Shut up in this immense edifice she seemed to him immeasurably far away--lost to him.
The brougham stopped, and a gentleman put his head out of the window and called--"Andrea!"
It was the Duke of Grimiti, a near relative of his.
"Going to call on the Scerni?" asked the duke with a significant smile.
"Yes," answered Andrea, "to inquire after her--she is ill, you know."
"Yes, I know--I have just come from there. She is better."
"Does she receive?"
"Me--no. But she may perhaps receive you." And Grimiti laughed maliciously through the smoke of his cigarette.
"I don"t understand," Andrea answered coldly.
"Bah!" said the duke. "Report says you are high in favour. I heard it last night at the Pallavicinis", from a lady, a great friend of yours--give you my word!"
Andrea turned on his heel with a gesture of impatience.
"_Bonne chance_!" cried the duke.
Andrea entered the portico. In reality he was delighted and flattered that such a report should be circulated already. Grimiti"s words had suddenly revived his courage like a draught of some cordial. As he mounted the steps, his hopes rose high. He waited for a moment at the door to allow his excitement to calm down a little. Then he rang.
The servant recognised him and said at once: "If the Signor Conte will have the kindness to wait a moment I will go and inform _Mademoiselle_."
He nodded a.s.sent, and began pacing the vast ante-chamber, which seemed to echo the violent beating of his heart. Hanging lamps of wrought iron shed an uncertain light over the stamped leather panelling of the walls, the carved oak chests, the antique busts on pedestals. Under a magnificently embroidered baldachin blazed the ducal arms: a unicorn on a field gules. A bronze card-tray, heaped with cards, stood in the middle of a table, and happening to cast his eye over them, Andrea noticed the one which Grimiti had just left lying on the top--_Bonne chance!_--The ironical augury still rang in his ears.
Mademoiselle now made her appearance. "The d.u.c.h.ess is feeling a little better," she said. "I think the Signor Conte might see her for a moment.
This way, if you please."
She was a woman past her first youth, rather thin and dressed in black, with a pair of gray eyes that glittered curiously under the curls of her false fringe. Her step and her movements generally were light, not to say furtive, as of one who is in the habit of attending upon invalids or of executing secret orders.
"This way, Signor Conte."
She preceded Andrea though the long flight of dimly-lighted rooms, the thick soft carpets deadening every sound; and even through the almost uncontrollable tumult of his soul, the young man was conscious of an instinctive feeling of repulsion against her, without being able to a.s.sign an adequate reason for it.
Arrived in front of a door concealed by two pieces of tapestry of the Medicean period, bordered with deep red velvet, she stopped.
"I will go first and announce you. Please to wait here."
A voice from within, which he recognised as Elena"s, called, "Christina!"
At the sound of her voice coming thus unexpectedly, Andrea began to tremble so violently that he thought to himself--"I am sure I am going to faint." He had a dim presentiment of some more than mortal happiness in store for him which should exceed his utmost expectations, his wildest dreams--almost beyond his powers to support. She was there--on the other side of that door. All perception of reality deserted him. It seemed to him that he had already imagined--in some picture, some poem--a similar adventure, under the self-same circ.u.mstances, with these identical surroundings and enveloped in the same mystery, but of which _another_--some fiction of his own brain--was the hero. And now, by some strange trick of the imagination, the fict.i.tious was confounded with the real, causing him an indescribable sense of confusion and bewilderment.
On each of the pieces of tapestry was a large symbolical figure--Silence and Slumber--two Genii, tall and slender, which might have been designed by Primaticcio of Bologna, guarding the door. And he--he himself--stood before the door waiting, and on the other side of it was his divine lady. He almost thought he could hear her breathe.
At last Mademoiselle returned. Holding back the heavy draperies she smiled, and in a low voice said:
"Please go in."
She effaced herself, and Andrea entered the room.
He noticed first of all that the air was very hot, almost stifling, and that there was a strong odour of chloroform. Then, through the semi-darkness, he became aware of something red--the crimson of the wall paper and the curtains of the bed--and then he heard Elena"s languid voice murmuring, "Thank you so much for coming, Andrea--I feel better now."
He made his way to her with some difficulty, being unable to distinguish things very clearly in the half light.
She smiled wanly at him from among the pillows out of the gloom. Across her forehead and round her face, like a nun"s wimple, lay a band of white linen which was scarcely whiter than the cheeks it encircled, such was her extreme pallor. The outer angles of her eyelids were contracted by the pain of her inflamed nerves, the lower lids quivering spasmodically from time to time, and the eyes were dewy and infinitely melting as if veiled by a mist of unshed tears under the trembling lashes.
A flood of pity and tenderness swept over the young man"s heart when he came close to her and could see her clearly. Very slowly she drew one hand from under the coverlet and held it out to him. He bent over it till he half knelt on the edge of the couch and rained kisses thick and fast upon that burning, fevered hand, and the white wrist with its hurrying pulse.
"Elena--Elena--my love!"
Elena had closed her eyes, as if to resign herself more wholly to the ecstasy that penetrated to the most hidden fibre of her being. Then she turned her hand over that she might feel those kisses on her palm, on each finger, all round her wrist, on every vein, in every pore.
"Enough!" she murmured at last, opening her eyes again, and pa.s.sed her languid hand softly over Andrea"s hair.
Her caress, though light, was so ineffably tender, that to the lover"s soul it had the effect of a rose leaf falling into a full cup of water.
His pa.s.sion brimmed over. His lips trembled under a confused torrent of words which rose to them but which he could not express. He had the violent and divine sensation as of a new life spreading in widening circles round him beyond all physical perception.
"What bliss!" said Elena, repeating her fond gesture, and a tremor ran through her whole person, visible through the coverlet.
But when Andrea made as if to take her hand again--"No," she entreated, "do not move--stay as you are, I like to have you so."
She gently pressed his head down till his cheek lay against her knee.
She gazed at him a little, still with that caressing touch upon his head, and then in a voice that seemed to faint with ecstasy she murmured, lingering over the syllables--
"How I love you!"
There was an ineffable seduction in the way she p.r.o.nounced the words--so liquid, so enthralling on a woman"s lips.
"Again!" whispered her lover, whose senses were languishing with pa.s.sion under the touch of those hands, the sound of that caressing voice. "Say it again--go on speaking."
"I love you," repeated Elena, noticing that his eyes were fixed upon her lips, and being perhaps aware of the fascination that emanated from them while p.r.o.nouncing the words.
With a sudden movement she raised herself from the pillows, and taking Andrea"s head between her two hands, she drew him to her, and their lips met in a long and pa.s.sionate kiss.
Afterwards she fell back again, and lying with her arms stretched straight along the coverlet at her sides, she gazed at Andrea with wide open eyes, while one by one the great tears gathered slowly, and silently rolled down her cheeks.
"What is it, Elena--tell me--What is it?" asked her lover, clasping her hands and leaning over her to kiss away the tears.
She clenched her teeth and bit her lips to keep back the sobs.
"Nothing--nothing--go now, leave me--please! You shall see me to-morrow--go now."
Her voice and her look were so imploring that Andrea obeyed.
"Good-bye," he said, and kissed her tenderly on the lips, carrying away upon his own the taste of her salt tears. "Good-bye! Love me--and do not forget."