Her name was sweetened to her ear for ever. He looked way-worn and tired; yet so eager, so spiritually alert. Never had that glitter and magic he carried about with him been more potent, more compelling.
Alack! what woman ever yet refused to love a man because he loved himself?
It depends entirely on how she estimates the force of his temptation. And it would almost seem as though nature, for her own secret reasons, had thrown a special charm round the egotist of all types, for the loving and the true. Is it that she is thinking of the race--must needs balance in it the forces of death and life? What matters the separate joy or pain!
Yes. Lucy would have given herself to Manisty, not blind to risks, expecting thorns!--if it had been possible.
But it was not possible. She rose from her seat, and sternly dismissed her thoughts. She was no conscious thief, no willing traitor. Not even Eleanor should persuade her. Eleanor was dying because she, Lucy, had stolen from her the affections of her inconstant lover. Was there any getting over that? None! The girl shrank in horror from the very notion of such a base and plundering happiness.
CHAPTER XXIV
On the following morning when Lucy entered Eleanor"s room she found her giving some directions to Marie.
"Tell Mamma Doni that we give up the rooms next week--Friday in next week.
Make her understand."
"_Parfaitement_, Madame." And Marie left the room. Lucy advanced with a face of dismay.
"Ten days more!--Eleanor.
Eleanor tapped her lightly on the cheek, then kissed her, laughing.
"Are you too hot?"
"Dear!--don"t talk about me! But you promised me to be gone before August."
She knelt down by Eleanor"s bedside, holding her hands, imploring her with her deep blue eyes.
"Well, it"s only a few days more," said Eleanor, guiltily. "Do let"s take it leisurely! It"s so horrid to be hurried in one"s packing. Look at all these things!"
She waved her hand desperately round the little room, choked up with miscellaneous boxes; then laid both hands on Lucy"s shoulders, coaxing and smiling at her like a child.
Lucy soon convinced herself that it was of no use to argue. She must just submit, unless she were prepared to go to lengths of self-a.s.sertion which might excite Eleanor and bring on a heart attack.
So, setting her teeth, she yielded.
"Friday week, then--for the last, last day!--And Mr. Manisty?"
She had risen from her knees and stood looking down at Eleanor. Her cheek had reddened, but Eleanor admired her stateliness.
"Oh, we must keep Edward. We want him for courier. I gave you trouble enough, on the journey here."
Lucy said nothing. Her heart swelled a little. It seemed to her that under all this sweetness she was being treated with a certain violence. She went to the balcony, where the breakfast had just been laid, that she might bring Eleanor"s coffee.
"It _is_ just a little crude," Eleanor thought, uneasily. "Dear bird!--the net is sadly visible. But what can one do?--with so little time--so few chances! Once part them, and the game is up!"
So she used her weakness once more as a tyranny, this time for different ends.
The situation that she dictated was certainly difficult enough. Manisty appeared, by her summons, in the afternoon, and found them on the _loggia_.
Lucy greeted him with a cold self-possession. Of all that had happened on the previous day, naturally, not a word. So far indeed as allusions to the past were concerned, the three might just have travelled together from Marinata. Eleanor very flushed, and dressed in her elegant white dress and French hat, talked fast and well, of the country folk, the _padre parroco_, the Contessa. Lucy looked at her with alarm, dreading the after fatigue.
But Eleanor would not be managed; would have her way.
Manisty, however, was no longer deceived. Lucy was aware of some of the glances that he threw his cousin. The trouble which they betrayed gave the girl a bitter satisfaction.
Presently she left them alone. After her disappearance Eleanor turned to Manisty with a smile.
"On your peril--not another word to her!--till I give you leave. That would finish it."
He lifted hands and shoulders in a despairing gesture; but said nothing.
In Lucy"s absence, however, then and later, he did not attempt to control his depression, and Eleanor was soon distracting and comforting him in the familiar ways of the past. Before forty-eight hours had elapsed the relations between them indeed had resumed, to all appearance, the old and close intimacy. On his arm she crept down the road, to the Sa.s.setto, while Lucy drove with the Contessa. Or Manisty read aloud to her on the _loggia_, while Lucy in the courtyard below sat chatting fast to a swarm of village children who would always henceforward a.s.sociate her white dress and the pure oval of her face with their dreams of the Madonna.
In their _tete-a-tetes_, the talk of Manisty and Eleanor was always either of Lucy or of Manisty"s own future. He had been at first embarra.s.sed or reluctant. But she had insisted, and he had at length revealed himself as in truth he had never revealed himself in the days of their early friendship. With him at least, Eleanor through all anguish had remained mistress of herself, and she had her reward. No irreparable word had pa.s.sed between them. In silence the old life ceased to be, and a new bond arose.
The stifled reproaches, the secret impatiences, the _ennuis_, the hidden anguish of those last weeks at Marinata were gone. Manisty, freed from the pressure of an unspoken claim which his conscience half acknowledged and his will repulsed, was for his cousin a new creature. He began to treat her as he had treated his friend Neal, with the same affectionate consideration, the same easy sweetness; even through all the torments that Lucy made him suffer. "His restlessness as a lover,--his excellence as a friend,"--so a man who knew him well had written of him in earlier days.
As for the lover, discipline and penance had overtaken him. But now that Eleanor"s claim of another kind was dead, the friend in him had scope.
Eleanor possessed him as the lover of Lucy more truly than she had ever yet done in the days when she ruled alone.
One evening finding her more feeble than usual, he implored her to let him summon a doctor from Rome before she risked the fatigue of the Mont Cenis journey.
But she refused. "If necessary," she said, "I will go to Orvieto. There is a good man there. But there is some one else you shall write to, if you like:--Reggie! Didn"t you see him last week?"
"Certainly. Reggie and the first secretary left in charge, sitting in their shirt-sleeves, with no tempers to speak of, and the thermometer at 96. But Reggie was to get his holiday directly."
"Write and catch him."
"Tell him to come not later than Tuesday, please," said Lucy, quietly, who was standing by.
"Despot!" said Eleanor, looking up. "Are we really tied and bound to Friday?"
Lucy smiled and nodded. When she went away Manisty sat in a black silence, staring at the ground. Eleanor bit her lip, grew a little restless, and at last said:
"She gives you no openings?"
Manisty laughed.
"Except for rebuffs!" he said, bitterly.
"Don"t provoke them!"
"How can I behave as though that--that scene had never pa.s.sed between us?
In ordinary circ.u.mstances my staying on here would be an offence, of which she might justly complain. I told her last night I would have gone--but for your health."
"When did you tell her?"
"I found her alone here for a moment before dinner."