He was aware that Marise looked at him surprised by his fire. He was surprised by it, himself. He guessed perhaps he was ready to go back to work; perhaps he"d had enough of sauntering around. "That"s what you learn in college athletics--how to give yourself to some aim and not to keep anything back for yourself. That"s great, you know," he told her imperatively. "It is! It takes the personal littleness out of a boy to give his all to reach a goal. It makes a man out of a boy. But, oh, Lord!" he burst out with a great swing of his arm, "When that _has_ made you a man, why don"t they let you know that you have more goals to choose from than just different ways of making your living, most of them just buying and selling different sorts of things? You"re trained in athletics to put your very heart and all of it, into what you do. That"s _fine_! But why don"t they train you just as hard to put your whole intelligence into being sure that what you"re putting your heart into is worth doing, and is what you"re meant to do? They don"t train you for that, they won"t even let you have a quiet minute to think of it yourself. They keep you up in the air all the time, whooping it up about your duty to "win out!" to win the game! Sure, any man that"s got blood in his veins wants to win the game. But _which_ game? It"s all very well, turning a boy into a grown-up human being, but you"ve got to...."
"I wonder," broke in Marise thoughtfully, "I wonder what might turn a girl into a grown-up human being?" And then before Neale could open his lips she blushed, shook her head as if at a slip on her part, and said quickly, "Oh, there"s my car, now."
She ran out to take it. Neale stood on the corner, cursing the whole race of tram-cars.
When it pa.s.sed him, close to him in the narrow street, he caught sight of her face. It was bent downward as if to hide it from the other people in the car. He saw that there was a very faint smile on her lips as if she could not keep it back, a little sweet, secret, happy smile. Her whole face was softly shimmering with it.
Good heavens! why hadn"t he gone on with her! He leaped forward and sprinted after the rapidly disappearing car.
And stopped short in the midst of the traffic. You can"t make love in a _street-car_! What an imbecile he was!
Often, after she had left him, he pelted off into the Campagna, walking for miles "like a madman," said the leisurely Italian countrymen, slowly stepping about their work. Neale felt himself rather mad, as though the steady foundations of his life had been rent and shattered, as by a blast of dynamite.
Dynamite? What was it somebody had said to him once, about dynamite? He tried to think, but could not remember. Perhaps it was something he had read in a book.
Once, after such a headlong tramp, he came in and wrote a long letter to his mother, telling her all about Marise; a strange thing for him to do, he thought, as he dropped the letter in the box. But everything he did now seemed strange to him. Strange and yet irresistibly natural.
CHAPTER XLIX
If only Marise would go away, would go _away_ and give her a chance, thought Eugenia despairingly, coming slowly into her sitting-room where Mlle. Vallet sat writing in her journal. Josephine heard the door close and hurried in with her quick silent step to take off her mistress"
wraps.
"Mademoiselle looks so _tired_ after these long walks!" she said solicitously, scrutinizing with a professional expertness the color of the young face. "I don"t think they agree with Mademoiselle at all. This climate is too soft to walk about so. n.o.body does. Mademoiselle might--without presuming to advise--Mademoiselle might be wiser to go in cabs."
Eugenia held out her arms as Josephine slipped off her pretty, fawn-colored silk coat and then let them fall at her sides. She was thinking, "_Cabs!_ What would he say to some one who went everywhere in cabs!"
"Oh!" cried Josephine. "Those abominable ruins! Mademoiselle"s dear little bronze shoes! Cut to pieces! Oh, Mlle. Vallet, just look at our poor Mademoiselle"s shoes, the beautiful bronze ones. And there"s no replacing them in the shops of _this_ country!"
Mlle. Vallet tipped her head forward to look seriously over her steel-rimmed spectacles, agreed seriously that there was certainly very little left of the pretty bronze shoes, and went seriously back to writing with her sharp steel pen a detailed description of her expedition to the Catacombs. Mlle. Vallet was a very happy woman in those days. To be in Rome, after years of grinding drudgery in the cla.s.s-room, to be free to look and wander and observe at her leisure for so much of the day--she often told Eugenia that she had never in her wildest dreams supposed she would have such an opportunity! She studied and sight-saw with conscientious and absorbed exact.i.tude, and wrote down voluminous accounts of every day"s sights and the thoughts they aroused in her. "It will be the treasure-book of my old age!" she said. "I shall take it down from the shelf when I am old, and live myself back into this wonderful experience!"
"Her old age!" Eugenia wondered when she thought old age would begin.
She looked a thousand years old already to Eugenia. Heavens! Think of ever being old like that, yourself. What use _could_ there be in living if you were old and reduced for your amus.e.m.e.nt to writing down dates and things in a journal!
"If Mademoiselle will step into her own room," said Josephine. Eugenia came to herself with a start. She had been standing in the middle of the room staring at Mlle. Vallet"s back. But she had been thinking about Neale Crittenden, about those deep-set eyes of his, and how his face was lighted up when he smiled. When he smiled at her, Eugenia felt like moving from wherever she was and going to stand close beside him. What made her feel so? It was like a black-art. There was that girl at school who had been bewitched by the Breton mission-priest,--bewitched so that she fell into a fever if she could not see him every day.
"There! Sit there!" said Josephine, pressing her competently into an easy chair, and beginning to undo her hooks and eyes. "I haven"t much time. Mademoiselle is so late in coming in. Just a little cold-cream--this horrible southern sun burns so! Oh, I can feel this awful Roman dust thick on every hair! I do wish--without seeming to presume--I do _wish_ that Mademoiselle would consent to wear a veil--everybody does."
Eugenia moved her head from one side to the other wearily. How Josephine did chatter! She never had a quiet moment, _never_, and she was so _tired_. Feeling the supple, smooth professional fingers beginning to put on the cold cream, she held her head still and thought.
Very bitter thoughts and bewildered ... of a person betrayed. She _was_ betrayed! She had done everything ... everything that she had known how to do. She had spared neither time nor money nor effort. She had worked (and she hated to work) she had _worked_ to learn all the things she should know. She had beaten Marise at her own game. She talked better French than she, so her diction teacher said; and ever so much more distinguished English--she _never_ made those slips into Americanisms or Gallicisms that Marise did. At least not in conversation, sometimes she still thought in American. She knew ever so much more about dressing than Marise, and about lace, and about manners. She had come to the point at last of being sure of her manners, of being able to sit down, instinctively composing herself so that she would look well from all angles, of not having to think of how to shake hands or leave a room, any more than she thought of the adjustment of a gown that Josephine had put on her. Whereas Marise still fumbled at the back of her neck at times to make sure of a hook, or had that common trick of feeling her hair to see if it were in order. Marise had stood still in all that, and she had gone forward to the goal. But as she reached it...!
How could she have thought for a moment that she cared a thing about him--he was horrible and rough and as American as--as--a typewriter!
What _made_ her care about such a man? She wouldn"t have, if it had not been for Marise. It was Marise"s fault. She never would have dreamed of looking at him if she hadn"t seen that first evening at Donna Antonia Pierleoni"s soiree that Marise had lost her head over him. That made her curious about him of course, and somehow before she knew it something about his eyes or smile--oh, it _was_ as if she were bewitched that he should make her feel so, make her want and want and want till she ached, to have him look at her--and all the time he never looked away from Marise.
"There," said Josephine, slipping out the hairpins, and taking up a handful of the bright hair to inspect it, "I believe--I _believe_," she pondered the matter profoundly, her dark, sharp intelligent face selflessly focussed on the problem, "I _wonder_ if we ought to wash it a little oftener here than in Paris? There is more dust. But washing it takes the oil out so. Perhaps a little more of the Meylan dressing.
That has a little fine oil in it. I know the recipe."
Josephine knew everything there was to know about toilet-preparations, and about how to use them. She adored her profession and adored Mlle.
Mills for being such a beautiful subject. There were times, when she had pinned the last shining curl in place, put the last breath of invisible powder on the rounded young white neck, fastened the last hook in the exquisitely fitting gown, and got down on her knees to straighten the gleaming silk of the fine silk stockings, when she wondered what she had done to deserve such good fortune.
She often watched Eugenia out of the door, as tenderly, impersonally proud of her as a painter of his canvas, as a patissier of his tart; and then feeling somewhat worn with activity and emotion, stepped back, took off her corsets, got into the rumpled untidy wrapper which was her personal favorite, put carpet slippers on her tired feet, and sat down with a novel of high-life to rest.
Eugenia occasionally thought seeing her thus, that _she_ never was allowed to relax in unpicturesque ease. It seemed to her that Mlle.
Vallet and Josephine were the ones who were _really_ enjoying Rome! She worked so hard, she had paid the full price--and somehow the coin was of no value in this new country to which she was now transported, where she had not wanted to come, from which she would give anything to get away.
She did not _like_ Mr. Crittenden--she never had liked him--oh, why wouldn"t he just once look at her and see what was there, instead of talking over her head that queer talk of his? She put on her loveliest toilettes, things that made Josephine almost weep for pleasure, while Marise wore that same old gray dress day after day--she ruined her bronze shoes for him, stumbling around on foot over those horrible old ruins--how she loathed ruins! Why on earth did any one want to _pretend_ to like to look at them!
History! That was what he was always talking about--history that she had always hated. Here it was again to plague her! How could she have guessed that he would care about history? She sat up now till all hours reading it, till Mlle. Vallet was afraid for her eyes, and yet he didn"t seem to notice when she said something about it. He just took it for granted, as if she were a man.
What did Marise _want_ of him anyhow? She couldn"t possibly expect to _marry_ him ... neither of them had a cent of money. She ought to think of that, to think what was best for him. It was selfish, self-centered of Marise. A man like Neale ought of course to marry money. When she thought what _she_ could do for him! Married to her he could have exactly the life he was meant for--travel, leisure, ease--! What was it about Marise that he liked? She could do everything better than Marise now, except play the piano, and it evidently wasn"t _that_ he cared for in her, because the afternoon they had all gone to the Visconti recital, he had listened just as intently to the men students and the other girls as to Marise. And when Marise asked him afterwards what music he liked best he told her bluntly the Bach that Professor Visconti himself had played, and Marise had said she did too. She hadn"t seemed to realize what an affront to her that was. _Why_ did Marise care so much about him? Why did anybody? Eugenia couldn"t understand. She couldn"t understand. Her throat had a hard aching lump in it because she couldn"t understand.
"A loose soft coiffure for to-night," murmured Josephine dreamily to herself, happily twisting together the beautiful golden strands, "and the pale-blue mousseline de soie--not the evening-dress!" she was shocked at the idea, though n.o.body had suggested it, "the high-necked one with the little myosotis embroidered on the ruffles." Josephine worshipped that dress.
Her strong dark flexible fingers hovered around the golden head as though she were calling down blessings on it. As a matter of fact she was. She slipped off the silk peignoir, washed with almond-scented water the white arms and neck, and the white tired feet. She dried them with a fine linen towel by gentle pattings, not to coa.r.s.en the skin. She put on the white silk stockings and white high-heeled slippers, and a white satin underslip. She stood a moment to be sure she had thought of everything. Then carefully, carefully she slipped on the pale blue mousseline-de-soie. "A-ah!" it _was_ as sweet as she remembered it!
Eugenia had submitted to all this with a forlorn patience. That was all the good it would do. He would look at her as if she were dressed in a meal-sack, never even notice that she had changed her dress. What _else_ could she do, could any one do? What more did he want? She was betrayed; somehow life had played her false, a callous heartless dishonest trick!
Why _should_ she care so much? She didn"t want to care. Why did she long to have him look kindly at her, till her heart ached? Why every day, every day, should the disappointment _hurt_ her so? She hadn"t done anything wrong to deserve to be hurt so. If she could only stop caring.
If only Marise would go away.
Eugenia sat very still, while Josephine set a jeweled comb at exactly the right angle in the golden hair. One lovely little hand was at her heart as if by pressing hard on it she could stop the ache, the other held the fresh, scented handkerchief clutched tightly, in case this time she could not keep back the tears. She mustn"t cry. She mustn"t cry, because Josephine would have to do her face all over.
CHAPTER L
One night Marise woke up with a start, staring into the darkness, feeling very cold and sick. She knew what had happened. She had come to her senses in time. She had almost slipped into the trap, the trap set for her by life, which she had so mortally feared. She had been playing a foolish, reckless game of hide-and-seek with herself, pretending that she did not know what was happening. She knew perfectly well what was happening. Neale Crittenden was in love with her. And she was falling in love with him. She wanted him.
Oh, this was the way it must always happen. This was the way all women were caught in the trap ... these dizzying moments of joy, this causeless singing of your heart, this blind, rapturous rushing forward with outstretched arms to clasp all life to your heart ... treacherous deadly life that only sought to debase you.
She had always wondered how women could go on, go on to the fatal moment from which there was no drawing back. Now she knew. You were poisoned, you were made mad till you longed for that moment with all your being.
But she had come to her senses in time to draw back. She would save herself, defend herself, since there was no one to help her, now more than ever. First of all, she knew pa.s.sionately, she must not think of him for a moment or she would not draw back. She must not remember how he looked or spoke or moved, not even the sound of his voice. She must concentrate her thoughts on the one fact that she had almost been caught in that great dreadful trap, that she, Marise, who knew so much better, had almost fallen in love ... love!
She drew the covers about her, as she sat bolt-upright in the dark, her teeth chattering. Love! She sickened at the sound. The gray cat ...
Jeanne ... Isabelle ... the pictures in one of the hidden books at school ... the pa.s.sages in her mother"s novels ... her mother ...
Madame Vallery ... Madame de la Cueva ... they were all of them looking at her out of the dark, pointing at her, shaming her, exulting over her.... "You too ... you have come to it."
The gray cat! She was like the gray cat! She began to sob hysterically and thrust the covers into her mouth to smother the sound.
What could she do? What could she do? She had no strength left. She did not know how to defend herself! She did not want to defend herself!
She could run away. Even poor defenseless things could run away. She stopped sobbing, and sprang out of bed, lighting her candle with trembling fingers. Her watch showed three in the morning. There was a railroad time-table down in the dining room. She huddled on her wrapper, thrust her feet into slippers and, shading her candle-flame, crept downstairs.