"Perhaps there is truth in it," said Batis...o...b.., "but it is not my habit I can a.s.sure you. The origin of the saying lies in the good old custom of doctoring other people"s draughts. The man who drank water at a feast two hundred years ago was either afraid of being poisoned himself, or was engaged in poisoning his neighbours."
"Oh, the dear, good old time!" exclaimed Leonora, eating her salad daintily.
"Do you wish it were back again?" asked Batis...o...b... "Are there many people you would like to poison?"
"Oh, not that exactly," and she laughed. "But life must have been very exciting and interesting then."
"Enfin," remarked Marcantonio, "I am very well pleased with it as it is.
There was no opera, no election, no launching of war-ships; and when you went out you had to wear a patent safe on your head, in case anybody wanted to break it for you. And then, there was generally some one who did. Yes, indeed, it must have been charming, altogether ravishing.
Allez! give me the nineteenth century."
"I a.s.sure you, Marchesa," said Batis...o...b.., "life can be exceedingly exciting and interesting now."
"I dare say," retorted Leonora, "for people who go round the world in boats in search of adventures, and write books abusing their enemies.
But we--what do we ever do that is interesting or exciting? We stay at home and pour tea."
"And in those days," answered Batis...o...b.., "the ladies stayed at home and knit stockings, or if they were very clever they worked miles and miles of embroidery and acres of tapestry. About once a month they were allowed to look out of the window and see their relations beating each other"s brains out with iron clubs, and running each other through the body with pointed sticks. As the Marchese says, it was absolutely delightful, that kind of life."
"You are dreadfully prejudiced," said Leonora.
"But I am sure it was very nice."
And so they talked, and the men smoked a little, till they decided that they had had enough of it, and the oars plashed in the water together, sending the boat out again into the bright sun. In five minutes they were at the landing belonging to the Carantoni villa. There was a deep cleft in the cliffs just there, and the descent wound curiously in and out of the rock, so that in many places you could only trace it from below by the windows hewn in the solid stone to give light and air to the pa.s.sage. The rocks ran out a little at the base, and there were steps carved for landing. There are few places so strikingly odd as this landing to the Carantoni villa. Leonora said it was "eerie."
When it came to parting, the young couple were profuse in their thanks to Mr. Batis...o...b.. for the enchanting trip.
"I hope," said Marcantonio, "that you will come and dine with us very soon, and change your mind about the water-drinking, and give us another opportunity of thanking you."
"I have enjoyed it very, very much," said Leonora, giving Batis...o...b.. her hand. Their eyes met, and for the first time she noticed the curious light in his glance. But he bowed very low and very elaborately, so to say.
"You will keep your promise," he said, "and use the boat again?"
"Thanks so very much. But of course we will have a boat of our own now, and so I should not think of asking you."
She smiled a little at him. Somehow he understood perfectly that he could nevertheless induce her to accept his offer. He stood hat in hand on the rocks as they disappeared into the dark stairway. Then he sprang into the boat, and the men pulled l.u.s.tily away.
He leaned back in the stern with his hand on the tiller and his eyes half closed. In the bottom of the boat were the luncheon baskets, and one of Leonora"s roses had fallen from the stem and lay withering in the hot July sun. Batis...o...b.. picked it up, looked at it, pulled a leaf or two, and threw it overboard, with a half sneer of dissatisfaction.
"They have forgotten the baskets, though," he thought to himself. "If they had asked me to go up with them, as they should have done, I would have had them carried up. As it is I will--I will wait till they write for them. I could hardly take them myself." And he lighted a cigarette.
As Leonora mounted the stairway, leaning on her husband"s arm, she turned to get a glimpse of the boat gliding away in the distance. She could just see it through one of the windows in the rock.
"Why did you not ask him to come up?" she inquired.
"Why did you not ask him, my angel?" returned Marcantonio.
"I thought you might not like it," she answered.
"Comment donc! He is very amiable, I am sure. But I thought you were tired and had had enough of him,--in short, that you did not want him."
"Ah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Leonora. She felt a little curious sense of pleasure, that was quite new to her, at the idea that her husband could have seriously thought she did not want Mr. Batis...o...b...
"Naturally," added Marcantonio, "we ought to have asked him."
"I suppose so," said she, indifferently enough.
"I will call on him to-morrow, and we will have him to dinner, if it is agreeable to you, my dear."
"Oh yes--I do not mind at all," said Leonora. She was thinking about something, and did not speak again till they reached the house.
It was very frivolous, but she was really thinking about the curious expression of Mr. Batis...o...b.."s eyes. She did not remember to have ever seen anything exactly like it. Besides, she had known him, more or less, for some time, and had never noticed it before. Perhaps it was the reflection from the water. But she dreamed that night that she saw those eyes very close to her, and the expression of them frightened her a little, but was not altogether disagreeable.
CHAPTER VII.
Julius Batis...o...b.. was a restless man by day and night, after the trip to Castellamare. Marcantonio called upon him, but he was out, and then he received an invitation to dinner from Leonora, with a postscript about the unlucky baskets. He accepted the invitation. What else could he do?
But when the day came he regretted it. He wished he had refused and had gone away. Then he made a fine resolution.
"I will not go to this dinner," he said to himself, savagely, as he walked quickly up and down his room. "I will not go near her again. It is not right, and I will not do it. I will sail over to Naples at once, and send back a telegram of excuse, saying that a matter of the most urgent importance keeps me there. So it is--I should think so--a matter of very urgent importance. Oh! Julius Batis...o...b.., what an a.s.s you are, to be sure!" With that he crammed some things into a bag, sent for his man, and descended in hot haste to the sh.o.r.e. There was no time to be lost, for it was already four o"clock in the afternoon and the invitation was for eight. He could just reach Naples and send his telegram in time to prevent the Carantoni from waiting for him.
The lazy breeze was dying away, and he wished he had had the sense to make up his mind sooner. But his men rowed l.u.s.tily, and kept time, so that the boat spun along fairly enough.
"I shall do it," said Julius Batis...o...b.. to himself.
He was happy enough in the sensation that he was cheating his fate and was about to escape a serious affection. Then he laughed at the comic side of the case, and lit a cigar and blew great clouds of smoke over his shoulder. But fate and Batis...o...b.. were old enemies, and fate generally got the better of it.
It chanced that on this very day Leonora and Marcantonio had determined to go out in the new boat. For Marcantonio had wanted to give his wife a surprise, and had got from Naples a beautiful clean-built launch. He had said nothing about it, and had patiently borne her reproaches at his indifference to sailing, until on the previous evening he had taken her down the descent to the rocks and had shown her his purchase, which had just arrived by the steamer. Of course she was enchanted, and determined to make the most of it, for she was really fond of the water.
Accordingly, on this very day, she and her husband sallied forth with six men,--for he had not dared to give her a smaller crew than Mr.
Batis...o...b.."s. She was in such a hurry to go that she said she did not mind the sun in the least,--oh dear, no! she rather liked it. And so it came to pa.s.s that a few minutes after Julius had given his men the word to fall to their oars at the little beach of the town of Sorrento, a long low craft, painted in dark green and gold, and looking exceedingly trim and "fit" with its long lateen yards and raking masts, shot out from the cleft beneath Leonora"s villa.
Batis...o...b.. looked straight before him, steering by the Naples sh.o.r.e, and intent on wasting neither time nor distance. He might have been out half an hour or more when a remark from one of his crew made him look round, and he was aware of a dark green boat two or three hundred yards astern, but rapidly pulling up to him. He started, for though he could not see the faces of the occupants, he recognised a parasol that Leonora had taken to Castellamare.
"It is the new boat of the Marchese Carantoni," said the sailor who had first spoken to Batis...o...b... The man had seen it arrive by the steamer on the previous evening, and had helped to put it into the water to be rowed down to the villa. Batis...o...b.. gave one more look and groaned inwardly. He would make a fight for it, though, he thought. He encouraged his men not to allow themselves to be overtaken by a parcel of Neapolitans, as he derisively called the crew of Carantoni"s boat.
His own men were tough fellows from the north of Italy, bearded, and broad, and bronzed; but his boat, built for rougher weather and rougher work than pleasure-rowing in the bay of Naples, was twice as heavy as the slight green craft astern. His st.u.r.dy men set their teeth and tugged hard, but the others gained on them.
Leonora and Marcantonio had recognised the cut of Batis...o...b.."s boat and crew from a distance; and, in profound ignorance of his amiable intentions of flight, they imagined nothing more amusing than to race him.
"If we cannot beat him," said Leonora, breathless with excitement, "I will never come out in your boat again!"
She strained her eyes to make out if they were gaining way. Marcantonio spoke to the men:--
"Corraggio, Corraggio!
Maccaroni con formaggio!"