I looked at her a moment; she met my eyes gravely, over the top of her fan. "Are _you_ very careful?" I said.
She dropped her fan with a certain violence. "Ah, yes, you are impertinent!"
"Ah no," I said. "Remember that I am old enough to be your father; that I knew you when you were three years old. I may surely ask such questions. But you are right; one must do your mother justice. She was certainly thinking of her second marriage."
"You have not forgiven her that!" said the Countess, very gravely.
"Have you?" I asked, more lightly.
"I don"t judge my mother. That is a mortal sin. My stepfather was very kind to me."
"I remember him," I said; "I saw him a great many times--your mother already received him."
My hostess sat with lowered eyes, saying nothing; but she presently looked up.
"She was very unhappy with my father."
"That I can easily believe. And your stepfather--is he still living?"
"He died--before my mother."
"Did he fight any more duels?"
"He was killed in a duel," said the Countess, discreetly.
It seems almost monstrous, especially as I can give no reason for it--but this announcement, instead of shocking me, caused me to feel a strange exhilaration. Most a.s.suredly, after all these years, I bear the poor man no resentment. Of course I controlled my manner, and simply remarked to the Countess that as his fault had been so was his punishment. I think, however, that the feeling of which I speak was at the bottom of my saying to her that I hoped that, unlike her mother"s, her own brief married life had been happy.
"If it was not," she said, "I have forgotten it now."--I wonder if the late Count Scarabelli was also killed in a duel, and if his adversary . . .
Is it on the books that his adversary, as well, shall perish by the pistol? Which of those gentlemen is he, I wonder? Is it reserved for poor little Stanmer to put a bullet into him? No; poor little Stanmer, I trust, will do as I did. And yet, unfortunately for him, that woman is consummately plausible. She was wonderfully nice last evening; she was really irresistible. Such frankness and freedom, and yet something so soft and womanly; such graceful gaiety, so much of the brightness, without any of the stiffness, of good breeding, and over it all something so picturesquely simple and southern. She is a perfect Italian. But she comes honestly by it. After the talk I have just jotted down she changed her place, and the conversation for half an hour was general. Stanmer indeed said very little; partly, I suppose, because he is shy of talking a foreign tongue. Was I like that--was I so constantly silent? I suspect I was when I was perplexed, and Heaven knows that very often my perplexity was extreme. Before I went away I had a few more words _tete- a-tete_ with the Countess.
"I hope you are not leaving Florence yet," she said; "you will stay a while longer?"
I answered that I came only for a week, and that my week was over.
"I stay on from day to day, I am so much interested."
"Eh, it"s the beautiful moment. I"m glad our city pleases you!"
"Florence pleases me--and I take a paternal interest to our young friend," I added, glancing at Stanmer. "I have become very fond of him."
"_Bel tipo inglese_," said my hostess. "And he is very intelligent; he has a beautiful mind."
She stood there resting her smile and her clear, expressive eyes upon me.
"I don"t like to praise him too much," I rejoined, "lest I should appear to praise myself; he reminds me so much of what I was at his age. If your beautiful mother were to come to life for an hour she would see the resemblance."
She gave me a little amused stare.
"And yet you don"t look at all like him!"
"Ah, you didn"t know me when I was twenty-five. I was very handsome!
And, moreover, it isn"t that, it"s the mental resemblance. I was ingenuous, candid, trusting, like him."
"Trusting? I remember my mother once telling me that you were the most suspicious and jealous of men!"
"I fell into a suspicious mood, but I was, fundamentally, not in the least addicted to thinking evil. I couldn"t easily imagine any harm of any one."
"And so you mean that Mr. Stanmer is in a suspicions mood?"
"Well, I mean that his situation is the same as mine."
The Countess gave me one of her serious looks. "Come," she said, "what was it--this famous situation of yours? I have heard you mention it before."
"Your mother might have told you, since she occasionally did me the honour to speak of me."
"All my mother ever told me was that you were--a sad puzzle to her."
At this, of course, I laughed out--I laugh still as I write it.
"Well, then, that was my situation--I was a sad puzzle to a very clever woman."
"And you mean, therefore, that I am a puzzle to poor Mr. Stanmer?"
"He is racking his brains to make you out. Remember it was you who said he was intelligent."
She looked round at him, and as fortune would have it, his appearance at that moment quite confirmed my a.s.sertion. He was lounging back in his chair with an air of indolence rather too marked for a drawing-room, and staring at the ceiling with the expression of a man who has just been asked a conundrum. Madame Scarabelli seemed struck with his att.i.tude.
"Don"t you see," I said, "he can"t read the riddle?"
"You yourself," she answered, "said he was incapable of thinking evil. I should be sorry to have him think any evil of _me_."
And she looked straight at me--seriously, appealingly--with her beautiful candid brow.
I inclined myself, smiling, in a manner which might have meant--"How could that be possible?"
"I have a great esteem for him," she went on; "I want him to think well of me. If I am a puzzle to him, do me a little service. Explain me to him."
"Explain you, dear lady?"
"You are older and wiser than he. Make him understand me."
She looked deep into my eyes for a moment, and then she turned away.
26th.--I have written nothing for a good many days, but meanwhile I have been half a dozen times to Casa Salvi. I have seen a good deal also of my young friend--had a good many walks and talks with him. I have proposed to him to come with me to Venice for a fortnight, but he won"t listen to the idea of leaving Florence. He is very happy in spite of his doubts, and I confess that in the perception of his happiness I have lived over again my own. This is so much the case that when, the other day, he at last made up his mind to ask me to tell him the wrong that Madame de Salvi had done me, I rather checked his curiosity. I told him that if he was bent upon knowing I would satisfy him, but that it seemed a pity, just now, to indulge in painful imagery.
"But I thought you wanted so much to put me out of conceit of our friend."
"I admit I am inconsistent, but there are various reasons for it. In the first place--it"s obvious--I am open to the charge of playing a double game. I profess an admiration for the Countess Scarabelli, for I accept her hospitality, and at the same time I attempt to poison your mind; isn"t that the proper expression? I can"t exactly make up my mind to that, though my admiration for the Countess and my desire to prevent you from taking a foolish step are equally sincere. And then, in the second place, you seem to me, on the whole, so happy! One hesitates to destroy an illusion, no matter how pernicious, that is so delightful while it lasts. These are the rare moments of life. To be young and ardent, in the midst of an Italian spring, and to believe in the moral perfection of a beautiful woman--what an admirable situation! Float with the current; I"ll stand on the brink and watch you."