And now, at the San Giacinto’s dinner table, Ghisleri found himself seated next to Donna Christina, and nearly opposite to her husband. It had long been known and generally understood that Pietro and Gianforte had buried their enmity with the beautiful woman about whom they had fought, and that they had no objection to meeting in the world, and even to conversing occasionally on general subjects, so that there was nothing surprising in the fact that at a dinner of eighteen persons they should be asked together. It chanced that, by the inevitable law of precedence, Ghisleri sat where he did. Donna Christina of course knew the story above related, and in her eyes it lent Ghisleri a somewhat singular interest.
Now it happened, towards the end of dinner, that some one mentioned Lady Herbert Arden. Instantly Donna Maria, on Pietro’s right, made the sign of the horns with both hands, laughing in a foolish way at the same time. Ghisleri saw it, and a glance round the table showed him that the majority of the guests did the same thing.
“How can you believe in such silly tales?” he asked, turning to Donna Maria.
“Everybody does,” answered the sprightly lady. “Why should not I? And besides, look at the facts — San Giacinto had the name of the lady we do not mention on his lips when he broke that chair the other day — there, I told you so!” she exclaimed suddenly.
Young Pietrasanta, who, as it happened, had been the one to speak of Laura Arden, had upset a glass, which, being very delicate and falling against a piece of massive silver, was shivered instantly. The claret ran out in a broad stain.
“Allegria — joy!” laughed the lady of the house. Italians very often utter this exclamation when wine is spilled. It is probably a survival of some primeval superstition.
“Joy!” repeated Pietrasanta, with quite a different intonation. “If ever I mention that name again!”
“You see,” said Donna Maria triumphantly to Ghisleri. “There is no doubt about it.”
“I beg your pardon for contradicting you,” answered Ghisleri, coldly, “but I think there is so much doubt that I do not believe in the possibility of the evil eye at all, much less in the ridiculous story that Lady Herbert Arden’s name can upset a glass of wine or break a chair.”
“I agree with you,” said Donna Christina, in her quiet voice, on Pietro’s other side. “It is almost the only point on which my husband and I differ — is it not true, Gianforte?” she asked, speaking across the table to Campodonico. There had been a momentary lull in the conversation after the little accident, so that he had heard what had been said.
“It is quite true,” he answered. “I believe in the jettatura, just as most people do, but my wife is a sceptic.”
“And do you really believe that Pietrasanta upset his glass because he mentioned Lady Herbert?” asked Pietro.
“Yes, I do.” Their eyes met quietly as they looked at each other, but the whole party became silent, and listened to the remarks exchanged by the two men who had once fought such a memorable fight.
Gianforte Campodonico was a very dark man, of medium height, strongly built, and not yet of an age to be stout, with bold aquiline features, keen black eyes, and a prominent chin. A somewhat too heavy moustache almost quite concealed his mouth. At first sight, most people would have taken him for a soldier. Of his type he was very handsome.
“Can you give any good reason for believing in anything so improbable?” asked Ghisleri.
“There are plenty of facts,” answered Campodonico, calmly. “Any one here will give you fifty — a hundred instances, so many indeed, that you cannot attribute them all to coincidence. Do you not agree with me, Marchese?” he asked, appealing to the master of the house, whose opinion was often asked by men, and generally accepted.
“I suppose I do,” said the giant, indifferently. “I never took the trouble to think of it. Most of us believe in the evil eye. But as for this story about Lady Herbert Arden, I think it is nonsense in the first place, and a malicious lie in the second, invented by some person or persons unknown — or perhaps very well known to some of you. Half of it rests on that absurd story about the chair I broke in Casa Frangipani. If any of you can grow to be of my size, you will know how easily chairs are broken.”
There was a laugh at his remark, in which Campodonico joined.
“But it is true that you were speaking of the lady one does not mention at the moment when the chair gave way,” he said.
“Yes,” said San Giacinto, “I admit that.”
“I agree with San Giacinto, though I do not believe in the evil eye at all,” said Ghisleri. “And I will go a little further, and say that I think it malicious to encourage the story about Lady Herbert. She has had trouble enough as it is, without adding to it gratuitously.”
“I do not see that we are doing her any harm,” observed Campodonico.
“The gossip may be perfectly indifferent to her now,” said Ghisleri. “She is most probably quite ignorant of what is said. But in the natural course of events, two or three years hence she will go into the world again, and you know what an injury it will be to her then.”
“You are looking very far ahead, it seems to me. As for wishing to do her an injury, as you call it, why should I?”
“Exactly. Why should you?”
“I do not.”
“I beg your pardon. I think every one who contributes to the circulation of this fable does harm to Lady Herbert, most distinctly.”
“In other words, we are not of the same opinion,” said Campodonico, in a tone of irritation.
“And I express mine because poor Arden was my oldest friend,” answered Ghisleri, with the utmost calm. “If I cannot persuade you, let us agree to differ.”
“By all means,” replied Gianforte, and he turned and began to talk with the lady on his right.
Donna Christina leaned towards Ghisleri and spoke to him in a very low voice, quite inaudible to other ears than his, as the hum of general conversation rose again.
“Is it true,” she asked, “that you and my husband agreed, years ago, that you would never quarrel again?”
Ghisleri looked at her in cold surprise. He was amazed that she should refer to that part of his past life, of which no one ever spoke to him.
“It is true,” he answered briefly.
“I am very glad,” said Donna Christina. “I thought you were near a quarrel just now about this absurd affair. You hate each other, and Gianforte is very hot-tempered.”
“There is no danger. But I am sorry you think that I hate your husband. He is one of the few men whom I really respect. There are other reasons why I should not hate him, and why I should not be surprised if he hates me with all his heart, as I dare say he does, from what you say.”
He glanced at her, but she did not answer at once. She was still young and truthful, and it did not occur to her to be tactful at the expense of veracity.
“I am glad you defended Lady Herbert as you did,” she said, after a short pause. “It was nice of you.” Then she turned and talked with the man on her other side.
Donna Maria Boccapaduli had been waiting for her opportunity and attacked Ghisleri as soon as he had ceased talking with his other neighbour.
“Tell me,” she said, “you like Laura Arden very much, do you not?” Of course she made the sign at Laura’s name.
“Yes. She is a very charming woman.”
“She ought to be grateful to you. She would be, if she knew how you stood up for her just now.”
“I should be sorry if she ever came to know that she needed to be defended,” answered Ghisleri, almost indifferently.
“She will, of course. It will be all over Rome to-night that you and Campodonico almost quarrelled about her. She is sure to hear about it. Why do you take so much interest in her?”
“Because her husband was my friend,” Pietro replied, rather wearily. “I just said so.”
“You need not be so angry with me because I ask questions,” said Donna Maria with a laugh. “I always do — it is the way to find ou
t what one wants to know.”
“And what do you want to know?”
“You will be angry if I ask you.”
“Then ask me something else.”
“But I want to know so much,” objected Donna Maria, with an expression that made Ghisleri smile.
“Then you must take the risk,” he said. “It is not very great.”
“Well, then, I will.” She dropped her voice almost to a whisper. “Is the lady in question — I mean — is she the sort of woman you can imagine falling in love with?”
“I do not think I should ever fall in love with her,” answered Ghisleri, without betraying emotion or surprise.
“Why not? There must be some reason. So many men have said the same thing about her.”
“She is too good a woman for any of us to love. We feel that she is too far above us to be quite human as we are.”
“What a strange man you are, Ghisleri! I should never have dreamt that you could say such a thing as that. It is not at all like your reputation you know, and not in the least like those delightfully dreadful verses you addressed to the saint last year on Shrove Tuesday at Gouache’s studio. I should think that Mephistopheles would delight in making love to saints.”
“In real life Mephistopheles would get the worst of it, and be shown to the door with very little ceremony.”
“I doubt that. Every woman likes a spice of devilry in the man she loves — and as for being shown to the door, that is ridiculous. Is there any reason in the world why you should not fall in love with a woman exactly like the unmentionable lady and marry her, too, if you love her enough — or little enough, according to your views of married life? You are quite free, and so is she, and you said yourself that in the course of time she would naturally come back to the world.”
“No,” said Ghisleri, thoughtfully, “I suppose there is no reason why I should not ask Lady Herbert Arden to marry me in four or five years, except that I do not love her in the least, and that she would most certainly refuse me. And those are two very good reasons.”
The dinner was over and the party returned to the drawing-room. Ghisleri stood a little apart from the rest, examining a painting with which he had long been familiar, and slowly inhaling the smoke of a cigarette. It was a small copy of one of Zichy’s famous pictures illustrating Lermontoff’s “Demon” — the one in which Tamara yields at last, in the convent, and throws her arms round the Demon’s neck. Prince Durakoff had ordered the copy and had presented it to the Marchesa di San Giacinto. Ghisleri had always liked it, and had a photograph of the original in his rooms. He now stood looking at it and recalling the strange, half allegorical romance of which the great Russian made such wonderful poetry.
Presently he was aware that some one was standing at his elbow. He turned to see who it was, and found himself face to face with Gianforte Campodonico, who was looking at him with an expression of indescribable hatred in his black eyes.
CHAPTER XIII.
PIETRO AT ONCE realised the situation and the meaning of the look he saw. Something was passing in his old enemy’s mind which had passed through his own while he was looking at the picture, for Campodonico and Ghisleri were both thinking of the extraordinary resemblance between poor Bianca Corleone and the Tamara of Zichy’s painting. That resemblance, striking in a high degree, was the reason why Ghisleri liked it, and had a photograph of it at his lodging. He regretted now that he should have been so tactless as to stand long before it when Campodonico was in the room. It was too late, however, and there was nothing to be done but to meet the man’s angry look quietly, and go away. It was unfortunate that there should have been any discussion between them at dinner, too, for Campodonico, as his wife said, was hot-tempered in the extreme, and Ghisleri, though outwardly calm, had always been liable to outbreaks of dangerous anger. There was, indeed, in the present instance, a very solemn promise given to a dying woman beloved by both, to keep them from quarrelling, and both really meant to respect it as they had done in past years. But to see Ghisleri calmly contemplating a picture which seemed intended to represent Bianca Corleone falling into the arms of a demon lover, was almost too much for the equanimity of Gianforte, which was by no means at any time very stable. Moreover, he not only hated Ghisleri with his whole heart as much as ever, but he despised him quite as much as Pietro despised himself, and probably a little more. He would never have forgiven him, at the best; but he might have respected him if Ghisleri had honoured Bianca’s memory by leading a different life. It made his blood sting to think that a man who had been loved to the latest breath by such a woman as Bianca should throw himself at the feet of Maddalena dell’ Armi — not to mention any of the others for whom Pietro had felt an ephemeral passion during the last six years and more. And Pietro, on his side, knew that Campodonico was right in judging him as he judged himself, harshly and without mercy. Unfortunately, Pietro’s judgments on himself generally came too late, when the evil he hated had already been done, and self-condemnation was of very little use. He had great temptations, too — far greater than most men, and was fatally attracted by difficulty in any shape.
On the present occasion he really desired to avoid doing the least thing which could irritate Campodonico, and if the latter had not done what he did Pietro would certainly have gone quietly away. He could not help being a little surprised at the persistent stare of his old adversary, considering that for years they had met and acted with perfectly civil indifference towards one another. Nevertheless, he relit his cigarette which had gone out, and made a step towards the other side of the room. To Campodonico, the calm expression of his face seemed like scorn, and he became exasperated in a moment. He called the other back. They were at some distance from the other guests, and out of hearing if they spoke in low tones.
“Ghisleri!” Campodonico pronounced the name he detested with an almost contemptuous accent. Pietro knew that an exchange of unfriendly words was inevitable. He turned instantly and came close to Gianforte, standing before him and looking down into his fierce eyes, for he was by far the taller man.
“What is it?” he asked, controlling his voice wonderfully.
“Do you not think there are circumstances under which one is justified in breaking a solemn promise?” asked Campodonico.
“No. I do not.”
“I do.”
“I am very sorry. I suppose you mean to say that you wish to quarrel with me again. Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“You will find it hard. I shall do my very best to be patient whatever you do or say. In the first place, I begin by telling you that I sincerely regret having irritated you twice, as I have done this evening, the second time, as I know, very seriously.”
“I did not ask you for an apology,” said Gianforte, with contempt.
“But I have offered you one which you will find it hard not to accept.”
“You were not formerly so ready with excuses. I dare say you have grown cautious with age, though you are not much older than I.”
“Perhaps I have.” Ghisleri grew slowly pale, as he bore one insult after the other for the dead woman’s sake.
“In other words, you are a coward,” said Campodonico, lowering his voice still more.
Pietro opened his lips and shut them without speaking. He glanced at the passionate white face of the woman in the picture before he answered.
“I do not think so,” he said. “But I make no pretence of bravery. Have you done?”
“No. You make a pretence of other things if not of courage. You pretend that you will not quarrel now because of the promise you gave.”
“It is true.”
“I do not believe you.”
“I am sorry for it,” answered Pietro.
“And do you mean to tell me that the promise binds us? If you had acted as a man should, if you had led a life that showed the slightest respect for that memory, it might be binding on me still.”
“I think it is.” Ghisleri was trembling with anger f
rom head to foot, but his voice was still steady.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 612