"But you said the other day at Saint Peter"s that it was by no means certain her marriage would take place."
"Apparently I was wrong: the invitations, I am told, are going out."
Rowland felt that it would be utterly vain to remonstrate, and that the only thing for him was to make the best terms possible. "If I offer no further opposition to your waiting for Miss Light"s marriage," he said, "will you promise, meanwhile and afterwards, for a certain period, to defer to my judgment--to say nothing that may be a cause of suffering to Miss Garland?"
"For a certain period? What period?" Roderick demanded.
"Ah, don"t drive so close a bargain! Don"t you understand that I have taken you away from her, that I suffer in every nerve in consequence, and that I must do what I can to restore you?"
"Do what you can, then," said Roderick gravely, putting out his hand.
"Do what you can!" His tone and his hand-shake seemed to const.i.tute a promise, and upon this they parted.
Roderick"s bust of his mother, whether or no it was a discharge of what he called the filial debt, was at least a most admirable production.
Rowland, at the time it was finished, met Gloriani one evening, and this unscrupulous genius immediately began to ask questions about it. "I am told our high-flying friend has come down," he said. "He has been doing a queer little old woman."
"A queer little old woman!" Rowland exclaimed. "My dear sir, she is Hudson"s mother."
"All the more reason for her being queer! It is a bust for terra-cotta, eh?"
"By no means; it is for marble."
"That "s a pity. It was described to me as a charming piece of quaintness: a little demure, thin-lipped old lady, with her head on one side, and the prettiest wrinkles in the world--a sort of fairy G.o.dmother."
"Go and see it, and judge for yourself," said Rowland.
"No, I see I shall be disappointed. It "s quite the other thing, the sort of thing they put into the campo-santos. I wish that boy would listen to me an hour!"
But a day or two later Rowland met him again in the street, and, as they were near, proposed they should adjourn to Roderick"s studio.
He consented, and on entering they found the young master. Roderick"s demeanor to Gloriani was never conciliatory, and on this occasion supreme indifference was apparently all he had to offer. But Gloriani, like a genuine connoisseur, cared nothing for his manners; he cared only for his skill. In the bust of Mrs. Hudson there was something almost touching; it was an exquisite example of a ruling sense of beauty. The poor lady"s small, neat, timorous face had certainly no great character, but Roderick had reproduced its sweetness, its mildness, its minuteness, its still maternal pa.s.sion, with the most unerring art. It was perfectly unflattered, and yet admirably tender; it was the poetry of fidelity.
Gloriani stood looking at it a long time most intently. Roderick wandered away into the neighboring room.
"I give it up!" said the sculptor at last. "I don"t understand it."
"But you like it?" said Rowland.
"Like it? It "s a pearl of pearls. Tell me this," he added: "is he very fond of his mother; is he a very good son?" And he gave Rowland a sharp look.
"Why, she adores him," said Rowland, smiling.
"That "s not an answer! But it "s none of my business. Only if I, in his place, being suspected of having--what shall I call it?--a cold heart, managed to do that piece of work, oh, oh! I should be called a pretty lot of names. Charlatan, poseur, arrangeur! But he can do as he chooses!
My dear young man, I know you don"t like me," he went on, as Roderick came back. "It "s a pity; you are strong enough not to care about me at all. You are very strong."
"Not at all," said Roderick curtly. "I am very weak!"
"I told you last year that you would n"t keep it up. I was a great a.s.s.
You will!"
"I beg your pardon--I won"t!" retorted Roderick.
"Though I "m a great a.s.s, all the same, eh? Well, call me what you will, so long as you turn out this sort of thing! I don"t suppose it makes any particular difference, but I should like to say now I believe in you."
Roderick stood looking at him for a moment with a strange hardness in his face. It flushed slowly, and two glittering, angry tears filled his eyes. It was the first time Rowland had ever seen them there; he saw them but once again. Poor Gloriani, he was sure, had never in his life spoken with less of irony; but to Roderick there was evidently a sense of mockery in his profession of faith. He turned away with a muttered, pa.s.sionate imprecation. Gloriani was accustomed to deal with complex problems, but this time he was hopelessly puzzled. "What "s the matter with him?" he asked, simply.
Rowland gave a sad smile, and touched his forehead. "Genius, I suppose."
Gloriani sent another parting, lingering look at the bust of Mrs.
Hudson. "Well, it "s deuced perfect, it "s deuced simple; I do believe in him!" he said. "But I "m glad I "m not a genius. It makes," he added with a laugh, as he looked for Roderick to wave him good-by, and saw his back still turned, "it makes a more sociable studio."
Rowland had purchased, as he supposed, temporary tranquillity for Mary Garland; but his own humor in these days was not especially peaceful. He was attempting, in a certain sense, to lead the ideal life, and he found it, at the least, not easy. The days pa.s.sed, but brought with them no official invitation to Miss Light"s wedding. He occasionally met her, and he occasionally met Prince Casama.s.sima; but always separately, never together. They were apparently taking their happiness in the inexpressive manner proper to people of social eminence. Rowland continued to see Madame Grandoni, for whom he felt a confirmed affection. He had always talked to her with frankness, but now he made her a confidant of all his hidden dejection. Roderick and Roderick"s concerns had been a common theme with him, and it was in the natural course to talk of Mrs. Hudson"s arrival and Miss Garland"s fine smile.
Madame Grandoni was an intelligent listener, and she lost no time in putting his case for him in a nutsh.e.l.l. "At one moment you tell me the girl is plain," she said; "the next you tell me she "s pretty. I will invite them, and I shall see for myself. But one thing is very clear: you are in love with her."
Rowland, for all answer, glanced round to see that no one heard her.
"More than that," she added, "you have been in love with her these two years. There was that certain something about you!... I knew you were a mild, sweet fellow, but you had a touch of it more than was natural.
Why did n"t you tell me at once? You would have saved me a great deal of trouble. And poor Augusta Blanchard too!" And herewith Madame Grandoni communicated a pertinent fact: Augusta Blanchard and Mr. Leavenworth were going to make a match. The young lady had been staying for a month at Albano, and Mr. Leavenworth had been dancing attendance. The event was a matter of course. Rowland, who had been lately reproaching himself with a failure of attention to Miss Blanchard"s doings, made some such observation.
"But you did not find it so!" cried his hostess. "It was a matter of course, perhaps, that Mr. Leavenworth, who seems to be going about Europe with the sole view of picking up furniture for his "home," as he calls it, should think Miss Blanchard a very handsome piece; but it was not a matter of course--or it need n"t have been--that she should be willing to become a sort of superior table-ornament. She would have accepted you if you had tried."
"You are supposing the insupposable," said Rowland. "She never gave me a particle of encouragement."
"What would you have had her do? The poor girl did her best, and I am sure that when she accepted Mr. Leavenworth she thought of you."
"She thought of the pleasure her marriage would give me."
"Ay, pleasure indeed! She is a thoroughly good girl, but she has her little grain of feminine spite, like the rest. Well, he "s richer than you, and she will have what she wants; but before I forgive you I must wait and see this new arrival--what do you call her?--Miss Garland. If I like her, I will forgive you; if I don"t, I shall always bear you a grudge."
Rowland answered that he was sorry to forfeit any advantage she might offer him, but that his exculpatory pa.s.sion for Miss Garland was a figment of her fancy. Miss Garland was engaged to another man, and he himself had no claims.
"Well, then," said Madame Grandoni, "if I like her, we "ll have it that you ought to be in love with her. If you fail in this, it will be a double misdemeanor. The man she "s engaged to does n"t care a straw for her. Leave me alone and I "ll tell her what I think of you."
As to Christina Light"s marriage, Madame Grandoni could make no definite statement. The young girl, of late, had made her several flying visits, in the intervals of the usual pre-matrimonial shopping and dress-fitting; she had spoken of the event with a toss of her head, as a matter which, with a wise old friend who viewed things in their essence, she need not pretend to treat as a solemnity. It was for Prince Casama.s.sima to do that. "It is what they call a marriage of reason," she once said. "That means, you know, a marriage of madness!"
"What have you said in the way of advice?" Rowland asked.
"Very little, but that little has favored the prince. I know nothing of the mysteries of the young lady"s heart. It may be a gold-mine, but at any rate it "s a mine, and it "s a long journey down into it. But the marriage in itself is an excellent marriage. It "s not only brilliant, but it "s safe. I think Christina is quite capable of making it a means of misery; but there is no position that would be sacred to her.
Casama.s.sima is an irreproachable young man; there is nothing against him but that he is a prince. It is not often, I fancy, that a prince has been put through his paces at this rate. No one knows the wedding-day; the cards of invitation have been printed half a dozen times over, with a different date; each time Christina has destroyed them. There are people in Rome who are furious at the delay; they want to get away; they are in a dreadful fright about the fever, but they are dying to see the wedding, and if the day were fixed, they would make their arrangements to wait for it. I think it very possible that after having kept them a month and produced a dozen cases of malaria, Christina will be married at midnight by an old friar, with simply the legal witnesses."
"It is true, then, that she has become a Catholic?"
"So she tells me. One day she got up in the depths of despair; at her wit"s end, I suppose, in other words, for a new sensation. Suddenly it occurred to her that the Catholic church might after all hold the key, might give her what she wanted! She sent for a priest; he happened to be a clever man, and he contrived to interest her. She put on a black dress and a black lace veil, and looking handsomer than ever she rustled into the Catholic church. The prince, who is very devout, and who had her heresy sorely on his conscience, was thrown into an ecstasy. May she never have a caprice that pleases him less!"
Rowland had already asked Madame Grandoni what, to her perception, was the present state of matters between Christina and Roderick; and he now repeated his question with some earnestness of apprehension. "The girl is so deucedly dramatic," he said, "that I don"t know what coup de theatre she may have in store for us. Such a stroke was her turning Catholic; such a stroke would be her some day making her courtesy to a disappointed world as Princess Casama.s.sima, married at midnight, in her bonnet. She might do--she may do--something that would make even more starers! I "m prepared for anything."
"You mean that she might elope with your sculptor, eh?"
"I "m prepared for anything!"
"Do you mean that he "s ready?"