"You will be absolutely alone," said Eleanor, in a low voice of emotion, "in this solitary place."
The Contessa fidgetted. She was of the sort that takes pity hardly.
"There is much to do,"--she said, shortly.
But then her fort.i.tude a little broke down. "If I were ten years older, it would be all right," she said, in a voice that betrayed the mind"s fatigue with its own debate. "It"s the time it all lasts; when you are as strong as I am."
Eleanor took her hand and kissed it.
"Do you never take quite another line?" she said, with sparkling eyes. "Do you never say--"This is my will, and I mean to have it! I have as much right to my way as other people?" Have you never tried it with Teresa?"
The Contessa opened her eyes.
"But I am not a tyrant," she said, and there was just a touch of scorn in her reply.
Eleanor trembled.
"We have so few years to live and be happy in," she said in a lower voice, a voice of self-defence.
"That is not how it appears to me," said the Contessa slowly. "But then I believe in a future life."
"And you think it wrong ever to press--to _insist_ upon--the personal, the selfish point of view?"
The Contessa smiled.
"Not so much wrong, as futile. The world is not made so--_chere madame_."
Eleanor sank back in her chair. The Contessa observed her emaciation, her pallor--and the pretty dress.
She remembered her friend"s letter, and the "Signor Manisty" who should have married this sad, charming woman, and had not done so. It was easy to see that not only disease but grief was preying on Mrs. Burgoyne. The Contessa was old enough to be her mother. A daughter whom she had lost in infancy would have been Eleanor"s age, if she had lived.
"Madame, let me give you a piece of advice"--she said suddenly, taking Eleanor"s hands in both her own--"leave this place. It does not suit you.
These rooms are too rough for you--or let me carry you off to the Palazzo, where I could look after you."
Eleanor flushed.
"This place is very good for me," she said with a wild fluttering breath.
"To-day I feel so much better--so much lighter!"
The Contessa felt a pang. She had heard other invalids say such things before. The words rang like a dirge upon her ear. They talked a little longer. Then the Contessa rose, and Eleanor rose, too, in spite of her guest"s motion to restrain her.
As they stood together the elder woman in her strength suddenly felt herself irresistibly drawn towards the touching weakness of the other.
Instead of merely pressing hands, she quickly threw her strong arms round Mrs. Burgoyne, gathered her for an instant to her broad breast, and kissed her.
Eleanor leant against her, sighing:
"A vocation wouldn"t drag _me_ away," she said gently.
And so they parted.
Eleanor hung over the _loggia_ and watched the Contessa"s departure. As the small horses trotted away, with a jingling of bells and a fluttering of the furry tails that hung from their ears, the _padre parroco_ pa.s.sed. He took off his hat to the Contessa, then seeing Mrs. Burgoyne on the _loggia_, he gave her, too, a shy but smiling salutation.
His light figure, his young and dreamy air, suited well with the beautiful landscape through which it pa.s.sed. Shepherd? or poet? Eleanor thought of David among the flocks.
"He only wants the crook--the Scriptural crook. It would go quite well with the soutane."
Then she became aware of another figure approaching on her right from the piece of open land that lay below the garden.
It was Father Benecke, and he emerged on the road just in front of the _padre parroco_.
The old priest took off his hat. Eleanor saw the sensitive look, the slow embarra.s.sed gesture. The _padre parroco_ pa.s.sed without looking to the right or left. All the charming pliancy of the young figure had disappeared. It was drawn up to a steel rigidity.
Eleanor smiled and sighed.
"David among the Philistines!--_Ce pauvre Goliath_! Ah! he is coming here?"
She withdrew to her sofa, and waited.
Marie, after instructions, and with that austerity of demeanour which she, too, never failed to display towards Father Benecke, introduced the visitor.
"Entrez, mon pere, entrez," said Eleanor, holding out a friendly hand. "Are you, too, braving the sun? Did you pa.s.s Miss Foster? I wish she would come in--it is getting too hot for her to be out."
"Madame, I have not been on the road. I came around through the Sa.s.setto.
There I found no one."
"Pray sit down, Father. That chair has all its legs. It comes from Orvieto."
But he did not accept her invitation--at least not at once. He remained hesitating--looking down upon her. And she, struck by his silence, struck by his expression, felt a sudden seizing of the breath. Her hand slid to her heart, with its fatal, accustomed gesture. She looked at him wildly, imploringly.
But the pause came to an end. He sat down beside her.
"Madame, you have taken so kind an interest in my unhappy affairs that you will perhaps allow me to tell you of the letter that has reached me this morning. One of the heads of the Old Catholic community invites me to go and consult with them before deciding on the course of my future life.
There are many difficulties. I am not altogether in sympathy with them.
A married priesthood such as they have now adopted, is in my eyes a priesthood shorn of its strength. But the invitation is so kind, so brotherly, I must needs accept it."
He bent forward, looking not at her, but at the brick floor of the _loggia_. Eleanor offered a few words of sympathy; but felt there was more to come.
"I have also heard from my sister. She refuses to keep my house any longer. Her resentment at what I have done is very bitter--apparently insurmountable. She wishes to retire to a country place in Bavaria where we have some relations. She has a small _rente_, and will not be in any need."
"And you?" said Eleanor quickly.
"I must find work, madame. My book will bring me in a little, they say.
That will give me time--and some liberty of decision. Otherwise of course I am dest.i.tute. I have lost everything. But my education will always bring me enough for bread. And I ask no more."
Her compa.s.sion was in her eyes.
"You too--old and alone--like the Contessa!" she said under her breath.