Her heart was beating so fast when Lamberti entered the drawing-room that she wondered how she should find breath to speak to him, and she did not raise her eyes again after she had seen his face at the door, till he was close to her, and had bowed without holding out his hand.
“I hope you got my note,” he said to her mother. “D’Este is ill, and has given me a verbal message for your daughter.”
“Yes,” said the Countess. “I will go into the next room and write my letters.”
She was gone and the two stood opposite each other in momentary silence. Lamberti’s voice had been formal, and his face was almost expressionless.
“Where will you sit?” he asked. “It will take some time to tell you all that he wishes me to say.”
Cecilia led the way to the little sofa in the corner farthest from the boudoir. It was there that Guido had asked her to be his wife, and it was there that she had waited for him a few hours ago to tell him that she could not marry him. She took her accustomed place, but Lamberti drew forward a light chair and sat down facing her. He felt that he got an advantage by the position, and that to a small extent it placed him outside of her personal atmosphere. At such a moment he could not afford to neglect the least circumstance which might help him. As for what he should say, he had thought of many speeches while he was in the street, but he did not remember any of them now, nor even that he had seemed to hear himself speaking them.
“Why did you write that letter?” he asked, after a moment’s pause.
Cecilia looked up quickly, surprised by the direct question, and then gazed into his face in silence. She had confessed to herself that she loved him, but she had not known how much, nor what it would mean to sit so near him and hear him asking the question that had only one answer. His eyes were steady and brave, when she looked at them, but not so hard as she had expected. In earlier days she had always felt that they could command her and even send her to sleep if he chose, but she did not feel that now. The question had been asked suddenly and directly, but not harshly. She did not answer it.
“Did Guido show you my letter?” she asked in a low voice.
But she was sure of the reply before it came.
“No. He told me that you broke off your engagement with him very suddenly. I suppose you have done so because you think you do not care for him enough to marry him, but he did not tell me so. Is that it?”
Cecilia nodded quickly, folded her hands nervously upon her knees, and looked across the room.
“Yes,” she said. “That is it. I do not love him.”
“Yet you like him very much,” Lamberti answered. “I have often seen you together, and I am sure you do.”
“I am very fond of him. If I had not been foolish, he might always have been my best friend.”
“I do not think you were foolish. You could hardly do better than marry your best friend, I think. He is mine, and I know what his friendship is worth. You will find out, as I have, that if he is sometimes indolent and slow to make up his mind, he never changes afterwards. You may be separated from him for a year or two, but you will find him always the same when you meet him again, always gentle, always true, always the most honourable of men.”
“He is that, and more,” Cecilia said softly. “I like everything about him.”
“And he loves you,” Lamberti continued. “He loves you as men do not often love the women they marry, and as you, with your fortune, may never be loved again.”
“I know it. I feel it. It makes it all the harder.”
“But you thought you loved him, I am sure. You would not have accepted him otherwise.”
“Yes. Thank you for believing that much of me,” Cecilia answered humbly. “I thought I loved him.”
“You sent for him this morning, because you had suddenly persuaded yourself that you had made a great mistake. When you heard that he could not come, you wrote the letter, and when it was written you sent it off as fast as you could, for fear that you would not send it at all. Is that true?”
“Yes. That is just what happened. How did you know?”
“Listen to me, please, for d’Este’s sake. If you had not felt that you were perhaps making another mistake, should you have been in such a hurry to send the letter?”
Cecilia hesitated an instant.
“It was a hard thing to do. That is why I made haste to get it over. I knew it would hurt him, but I thought it was wrong to deceive him for even a few hours, after I had understood myself.”
“It would have been kinder to wait until you could see him, and break it gently to him. He was ill when he got your letter, and it made him worse.”
“How is he?” Cecilia asked quietly, a little ashamed of not having enquired already. “It is nothing very serious, is it? Only a little influenza, he said.”
“He is not dangerously ill, but he had a good deal of fever this afternoon. You will not see him for a week, I fancy. That is the reason why I am here. I want you to postpone your decision, at least until he is well and you have talked with him.”
“But I have decided already. I shall take all the blame. I will tell my friends that it is all my fault.”
“Is that the only answer you can give me for him?”
“Yes. What can I say? I do not love him. I never shall.”
“What if something happens?”
“What?”
“Suppose that I go to him to-morrow morning, and tell him what you say, and that when I have left him there alone with his servant, as I must in the course of the day, he locks the door, and in a fit of despair puts a bullet through his head? What then?”
Cecilia leaned forward, wide-eyed and frightened.
“You do not really believe that he would kill himself?” she cried in a low voice.
“I think it is more than likely,” Lamberti answered quietly enough. “D’Este is the most good-hearted, charitable, honourable fellow in the world, but he believes in nothing beyond death. We differ about those questions, and never talk about them; but he has often spoken of killing himself when he has been depressed. I remember that we had an argument about it on the very afternoon when we both first met you.”
“Was he so unhappy then?” Cecilia asked with nervous interest.
“Perhaps. At all events I know that he has a bad habit of keeping a loaded revolver in the drawer of the table by his bed, in case he should have a fancy to go out of the world, and it is very well known that people who talk of suicide, and think of it a great deal, often end in that way. When I left him this afternoon I gave him some hope that you might at least prolong the engagement for a few months, and give yourself a chance to grow more fond of him. If I have to tell him that you flatly refuse, I am really afraid that it may be the end of him.”
Cecilia leaned back in the sofa and closed her eyes, confronted by the awful doubt that Lamberti might be right. He was certainly in earnest, for he was not the man to say such a thing merely for the sake of frightening her. She could not reason any more.
“Please, please do not say that!” she said piteously, but scarcely above her breath.
“What else can I say? It is quite true. You must have some very strong reason for refusing to reconsider your decision, since your refusal may cost as much as that.”
“But men do not kill themselves for love in real life!”
“I am sorry to say they do,” Lamberti answered. “A fellow-officer of mine shot himself on board the ship I was last with for exactly the same reason. He left a letter so that there should be no suspicion that he had done it to escape from any dishonour.”
“How awful!”
“I repeat that you must have a very strong reason indeed for not waiting a couple of months. In that time you may learn to like Guido better — or he may learn to love you less.”
“He may change,” Cecilia said, not resenting the rather rough speech; “I never shall.”
Lamberti fixed his eyes on her.
“There is only one reason that could
make you so sure about yourself,” he said. “If I thought you were like most women, I would tell you that you were heartless, faithless, and cruel, as well as capricious, and that you were risking a man’s life and soul for a scruple of conscience, or, worse than that, for a passing fancy.”
“Oh, please do not say such things of me!” She spoke in great distress.
“I do not. I know that you are honest and true, and are trying to do right, but that you have made a mistake which you can mend if you will. Take my advice. There is only one possible reason to account for what you have done. You think that you love some other man better than d’Este.”
Cecilia started and stared at him.
“You said that Guido did not show you my letter!” She was offended as well as distressed now.
“No; he did not. But I will not pretend that I have guessed your secret. As Guido lay on his bed talking to me, I was staring at a crumpled sheet of a letter that lay on the floor. Before I knew what I was looking at I had read four words: ‘I love another man.’ When I realised that I ought not to have seen even that much, I knew, of course, that it was your writing. You see how much I know. All the same, if you were not what I know you are, I would call you a heartless flirt to your face.”
Again he looked at her steadily, but she said nothing.
“If you are not that,” he continued, “you never loved Guido at all, but really believed you did, because you did not know what love was, and you are sure that you love this other man with all your heart.”
Cecilia was still silent, but a delicate colour was rising in her pale face.
“Has the other ever made love to you?” Lamberti asked.
“No, no — never!”
She could not help answering him and forgetting that she might have been offended. She loved him beyond words, he did not know it, and he was unconsciously asking her questions about himself.
“Is he younger than Guido? Handsomer? Has he a great name? A great fortune?”
“Are those reasons for loving a man?”
Cecilia asked the question reproachfully, and as she looked at him and thought of what he was, and how little she cared for the things he had spoken of, but how wholly for the man himself, her love for him rose in her face, against her will.
“There must be something about him which makes you prefer him to Guido,” he said obstinately.
“Yes. But I do not know what it is. Do not ask me about him.”
“Considering that you are endangering the life of my dearest friend for him, I think I have some right to speak of him.”
She was silent, and they faced each other for several seconds with very different expressions. She was pale again, now, but her eyes were full of light and softness, and there was a very faint shadow of a smile flickering about her slightly parted lips, as if she saw a wonderful and absorbing sight. Lamberti’s gaze, on the contrary, was cold and hard, for he was jealous of the unknown man and angry at not being able to find out who he was. She did not guess his jealousy, indeed, for she did not suspect what he felt; but she knew that his righteous anger on Guido’s behalf was unconsciously directed against himself.
“You will never know who he is,” she said at last, very gently.
“We shall all know, when you marry him,” Lamberti answered with unnecessary roughness.
“No, I shall never marry him,” she said. “I mean never to see him again. I would not marry him, even if he should ever love me.”
“Why not?”
“For Guido’s sake. I have treated Guido very badly, though I did not mean to do it. If I cannot marry Guido, I will never marry at all.”
“That is like you,” Lamberti answered, and his voice softened. “I believe you are in earnest.”
“With all my heart. But promise me one thing, please, on your word.”
“Not till I know whether I may.”
“For his sake, not for mine. Stay with him. Do not leave him alone for a moment till you are sure that he is safe and will not try to kill himself. Will you promise?”
“Not unless you will promise something, too.”
“Do not ask me to pretend that I love him. I cannot do it.”
“Very well. You need not pretend anything. Let me tell him that you will let your engagement continue to all appearance, and that you will see him, but that you put off the wedding for the reasons you gave in your letter. Let me tell him that you hope you may yet care for him enough to marry him. You do, do you not?”
“No!”
“At least let me say that you are willing to wait a few months, in order to be sure of yourself. It is the only thing you can do for him. Perhaps you can accustom him by slow degrees to the idea that you will never marry him.”
“Perhaps.”
“In any case, you ought to do your best, and that is the best you can do. See him a few times when he is well enough, and then leave Rome. Tell him that it will be a good thing to be parted for a month or two, and that you will write to him. Do not destroy what hope he may have, but let it die out by degrees, if it will.”
Cecilia hesitated. After what had passed between them she could hardly refuse to follow such good advice, though it was hard to go back to anything approaching the state of things with which she had broken by her letter. But that was only obstinacy and pride.
“Let it be distinctly understood that I do not take back my letter at all,” she said. “If I consent to what you ask, it is only for Guido’s sake, and I will only admit that I may be more sure of myself in a few months than I am now, though I cannot see how that is possible.”
“It shall be understood most distinctly,” Lamberti answered. “You say, too, that you mean never to see this other man again.”
“I cannot help seeing him if I stay longer in Rome,” Cecilia said.
Lamberti wondered who he might be, with growing hatred of him.
“If he is an honourable man, and if he had the slightest idea that he had unconsciously come between you and Guido, he would go away at once.”
“Perhaps he could not,” Cecilia suggested.
“That is absurd.”
“No. Take your own case. You told me not long ago that you were unfortunately condemned to stay in Rome, unless you gave up your career. He might be in a very similar position. In fact, he is.”
There was something so unexpected in the bitter little laugh that followed the last words that Lamberti started. She had kept her secret well, so far, but she had now given him the beginning of a clew. He wished, for once, that he possessed the detective instinct, and could follow the scent. There could not be many men in society who were in a position very similar to his own.
“I wish I knew his name,” he said, only half aloud.
But she heard him, and again she laughed a little harshly.
“If I told you who he is, what would you do to him? Go and quarrel with him? Call him out and kill him in a duel? I suppose that is what you would do if you could, for Guido’s sake.”
“I should like to know his name,” Lamberti answered.
“You never shall. You can never find it out, no matter how ingenious you are.”
“If I ever see you together, I shall.”
“How can you be so sure of that?”
“You forget something,” Lamberti said. “You forget the odd coincidences of our dreams, and that I have seen you in them when you were in earnest — not as you have been with Guido, but as you seem to be about this other man. I know every look in your eyes, every movement of your lips, every tone of your voice. Do you think I should not recognise anything of all that in real life?”
“These were only dreams,” Cecilia tried to say, avoiding his look. “I asked you not to speak of them.”
“Do you dream of him now?” Lamberti asked the question suddenly.
“Not now — no — that is — please do not ask me such questions. You have no right to.”
“I beg your pardon. Perhaps I have not.”
He was no
t in the least sorry for having spoken, but his anger increased against the unknown man. She had evidently dreamt of him at one time or another, as she used to dream of himself.
“You have such an extraordinary talent for dreaming,” he said, “that the question seemed quite natural. I daresay you have seen Guido in your visions, too, when you believed that you cared for him!”
“Never!” Cecilia could hardly speak just then.
“Poor Guido! that was a natural question too. Since you used to see a mere acquaintance, like myself, and fancy that you were—”
“Stop!”
“ — that you were talking familiarly with him,” continued Lamberti unmoved, “it would hardly be strange that you should often have seen Guido d’Este in the same way, while you thought you loved him, and it is stranger that you should not now dream about a man you really love — if you do!”
“I say that you have no right to talk in this way,” said Cecilia.
“I have the right to say a great many things,” Lamberti answered. “I have the right to reproach you—”
“You said that you believed me honest and true.”
The words checked his angry mood suddenly. He passed his hand over his eyes and changed his position.
“I do,” he said. “There is no woman alive of whom I believe more good than I do of you.”
“Then trust me a little, and believe, too, that I am suffering quite as much as Guido. I have agreed to take your advice, to obey you, since it is that and nothing else—”
“I have no power to give you orders. I wish I had!”
“You have right on your side. That is power, and I obey you. You have told me what to do, and I shall do it, and be glad to do it. But even after what I have done, I have some privileges left. I have a secret, and I am ashamed of it, and it can do no good to Guido to know it, much less to you. Please let me keep it in my own way.”
“Yes. But if you are afraid that I should hurt the man, if I knew his name, you are mistaken.”
“I am not in the least afraid of that,” Cecilia answered, and the light filled her eyes again as she looked at him. “You are too just to hate an innocent man. It is not his fault that I love him, and he will never know it. He will never guess that I think him the best, and truest, and bravest man alive, and that he is all this world to me, now and for ever!”
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1035