"Madonna mia," said the youth, "this is the loving-cup which I am to hand to you after dinner, and which you are to hand to Duke Cesare."
He hardly heard her answer, but judged by the shaping of her lips that it was, "Well, Grifone?"
"Duke Cesare will ask you to sip of it first, Madonna."
His looks were piercing; yet she was too far gone to be disturbed by such as those. She even smiled faintly at his emphasis.
"Well, Grifone?" she asked again, in that same dry whisper. "How shall that be harm to him if I do it?"
Grifone blew out his lips. "Harm, _per Dio_! None at all, but common prudence on his part. No harm to him, lady; but to you obeying him, destruction, death!"
Molly stared. Her breath came hollow from her mouth.
"Death, Grifone?" she faltered, and then pored over his face again.
He nodded his words into her.
"Death, Madonnina."
The girl tottered to her feet--had to balance like a rope-dancer to keep upon them.
"But then--but then--O Saviour!"
She threw her arms up. He thought she would fall, so put one of his round her waist. He felt her heart knocking like a drum, pressed her closer, drew her in and kissed her, with a coaxing word or two. She tried to collect herself--alas! her wits were scattered wide. Her head drooped to his shoulder.
After that there began the most pitiful business. She was pleading with him in a whining, wheedling, silly voice, which would have broken down an Englishman. Grifone himself was p.r.i.c.ked. It was like a child, frightened into slyness, coaxing its mother.
"Dear Grifone, dear Grifone! You will not hand me the cup. Oh, please, please, please!"
Grifone kissed her. "Why, what can I do?" he said. "My lord has ordered it so, dear one."
She took no notice of his familiarities; indeed, the tone they lent his voice may have soothed the poor affectionate wretch. But she only wrung her hands at his news.
"No, no, no! "Tis impossible! No, no, he could never do it!"
"I can repeat his words," said the inexorable Grifone; "he said--"
Then she sprang away from him as if he had whipped her, and crouched in a corner, at bay. She began to rave, seemingly in a high delirium, pointed at him, wagged her arm at him, mowing the air.
"Never repeat them, never repeat them. I shall die if you do!"
Grifone set down his cup, ran forward and embraced her. "My lovely lady, my adorable Molly!" he murmured, in a pa.s.sion of admiration for her transformed, unearthly beauty.
She noticed nothing of him or his doings, lay lax in his arms. She stared, gulping down horror; she looked like some shocked Addolorata come upon the body of her dead Son. And so, perhaps (since all good women mother their lovers or lords), she was face to face with her dead.
Tears came to blot out her misery; she could not stay their fall. They anointed also the burning cheeks of young Grifone, and drove him outside himself with love. He kissed her softly again, with reverence, and whispered--
"Courage, sweet lady; I shall be with you. I have it all in hand. The end for you and me shall be happiness undreamed of yet. The Duke comes in a quarter of an hour." Then he left her alone.
"The affair will go by clockwork," he a.s.sured himself. "Neither fast nor slow, but by clockwork." He had an ingenious mind, and loved mechanics.
X
WITH ALL FAULTS
At the coming out from church the two Dukes (mentally at least) separated; their paths coincided, but not their thoughts, nor their behaviour. By common consent, as it appeared, Amilcare at once resumed the obsequious, Cesare the overbearing part. Amilcare talked profusively, smirked, grimaced, pranced by the other"s side, writhed his hands, in copious explanation of nothing at all. Cesare shrugged. The amount of disdain an Italian can throw into a pair of dull eyes or an irritable shoulder, the amount of it another will take without swallowing, can still be studied whenever a young lieutenant of the line sits down to breakfast in a tavern, and the waiter slaves for his penny fee. Yet, depend upon it, the cringer has balanced to a nicety the sweets and sours of boot-blacking against the _buona mano_; the rest is pure commerce. So now, the deliberate insolence of the flushed Borgia towards his host was a thing to be dumb at; yet Pa.s.savente redoubled his volubility.
Going up the steps of the Palazzo Bagnacavallo, the guest plumply told his entertainer to bring out the woman and go to the devil with his cackling. Amilcare laughed all over his face at the best joke in the world, and bowed to the earth. Thus humoured they went in to dinner.
Molly, in fold over fold of silk gauze which let every lovely limb be seen as glorified in a rosy mist, met them in the ante-room, and thenceforth the Borgia had eyes for nothing but the beauty of her. The moment he saw her, he drew, as once before, a sharp breath; she greeted him in her fashion; he was moved to a fit of trembling.
From that time forth Amilcare was as though he were not. The Roman waited for no invitation and disregarded those he got. Would his Grace be pleased to dine? His Grace went on pouring out his talk to the wonderful rose-coloured lady. Amilcare, patient to excess, watched.
Presently Cesare said, "Madama, shall we go to dinner?" and to dinner they went, Amilcare rubbing his hands behind them.
They found the table prepared--a very low one; divans to sit upon; none but Grifone, pale and respectful, in the little painted chamber.
All this had been carefully provided. The Duke"s suite dined in another wing of the palace; the choir of minstrels, who held the pa.s.sage between them, had mail under their ca.s.socks, and two-edged swords made for thrusting. They were fifty strong. Every page-in-waiting in the hall and long cool pa.s.sages was a "Centaur" armed to the teeth. Don Cesare, it seems, had walked into a steel trap at last. Do you wonder that Amilcare could afford a supple back?
But as the delicate meats succeeded each other--each duly tasted by Grifone before a morsel went to plate--there was one, in the surge of her terrors, struck dumb with what was, rather, wonder. The magnificent Cesare went his road over the feelings of his host; the host bowed and waved his hands. Why should he not? Never one word of answer, never a gleam of attention did he win from the Roman. Why should he care? His wife was doing her duty, his enemy was webbed: what else could matter?
The Italian shrug goes deeper than the shoulders; sometimes it strokes the heart of a man. The very indignities heaped upon the adventurer made his revenge the sweeter nursling.
But Molly, the tall English girl, burning in her shameful robe, saw it vastly otherwise. That a man could bend so low! That she should ever have loved a man with such a stooping back! To think of that made (for the moment) every other degradation light. Her part as yet was one of sufferance: to look handsome, languid with the excess of her burden of beauty; to smile slowly, to keep her eyes on her lap. Pure pa.s.sivity all this, under which the miserable soul could torture in secret. As she often had a back-ache, it was easy to wilt among her cushions; as she was always mute before flattery, to smile was as simple as to frown and meant no more; as she was ashamed of herself and her husband, she could hardly hope to lift her honest eyes, or temper her furious blushing.
It would be untrue to say that the Borgia"s eager under-current of love-language stirred her not at all. Even to her the man"s fame made his homage a tribute; something it was, beyond doubt, to be courted by the greatest prince in Italy. And he had not touched her yet. Amilcare, whose desperate grinning made his jaws ache, noticed so much as he watched her, fidgeting in his place. His nails were for ever at his teeth: when the fruit should come in he was to slip out, and Grifone to crown the work. Meanwhile, the flagrant unconcern for his whereabouts shown by the victim might have stung a blind worm to bite, or excused any treachery. Amilcare had no rage at all and felt the need of no excuse. All his anxiety was that Cesare should enmesh himself deep enough; and then--! The thought of what should happen then set his head singing a song as mad as Judith"s.
The still Grifone stood behind his mistress and saw Cesare"s golden head sink near and yet nearer to her shoulder. He watched his arm over the back of her seat, and how his other hand crept towards the lady"s idle pair. The room held those four, and them not long. In his time Amilcare muttered some excuse and tiptoed out.
Cesare was saying, "Ah, give me love--love only--else I must die!"
Molly answered nothing with her lips, but in her bosom prayed ceaselessly for pity.
"Love me, pledge me with your lips, let me drink of you, O my soul!"
sighed the Duke.
"Ecco, Madonna," said Grifone, and handed her the cup.
"The chalice of love!" cried Cesare, straining towards the white girl.
"Drink to me, my heart, and I will drink from thee!"
Molly still held the cup, though the liquor curved br.i.m.m.i.n.g at the lip.
Her eyes were sightless, her head shaking with palsy.
"Drink, drink, my soul!"
"Yes, my lord, yes, yes; I must drink very deep," she said, and raised the cup.