Giovanni could not help glancing quickly at Corona. She smiled faintly, and her face betrayed no emotion.
"I daresay it will be very pleasant," she said gently, looking far out over the Campagna. In the next field the pack was moving away, followed at a little distance by a score of riders in pink; one or two men who had stayed behind in conversation, mounted hastily and rode after the hunt; some of the carriages turned out of the field and began to follow slowly along the road, in hopes of seeing the hounds throw off; the party who were going with Valdarno gathered about the drag, waiting for Donna Tullia; the grooms who were left behind congregated around the men who sold boiled beans and salad; and in a few minutes the meet had practically dispersed.
"Why will you not join us, d.u.c.h.essa?" asked Madame Mayer. "There is lunch enough for everybody, and the more people we are the pleasanter it will be." Donna Tullia made her suggestion with her usual frank manner, fixing her blue eyes upon Corona as she spoke. There was every appearance of cordiality in the invitation; but Donna Tullia knew well enough that there was a sting in her words, or at all events that she meant there should be. Corona, however, glanced quietly at her husband, and then courteously refused.
"You are most kind," she said, "but I fear we cannot join you to-day. We are very regular people," she explained, with a slight smile, "and we are not prepared to go to-day. Many thanks; I wish we could accept your kind invitation."
"Well, I am sorry you will not come," said Donna Tullia, with a rather hard laugh. "We mean to enjoy ourselves immensely."
Giovanni said nothing. There was only one thing which could have rendered the prospect of Madame Mayer"s picnic more disagreeable to him than it already was, and that would have been the presence of the d.u.c.h.essa. He knew himself to be in a thoroughly false position in consequence of having yielded to Donna Tullia"s half-tearful request that he would join the party. He remembered how he had spoken to Corona on the previous evening, a.s.suring her that he would not marry Madame Mayer. Corona knew nothing of the change his plans had undergone during the stormy interview he had had with his father; he longed, indeed, to be able to make the d.u.c.h.essa understand, but any attempt at explanation would be wholly impossible. Corona would think he was inconsistent, or at least that he was willing to flirt with the gay widow, while determined not to marry her. He reflected that it was part of his self-condemnation that he should appear unfavourably to the woman he loved, and whom he was determined to renounce; but he realised for the first time how bitter it would be to stand thus always in the appearance of weakness and self-contradiction in the eyes of the only human being whose good opinion he coveted, and for whose dear sake he was willing to do all things. As he stood by her, his hand rested upon the side of the carriage, and he stared blankly at the distant hounds and the retreating riders.
"Come, Don Giovanni, we must be going," said Donna Tullia. "What in the world are you thinking of? You look as though you had been turned into a statue!"
"I beg your pardon," returned Saracinesca, suddenly called back from the absorbing train of his unpleasant thoughts. "Good-bye, d.u.c.h.essa; good-bye, Astrardente--a pleasant drive to you."
"You will always regret not having come, you know," cried Madame Mayer, shaking hands with both the occupants of the carriage. "We shall probably end by driving to Albano, and staying all night--just fancy! Immense fun--not even a comb in the whole party! Good-bye. I suppose we shall all meet to-night--that is, if we ever come back to Rome at all. Come along, Giovanni," she said, familiarly dropping the prefix from his name. After all, he was a sort of cousin, and people in Rome are very apt to call each other by their Christian names. But Donna Tullia knew what she was about; she knew that Corona d"Astrardente could never, under any circ.u.mstances whatever, call Saracinesca plain "Giovanni." But she had not the satisfaction of seeing that anything she said produced any change in Corona"s proud dark face; she seemed of no more importance in the d.u.c.h.essa"s eyes than if she had been a fly buzzing in the sunshine.
So Giovanni and Madame Mayer joined their noisy party, and began to climb into their places upon the drag; but before they were prepared to start, the Astrardente carriage turned and drove rapidly out of the field. The laughter and loud talking came to Corona"s ears, growing fainter and more distant every second, and the sound was very cruel to her; but she set her strong brave lips together, and leaned back, adjusting the blanket over her old husband"s knees with one hand, and shading the sun from her eyes with the parasol she held in the other.
"Thank you, my dear; you are an angel of thoughtfulness," said the old dandy, stroking his wife"s hand. "What a singularly vulgar woman Madame Mayer is! And yet she has a certain little _chic_ of her own."
Corona did not withdraw her fingers from her husband"s caress. She was used to it. After all, he was kind to her in his way. It would have been absurd to have been jealous of the grossly flattering speeches he made to other women; and indeed he was as fond of turning compliments to his wife as to any one. It was a singular relation that had grown up between the old man and the young girl he had married. Had he been less thoroughly a man of the world, or had Corona been less entirely honest and loyal and self-sacrificing, there would have been small peace in their wedlock. But Astrardente, decayed roue and worn-out dandy as he was, was in love with his wife; and she, in all the young magnificence of her beauty, submitted to be loved by him, because she had promised that she would do so, and because, having sworn, she regarded the breaking of her faith by the smallest act of unkindness as a thing beyond the bounds of possibility.
It had been a terrible blow to her to discover that she cared for Don Giovanni even in the way she believed she did, as a man whose society she preferred to that of other men, and whose face it gave her pleasure to see. She, too, had spent a sleepless night; and when she had risen in the morning, she had determined to forget Giovanni, and if she could not forget him, she had sworn that more than ever she would be all things to her husband.
She wondered now, as Giovanni had known she would, why he had suddenly thrown over his day"s hunting in order to spend his time with Donna Tullia; but she would not acknowledge, even to herself, that the dull pain she felt near her heart, and that seemed to oppress her breathing, bore any relation to the scene she had just witnessed. She shut her lips tightly, and arranged the blanket for her husband.
"Madame Mayer is vulgar," she answered. "I suppose she cannot help it."
"Women can always help being vulgar," returned Astrardente. "I believe she learned it from her husband. Women are not naturally like that.
Nevertheless she is an excellent match for Giovanni Saracinesca. Rich, by millions. Undeniably handsome, gay--well, rather too gay; but Giovanni is so serious that the contrast will be to their mutual advantage."
Corona was silent. There was nothing the old man disliked so much as silence.
"Why do you not answer me?" he asked, rather petulantly.
"I do not know--I was thinking," said Corona, simply. "I do not see that it is a great match after all, for the last of the Saracinesca."
"You think she will lead him a terrible dance, I daresay," returned the old man. "She is gay--very gay; and Giovanni is very, very solemn."
"I did not mean that she was too gay. I only think that Saracinesca might marry, for instance, the Rocca girl. Why should he take a widow?"
"Such a young widow. Old Mayer was as decrepit as any old statue in a museum. He was paralysed in one arm, and gouty--gouty, my dear; you do not know how gouty he was." The old fellow grinned scornfully; he had never had the gout. "Donna Tullia is a very young widow. Besides, think of the fortune. It would break old Saracinesca"s heart to let so much money go out of the family. He is a miserly old wretch, Saracinesca!"
"I never heard that," said Corona.
"Oh, there are many things in Rome that one never hears, and that is one of them. I hate avarice--it is so extremely vulgar."
Indeed Astrardente was not himself avaricious, though he had all his life known how to protect his interests. He loved money, but he loved also to spend it, especially in such a way as to make a great show with it. It was not true, however, that Saracinesca was miserly. He spent a large income without the smallest ostentation.
"Really, I should hardly call Prince Saracinesca a miser," said Corona.
"I cannot imagine, from what I know of him, why he should be so anxious to get Madame Mayer"s fortune; but I do not think it is out of mere greediness."
"Then I do not know what you can call it," returned her husband, sharply.
"They have always had that dismal black melancholy in that family--that detestable love of secretly piling up money, while their faces are as grave and sour as any Jew"s in the Ghetto."
Corona glanced at her husband, and smiled faintly as she looked at his thin old features, where the lights and shadows were touched in with delicate colour more artfully than any actress"s, superficially concealing the lines traced by years of affectation and refined egotism; and she thought of Giovanni"s strong manly face, pa.s.sionate indeed, but n.o.ble and bold. A moment later she resolutely put the comparison out of her mind, and finding that her husband was inclined to abuse the Saracinesca, she tried to turn the conversation.
"I suppose it will be a great ball at the Frangipani"s," she said. "We will go, of course?" she added, interrogatively.
"Of course. I would not miss it for all the world. There has not been such a ball for years as that will be. Do I ever miss an opportunity of enjoying myself--I mean, of letting you enjoy yourself?"
"No, you are very good," said Corona, gently. "Indeed I sometimes think you give yourself trouble about going out on my account. Really, I am not so greedy of society. I would often gladly stay at home if you wished it."
"Do you think I am past enjoying the world, then?" asked the old man, sourly.
"No indeed," replied Corona, patiently. "Why should I think that? I see how much you like going out."
"Of course I like it. A rational man in the prime of life always likes to see his fellow-creatures. Why should not I?"
The d.u.c.h.essa did not smile. She was used to hearing her aged husband speak of himself as young. It was a harmless fancy.
"I think it is quite natural," she said.
"What I cannot understand," said Astrardente, m.u.f.fling his thin throat more closely against the keen bright _tramontana_ wind, "is that such old fellows as Saracinesca should still want to play a part in the world."
Saracinesca was younger than Astrardente, and his iron const.i.tution bade fair to outlast another generation, in spite of his white hair.
"You do not seem to be in a good humour with Saracinesca to-day,"
remarked Corona, by way of answer.
"Why do you defend him?" asked her husband, in a new fit of irritation.
"He jars on my nerves, the sour old creature!"
"I fancy all Rome will go to the Frangipani ball," began Corona again, without heeding the old man"s petulance.
"You seem to be interested in it," returned Astrardente.
Corona was silent; it was her only weapon when he became petulant. He hated silence, and generally returned to the conversation with more suavity. Perhaps, in his great experience, he really appreciated his wife"s wonderful patience with his moods, and it is certain that he was exceedingly fond of her.
"You must have a new gown, my dear," he said presently, in a conciliatory tone.
His wife pa.s.sed for the best-dressed woman in Rome, as she was undeniably the most remarkable in many other ways. She was not above taking an interest in dress, and her old husband had an admirable taste; moreover, he took a vast pride in her appearance, and if she had looked a whit less superior to other women, his smiling boast that she was above suspicion would have lost some of its force.
"I hardly think it is necessary," said Corona; "I have so many things, and it will be a great crowd."
"My dear, be economical of your beauty, but not in your adornment of it,"
said the old man, with one of his engaging grins. "I desire that you have a new gown for this ball which will be remembered by every one who goes to it. You must set about it at once."
"Well, that is an easy request for any woman to grant," answered Corona, with a little laugh; "though I do not believe my gown will be remembered so long as you think."