“It must be an immense satisfaction to speak as you do,” said Orsino, wishing to say something at least agreeable.
Del Ferice acknowledged the compliment by a deprecatory gesture.
“To speak as some of my colleagues can — yes — it must be a great satisfaction. But Madame d’Aranjuez exaggerates. And, besides, I only make speeches when I am called upon to do so. Speeches are wasted in nine cases out of ten, too. They are, if I may say so, the music at the political ball. Sometimes the guests will dance, and sometimes they will not, but the musicians must try and suit the taste of the great invited. The dancing itself is the thing.”
“Deeds not words,” suggested Maria Consuelo, glancing at Orsino, who chanced to be looking at her.
“That is a good motto enough,” he said gloomily.
“Deeds may need explanation, post facto,” remarked Del Ferice, unconsciously making such a direct allusion to recent events that Orsino looked sharply at him, and Maria Consuelo smiled.
“That is true,” she said.
“And when you need any one to help you, it is necessary to explain your purpose beforehand,” observed Del Ferice. “That is what happens so often in politics, and in other affairs of life as well. If a man takes money from me without my consent, he steals, but if I agree to his taking it, the transaction becomes a gift or a loan. A despotic government steals, a constitutional one borrows or receives free offerings. The fact that the despot pays interest on a part of what he steals raises him to the position of the magnanimous brigand who leaves his victims just enough money to carry them to the nearest town. Possibly it is after all a quibble of definitions, and the difference may not be so great as it seems at first sight. But then, all morality is but the shadow cast on one side or the other of a definition.”
“Surely that is not your political creed!” said Maria Consuelo.
“Certainly not, Madame, certainly not,” answered Del Ferice in gentle protest. “It is not a creed at all, but only a very poor explanation of the way in which most experienced people look upon the events of their day. The idea in which we believe is very different from the results it has brought about, and very much higher, and very much better. But the results are not all bad either. Unfortunately the bad ones are on the surface, and the good ones, which are enduring, must be sought in places where the honest sunshine has not yet dispelled the early shadows.”
Maria Consuelo smiled faintly, and the slight cast in her eyes was more than usually apparent, as though her attention were wandering. Orsino said nothing, and wondered why Del Ferice continued to talk. The latter, indeed, was allowing himself to run on because neither of his hearers seemed inclined to make a remark which might serve to turn the conversation, and he began to suspect that something had occurred before his coming which had disturbed their equanimity.
He presently began to talk of people instead of ideas, for he had no intention of being thought a bore by Madame d’Aranjuez, and the man who is foolish enough to talk of anything but his neighbours, when he has more than one hearer, is in danger of being numbered with the tormentors.
Half an hour passed quickly enough after the common chord had been struck, and Del Ferice and Orsino exchanged glances of intelligence, meaning to go away together as had been agreed. Del Ferice rose first, and Orsino took up his hat. To his surprise and consternation Maria Consuelo made a quick and imperative sign to him to remain. Del Ferice’s dull blue eyes saw most things that happened within the range of their vision, and neither the gesture nor the look that accompanied it escaped him.
Orsino’s position was extremely awkward. He had put Del Ferice to some inconvenience on the understanding that they were to go away together and did not wish to offend him by not keeping his engagement. On the other hand it was next to impossible to disobey Maria Consuelo, and to explain his difficulty to Del Ferice was wholly out of the question. He almost wished that the latter might have seen and understood the signal. But Del Ferice made no sign and took Maria Consuelo’s offered hand, in the act of leavetaking. Orsino grew desperate and stood beside the two, holding his hat. Del Ferice turned to shake hands with him also.
“But perhaps you are going too,” he said, with a distinct interrogation.
Orsino glanced at Maria Consuelo as though imploring her permission to take his leave, but her face was impenetrable, calm and indifferent.
Del Ferice understood perfectly what was taking place, but he found a moment while Orsino hesitated. If the latter had known how completely he was in Del Ferice’s power throughout the little scene, he would have then and there thrown over his financial schemes in favour of Maria Consuelo. But Del Ferice’s quiet, friendly manner did not suggest despotism, and he did not suffer Orsino’s embarrassment to last more than five seconds.
“I have a little proposition to make,” said the fat count, turning again to Maria Consuelo. “My wife and I are alone this evening. Will you not come and dine with us, Madame? And you, Don Orsino, will you not come too? We shall just make a party of four, if you will both come.”
“I shall be enchanted!” exclaimed Maria Consuelo without hesitation.
“I shall be delighted!” answered Orsino with an alacrity which surprised himself.
“At eight then,” said Del Ferice, shaking hands with him again, and in a moment he was gone.
Orsino was too much confused, and too much delighted at having escaped so easily from his difficulty to realise the importance of the step he was taking in going to Del Fence’s house, or to ask himself why the latter had so opportunely extended the invitation. He sat down in his place with a sigh of relief.
“You have compromised yourself for ever,” said Maria Consuelo with a scornful laugh. “You, the blackest of the Black, are to be numbered henceforth with the acquaintances of Count Del Ferice and Donna Tullia.”
“What difference does it make? Besides, I could not have done otherwise.”
“You might have refused the dinner.”
“I could not possibly have done that. To accept was the only way out of a great difficulty.”
“What difficulty?” asked Maria Consuelo relentlessly.
Orsino was silent, wondering how he could explain, as explain he must, without offending her.
“You should not do such things,” she said suddenly. “I will not always forgive you.”
A gleam of light which, indeed, promised little forgiveness, flashed in her eyes.
“What things?” asked Orsino.
“Do not pretend that you think me so simple,” she said, in a tone of irritation. “You and Del Ferice come here almost at the same moment. When he goes, you show the utmost anxiety to go too. Of course you have agreed to meet here. It is evident. You might have chosen the steps of the hotel for your place of meeting instead of my sitting-room.”
The colour rose slowly in her cheeks. She was handsome when she was angry.
“If I had imagined that you could be displeased—”
“Is it so surprising? Have you forgotten what happened yesterday? You should be on your knees, asking my forgiveness for that — and instead, you make a convenience of your visit to-day in order to meet a man of business. You have very strange ideas of what is due to a woman.”
“Del Fence suggested it,” said Orsino, “and I accepted the suggestion.”
“What is Del Ferice to me, that I should be made the victim of his suggestions, as you call them? Besides, he does not know anything of your folly of yesterday, and he has no right to suspect it.”
“I cannot tell you how sorry I am.”
“And yet you ought to tell me, if you expect that I will forget all this. You cannot? Then be so good as to do the only other sensible thing in your power, and leave me as soon as possible.”
“Forgive me, this once!” Orsino entreated in great distress, but not finding any words to express his sense of humiliation.
“You are not eloquent,” she said scornfully. “You had better go. Do not come to the dinner this evening
, either. I would rather not see you. You can easily make an excuse.”
Orsino recovered himself suddenly.
“I will not go away now, and I will not give up the dinner to-night,” he said quietly.
“I cannot make you do either — but I can leave you,” said Maria Consuelo, with a movement as though she were about to rise from her chair.
“You will not do that,” Orsino answered.
She raised her eyebrows in real or affected surprise at his persistence.
“You seem very sure of yourself,” she said. “Do not be so sure of me.”
“I am sure that I love you. Nothing else matters.” He leaned forward and took her hand, so quickly that she had not time to prevent him. She tried to draw it away, but he held it fast.
“Let me go!” she cried. “I will call, if you do not!”
“Call all Rome if you will, to see me ask your forgiveness. Consuelo — do not be so hard and cruel — if you only knew how I love you, you would be sorry for me, you would see how I hate myself, how I despise myself for all this—”
“You might show a little more feeling,” she said, making a final effort to disengage her hand, and then relinquishing the struggle.
Orsino wondered whether he were really in love with her or not. Somehow, the words he sought did not rise to his lips, and he was conscious that his speech was not of the same temperature, so to say, as his actions. There was something in Maria Consuelo’s manner which disturbed him disagreeably, like a cold draught blowing unexpectedly through a warm room. Still he held her hand and endeavoured to rise to the occasion.
“Consuelo!” he cried in a beseeching tone. “Do not send me away — see how I am suffering — it is so easy for you to say that you forgive!”
She looked at him a moment, and her eyelids drooped suddenly.
“Will you let me go, if I forgive you?” she asked in a low voice.
“Yes.”
“I forgive you then. Well? Do you still hold my hand?”
“Yes.”
He leaned forward and tried to draw her toward him, looking into her eyes. She yielded a little, and their faces came a little nearer to each other, and still a little nearer. All at once a deep blush rose in her cheeks, she turned her head away and drew back quickly.
“Not for all the world!” she exclaimed, in a tone that was new to Orsino’s ear.
He tried to take her hand again, but she would not give it.
“No, no! Go — you are not to be trusted!” she cried, avoiding him.
“Why are you so unkind?” he asked, almost passionately.
“I have been kind enough for this day,” she answered. “Pray go — do not stay any longer — I may regret it.”
“My staying?”
“No — my kindness. And do not come again for the present. I would rather see you at Del Ferice’s than here.”
Orsino was quite unable to understand her behaviour, and an older and more experienced man might have been almost as much puzzled as he. A long silence followed, during which he sat quite still and she looked steadily at the cover of a book which lay on the table.
“Please go,” she said at last, in a voice which was not unkind.
Orsino rose from his seat and prepared to obey her, reluctantly enough and feeling that he was out of tune with himself and with everything.
“Will you not even tell me why you send me away?” he asked.
“Because I wish to be alone,” she answered. “Good-bye.”
She did not look up as he left the room, and when he was gone she did not move from her place, but sat as she had sat before, staring at the yellow cover of the novel on the table.
Orsino went home in a very unsettled frame of mind, and was surprised to find that the lighted streets looked less bright and cheerful than on the previous evening, and his own immediate prospects far less pleasing. He was angry with himself for having been so foolish as to make his visit to Maria Consuelo a mere appointment with Del Ferice, and he was surprised beyond measure to find himself suddenly engaged in a social acquaintance with the latter, when he had only meant to enter into relations of business with him. Yet it did not occur to him that Del Ferice had in any way entrapped him into accepting the invitation. Del Ferice had saved him from a very awkward situation. Why? Because Del Ferice had seen the gesture Maria Consuelo had made, and had understood it, and wished to give Orsino another opportunity of discussing his project. But if Del Ferice had seen the quick sign, he had probably interpreted it in a way compromising to Madame d’Aranjuez. This was serious, though it was assuredly not Orsino’s fault if she compromised herself. She might have let him go without question, and since an explanation of some sort was necessary she might have waited until the next day to demand it of him. He resented what she had done, and yet within the last quarter of an hour, he had been making a declaration of love to her. He was further conscious that the said declaration had been wholly lacking in spirit, in passion and even in eloquence. He probably did not love her after all, and with an attempt at his favourite indifference he tried to laugh at himself.
But the effort was not successful, and he felt something approaching to pain as he realised that there was nothing to laugh at. He remembered her eyes and her face and the tones of her voice, and he imagined that if he could turn back now and see her again, he could say in one breath such things as would move a statue to kisses. The very phrases rose to his lips and he repeated them to himself as he walked along.
Most unaccountable of all had been Maria Consuelo’s own behaviour. Her chief preoccupation seemed to have been to get rid of him as soon as possible. She had been very seriously offended with him to-day, much more deeply, indeed, than yesterday, though, the cause appeared to his inexperience to be a far less adequate one. It was evident, he thought, that she had not really pardoned his want of tact, but had yielded to the necessity of giving a reluctant forgiveness, merely because she did not wish to break off her acquaintance with him. On the other hand, she had allowed him to say again and again that he loved her, and she had not forbidden him to call her by her name.
He had always heard that it was hard to understand women, and he began to believe it. There was one hypothesis which he had not considered. It was faintly possible that she loved him already, though he was slow to believe that, his vanity lying in another direction. But even if she did, matters were not clearer. The supposition could not account for her sending him away so abruptly and with such evident intention. If she loved him, she would naturally, he supposed, wish him to stay as long as possible. She had only wished to keep him long enough to tell him how angry she was. He resented that again, for he was in the humour to resent most things.
It was all extremely complicated, and Orsino began to think that he might find the complication less interesting than he had expected a few hours earlier. He had little time for reflection either, since he was to meet both Maria Consuelo and Del Ferice at dinner. He felt as though the coming evening were in a measure to decide his future existence, and it was indeed destined to exercise a great influence upon his life, as any person not disturbed by the anxieties which beset him might easily have foreseen.
Before leaving the house he made an excuse to his mother, saying that he had unexpectedly been asked to dine with friends, and at the appointed hour he rang at Del Ferice’s door.
CHAPTER XII.
ORSINO LOOKED ABOUT him with some curiosity as he entered Del Fence’s abode. He had never expected to find himself the guest of Donna Tullia and her husband and when he took the robust countess’s hand he was inclined to wish that the whole affair might turn out to be a dream. In vain he repeated to himself that he was no longer a boy, but a grown man, of age in the eyes of the law to be responsible for his own actions, and old enough in fact to take what steps he pleased for the accomplishment of his own ends. He found no solace in the reflection, and he could not rid himself of the idea that he had got himself into a very boyish scrape. It would indeed have been
very easy to refuse Del Ferice’s invitation and to write him a note within the hour explaining vaguely that circumstances beyond his control obliged him to ask another interview for the discussion of business matters. But it was too late now. He was exchanging indifferent remarks with Donna Tullia, while Del Ferice looked on benignantly, and all three waited for Madame d’Aranjuez.
Five minutes had not elapsed before she came, and her appearance momentarily dispelled Orsino’s annoyance at his own rashness. He had never before seen her dressed for the evening, and he had not realised how much to her advantage the change from the ordinary costume, or the inevitable “tea-garment,” to a dinner gown would be. She was assuredly not over-dressed, for she wore black without colours and her only ornament was a single string of beautiful pearls which Donna Tullia believed to be false, but which Orsino accepted as real. Possibly he knew even more about pearls than the countess, for his mother had many and wore them often, whereas Donna Tullia preferred diamonds and rubies. But his eyes did not linger on the necklace, for Maria Consuelo’s whole presence affected him strangely. There was something light-giving and even dazzling about her which he had not expected, and he understood for the first time that the language of the newspaper paragraphs was not so grossly flattering as he had supposed. In spite of the great artistic defects of feature, which could not long escape an observer of ordinary taste, it was clear that Maria Consuelo must always be a striking and central figure in any social assembly, great or small. There had been moments in Orsino’s acquaintance with her, when he had thought her really beautiful; as she now appeared, one of those moments seemed to have become permanent. He thought of what he had dared on the preceding day, his vanity was pleased and his equanimity restored. With a sense of pride which was very far from being delicate and was by no means well founded, he watched her as she walked in to dinner before him, leaning on Del Ferice’s arm.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 548