"Yes, yes," reluctantly a.s.sented the girl.
"Perhaps--who knows?--that is why no good has come of me, nor can come.
My uncle"s piety and repute have always been my efficient help. He is the princ.i.p.al priest of the church to which I am attached, and he has had infinite patience with me. My ambition and my attempted inventions are a scandal to him, for he is a priest of those like the Holy Father, who believe that all the wickedness of the modern world has come from the devices of science; my indifference to the things of religion is a terror and a sorrow to him which he combats with prayers and penances.
He starves himself and goes cold and faint that G.o.d may have mercy and turn my heart to the things on which his own is fixed. He loves my soul, but not me, and we are scarcely friends."
Florida continued to look at him with steadfast, compa.s.sionate eyes.
"It seems very strange, almost like some dream," she murmured, "that you should be saying all this to me, Don Ippolito, and I do not know why I should have asked you anything."
The pity of this virginal heart must have been very sweet to the man on whom she looked it. His eyes worshipped her, as he answered her devoutly, "It was due to the truth in you that I should seem to you what I am."
"Indeed, you make me ashamed!" she cried with a blush. "It was selfish of me to ask you to speak. And now, after what you have told me, I am so helpless and I know so very little that I don"t understand how to comfort or encourage you. But surely you can somehow help yourself. Are men, that seem so strong and able, just as powerless as women, after all, when it comes to real trouble? Is a man"--
"I cannot answer. I am only a priest," said Don Ippolito coldly, letting his eyes drop to the gown that fell about him like a woman"s skirt.
"Yes, but a priest should be a man, and so much more; a priest"--
Don Ippolito shrugged his shoulders.
"No, no!" cried the girl. "Your own schemes have all failed, you say; then why do you not think of becoming a priest in reality, and getting the good there must be in such a calling? It is singular that I should venture to say such a thing to you, and it must seem presumptuous and ridiculous for me, a Protestant--but our ways are so different."... She paused, coloring deeply, then controlled herself, and added with grave composure, "If you were to pray"--
"To what, madamigella?" asked the priest, sadly.
"To what!" she echoed, opening her eyes full upon him. "To G.o.d!"
Don Ippolito made no answer. He let his head fall so low upon his breast that she could see the sacerdotal tonsure.
"You must excuse me," she said, blushing again. "I did not mean to wound your feelings as a Catholic. I have been very bold and intrusive. I ought to have remembered that people of your church have different ideas--that the saints"--
Don Ippolito looked up with pensive irony.
"Oh, the poor saints!"
"I don"t understand you," said Florida, very gravely.
"I mean that I believe in the saints as little as you do."
"But you believe in your Church?"
"I have no Church."
There was a silence in which Don Ippolito again dropped his head upon his breast. Florida leaned forward in her eagerness, and murmured, "You believe in G.o.d?"
The priest lifted his eyes and looked at her beseechingly. "I do not know," he whispered. She met his gaze with one of dumb bewilderment. At last she said: "Sometimes you baptize little children and receive them into the church in the name of G.o.d?"
"Yes."
"Poor creatures come to you and confess their sins, and you absolve them, or order them to do penances?"
"Yes."
"And sometimes when people are dying, you must stand by their death-beds and give them the last consolations of religion?"
"It is true."
"Oh!" moaned the girl, and fixed on Don Ippolito a long look of wonder and reproach, which he met with eyes of silent anguish.
"It is terrible, madamigella," he said, rising. "I know it. I would fain have lived single-heartedly, for I think I was made so; but now you see how black and deadly a lie my life is. It is worse than you could have imagined, is it not? It is worse than the life of the cruelest bigot, for he at least believes in himself."
"Worse, far worse!"
"But at least, dear young lady," he went on piteously, "believe me that I have the grace to abhor myself. It is not much, it is very, very little, but it is something. Do not wholly condemn me!"
"Condemn? Oh, I am sorry for you with my whole heart. Only, why must you tell me all this? No, no; you are not to blame. I made you speak; I made you put yourself to shame."
"Not that, dearest madamigella. I would unsay nothing now, if I could, unless to take away the pain I have given you. It has been more a relief than a shame to have all this known to you; and even if you should despise me"--
"I don"t despise you; that isn"t for me; but oh, I wish that I could help you!"
Don Ippolito shook his head. "You cannot help me; but I thank you for your compa.s.sion; I shall never forget it." He lingered irresolutely with his hat in his hand. "Shall we go on with the reading, madamigella?"
"No, we will not read any more to-day," she answered.
"Then I relieve you of the disturbance, madamigella," he said; and after a moment"s hesitation he bowed sadly and went.
She mechanically followed him to the door, with some little gestures and movements of a desire to keep him from going, yet let him go, and so turned back and sat down with her hands resting noiseless on the keys of the piano.
XI.
The next morning Don Ippolito did not come, but in the afternoon the postman brought a letter for Mrs. Vervain, couched in the priest"s English, begging her indulgence until after the day of Corpus Christi, up to which time, he said, he should be too occupied for his visits of ordinary.
This letter reminded Mrs. Vervain that they had not seen Mr. Ferris for three days, and she sent to ask him to dinner. But he returned an excuse, and he was not to be had to breakfast the next morning for the asking. He was in open rebellion. Mrs. Vervain had herself rowed to the consular landing, and sent up her gondolier with another invitation to dinner.
The painter appeared on the balcony in the linen blouse which he wore at his work, and looked down with a frown on the smiling face of Mrs.
Vervain for a moment without speaking. Then, "I"ll come," he said gloomily.
"Come with me, then," returned Mrs. Vervain,
"I shall have to keep you waiting."
"I don"t mind that. You"ll be ready in five minutes."
Florida met the painter with such gentleness that he felt his resentment to have been a stupid caprice, for which there was no ground in the world. He tried to recall his fading sense of outrage, but he found nothing in his mind but penitence. The sort of distraught humility with which she behaved gave her a novel fascination.
The dinner was good, as Mrs. Vervain"s dinners always were, and there was a compliment to the painter in the presence of a favorite dish. When he saw this, "Well, Mrs. Vervain, what is it?" he asked. "You needn"t pretend that you"re treating me so well for nothing. You want something."