into my charge; you know there are pearls and other things. Wait, and I will bring you the case from my room, and then you can see for yourself."

She got up from her chair and went into the next room, returning presently with an old case covered with faded red velvet and fastened with heavy clasps of gilded metal.

"Ecco!" she said, holding out to Silvio an elaborately ornamented key, also heavily gilded. "You must turn it three times in the lock before it will open the box. In the upper tray there are the rings, and below are the pearls."

"The pearls can remain where they are," observed Silvio. "You will want them when you marry," he added, as he unlocked and opened the case. "I will take this ring," he continued, pointing to an old "marquise" ring, on which a sapphire was mounted in the centre of a cluster of white Brazilian diamonds. "The rest you will keep, but this one I will send to Bianca and tell her that it belonged to my mother. You do not mind, Giacinta?"

With a sudden movement Giacinta turned and kissed him. "Why should I mind?" she exclaimed; "only--"

"Only what?" asked Silvio, as she paused.

"Only I wish you had sought for a wife elsewhere," she continued, earnestly. "Those people--they will despise you, because they are noble and we are not. You will never be allowed to marry Donna Bianca Acorari, Silvio! Never, I tell you! That priest and Baron d'Antin, they will never permit it. The girl will not be allowed to marry anybody, unless it be Monsieur d'Antin. You will see."

"_Sciocchezze!_" exclaimed Silvio, contemptuously. "What have I often told you, Giacinta?" he continued. "Bianca and I can afford to wait until she is her own mistress. If they were to attempt to force her to marry Baron d'Antin or anybody else, then we would go away and get some priest to marry us. The civil marriage could wait. I have told you so a hundred times."

Giacinta was silent for a moment. Then she said, suddenly:

"I am glad you are not going back to Montefiano. It was wise of Don Agostino, as you call him, to advise you to remain here."

"Oh, but I shall go back there very soon," returned Silvio. "In a few days Don Agostino will write to me to come. You see, Bianca must be protected from that old baron. She will be glad to know that I am near her, even if we cannot see each other."

"Do not go, Silvio!" Giacinta exclaimed, almost passionately. "You will be mad to go! Ah, but I saw Baron d'Antin's expression when he recognized you! I could see that he recognized you--and you, you looked at him as if you would have struck him."

Silvio laughed. "And I could have struck him--very hard," he replied, "for he stared at me in an insolent manner. Of course, I shall return to Montefiano, Giacinta, whenever Don Agostino writes to me that I can do so. I cannot imagine what you are afraid of."

Giacinta smiled slightly. "After all," she said, "I hardly know myself! But there is some mystery--something I do not understand. I am afraid that it is money--that they want to keep Donna Bianca's money. Oh, not the princess! She is only a fool. But these others, the Abbe Roux and Monsieur d'Antin, they are not fools. And if it is money, and you stand in their way--well, who knows what people will not do for money? They might murder you at Montefiano, and who would be the wiser?"

Silvio laughed again. "Scarcely, Giacinta _mia_," he replied. "If they tried to put me out of the way, several people would be the wiser, and some of them--Don Agostino, for instance--would make awkward inquiries. _Via!_ we are not in the Middle Ages; and the son of the Senator Rossano is not a completely obscure person who could be made away with with impunity. I assure you that you need not be alarmed. Now I must go and write my letter, for at seven o'clock to-morrow morning I have to be at the Albergo Santa Chiara, for Don Agostino leaves Rome at eight. _Buona notte_, Giacinta, _e buon riposo_, and do not get foolish ideas into your head, or you will lie awake."

And so saying, Silvio went off to his own room, taking with him the ring he had selected from his mother's jewel-case.

*XXI*

Bianca was walking slowly up and down the terrace beneath the castle of Montefiano. Every now and then she would pause and lean over the low stone parapet, gazing thoughtfully into the deep ravine below, or across the ridges of the Sabines to the towns and villages perched upon their rocky eminences commanding the upper valley of the Tiber. It was late in the afternoon, and cool enough upon the terrace, which was sheltered from the westering sun by the shadow of the mass of building above it.

More than a month had passed since she had been brought to Montefiano, and no word had come to her from Silvio. That a letter should not have reached her in the ordinary way, did not surprise her. She had very rarely received a letter in her life, save, perhaps, some words of greeting at Easter or at the New Year; and under the circumstances it was not very likely that any missive could arrive for her by the post without being intercepted and confiscated by those who were so evidently determined to guard against any renewal of communication between her and her lover.

The days had passed slowly enough at Montefiano. The great suite of rooms on the _piano nobile_ of the palace had been put into a certain order, as the princess had directed; but the furniture sent from Palazzo Acorari at Rome made a sorry show of comfort in the huge rooms of the Montefiano fortress. Indeed, it was only the corners of the living-room which could be made habitable--little oases, as it were, in a desert of marble floors, of walls from which faded damask was hanging in tattered strips, and upon which hung mirrors that had long ago ceased to reflect, or such pictures as the late prince had left as not being worth the trouble and expense of being moved to Rome to be sold to foreign collectors.

An indescribable atmosphere of dreariness seemed to pervade the interior of Montefiano, that dreariness which is produced by the sense of departed strength and grandeur. The apartments occupied by the princess and Bianca were entirely on one floor. A large vestibule formed the centre of the suite, approached by a double flight of stone steps leading up from the quadrangle or inner court of the palace. On one side of this hall were high double doors opening into an immense drawing-room, and opposite to them similar doors led into a gallery, at the farther extremity of which were two other sitting-rooms. Beyond these, again, was the princess's bedroom, and a smaller room beyond it, and at the end of the suite was Bianca's room, which could only be reached by passing through her step-mother's sleeping apartment. There were other rooms on the opposite side of the court-yard, which were occupied by the Abbe Roux and Monsieur d'Antin; while the servants inhabited a part of the house to get to which endless corridors and unused chambers had to be traversed. If life at the Palazzo Acorari and at the villa near Velletri had been quiet, it was amusing compared with that led by the princess and her step-daughter at Montefiano. Even the horses and the carriage had been left behind at Rome. Except a daily walk about a few acres of brushwood and coppices behind the castle--an enclosed piece of ground dignified by the name of a park, access to which was only possible by descending a damp, moss-grown flight of steps at the end of the terrace--Bianca never left the immediate precincts of the old dwelling, half palace and half mediaeval fortress, of which she was nominally the mistress.

The Abbe Roux had been quite right when he had declared that no convent could afford a more secure retreat from the world than the castle of Montefiano. The little town, nestling beneath the grim, battlemented walls and flanking round towers on the southern side of the building, might have been a hundred miles away, for not a sound from it ever penetrated to that part of the castle in which the princess and Bianca lived, nor was so much as a roof-top visible. The cries of the jackdaws, or the scream of a hawk during the daytime, or, after dusk, the melancholy note of the little gray owls haunting the _macchia_, the monotonous croaking of the frogs in a swampy piece of ground in its recesses, were the only sounds audible, except that of the bell of Cardinal Acorari's clock over the Renaissance facade, tolling the passage of the hours and half-hours, as it had tolled them for over two centuries.