"Pray, sir, is it my infelicitous allusion to Miss Light"s marriage?"
"It "s your infelicitous everything! I don"t say that to offend you; I beg your pardon if it does. I say it by way of making our rupture complete, irretrievable!"
Rowland had stood by in silence, but he now interfered. "Listen to me,"
he said, laying his hand on Roderick"s arm. "You are standing on the edge of a gulf. If you suffer anything that has pa.s.sed to interrupt your work on that figure, you take your plunge. It "s no matter that you don"t like it; you will do the wisest thing you ever did if you make that effort of will necessary for finishing it. Destroy the statue then, if you like, but make the effort. I speak the truth!"
Roderick looked at him with eyes that still inexorableness made almost tender. "You too!" he simply said.
Rowland felt that he might as well attempt to squeeze water from a polished crystal as hope to move him. He turned away and walked into the adjoining room with a sense of sickening helplessness. In a few moments he came back and found that Mr. Leavenworth had departed--presumably in a manner somewhat portentous. Roderick was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
Rowland made one more attempt. "You decline to think of what I urge?"
"Absolutely."
"There"s one more point--that you shouldn"t, for a month, go to Mrs.
Light"s."
"I go there this evening."
"That too is an utter folly."
"There are such things as necessary follies."
"You are not reflecting; you are speaking in pa.s.sion."
"Why then do you make me speak?"
Rowland meditated a moment. "Is it also necessary that you should lose the best friend you have?"
Roderick looked up. "That "s for you to settle!"
His best friend clapped on his hat and strode away; in a moment the door closed behind him. Rowland walked hard for nearly a couple of hours.
He pa.s.sed up the Corso, out of the Porta del Popolo and into the Villa Borghese, of which he made a complete circuit. The keenness of his irritation subsided, but it left him with an intolerable weight upon his heart. When dusk had fallen, he found himself near the lodging of his friend Madame Grandoni. He frequently paid her a visit during the hour which preceded dinner, and he now ascended her unillumined staircase and rang at her relaxed bell-rope with an especial desire for diversion. He was told that, for the moment, she was occupied, but that if he would come in and wait, she would presently be with him. He had not sat musing in the firelight for ten minutes when he heard the jingle of the door-bell and then a rustling and murmuring in the hall. The door of the little saloon opened, but before the visitor appeared he had recognized her voice. Christina Light swept forward, preceded by her poodle, and almost filling the narrow parlor with the train of her dress. She was colored here and there by the flicking firelight.
"They told me you were here," she said simply, as she took a seat.
"And yet you came in? It is very brave," said Rowland.
"You are the brave one, when one thinks of it! Where is the padrona?"
"Occupied for the moment. But she is coming."
"How soon?"
"I have already waited ten minutes; I expect her from moment to moment."
"Meanwhile we are alone?" And she glanced into the dusky corners of the room.
"Unless Stenterello counts," said Rowland.
"Oh, he knows my secrets--unfortunate brute!" She sat silent awhile, looking into the firelight. Then at last, glancing at Rowland, "Come!
say something pleasant!" she exclaimed.
"I have been very happy to hear of your engagement."
"No, I don"t mean that. I have heard that so often, only since breakfast, that it has lost all sense. I mean some of those unexpected, charming things that you said to me a month ago at Saint Cecilia"s."
"I offended you, then," said Rowland. "I was afraid I had."
"Ah, it occurred to you? Why have n"t I seen you since?"
"Really, I don"t know." And he began to hesitate for an explanation. "I have called, but you have never been at home."
"You were careful to choose the wrong times. You have a way with a poor girl! You sit down and inform her that she is a person with whom a respectable young man cannot a.s.sociate without contamination; your friend is a very nice fellow, you are very careful of his morals, you wish him to know none but nice people, and you beg me therefore to desist. You request me to take these suggestions to heart and to act upon them as promptly as possible. They are not particularly flattering to my vanity. Vanity, however, is a sin, and I listen submissively, with an immense desire to be just. If I have many faults I know it, in a general way, and I try on the whole to do my best. "Voyons," I say to myself, "it is n"t particularly charming to hear one"s self made out such a low person, but it is worth thinking over; there "s probably a good deal of truth in it, and at any rate we must be as good a girl as we can. That "s the great point! And then here "s a magnificent chance for humility. If there "s doubt in the matter, let the doubt count against one"s self. That is what Saint Catherine did, and Saint Theresa, and all the others, and they are said to have had in consequence the most ineffable joys. Let us go in for a little ineffable joy!" I tried it; I swallowed my rising sobs, I made you my courtesy, I determined I would not be spiteful, nor pa.s.sionate, nor vengeful, nor anything that is supposed to be particularly feminine. I was a better girl than you made out--better at least than you thought; but I would let the difference go and do magnificently right, lest I should not do right enough. I thought of it a deal for six hours when I know I did n"t seem to be, and then at last I did it! Santo Dio!"
"My dear Miss Light, my dear Miss Light!" said Rowland, pleadingly.
"Since then," the young girl went on, "I have been waiting for the ineffable joys. They have n"t yet turned up!"
"Pray listen to me!" Rowland urged.
"Nothing, nothing, nothing has come of it. I have pa.s.sed the dreariest month of my life!"
"My dear Miss Light, you are a very terrible young lady!" cried Rowland.
"What do you mean by that?"
"A good many things. We "ll talk them over. But first, forgive me if I have offended you!"
She looked at him a moment, hesitating, and then thrust her hands into her m.u.f.f. "That means nothing. Forgiveness is between equals, and you don"t regard me as your equal."
"Really, I don"t understand!"
Christina rose and moved for a moment about the room. Then turning suddenly, "You don"t believe in me!" she cried; "not a grain! I don"t know what I would not give to force you to believe in me!"
Rowland sprang up, protesting, but before he had time to go far one of the scanty portieres was raised, and Madame Grandoni came in, pulling her wig straight. "But you shall believe in me yet," murmured Christina, as she pa.s.sed toward her hostess.
Madame Grandoni turned tenderly to Christina. "I must give you a very solemn kiss, my dear; you are the heroine of the hour. You have really accepted him, eh?"
"So they say!"
"But you ought to know best."
"I don"t know--I don"t care!" She stood with her hand in Madame Grandoni"s, but looking askance at Rowland.
"That "s a pretty state of mind," said the old lady, "for a young person who is going to become a princess."
Christina shrugged her shoulders. "Every one expects me to go into ecstacies over that! Could anything be more vulgar? They may chuckle by themselves! Will you let me stay to dinner?"