Frances Peard

"Donna Teresa"

Chapter One.

It was sirocco in Rome; sirocco which, as every one knows, brings out a damp ooze on the pavement, and makes the hills yet more slippery for the overladen horses and mules; sirocco which disposes man and woman to take peevish views of life, especially if they have no work on which to fasten thought; sirocco, in fine, hot, baleful, depressing, sapping the strength of one and the energy of another, a universal excuse for whatever untoward may befall a Roman on the days when it makes itself felt.

In spite of this languor, however, the young Marchesa di Sant’ Eustachio, and her sister Sylvia Brodrick, were walking briskly along the street which, broken into three names and many hills, stretches the long distance from the end of the Pincio to the foot of Santa Maria Maggiore. There was little likeness between the sisters, in spite of strangers asserting that it was to be found. The marchesa, or Donna Teresa as she preferred to be called—for although no such title, as a title, actually exists, it is given by courtesy to Italian women of rank in place of the ‘signora’—was in mourning, and her face, while intelligent, was not beautiful. But Sylvia’s almost deserved the word. A critical observer might have taken exception to a certain absence of variety, a want of play about the pretty features; that allowed for, the most grudging would have been unable to deny that the features in themselves were charming, and the colouring delightful. Her dress was absolutely neat, though there was nothing in it particularly to admire, and perhaps something inharmonious in the lines.

Donna Teresa was the talker, and as she was in the best of spirits, her talk was eager, and she laughed at small things which would have scarcely amused her unless she held some inward cause for rejoicing. She laughed at the placards on the walls, at the goldfish in their bowls. There was not an old stone built into a wall, not a bright cavern of vegetables, not a chestnut roaster stooping over his rusty tripod and quickening dull embers with fan of turkey feathers, but she noticed, and pointed them out gaily. Sirocco might blow, she cared nothing. For the first time since she became a woman, she was rejoicing in the breeziness of freedom, the bliss of living her own life, of forming plans, and of carrying them out with no one to say her nay.

She had been very young—too young—when she met the marchese at Florence, and, unfortunately, insisted upon marrying him. Three miserable years followed, he being disappointed in two matters, the amount of her fortune, and the recoil which she experienced from his religion. As for her, she was disappointed in everything, and shocked in a great deal, so that when he unexpectedly died, she felt rather relief than grief. Then she blamed herself for the sensation, and in one of the moments of rash remorse to which she was always liable, offered to remain at Florence with the marchesa, his mother. The old lady had been fairly kind to her, and Teresa had a notion that if she had been a more forbearing wife, her husband might have been a better man. Whether the idea were true or mistaken, it haunted her, and gave her two more years, if not of such acute misery, at any rate of a bondage irksome beyond words. The old marchesa had been a power in her youth, and in age ruled her house as once she had ruled society, caring for no visitors except priests, treating Teresa as a lost heretic; untidy, unpunctual, and recognising neither right of solitude nor cultivation of gifts in her daughter-in-law.

How long the girl—for she was still little more in years—would have continued to reproach herself and to endure, is difficult to decide, but it is certain that by the end of the years her first exalted ideas of expiation had lost freshness and strength, and were taking refuge in obstinacy. Happily, for her, two things came about. Her brother-in-law, the marchesa’s second son, developed a passion for travel, and his wife and children were ready and anxious to make the Palazzo Sant’ Eustachio their home. At the same time Teresa heard that her grandmother and sister were coming for the winter to Rome, and wanted her to join them. She jumped at the opportunity, had a stormy interview with the old marchesa, left Florence, as she hoped, for ever, and renouncing palaces and the threadbare state belonging to an impoverished family, found herself, to her unbounded joy, in a small apartment in Rome with her grandmother and sister.

They were all poor together, and their apartment had no pretensions to grandeur; but Teresa, whose artistic longings had been cramped and even smothered in her Florentine rooms, was wild with joy at finding herself able to pull the furniture about as she pleased, and to surround herself with flowers, books, and pictures at will. Her energy leapt to life again, and her companions were content to allow her to exercise it as actively as she chose. She was a beneficent housekeeper, for she walked long distances to get the best salad, the best cream, or the best maritozzi. She scolded Nina, the good-natured careless untidy servant, who adored her; she dusted books, bargained, painted, and insisted upon her sister seeing Rome and Roman functions conscientiously. It was with this aim that she was conducting her to the church of San Martino in Monte, that day in festa.

The difference between the two sisters became more marked as they walked along the pavement, and now it was to the advantage of Teresa, for she carried herself with a light grace which was yet firm and decided, while Sylvia wavered, and seldom knew on which side to pass the people she met. Teresa’s face, again, changed expression rapidly, and when she spoke was lit with eager interest, while Sylvia’s remained placid, and if at times her eye became anxious, it never brightened. Still, she was unusually pretty. She adored Teresa without in the least understanding her, and her mind lumbered heavily after the freakish darts of imagination in which this other—who had suffered enough to crush a less elastic nature—revelled. Generally Sylvia was unconscious that she did not understand, but there were times when a remark of Teresa’s, flung and forgotten, would leave her painfully struggling to catch its hidden meaning, so that her very affection kept her as it were on the strain of tiptoe.

When they had passed the heavy leathern curtain at the door of San Martino, raised for them by one of the many clamorous beggars who rattled their tins outside, they saw the large church crowded with such a shuffling and shifting throng, that it was difficult to find standing-room except at the back or in the aisles, and Donna Teresa was obliged to skirt the congregation and pilot her less capable sister until they reached the steps leading to the choir, where, although there was no seat, they could lean against a pillar for support, and, as Sylvia thankfully reflected, thus avoid contact with the children, whose dirt and rags left her quite indifferent to the splendour of their eyes, and to a certain unkempt artistic force. Such a crowd as filled San Martino was incomparably more picturesque than the straight rows of worshippers in an English church. Some stood, some sat, at intervals all knelt; and the broken headline, the strong contrasts, the columns and dim distances, the splashes of vivid colour sharply accentuated against a somewhat misty background, the faces, often remarkable and seldom insignificant, gave Donna Teresa, well accustomed as she was to such sights, an immediate gratification. Sylvia, meanwhile, concentrated her full attention upon the function. A cardinal officiated, and a group of priests were assisting under the direction of a short fat man, whose duty it was to instruct each what he should do—to pull one and push another into place, to whisper how the book was to be held, to indicate to the cardinal where he should read, to show the boy-server where to stand for the censing, and when to hand the censer to the cardinal; at all these varied movements Sylvia Brodrick stared with a riveted attention which assured her sister that she was interested. She was, therefore, the more amazed when Sylvia turned upon her with a whisper which was almost a cry—

“Let us go! Please let us go! I can’t bear it!”

Donna Teresa was always prompt. She immediately edged her way out, asking no questions until they reached more open space at the end of the church, where her quick eye caught sight of a vacant chair.

“Sit down, Sylvia. What is the matter? Are you ill?”

The other shook her head.

“I couldn’t stay, it was too dreadful!”

She spoke in a frightened voice, and Teresa flung a hasty glance round to see what had alarmed her.

“Do tell me,” she said encouragingly.

“Oh, all,” said Sylvia sighing. “That cardinal sitting on a stool like a red idol, having his clothes pulled about and arranged, and that little fat man. All!”

Teresa was half relieved, half provoked.

“Was that it?” she said, raising her eyebrows. “I thought you were interested.”

“I couldn’t bear it,” said Sylvia dolorously. “But if you really like to stay, I can go home by myself of course.”

Donna Teresa scarcely heard the words; her vigorous, somewhat impatient personality found itself every now and then brought up suddenly and unexpectedly against what could only be compared to a dead wall in her sister’s nature. She resented it, and then, as usual, smitten with remorse, and acknowledging some emotion which she was sure was more delicate and subtile than her own, began impetuously to carry out Sylvia’s wishes.

“Dear, we will go together,” she said, “only I am afraid we must get back to the big entrance. You needn’t look at poor Cardinal Simone, you know,” she added, her smile broadening as she noticed that Sylvia was indeed keeping her head carefully turned in an opposite direction. The sisters were only able to make slow way, for the throng was thick, and Teresa could never help becoming alertly interested in what was about her. She moved on, however, determinedly, until, when pushing out the heavy leathern door-pad, a man jostled her rudely, passed, and ran down the steps. Teresa, sure of what had happened to her, cried, “Oh!” and felt for her purse. It was gone. She exclaimed hastily to Sylvia, “There is Mrs Scott, join her,” and flew after the thief, who was already out of sight.

By the time she reached the corner he was not far away, and her light steps quickly overtook him. He glanced over his shoulder, hesitated, and when she exclaimed indignantly, “You have my purse!” held it out silently. Teresa caught it, but hers was not a nature to let wrong-doing go free, and she promptly appealed to the bystanders. A crowd in Rome will gather with inconceivable swiftness, so that in a moment a dozen persons were hanging round, by no means actively engaged in assisting law and order, rather, indeed, sympathising with the other side, but sufficiently amused and curious to see what would come of this accusation by a young and solitary lady, to put, for the moment, a few apparently undesigned obstacles in the way of escape. These would have soon vanished if two municipal guardie had not unexpectedly found themselves where they were wanted, and to them with instinctive though often disappointed confidence, Teresa breathlessly appealed.

“This man has just stolen my purse as I came out from San Martino,” she said.

“But the signorina holds it,” returned one of the guardie, glancing at it indifferently.

“As you see,” broke in the young man violently. “I pick up this devil of a purse in the church, the signorina pursues, I hand it to her at once, and this is how she repays me! Ecco!” and he opened his hands and looked round insolently. Teresa was becoming more angry.

“He gave it to me—yes! But it is probable he first emptied it. As you see,” she added in her turn, holding it out after brief examination.

“Signorina—” the guardia began again, shrugging his shoulders.

She stopped him haughtily—

“The Marchesa di Sant’ Eustachio, if you please.”

The mention of her name caused a visible stir of interest, and the police looked uneasy. The one who had not spoken drew her on one side.

“Eccellenza,” he said civilly, “it is all doubtless as you say; but, permit me, had you anything in your purse which you could identify?”

“I had next to nothing. Four or five lire, perhaps. But how can you doubt, when it is so perfectly clear?”

“A hundred pardons, eccellenza; it is a great pity you did not catch him in the act. Then! As it is—you heard his story—who knows?”

And he also spread his hands.

By this time Teresa was pale, and very angry indeed, for she saw that the guardie were afraid.

“If you let him go,” she remarked quietly, “I shall certainly report you.”

The officer still hesitated, and the situation was becoming embarrassing, when a man’s voice said in English—

“Can I be of any use?”

The marchesa turned impetuously.

“Oh, Mr Wilbraham, I am so glad to see you! Please back me up.”

“Of course, of course,” said Wilbraham hastily. “Let me first get you out of this crowd,” he added, looking round him with an Englishman’s horror of anything approaching to a scene.

“Not yet,” said Teresa. “That man took my purse in the most barefaced manner, and they are evidently afraid of him, and inclined to let him go.”

“I’ll see to it, only let me put you into a cab.”

“Thank you,” she was beginning stiffly, when the guardia once more came to her side.

“With your excellency’s permission we will take his name and address, and keep him under supervision. We can then lay our hands upon him if required.”

“It is not likely that he will give you the right particulars,” said Donna Teresa scornfully.

“Eccellenza, it is a mere form. He is very well known.”

“As you please. I cannot oblige you to do your duty, only you must understand that I shall complain to the questura.”

She turned sharply away, without flinging a glance upon Wilbraham, but when she had gone a few yards she heard one woman say to another—

“Ah, they would not arrest him—not they!”

Teresa stopped.

“Who is he?”

The woman hesitated.

“Eh, madama?”

“So you are afraid, too!” said Teresa imperiously. “Don’t you see it is over?”

The second woman, who was younger, broke in with an expressive gesture.

“Eh, that it true! It is over, poor fellow, thanks to the Madonna! As for who he is, he is the Cesare who shot his sister a little while ago.”

“His sister!” repeated Donna Teresa, shocked. “Do you mean that he murdered her?”

“Murdered! ma che!” said the woman indignantly. “He loved her. He was an excellent brother. As for her”—she shrugged her shoulders—“she was no good, and would not listen, so he shot her—and him. Only, unluckily, he was not killed.”

Teresa, feeling that she was suddenly rubbing shoulders with a tragedy, had forgotten her own annoyance and herself. She asked quickly—

“But why was not this Cesare punished?”

“For what, madama? He was an excellent brother.”

“And my husband said they made the court ring when he was acquitted,” chimed in the second woman.

There was a momentary silence before Teresa became aware of a voice at her elbow—

“Hadn’t we better—”

“Why does he pick pockets? Is he so poor?” she demanded abruptly, paying no attention.

“Oh, it was not he, madama,” said the younger woman, with a laugh; “it was not he. Probably he picked it up; what did he say? As for being poor—yes. But he would not steal, not Cesare!”

Donna Teresa, asking no more questions, walked, frowning, towards the church. Wilbraham, relieved that this part of the episode was ended, remarked—

“You won’t find Miss Brodrick.”

She stopped with a laugh.

“I had forgotten. I suppose I was walking mechanically. Where is she then?”

“She drove away with a lady, and asked me to look after you. I wish I had reached you a little earlier.”

“Oh, it did well enough,” said the marchesa absently.

“I hope you didn’t lose much?”

“What you would call nothing. I ought to have been more careful, for the churches swarm with pickpockets, and the police are quite useless, as you saw.”

“Well, certainly they couldn’t be called energetic.”

“I thought you took their view of the case?” But the instant she had shot her little dart she looked at him, and laughed frankly again. “Perhaps it was as well. Perhaps he didn’t take it, after all.”

“I fancied you were quite sure?”

“Oh—sure? You were all so lukewarm,” retorted Teresa. “Besides, I have just heard his history. Not long ago he shot his sister.”

“Accidentally?”

“No; deliberately.”

“The villain!” said Wilbraham. “And is still unhung!”

“Those women considered him a hero. I am afraid she wasn’t very nice.”

There was a silence, which he broke by saying—

“I should think that had disposed of your scruples.”

“I believe, on the contrary, it has set them going,” said Donna Teresa, gazing reflectively at the ground. She exclaimed impetuously the next moment—“Do you really believe that any man who had shared in such an awful tragedy could go about the world picking pockets? Think what he must carry with him! Think what his thoughts must be! Though he was acquitted, it wasn’t from any doubt that he did the deed. And even if he is able to persuade himself that he was right, he can’t believe it always; there must be dark dreadful hours when her face comes between him and everything he looks at. At the best, to have been her executioner! I wish—oh, I do wish I had not felt so certain he was the man!”

Her voice trembled slightly, and Wilbraham’s face grew a little hard.

“I should expect the greater to include the less,” he returned shortly; “and I wouldn’t waste my compunctions if I were you.”

She glanced at him with a change of expression.

“You believe I was right in my first idea?”

“Undoubtedly.”

She stopped.

“Then what are you going to do?”

“I’m off to the police office, the questura, or whatever you call it.”

“Do you want me?”

“Good heavens, no!” exclaimed Wilbraham, who had just been congratulating himself on having got her out of the scrimmage.

“Very well,” she returned, looking at him with a smile he did not understand. “Then you must turn down that street. But don’t be too hard on Cesare.”

Chapter Two.

Donna Teresa walked thoughtfully along the Quattro Fontane. Had she been asked for her thoughts, she would have said they were wondering how Wilbraham, left to himself, would thread the difficulties of the questura, but, in truth, her mind was filled with problematic questionings as to Cesare and his character. Her eye, trained to observation, held his features pretty faithfully. He was young—probably no older than she herself—and pale, with a long face, drooping nose, and thin resolute jaw. The head was wide across the forehead, the brows reached closely towards each other, and between them that slight wrinkle was already graven which usually comes only to older men. Teresa thought, and her thought hesitated. There rose within her, as there often rose, a vast pity for the poor of Italy, over-taxed, miserable, and sometimes desperate. Italy is not the only country where bribery and corruption help the rich, and leave the poor defenceless, but in other countries the effect is not, perhaps, as yet so apparent, and as yet there seems no such awakening of the national conscience as might give hope for the future. There is revolt seething in the lower classes, the revolt of misery. What is far more dangerous is the apparent absence of the sense of righteous justice in the upper. An upright man is apt to end by being kicked out of his department.

Teresa knew something of these matters; her emotions were swift and impulsive; she had many times been reproached for them, and it was true that they had so often led her into pitfalls that she dreaded their guidance. This fear it was which gripped her when speaking to Wilbraham, and induced her to resign matters into his hand. He, she reflected, was a man, had common-sense—it looked out all over him—he had better do what he considered to be right, and she had better stand aside and let him do it. And yet if she were wrong?

She passed the great block of the Barberini, and the piazza with the Triton, went along the Sistina, and, turning up the Porta Pinciana hill, presently reached her own door. Neither entrance nor stairs were inviting, for the house was old, and had not kept pace with the general embellishment of Rome; but the porter, old also, made up in smiles what he wanted in tidiness, and now hastened to assure her that the signora and signorina were both at home. Teresa was still grave as she climbed the weary stairs, but when she had turned the key of their flat, her face grew suddenly radiant. The wonder and joy of finding herself with her own people, the intimate delight of owning something which was, to all intents and purposes, home, the exhilaration of liberty, were as strong as, or stronger than, they had been in the first breathless moments of possession, strong enough to sweep all else out of her mind.

An old lady, very small and slight, sat in a low chair knitting. She had a charming face, sweet and yet shrewd, with clear blue eyes, a rose-blush complexion, and wavy white hair. As Teresa came in, she stretched out a welcoming hand.

“So here you are, my dear child,” she said. “Sylvia is disturbed about you. Sylvia!”

The girl came hurriedly. Seen thus, without her hat, she looked even prettier than before. The lines of her face were delicate, and there was an appealing expression in her eyes to which a man could scarcely be indifferent. She rushed to kiss her sister.

“Oh, Teresa, I hope you did not mind! I thought I ought to have stayed, but Mrs Scott was certain you would rather I went with her, and Mr Wilbraham said he would go after you, and—and—”

“Suppose we hear what Teresa has to say?” put in Mrs Brodrick drily.

“Of course you were right to go,” said the marchesa, smiling at her sister. “You could not have done any good by staying.”

“Did you get your purse?” demanded her grandmother.

“Yes, I did—in a way. It was empty, though,” added Teresa, sitting down and taking off her hat.

“Then it was the man?”

“I suppose so. I thought so. The police were as unsatisfactory as usual, and Mr Wilbraham has gone to the questura to stir them up.” Her face darkened again, and she added inconsequently, “I rather wish he hadn’t.”

“Oh, let him,” returned her grandmother smiling. “A thief ought to be punished.”

Teresa looked at her reflectively.

“I suppose so,” she repeated. “Certainly he had the purse.”

“Proof enough, I should say.”

“Yes. Oh, he must have taken it,” she added quickly, with the air of one who was seeking confidence. “But he is a man with a story. He shot his sister some little time ago. On purpose, if you understand.”

Sylvia cried out, but Mrs Brodrick had lived a long life.

“That is very terrible,” she said gravely.

“Terrible. Granny,”—Teresa knelt by her grandmother’s chair—“you know things. Do you believe a man could do that, and afterwards go about the streets picking pockets? He is young, remember. Could he?”

Perhaps Mrs Brodrick’s beliefs reached higher and lower than Teresa’s. She hesitated.

“What did he say about it himself?”

“He said he picked up the purse in the church.”

“Oh, but, Teresa—” cried Sylvia, squeezing her hands together, and tripping over incoherent words, “he—yes—oh, he did! Now I remember looking back just before we went out, and I saw a man stooping down and couldn’t think why. It was—yes, indeed, of course it was—that very man!”

Teresa turned pale. Naturally generous in all her thoughts and impulses, the dismal experiences of her life had added a more acute horror of injustice than often belongs to women. She said in a low voice—

“I must go to the questura instantly.”

“Wait half an hour. You are so tired,” urged Mrs Brodrick. But the marchesa had sprung to her feet.

“How can I?” she cried impatiently.

“I don’t know what steps Mr Wilbraham may have taken; but it is all my fault. I accused the man publicly, and have no right to keep him in that position a minute later than necessary. I wish I had left the horrid purse alone. His eyes have haunted me ever since.”

Mrs Brodrick, slower to move, still looked doubtful.

“I don’t like your going alone. People will talk.”

“Let them!” Donna Teresa drew herself up with a sudden hardening of her face. It softened again as she caught her grandmother’s look. “Dear, remember I am going to forget all about the marchesa. I have no children to be hurt by what I do, and don’t care the least little bit in the world for what may be said behind my back. But I care horribly for having made an unjust accusation, and it must be unsaid without delay.”

“Go, then,” said Mrs Brodrick, smiling again. She added hesitatingly, “You might take Sylvia.”

“Sylvia would not like it. I’ll be extravagant and take a botte instead.”

“Here are English letters.”

“Oh, let them wait.”

She spoke from the door, and looked back to kiss her hand before running down the grey stone staircase, and calling one of the little open carriages with which Rome abounds. They are cheap enough, but she rarely indulged in such luxuries, for the marchese, her husband, had squandered what he could of her small fortune, and her grandmother’s income was ridiculously inadequate to all that she contrived to do with it. Just now, however, Teresa would not have begrudged a larger outlay, for she was on thorns at the idea of having committed an injustice. She searched the pavements anxiously for Wilbraham, but had gone down the crowded Tritone, and passed the Trevi, before she caught sight of him. She stopped the carriage, stepped out, and dismissed it, even at this moment amusedly conscious of Wilbraham’s startled face.

“Well?” she asked quickly.

“I have done all that’s necessary,” he answered with a touch of stiffness. “I don’t think there’s anything more wanted. I worked them up to send to the man’s house, and if he hasn’t bolted, he’ll be arrested.”

“Oh,” cried Teresa despairingly, “then I am too late!”

“Too late? What for?”

“To spare him the disgrace. What he said was true—isn’t it awful? Sylvia saw him pick up the purse, which, of course, the real thief had thrown away. I am so sorry they have sent. Let us go at once.”

Wilbraham did not look pleased. He hated scenes, and still more hated women to be mixed up in them. There was no help for it, however, for Teresa was already walking rapidly in the direction from whence he had come, and of course he had to stick to her.

“They don’t think much of your friend at the questura,” he said drily.

“All the more reason that we should see him through.”

Teresa’s tone was uncompromising. Wilbraham half liked her for it, and was half provoked. It gave him a slightly malicious pleasure to find at the questura that all her fluent and impetuous Italian could not obviate the usual delay. Wilbraham felt it must be his duty to calm her, as she walked with an extraordinary swift grace up and down the room in which they waited; but his efforts failed, and evidently she was neither thinking of herself nor her companion. He, on his part, found it difficult to understand or sympathise with her extreme remorse. Cesare, with his excited, somewhat theatrical gestures, seemed to him a man who, if he had not committed one crime, was probably well up to the throat in others. The very reason which had awakened Teresa’s compassion—that he had been the slayer of his sister—at once destroyed any germ of pity in Wilbraham’s mind; his theory of cause and effect being more direct and more of the nature of a sledgehammer than Teresa’s.

Shown into another room, the marchesa hurried eagerly to a gentleman who was sitting, and who rose courteously.

“The Marchesa di Sant’ Eustachio, I believe?” he said, glancing at the card in his hand. “You have come, doubtless, eccellenza, about this affair of your purse?”

“It was all a mistake. I have come to say how grieved I am,” began Teresa breathlessly. “When I reached home my sister told me she had seen the man pick it up; that was what he said. I am so very, very sorry that I did not believe him.”

The questor looked incredulous.

“She did not speak of this before, however?”

“She had no time. I missed my purse and ran after him. When I reached home she told me. Pray, signore, do me the kindness to send one of your men to tell him that it was a mistake.”

“As to that, he is already here, marchesa. This gentleman!”—he bowed to Wilbraham—“was desirous that no time should be lost, and my own view coincided with his.”

Teresa looked very unhappy.

“May I see him, then? May I tell him how sorry I am? Of course he can be released at once?”

“I regret to say that is impossible. He was violent and resisted my men. They were obliged to handcuff him, and even then he was troublesome. Believe me, that a night in a cell will cool his blood.”

“Oh!” cried Teresa, squeezing her hands in distress, “pray, pray let him go! He was maddened by a false accusation.”

The other coughed significantly.

“Excuse me, marchesa,” he said; “I could tell you a great deal about the fellow, which you do not know and would not guess.”

“I know,” she said, “that he is a most unhappy man.”

“He belongs to the advanced socialist party. He is dangerous.”

“I do not care whether he is dangerous or not,” she returned indignantly, for she was growing angry. “I supposed he was, as your men were so afraid of him. Being a socialist has nothing to do with it; he is here because I accused him falsely, and I don’t wonder that he resisted. You would have done the same.”

The questor shrugged his shoulders stubbornly. Wilbraham believed that he was rejoiced to inflict a humiliation upon an enemy of law and order.

“Possibly,” he assented. “Nevertheless, he must be punished.”

Teresa changed her manner.

“What will be the punishment?” she asked.

“If he did not take the purse, eccellenza, he will have the option of a fine or a few days’ detention.”

“A fine? That might be paid to-day.”

“To-morrow.”

“But I will pay it. I am quite ready to pay it,” she exclaimed eagerly. “Please let him go at once. You would oblige me very greatly.”

The magistrate waved his hand indulgently.

“It is absolutely impossible. The case cannot be dealt with so summarily. The signore will understand that certain formalities have to be gone through,” he added, appealing to the superior intelligence of the masculine mind.

“I think you’d better let it be as he says,” Wilbraham urged, anxious to get her out of the place. “I’ll be here to-morrow morning, and see it well through.”

Teresa might not have heard. She stood considering.

“If,” she said at last gravely—“if you really have not the power to release an innocent man—”

“Innocent possibly as to your purse, marchesa. But he assaulted my officers,” interrupted the questor, stung to retort. “He deserves a heavier punishment.”

She made a slightly incredulous gesture, but the next moment turned to him with a charming smile.

“I am unreasonable, and you must forgive me, signore, because it was really all my fault. Will you treat him as leniently as possible, and tell me when I should be here?”

“Perhaps before midday. Earlier? Who knows!” He spread his hands and bowed. “I will do what I can.”

“I will come at nine,” said the young marchesa decidedly. “And pray let him know at once of my mistake. A thousand thanks.”

She drew herself up with a little touch of the great lady in her manner, which brought a greater deference into the official manner, and at the entrance repeated her intention of being there the next morning. As they walked away, Wilbraham again urged her to leave the matter with him.

“Don’t you trust me?” he asked, wounded. “I assure you he shall have justice.”

“He’s had nothing but the other thing so far,” she said sharply. “Thank you. It’s perverse, I know, but I’d rather go myself.”

“Perverse is no word for his opinion of me, granny,” she was saying twenty minutes later. “The truth is I’m always wanting to shock him, and he yearns to call me ‘My dear young lady.’ People who call you that are absolutely insufferable.”

Mrs Brodrick glanced at her.

“He has never said it.”

“It’s on the tip of his tongue. Oh, there are the letters. Have you read them?”

“Teresa!”

“You might—you may! But I didn’t like the marchesa doing it.”

“Ah, the marchesa seems to have often stepped off the path,” said Mrs Brodrick quietly. But her hand shook.

“It was for the good of my soul,” explained Teresa indifferently, “and it did not much matter, because she could not understand English. What’s this?” she added, taking a letter out of a long envelope, and turning it over.

“It looks as if it came from a lawyer.” Her grandmother’s face changed. She saw that Teresa was staring blankly at the sheet, and she was instantly frightened, for, to her, lawyer’s letters invariably preceded some loss of income. Presently Teresa looked up still blankly.

“I think,” she said, drawing a deep breath—“I think there must be some mistake.”

“Lawyers don’t often make mistakes,” said Mrs Brodrick gravely, after a momentary silence in which she braced herself. Teresa was staring at her now, and frowning.

“It is about Sir James Stanton—” she said in a slow changed voice.

“James Stanton!” Mrs Brodrick caught both her wrists. “He has left you something, Teresa! And I who thought it was bad news!”

“Yes, something.” She still spoke mechanically, and her grandmother was surprised at the effect upon her. The next moment she sprang up and flung open the bedroom door. “Sylvia, Sylvia, come here! Come and listen, come and tell me I’m really awake;” but before her sister could answer, she was back and standing before Mrs Brodrick, her hands clasped behind her, and her eyes beginning to shine. “Granny, did I ever see him?”

“James? Never. He was your father’s cousin. He knew your mother, too,” she added, with a keen glance and a smile of remembrance. “And now!”

“Yes, now,” repeated Teresa, catching Sylvia by the waist. “Now, guess.”

Mrs Brodrick hesitated.

“One mustn’t be greedy,” she said. “It would be very nice for you if it were five hundred pounds.”

“That is a good deal,” said Teresa, looking queerly at her.

“Yes, it is. Well, if it is only a hundred or two, it will be very useful. Teresa, what is it?”

For she saw that the young marchesa was trembling, and began to think that the matter must be more considerable than she had imagined.

“He has left me a thousand a year,” Teresa said in a very low voice. There was not a touch of triumph in it, but the thing was amazing because they were all unaccustomed to good fortune, and they simply stared at each other. Sylvia broke the silence—

“A thousand a year! How rich you will be!”

“How rich we shall all be!” echoed Teresa in a gay unsteady voice. “Granny, every day of your life you will go for a drive. No more thinking whether a fire is necessary or not, or how long a passo of wood will last. But do you believe it is quite true? Not a mistake of the lawyers?”

And for the first time in her life Mrs Brodrick reflected thankfully that lawyers did not often make mistakes. She could not speak, but she thanked God silently.

“I don’t understand it,” said Sylvia, laughing vaguely.

“Oh, nor do I! Don’t let us try.”

“What will Nina say now?”

“Now—why?”

“Because she was so miserable about your purse. I think she was crying. She said,” Sylvia went on with a little awe, “that she was sure you must have met a priest the first thing this morning, and didn’t come back and wait for an hour as you should have done. And then it is Tuesday, which is always an unlucky day, don’t you know?”

Teresa jumped up and ran to the door. “Nina!”

“Eccellenza!”

A curious small bright-eyed woman appeared, with rough hair and not too tidy clothes. She came from Viterbo, and had a laugh for everything and sometimes a tear.

“Why did you tell the signorina it was an unlucky day?”

“Eh-h-h-h-h-h!” Nina’s “eh” began on the fourth line, and ran down chromatically. Taken with outspread hands and raised shoulders it implied, “How can the signora ask, when she knows as well as I?” What she said was, “Did not the eccellenza lose her purse?”

“But I have had a much bigger one sent to me,” said Teresa gravely.

“Then, eccellenza, it is probable that after the priest you met a hunchback, and she might counteract. Besides—” she hesitated—“there is always that unfortunate Cesare.”

The marchesa was not surprised, Nina having an extraordinary knack of knowing whatever went on. But she was vexed at her thoughts being flung back upon a subject which gave her a miserable impression of having behaved ill without intending it.

“What do you know about Cesare?”

Nina screwed her eyes together, and nodded her rough head.

“See here, eccellenza, I should not mind knowing less. When one meets such in the street it is best to shut one’s eyes and walk on. If he has a temper or not! That poor Camilla! She was a butterfly, yes, and foolish, yes—but to be shot all in a minute, without a priest! What a brother!”

“They say he loved her.”

“Eh-h-h-h-h—h! So they say. They came from Sicily alone, these two, without parents, and he was strict with her, poor little baby, and so—! It was not a love I should have liked, but as for stealing! No, no, no, that is not Cesare.”

“Why did not the guardie say so, then?” demanded Teresa impatiently.

“See, eccellenza, they are afraid, and they do not like him. He is hand and glove with the fiercest men in Rome, men who would overthrow anything, everything, king or pope, what you will! Since Camilla died it is as if an evil spirit had entered into him—he keeps with those men, he never hears mass, he is like a lost soul. What took him into San Martino, I wonder? At any rate I wish the eccellenza had had nothing to do with him,” Nina ended, uneasily.

And Teresa wished the same thing with all her heart. The young violent face, the passion of the eyes, haunted her. Her grandmother and sister were taken up with delight and wonderment over her good fortune. She tried to fling herself into it with them, but while she planned, with all the generosity of her nature, which but yesterday would have leapt to feel certain galling chains removed, her thoughts wandered away to the police station, and to Cesare in the lock-up, with a board for his bed, and the smart of an unjust accusation goading him to yet more furious rebellion against his fate.

Chapter Three.

If Wilbraham were certain of one thing, it was that Donna Teresa ought not to be encouraged to go to the police office. He already called himself an idiot for having let her do so, but as he had never been known seriously to take himself for an idiot, this was probably no more than a figure of speech. It meant, however, that he disapproved of her conduct, and especially of her sympathy for Cesare, for even the knowledge that the last accusation was untrue had not changed his opinion of the accused. Perhaps, if anything, the annoyance had accentuated it.

Yet, the next morning, when he ran over what lay before him, he was not unwilling to admit that he should be early at Via Porta Pinciana, so as to make sure that Donna Teresa did not start on any fool’s errand without him. And with disapproval so active, he might have been more gratified than he was to hear from Mrs Brodrick that an absolutely disabling headache obliged the marchesa to leave everything in his hands.

“Please pay the fine, whatever it is, and see that he is released.”

“Better she should keep out of it,” said Wilbraham grimly.

“But she wants the man’s address.”

“Don’t let her have it,” he said unadvisedly, and then flushed, suddenly aware that he had spoken too warmly. “The marchesa is young,” he said hurriedly, “and there are bad parts in Rome, where she really ought not to go.”

“No doubt,” returned Mrs Brodrick, smiling. “But I never interfere with Teresa’s liberty, and she would like the address.”

“Certainly,” said Wilbraham, stiffening. He knew that he had gone farther than his acquaintance justified, and no one hated a false position more than he. Sylvia came into the room at this awkward moment, looking so pretty that her little froth of chatter seemed only part of the prettiness, particularly when she greeted him warmly.

“Isn’t it tiresome for Teresa? But I told her I was sure you would manage everything perfectly. I don’t see that she need be so very unhappy, because if he was not a pickpocket he might have been one, of course; it was only a mistake, and you will set everything right, won’t you?”

“I’ll do my best,” he said gravely, but secretly pleased. Mrs Brodrick turned away her eyes, and knitted impassively. She was conscious of wrong feelings when her youngest grandchild chattered, and there were times when irritation got the upper hand, and she said something scathing, the only thing which Teresa ever resented. For Teresa upheld Sylvia through thick and thin, and would cheerfully efface herself for her sister.

Wilbraham walked towards the Trevi with his temper still ruffled, so that he scarcely glanced at the great fountain dashing its wealth of waters into the sea at its base. Passing it, he plunged into a network of narrow streets leading to the questura. He did not notice two or three men, who, standing at the door of the Avanti printing office, pointed him out to each other with scarcely perceptible gestures. Reaching his destination he found official feeling running high against Cesare, who, informed of the marchesa’s gracious intention, had returned passionately that he would not accept it, he preferred prison. Until the marchesa’s expected arrival he had been remanded in confinement, and the officer was urgent that he might be left there.

“He is dangerous,” he repeated more than once.

Wilbraham was a prejudiced young man, but his English instincts for fair play rose up promptly.

“That won’t do,” he said. “You can’t lay him by the heels unless he does something to deserve it.”

The official looked at this stubborn Englishman, and wondered whether he could influence him to leave well alone by suggesting a personal danger.

“He is not unlikely to stab—some one,” he remarked.

“Then some one must look out for himself,” said Wilbraham indifferently. He understood the hint, and it amused him. “How much is the fine?” Reading continued unwillingness, he added—“A little more would be paid to ensure his being let out at once. He can’t keep his lodgings here against your will, I imagine?”

As it would have been a pity not to allow a mad foreigner the chance of getting rid of his money, the official named the sum with an added ten lire, and Wilbraham paid it with some contempt for its smallness. He was assured that Cesare would be immediately released; and then conscientiously and unwillingly obtained his address. After lingering to gain a few statistics as to crime in Rome, he went on to a watchmaker’s in the Piazza Venezia, and was returning when he met his man face to face. There was no mistaking the young passionate features or the burning eyes, and evidently Cesare recognised him as quickly. For an instant he paused, came on, held him with his gaze, and muttered “Curse you!” as he passed. Wilbraham only smiled at what seemed to him a melodramatic incident, but it made him a little more angry with Teresa for insisting upon following up so violent a character, certain to reject her good offices. He scribbled a few lines on a card, left it at the house in Porta Pinciana, and went away towards his hotel in the higher and newer part of Rome.

He was his own master, and often came to Italy, which pleased him, and where he felt himself free from certain annoyances which are apt to attach themselves to only sons, and are also occasionally imagined when they do not exist. Lady Wilbraham blamed herself now for having early uttered warnings which he had taken too dutifully to heart. He sniffed danger afar, and retired so effectually from matchmaking mothers, that it seemed likely he would never possess a mother-in-law at all. The instant it flashed upon him what might be at the root of any expressed feminine interest, no terrified mollusc could have snapped his shell more effectually. In vain they wandered round, seeking for a glimpse, in vain dinners were got up, possible meetings sought for; so resolved was he not to present the smallest loophole to the supposed attack, that he even fell into the unpardonable error of confusing his pursuers with those who had never flung a glance beyond friendliness in his direction, and of stoutly barricading himself against some who had not so much as dreamed of a siege. That is a crime which a woman never forgives. So that here, in this ultra-sensitive dread of giving himself away, lay a weakness, the more dangerous to his character because it was apt to deceive him into imagining it strength.

Lady Wilbraham was a keen-sighted woman, even where her affections were concerned, but this was not a matter in which she could offer advice, though she often bore the blame of his—what shall we call it?—dislike of becoming the prey of tongues? coldness, pride? fear of where he might unwittingly land himself? Whatever it was, it was apt to hold him in bonds, and to alienate friends, for the nice women were those who were naturally the most indignant and who scourged him with their ridicule. Yet surely his object was exemplary, since above all things he desired to avoid raising false hopes. But he was also too much afraid of himself, too much afraid of becoming interested; too much afraid of going a step beyond the point from which retreat was not only possible but natural; too much afraid of, by some mischance, getting out of hand and allowing himself to be cajoled into a road where, he was certain, the demon of vain regret would instantly bestride his shoulders. So far his heart had invariably had pride for its master, and although there were those who prophesied rebellion, the reaction was not to be counted on, since hearts may be starved into powerlessness, or paralysed by want of use.

Yet it was not marriage itself of which he disliked the idea. He was two-and-thirty, a barrister with sufficient practice, and the owner of a country seat where his mother had lived since his father’s death. He intended in a year or two to give up law, live at the Court, and stand for Parliament. Marriage entered into all these contemplations. It was the woman, not the state which he dreaded, for that vague and shadowy. She, however charming in dreams, became a terror, a warning beacon, whenever she touched reality or appeared in actual form. There was always a something to warn him off, a mother a little indiscreet, a bore of a brother, a girl who failed, by as little as you please, to reach his standard of perfection.

Of course the reason was not far to seek. He was critical, because never having been in love, he was apt to doubt whether his heart could be stirred like the hearts of other people, and certainly it had never yet been strong enough to carry him where he did not wish to go. The question as to whether it ever would be strong enough remained unanswered. And the reason and the question left one certain thing to his credit, that unless he owned that inner force he would not have the courage to marry.

Donna Teresa passed before his mental vision more than once as he walked away from the Porta Pinciana, but he dismissed her image almost angrily. Sylvia, however, Sylvia? She was pretty, and somehow or other he felt grateful to Sylvia. If she were not very wise, it just crossed his mind that he had wisdom enough for two. His shadowy She had never been extraordinarily wise.

Chapter Four.

The misery, want, and degradation of Rome have this advantage over that of other cities, that they are lodged almost sumptuously in what should have been palaces. Those huge and hideous blocks of building which rear themselves in what are called the new quarters are no tumble-down age-stricken rabbit-warrens; they have marble staircases, airy rooms, balconies, ornamental ironwork, lofty doorways. Built for riches, they have never represented anything beyond rags, dirt, loathsome crowding, and, for their owners, bankruptcy; but they are better than dark cellars and fetid streets; and air, light, and sun, at least, visit their inhabitants. Moreover, blots as they are upon the old beauty of Rome, it is noticeable already from distant points, such as the front of Sant’ Onofrio, or farther along the Janiculum drive, where form is scarcely to be distinguished, that in colour, at least, they begin to harmonise better with their surroundings, and that the sun, the great alchemist of the South, is turning raw whites and greys into tawny gold and amber, and that soft indescribable tone which is at once the joy and the despair of the painter.

Seen more closely, however, their aggressive ugliness is appalling, and Teresa, as she walked along certain streets which lay below the ascent to San Pietro in Montorio, glanced at the overgrown blocks with extreme distaste. She could see something of the emptiness and dirt of the houses, the strings of ragged clothes fluttering from balconies, the evil-looking old hags stretching out skinny hands and muttering curses on her as she passed, the children with pinched and hungry faces, bare-footed, scantily clothed, with touzled hair and a smile which belongs to Italy, and Italy only. “Un soldo, signorina, un soldo! Ho fame!” Heaven help them; it was probably true; but Teresa, though she had soup tickets in her pocket, dared not give them yet, because she knew the word would pass from street to street, and that when she reappeared she would be surrounded, almost torn to pieces, by struggling claimants.

She found the number she was looking for, and picked her way up a broad staircase thick with accumulations of dirt. A ragged boy guided her to a door, at which she knocked. Another boy opened it, small, sickly, and lame. The two children stared at Donna Teresa, and she looked into the room with interest. It was fairly clean, miserably bare, and empty as to the man she wanted. In answer to her question, the lame boy shook his head. Cesare was his brother, he was out, he did not know when he would return. Teresa was unconsciously annoyed by a whine in his voice of the same kind as that which she had just passed through. She sent away the first boy, who peeped and listened from round a corner, and asked questions, getting, oddly enough, exactly the answers she expected. Cesare was long absent. Angelino, his brother, was often hungry—oh, often, and his back hurt him, but, certainly, that often, too. With easiest flexibility of conscience he was prepared to admit all suggested evils and to invent any others which might affect this signora in a benevolent direction, so soon as he caught a hint of what would best serve his purpose. Teresa was shrewd enough at last to find this out, and it changed her plan. Without giving a name she told the cripple that she would write to his brother, presented him with a lira for his own amusement, and fled. On her way home she reflected, with the result that in the evening a letter went to Cesare Bandinelli, enclosing five hundred lire and a few words: “Will you remember that I owe you a reparation, and accept this for Angelo.—T. di Sant’ E.”

She drew a sigh of relief when it was out of the house.

The next day was yet early when Nina, dumb but expressive, brought her a packet, which she recognised with a sinking heart. The money and her own letter were crammed into an envelope, as if thrust there by trembling and furious fingers. Not a word came with them, and Teresa’s face tingled as if she had been struck. After she had thought about it all day, she felt there was nothing to do except to accept defeat and to tell Wilbraham, hating the telling as we hate to repeat an insult, but forcing herself, under the impression that the incident counted better for Cesare than for herself.

“I ought not to have done it,” she owned.

“No, you ought not,” assented Wilbraham coldly. “He’s an ungrateful hound.”

Teresa fired.

“I can’t see where ingratitude comes in! Do you expect him to be grateful for my mistake?”

“How was he the worse for it?”

“How? Hasn’t he suffered?”

“Suffered! A night in a police cell!” said Wilbraham with a smile, which she thought insufferable. “My dear Donna Teresa, he has probably made acquaintance with such quarters before—or, at any rate, I will engage to find you fifty men who, for a hundredth part of what you offer, would occupy them with all the goodwill in the world.”

It is the truth in our opponent’s arguments which we find annoying. Teresa knew that Wilbraham spoke like a man of experience, and was angry. She flung up her head.

“You seem to forget that I said the money had been returned. Perhaps you will find fifty men to do that?”

“It would require sifting of my scoundrels,” laughed Wilbraham. “I grant you that only the cleverest would remain.” He sat forward, and began to drive in his truths. “Don’t you see that the fellow is shrewd enough to read your thoughts and trade upon them?”

The air in the room had grown heated. Mrs Brodrick’s eyes rested anxiously for an instant upon the young marchesa’s displeased face. Teresa did not speak. Wilbraham went on—

“You may be sure he hopes to get more out of you than even your prodigal five hundred lire. He proposes to work upon your—what shall I call it?—sensitiveness.”

Teresa was sitting upright, and her eyes were very bright.

“Is that the best you have yet found in human nature?” she said quietly.

“It is what I have most often found,” returned Wilbraham with a little surprise.

She glanced at him so strangely that he felt an odd desire to excuse himself, almost a new sensation, but before he could speak, Sylvia broke in with the appealing timidity which he recognised as a pleasant contrast to her sister’s impetuosity.

“I am sure you have done everything you could think of, Teresa, and so has Mr Wilbraham. I daresay it will all come right by-and-by, when Cesare understands that it was only a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes now and then, of course.”

It was these platitudes, announced as discoveries, which were apt to irritate Mrs Brodrick. But she owned that occasionally they had their uses. Wilbraham now turned to Sylvia with an air of interest, while Teresa’s face softened.

“Come,” she cried more gaily, “let us talk of something else. Talk of to-morrow. Thank goodness, that must always be a new subject. What shall we do, good people? Shall we drive to Ostia?”

Sylvia opened her eyes. She was opening her mouth as well, when her grandmother spoke.

“If you do, I think I’ll go with you.”

“That settles it,” said Teresa happily. She had recovered herself so completely that even Mrs Brodrick wondered at the swift change, especially when she turned kindly to Wilbraham. “You’ll come, too, won’t you? I’ll undertake to keep off dangerous subjects, and then I shan’t be cross.”

“I’ll come if I may.”

His tone was still a little stiff, and Teresa, glancing at him, saw that he was looking at Sylvia.

Except for the Tiber—and that can often be as grim as its history—the road to Ostia begins wearyingly. Farther on it grows rapidly in interest, till, when you reach Ostia itself, you think no more about beauty or interest, or your own passing sensations—it is too great. Sad, even in clearest sunshine, with rifled temples, ruined splendour, and the melancholy of its deserted gods, the sombre weight of centuries broods over it. The Tiber—no mere river here, but the symbol of a lost empire—swirls sullenly by, and as the sun sets and Vulcan’s shrine crimsons in its glow, fever creeps shivering from misty pools and clutches its victims. Those who go to Ostia should not linger too long.

But this day, on which Teresa brought her there, the sadness was but delicately suggestive and not oppressive. The air was warm, yet fresh and invigorating, and Teresa herself was in high spirits.

“Come,” she cried breathlessly, when she had climbed a steep bank, and stood looking out at the Tiber, now faintly yellow and grey, “come, Sylvia, and let us be foolish by ourselves.”

“Foolish!” repeated Sylvia startled.

Mrs Brodrick, had she been near enough, would have smiled, but Teresa nodded gaily.

“As foolish as we like. Mr Wilbraham can look after granny and improve her, while we enjoy our ignorance. It’s much better fun to imagine things than to know them. Let us run down there to begin with, and peep behind those columns. Who knows what might not be hiding there! Come, Sylvia!”

And she held out her hand.

But the girl looked round her doubtfully. She did not like foolishness when she heard of it, and her sister’s imagination was apt to make her uncomfortable. Slow doubt crept into her voice.

“If you like—if you’re sure it’s safe.” She added more quickly, “It’s so very lonely there, isn’t it?”

Teresa instantly yielded.

“Let us sit where we are then. Nothing can be more charming,” she went on, dropping on the short turf and clasping her knees, while Sylvia took elaborate precautions against the damp she dreaded. “Oh, Sylvia!” sighed Teresa, “to think that I should really be sitting here and talking to you, after that life!”

“At Florence, do you mean? I suppose the old marchesa was very unkind, for you to have disliked it so much?”

The other did not answer at once.

“Unkind? Well, no, she did not mean to be unkind. Do you know, I believe you would have got on very well with her. I’m sometimes so dreadfully difficult! But we won’t talk about Florence. We are here, here, at Ostia, you, and granny, and I!”

“And Mr Wilbraham,” put in Sylvia conscientiously.

“Yes, Mr Wilbraham. You mustn’t remind me of him when he is off our hands.” And Teresa shot a small grimace in his direction. “Let us talk of something nice. What shall we do with all our money? I shall get a dog. What will you have?”

“Do you really mean I can choose something?”

“Oh, silly! Of course you may. What’s the good of it otherwise?”

“A new hat—”

“Hat, frock, umbrella. Oh, you do want a new umbrella, Sylvia! Yours is in holes. We’ll make a list. Have you got a watch?”

“No,” said Sylvia, in amazement.

Her mouth remained open, while Teresa dragged out a card and jotted down thing after thing.

“We must find out the best watchmaker,” she said thoughtfully. “We must ask.”

“Mr Wilbraham,” suggested Sylvia.

“Mr Wilbraham! He doesn’t know everything.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean that he did.” Sylvia was often prosaically explanatory, desiring what thoughts she had to be distinctly outlined. “I meant that he was a man, and heard of things more than we could; granny said so.”

“Well, if it satisfies you, we’ll ask him. He will be so pleased!”

“Why?”

“Why?” The young marchesa laughed. “He likes to stand on a pedestal, that’s why, my child.” Seeing Sylvia’s puzzled face she dropped the subject. “Let us go on. The last thing was a watch. Now, what next? Ivory brushes?”

“Teresa! Don’t get me anything more.”

“Then we’ll take the other side of the paper for granny. I’m afraid she’s going to be disappointing,” said Teresa gloomily. “I intend to order a carriage by the month, of course, but when I ask her about other things she doesn’t seem to care. She says habits are nicer than anything else when you’re old. She likes to be frugal, because she’s had to be all her life.”

“She loves books about Rome,” hazarded the younger girl.

“Oh, so she does! She shall have them, she shall have them all,” said the marchesa with a fine spread of imagination. “How clever of you! Now the next thing is to find out about them.”

“Mr Wilbraham would know,” said Sylvia, and Teresa, turning upon her with an impatient laugh, was struck suddenly dumb by catching a wistful glance flung towards the spot a little way off where Wilbraham stood patiently pointing out the intricacies of a ruined columned court. It seemed to her as if, in the shock of the surprise, her heart stopped beating. Most women have intuitions which are not unlike another sense, for they are as sure and as inexplicable; and hers swept the past days and took in the result in an instant. She had not thought of Sylvia marrying, because of that intangible want, of which she was conscious herself, while she resented the consciousness in Mrs Brodrick. Yet, after all, what was it? Sylvia was not quite clever—might sometimes be thought a little tiresome. A man might condone all that for a look in her face.

“Shall we go back to the others?” she said hesitatingly.

“Oh, yes!” cried the girl, springing up.

The marchesa, suddenly observant, began to think there was no doubt as to Sylvia’s feelings. But what of his?

“I must find out,” she said to herself gravely.

Her grandmother greeted them with a smile.

“We were coming,” she said, “but I have been reading my book, and you have skipped all the improving pages.”

“Do you mean Murray?” asked Sylvia innocently.

“Sylvia knows that my grandmother and her Murray are inseparable,” hastily interposed Teresa. She need not have minded. Wilbraham was looking at the girl with a pleased satisfaction. He thought that women were much alike, except that some were prettier than others. Mrs Brodrick laughed, and did not resent her granddaughter’s explanation, but her eyes were grave and looked as if she, too, were observing. Teresa saw this, and saw that another had hit upon her discovery. She was very swift in carrying out her impulses, and she made up her mind that if Sylvia really liked this man her part must be to smooth matters for her happiness. The thought she flung at Wilbraham was tinged with a slight wonder, but his action was his own affair. She would do what seemed best for her sister.

“You are right, granny,” she said, “we have wasted our time disgracefully. It was my fault. Sylvia wanted to come and be informed. So now!”

“Now we will have our food. All that I have heard has made me hungry.” She spoke lightly, but her old eyes were still grave, and Teresa could see that what had come to them both was troubling her grandmother. The consciousness of this roused a reckless spirit in herself. Wilbraham, who was not a keen-witted man where women were concerned, knew nothing more than that this luncheon of theirs, taken on a grassy hillock with the river close beneath the bank, and red ruins lying in sunlight, was pleasanter than anything he had experienced of late. He connected it with Sylvia, who sat beside him, and chirruped cheerful truisms. Mrs Brodrick, who knew better, watched Teresa.

They strolled about afterwards, and went back through the ruins to fetch a young guide, who came out to them pale with ague. Teresa contrived that Wilbraham and Sylvia should be much together, but never alone. She fastened all her attention upon her sister, many times interposing with some guiding remark, only to slip again easily out of the conversation. They went into the little temple of Mithras, which interested Wilbraham immensely.

“Sylvia never heard of Mithras,” reflected Teresa uneasily, and, while the younger girl opened an inquiring mouth, struck in with an intentionally ignorant question. Wilbraham answered, and Sylvia drank in his words without in the least understanding them. But Wilbraham was one of those men with whom attention is prized beyond intelligence, or perhaps supposed to represent the same quality.

Then they talked of the leading impression which touches us in such places as Ostia, where a far past reigns.

“Sylvia and I are vague,” said Teresa boldly.

“Isn’t it a wonder that man should so quickly go, and his works so long outlive him?” asked Wilbraham.

“Isn’t it a conviction that that is impossible?” put in Mrs Brodrick.

“Perhaps,” said Wilbraham gravely, and glancing at Sylvia. He was not a very religious man himself, but he would wish his wife to be religious. And then he hastily put aside the thought as ridiculous.

Chapter Five.

“Teresa!”

“Granny!”

The young marchesa, who was moving about the room, touching her flowers, and musing as to an improved angle for a tall bamboo which had arrived that morning to fill a lonely corner, turned with a shade of defiance in voice and manner.

“Do you know what you are doing?”

There was a momentary hesitation before the answer came.

“Who does?”

The defiance was already tinged with uneasiness, and facing the keen old eyes Teresa dropped her own.

“Then I will tell you,” said Mrs Brodrick gravely. “You are playing a very dangerous game.”

“Everything that is worth anything has its dangers,” said Teresa, trying to speak lightly.

“But we have no right to push other people into them.”

“Push!” Now the marchesa laughed outright. “Push! Oh, be just. Do you pretend to say it would be possible to push Mr Wilbraham into any position he hadn’t deliberately chosen? You know better. He will walk round and round, and look at it closely from every side, and advance only when he is convinced it is eminently desirable and safe. He’s a hundred years old if he’s a day.”

“That’s as you like. He is a good man.”

Teresa, imagining—perhaps with truth—that she detected a shade of regret in the tone, fired up promptly.

“Not too good for my Sylvia.”

“Not too good. But too clever, too exacting.”

“You are never quite fair to Sylvia.”

“Nor,” said Mrs Brodrick with a quick smile, “are you.”

Teresa moved uneasily.

“She is very pretty.”

“Very.”

“And very good-tempered.”

“Very.”

Then they paused.

“Well, isn’t that enough for any man?” Teresa asked, with a show of conviction.

“It will not be enough for Mr Wilbraham.”

“That’s for him to judge. Why do you scold me? I’m doing nothing.”

“I should have said you were spending your energies in making ways smooth and pleasant,” her grandmother added after a momentary hesitation. “Well?”

“Well, I have a theory that Love cuts his own paths when he wants them.”

“Oh, granny,” protested Teresa, “but you—you are so romantic! Things have changed.”

“No, no, they are eternally the same,” said Mrs Brodrick, with a smile at her own failure.

After all, Teresa was not doing her justice, for her fears chiefly centred on Sylvia. Wilbraham, she agreed in her mind, could take care of himself, but if Sylvia suffered an acute sorrow, was her character strong enough to keep its equilibrium? She doubted. And she only faintly hoped that what she had said might influence Teresa, for, though it cost her something to offer advice she had very little belief in its being taken.

She began to wish they were out of Rome.

A month had passed since the day at Ostia; Wilbraham lingered, and had even arrived at the point of acknowledging to himself that he was lingering, which is a long step for a cautious man. It was true that other friends of his and of Mrs Brodrick’s had arrived, and were in a hotel not far from the Porta Pinciana. Their advent seemed to fling him yet more comfortably with his first acquaintances, for a second man put him at his ease. Moreover, Colonel and Mrs Maxwell wanted to see everything, since, although she had been born in Italy, he had never been in Rome. Teresa made herself his guide, and Sylvia fell naturally to Wilbraham. Teresa was still on the watch to cover blunders, but they had passed the stage in which she had been afraid to leave her alone with him. She even doubted whether he were alive to the difference in the conversation between Sylvia and Mrs Maxwell, who could talk brilliantly. There she was mistaken. He saw, and, on the whole, thought he preferred simplicity to brilliancy in a woman. He would have resented anything which made him ridiculous; short of that, the girl he married would require few mental gifts.

There had been talk of the marchesa finding a larger apartment.

“There is all this money to be spent,” she said with a laugh, “and honestly I don’t quite know how.”

“Do you want to go?” asked her grandmother cheerfully.

“Not I.”

“Nina hopes, if you do,” remarked Sylvia, looking up from knitting a sock, “that you will be very careful to take another crooked room; it’s lucky, she says.”

“I’ll have nothing more to do with Nina’s lucky theories,” said Teresa.

“Imagine, Mary,” she went on to Mrs Maxwell, who was lazily skimming an Italian newspaper, “on All Saints’ Day she brought us horrible biscuits made like cross-bones, and expected us to eat them! Biscuits of the dead, she called the dreadful things, and groaned all day over my want of devout feeling, when I couldn’t look at them.”

“I wish you hadn’t minded,” said Sylvia again, with some uneasiness.

Mrs Brodrick fidgeted.

“And the other day, instead of our Italian paper, she brought word that the man had sold his out, but that he assured me it didn’t matter, because there was nothing in it.”

“Your Nina sounds a hundred times more entertaining than my Peppina,” remarked Mrs Maxwell. “She knows nothing, and breaks everything. But then she is in love, and when she looks in my face with her beautiful eyes, and mentions that fact as a reason for all my misfortunes, what am I to do?”

“Is her lover in Rome?” asked Mrs Brodrick, rather from politeness than interest.

“Yes. Every now and then he swoops down upon her, and she insists upon going out with him. I point out the inconvenience, and she cries, but goes. Then she comes back, and breaks more things. I wish he weren’t quite such a strong character.”

“What is his occupation?” said Teresa, amused.

“So far as I can make out, it is pulling down the kingdom. This keeps him exceedingly busy. He has no money to speak of, and a lame little brother to support.”

“Oh!” cried the marchesa, suddenly intent.

“What is that?” inquired her grandmother, as keenly.

“Why this stir?” said Mrs Maxwell, opening her blue eyes. “Are you two by any chance in the conspiracy?”

“Does he live under S. Pietro in Montorio? Is he called Cesare Bandinelli? And has he a history?” Teresa questioned breathlessly. Then she jumped up and closed the window to shut out the noise of the electric tram and of the men who were crying “O-olive—go-o-omberi!” with broad intonations. She came back exclaiming—“This is extraordinarily interesting. I know that Cesare, poor fellow!”

“I don’t think you ought to call him poor fellow, Teresa,” corrected Sylvia. “Mr Wilbraham thinks him a very dangerous man.”

“Oh, he’s dangerous, he’s dangerous, I daresay,” agreed her sister, “but in our affair I was the sinner. Listen, Mary.” And she told her story, ending oracularly, “So you see!”

Mrs Maxwell was looking at her queerly.

“Yes, I see,” she said at last. “I’m beginning to put things together. And,” she went on, recovering herself with a laugh, “that always happens after I hear about Cesare.”

Teresa was too much interested and excited to notice anything unusual in Mary Maxwell’s manner. Mrs Brodrick, more experienced, watched her without asking questions.

“Perhaps we might manage to do something for the boy through Peppina?” Teresa suggested eagerly. “I needn’t show.”

“I think you had better leave it alone,” Mrs Maxwell replied slowly. “But I’ll ask my husband,” she added, noticing the young marchesa’s disappointment.

“Oh, he’ll say the same. Men do. Please remember, Mary, that it would take a weight off my mind.”

“I’ll remember. I’ll do all I can.” Mrs Maxwell promised so lavishly that Mrs Brodrick was certain nothing was meant to come of it. And she was right, for nothing came of it, though Mrs Maxwell kept her promise to remember.

“I don’t like it,” she said to her husband in the evening when they were alone, and he was admiring a cleverly blackened and altogether worthless picture, which he had picked up as a great bargain that day, at ten times its actual value.

“You know nothing about it,” he returned in an affronted tone. “The light and shade—”

“Light and shade? Oh! I didn’t mean the picture, I meant Cesare, Peppina’s lover. Now do you understand? It must be our Mr Wilbraham whom he is vowing vengeance against.”

Colonel Maxwell’s ideas of Italian life were borrowed from the stage.

“Rum chaps. Always vowing vengeance, aren’t they?” he said indifferently. “I wouldn’t bother about Wilbraham. He can take care of himself.”

“Well I don’t like it,” repeated his wife.

“If the fellow’s a brute, get rid of Peppina.”

“That is absurd.” Mrs Maxwell was not accustomed to have her affairs interfered with so trenchantly, and she spoke with indignation. “That is so like a man. Peppina—when she isn’t breaking things—is the comfort of my life. The one comfort,” she added emphatically.

“All right.” He stepped back to gaze rapturously at his picture. “Now I wonder who’s the best man here to trust with this sort of thing. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if it turned out a Pinturicchio.”

Mrs Maxwell, who knew much better, held revenge in her hand, and yet somehow could not use it. It would have been too downright, too brutal. She looked at him pityingly.

“You had better not trust it to anybody,” she said sweetly. “They might steal it. If I were you I should keep to soap and water. And,” she added, quite inconsequently, as he thought, “Jim, you’re a dear old donkey!”

That ended it.

Mrs Brodrick was restless; Teresa, who could not, or would not, understand why, chose to insist that her grandmother wanted change of air, and suggested many manner of places, but places where they might all go together.

“It would be such a pity to break us up,” she said.

For a moment Mrs Brodrick was silent.

“Where are we to go?” she asked a little wearily.

“Oh, darling,” cried Teresa, flying to kiss her, “don’t say it in such a tone. Don’t be so tragically sorry! Everything is arranging itself so prettily! And I’ll tell you where we’ll go,” she hurried on, much as if she wished to block argument. “Let us have a day or two at Perugia, so as to see Assisi.”

“All?”

“How could we leave any one out?” asked Teresa reproachfully. “You and Sylvia and I, of course.”

“Of course.”

“And the Maxwells, of course.”

“Of course.”

“And Mr Wilbraham, of course.”

But Mrs Brodrick was obstinately silent again.

The drag up to Assisi is long and dusty, yet with Assisi itself lying always splendidly as a goal in front, it is possible to forget both heat and dust. Olive groves straggle all about, chicory and blue thistles fringe the side of the road; a personality which the world has not yet forgotten makes itself curiously felt when you come in sight of his fields, his mountains, his wide skies, and look back at the dome of Saint Mary of the Angels bathed in soft mist. A Miss Sandiland, one of the many single women who go about the world alone, was of the party which was to spend a night at the Subisio. Hence they, at once, pursued by clamorous beggars, climbed the stony streets to the broad arcaded spaces before the great church, Lombard and Gothic, with its square and round towers and vast magnificent porch. Then from the clear sunlight they turned into darkness—but what darkness! Darkness out of which colours glow, colours laid on by Cimabue and Giotto, darkness shrouding in mystery those strange grave impassible faces looking down into a world which does not touch them. Teresa stood silent, squeezing her hands; Sylvia asked many questions, and Wilbraham answered them; a monk came forward and pointed out this, that, and the other; another monk arranged hideous imitation flowers on the central altar. Presently Wilbraham came back to where Teresa stood.

“The others are gone,” he said.

“Will you come?”

“Gone, gone where?” she said, starting and looking round, “gone away?”

“No, no,” he said indulgently, remembering that she was always scatterbrained, “oh no. But have you forgotten that there’s an upper church?”

“Yes,” returned Teresa briefly, “I had forgotten.”

“May I show you the way?”

She followed silently up the stone staircase, and when they reached the top, he did not see that she again paused and left him to join the others.

After the gloom of the lower, the almost joyous gaiety of the upper church contrasts with it so amazingly that the effect must have been counted upon. Everything is in light delicate harmony. Slender columns of alternate pink and grey; bays roofed with ultramarine dividing others in which Cimabue’s frescoes gleam with strange greens and yellows; choir-stalls with shell-like canopies, lined with blue and gold, surmounting grave tarsia work of saints and angels. There is a small apse with an arcaded gallery, the shafts of pink and grey, and at the back great angels stand on guard. An exquisite small stone pulpit is placed against the wall by the high altar, the column is cut away to give it room, and where it begins again is supported by a grasping hand. Under foot all is pink stone, and round the altar finest cosmatesque mosaic. The lower part of the wall is painted in soft reds and golds to represent looped hangings, and above this, on loveliest blue-green backgrounds, are the Giottos. Noble figures of Cimabue’s look down from the roof; stately angels with red wings tipped with light visit Abraham: the saints’ nimbuses are worked out in raised plaster, the great Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Gregory, talk with monks in their cells; all is light, colour, glory; and the windows are large, with delicately stained glass, or, like that at the west, white.

Teresa came up to the others abruptly, and only Mrs Brodrick noticed that her eyes were wet.

“It’s too much,” she said with a quick motion of her hand. “What did they mean? Earth and heaven?—struggle and victory?—the church militant and triumphant?”

“Don’t you like it, Teresa?” asked Sylvia anxiously. “Mr Wilbraham has been telling me so much about it. Did you know that Giotto was a shepherd boy—”

“Was he?” and Teresa, who knew all there is to know about Giotto, shot down from the heights to come to her sister’s help.

“And Cimabue was his master,” went on Sylvia, marshalling her little facts with pride.

“It makes it much more interesting to know about them, doesn’t it?” said the young marchesa, smiling at her, but glancing also at Wilbraham. She need not have feared. His eyes were on Sylvia, he was seeing the young fair face, with its innocent expression, with lips just parted, and reading more than there was, and yet less. What did he care that she should not have Italian painters at her fingers’ ends? He knew them himself, and the knowledge did not seem very valuable. Determination suddenly fired him, and Teresa seeing the look smiled again, this time triumphantly, and turned away.

When they came forth into the piazza, Colonel Maxwell’s fever for “picking up” things broke out.

“It’s absurd to think one can’t find something in a place like this,” he remarked argumentatively. “I shall have a look at some of the side streets. I don’t want to drag any of you, you know.”

“I must go with him,” sighed Mary Maxwell, gathering her dress round her with the air of a martyr,—“in self-defence. I don’t know otherwise what awful things he may bring to me to pack. Don’t anybody else come.”

“I am coming. I like experiences,” said Miss Sandiland.

So these three went away, and the others set themselves to climb the steep broken streets towards the ruined Porta S. Giovanni.

“One is rather breathless, but after all it is not such a long step back to the Middle Ages as I thought,” said Mrs Brodrick, as they passed between the rough grey stone houses, and turned to look at the sunset. There before them stretched the great plain, encompassed with hills of full blue-grey. A few small clouds, edged dazzlingly with gold, barred the sun, and hung over the mountains; above these a clear green Perugino sky melted overhead into the tenderest blue, and, lying across the seas of light, stretched clouds of most exquisite form and colour, their edges bright rosy red. Then they set themselves again to climb steep streets, past broad, striding arches, low and dark, houses flinging out vast sheltering eaves, green doors, carnations hanging from windows, birdcages, squalor, vivid colour, women with their waterpots.

“Where are the others?” said Mrs Brodrick suddenly, as they came out on the ruined gate.

“Never mind, granny,” answered Teresa, smiling softly, “I think they are doing very well.”

“You are like other women,” said her grandmother, shaking her head; “you will only see as much as you want to see.”

“At any rate it’s too late now to see more.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t know. I’m only convinced. Really and truly I’m delighted,” she went on triumphantly, “and so you ought to be. What could you wish for better? We know all about Mr Wilbraham—except—no, I don’t know his Christian name. Has he one?”

Mrs Brodrick refused to laugh. Teresa gazed at her with mock anxiety.

“Granny, I shall be really relieved when this affair is finished, I don’t quite like you over it,” she sighed. “Do you dream of anything dark in the background? Or if I dislike it ever so much, do you suppose it could be stopped now?”

“No,” admitted her grandmother. She added whimsically: “But isn’t that rather like starting a rock down hill, and asking whether you can be expected to stop it?”

“Perhaps,” Teresa said. “I don’t think your simile pretty, all the same,” she went on. “Nobody is going to be crushed; and I believe you’ll see that this being loved is just what Sylvia wanted to give her confidence. She’ll develop.”

Mrs Brodrick wanted to ask what would develop, and didn’t dare. She thought of Sylvia as a pretty face and a sweet nature masking an absolutely empty mind, and doubted. The young marchesa could not be always at hand to turn a stupid remark into something which did not seem so stupid after all, and she did not believe that Sylvia could stand on her own feet. She had done her best to stop what was happening and had failed. Age is tolerant, and there was nothing for it now save to accept failure.

“You and I,” said Teresa, with a caressing hand, “will always live together.”

“Always,” said Mrs Brodrick bravely, a smile covering the pain in her heart.

And she turned to go down.

When they reached the piazza the sky had changed. All the gold had gone. In its stead a long red line stretched across the mountainous horizon; above it, light deepened into blue, masses of clouds had suddenly trooped up from the south. Sylvia and Wilbraham came out quite unexpectedly from the shadow of the great church. Sylvia flew to her sister and caught her hand.

“Teresa, Teresa!” she cried under her breath.

Chapter Six.

Late into the night, facing the window, and the broad starlit sky stretching over the plain, Teresa sat with Sylvia’s hands in hers, listening. She said little, she was trying to gather what were the girl’s sensations—whether, as she unconsciously expected, things were awakening under this new touch. What perhaps surprised her most, though nothing would have induced her to own it, was Sylvia’s own want of surprise. She, who was generally so timid, so scrupulous, seemed to take all as a matter of course. Teresa reflected that Wilbraham’s wooing must have been amazingly effective, for Sylvia no longer seemed to have a doubt about anything. She talked of “we,” she alluded to plans with innocent egoism, she repeated some of the pretty things he had said. Once she jumped up and ran to the funny little looking-glass stuck against the wall, and came back smiling.

“He thinks my eyes charming,” she said frankly. “You never said much about them?”

“One waits for lovers to do that,” laughed Teresa.

“I don’t see why. Did the marchese admire yours?”

“How could he!” Teresa spoke with sharp pain, the pain of remembrance. “I was never pretty, like you, child.”

“No,” said Sylvia, looking at her with her head on one side, “I suppose not. Walter said you were not.”

“Oh, Walter. That’s his name, is it?”

Teresa hated herself for speaking with a certain asperity. It is so much easier to disparage one’s self than to bear with others doing it. But Sylvia was at last genuinely amazed.

“Do you mean that all this time you never knew that? Why, I have always known it. Teresa, how very funny! You have never thought about him as Mr Walter Wilbraham? It is such a beautiful name! But that you should not—Teresa, you are funny!”

“I shall know now.”

“Of course you will.” The girl gazed at her almost with compassion, as at one whom Wilbraham had called absent-minded. “It will be my name, you know. At least, I think so, as there is his mother. Perhaps,” she added pityingly, “perhaps you have forgotten that there is a mother?”

Teresa turned and kissed her impulsively.

“A mother—yes, what does it matter, what does anything matter? Only be happy, be happy, dear!”

“I am very happy,” said Sylvia simply. “And I like so much talking to you about it.”

“Always talk to me—not to any one else.”

“Not to granny?”

“No, not to granny—not even to granny. I’m your sister, I can understand,” cried Teresa, with a protective yearning in her heart, a defiant uprising against Mrs Brodrick’s prognostications.

“But I shall talk to Walter first,” said Sylvia; “of course, I shall tell him everything.”

“Of course,” returned her sister. Yet her heart sank, and long after Sylvia was sleeping peacefully in her little bed, Teresa sat at the window, her hands clasping one knee, while she looked out at the wonderful night, and wondered how soon Wilbraham, who was not a fool, would find out that he had indeed reached the bottom of everything.

But by the morning her fears had left her. By the morning she was her energetic, suggestive self, with an added touch of cordiality in her manner towards Wilbraham. She owned, as they sat at breakfast in the uninviting feeding-room of the Subisio, that he was a striking-looking man, taller than most, and broadly made. There was a greater suggestion of strength about him than she had yet realised, and, like other women, Teresa liked strength. Generally she felt an inclination to contradict him, but this morning she adopted all his suggestions readily—so readily, that once Mrs Maxwell, who had not yet been enlightened, and was unused to seeing Teresa so meek, put down her cup and stared at her. Teresa laughed a little, and went on being pleasant.

“You’ll see how good I am going to be,” she said triumphantly to Mary Maxwell, when she had told her.

“Well, don’t turn the man’s head,” replied her friend.

“My dear, the only thing that can turn a man’s head is a pretty face.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“That’s because you’ve one of your own.”

“Oh!” cried Mrs Maxwell delightedly, “you’re charming! I had almost forgotten what a compliment was like. If Jim had the sense to throw me a few, I should be ready to swear all his discoveries were genuine. Why, why are husbands so foolish?”

Later, when they were clambering again up the stony streets, she caught Mrs Brodrick alone.

“Let us forget all about Saint Francis for a few minutes and talk about Saint Sylvia,” she said; “she is our heroine to-day, and the best of creatures, isn’t she?”

“As good as gold,” assented Mrs Brodrick hastily.

“But the best of creatures may be the least little bit in the world—tiresome? Oh, don’t let us be quite good ourselves, let us say what is on the tip of our tongues. How can any one look at Sylvia when Teresa is by?”

“When you’re my age,” said the older woman, “you will have given up asking questions.”

“When I’m your age I shall try to answer other people’s,” said Mary, with a laugh. “Do you believe for a moment that it can go on?—particularly when Teresa withdraws, as she must, into the background, and leaves Sylvia to stand alone?”

Our own thoughts are apt to look the uglier, held up by another person, and Mrs Brodrick would have chosen silence. As it was she said quietly:

“Mr Wilbraham is not the man to make mistakes.”

Mary Maxwell laughed shrewdly.

“You mean he’s not the man to acknowledge them. There you’re right. I daresay he will stick to Sylvia rather than own himself in the wrong. Well, perhaps obstinacy has its uses. I wonder what they are talking about now?” she added, wickedly.

At the moment when she asked the question, the two concerned were also climbing steep streets—since at Assisi you must go up or down—stopping every now and then to look through narrow vistas of grey stone houses, towards the fair blue distances which lay beyond. Wilbraham was not so much in love that he had not some uncertainty as to how much he ought to say about it; sometimes, indeed, he felt that he had said but little. Sylvia, however, was quite satisfied. She was not exacting, and she had been brought up in an atmosphere which had given her trustfulness. When Wilbraham had once said he loved her, it would not have occurred to her to doubt the fact.

So, as they went, she babbled cheerfully and disconnectedly, turning to him from time to time the face which invariably gave him a renewed feeling of satisfaction. Had he pulled his own feelings to pieces, he would have realised that his love was not a sweeping force, but, rather, intermittent, moving in jerks, or brightening up now and then like a flame stirred by a sudden current. As it was, he felt quite sufficiently sure of himself to be content.

“What charming children!” cried Sylvia, stopping to smile at a group. “Aren’t they sweet? I always think the Italian children have such beautiful eyes. Have you ever noticed it?”

He assured her that he had.

“I like them so much when they don’t come quite close, because, do you know, they are not very clean. Poor little souls, I daresay they can’t help it, though. Oh, please, please send them away!”

“Be off!” cried Wilbraham, coming to the rescue.

Sylvia hurried on till she was breathless.

“I can’t think why they beg so!” she said piteously. “They really frighten one!”

The sweet helpless eyes turned towards him stirred the flame again. He took her hand in his.

“My darling,” he said tenderly, “you mustn’t be frightened when I am by, and they were very little children.”

“They were dreadfully dirty—all rags,” she said.

“When we’re married, Sylvia—”

“Yes?”

She lifted her face, and he kissed it, forgetting what he was going to say.

“I suppose there are plenty of schools and things at Blackmere?” she asked reflectively.

“Oh, I suppose so.”

“I hope I shan’t have to teach the multiplication tables?”

“Why should you?” he said briefly. The flame had again died down.

“I fancied people did. Do you know, I was thinking about it in the night.”

“The multiplication table?”

“I never could learn beyond six times. Until one came to ten, of course,” she added triumphantly. “And granny says Teresa could say it backwards—when she liked.”

“I wouldn’t trouble my head about it.”

“No, I won’t,” said the girl obediently.

Wandering about a tangle of narrow streets, rugged, uneven, unchanged to all appearance from those Middle Ages when men’s lives and men’s thoughts were both simpler and more frankly expressed than in our subtler days, they found themselves in the central piazza, where Minerva’s columns have faced the sun of centuries. Wilbraham had made his way there the evening before, and had been so much impressed by their grandeur that he had looked forward to bringing Sylvia. This morning he said to himself that they were not what he had imagined them, and Sylvia hardly glanced in their direction, until he pointed them out.

“I see. They are very pretty,” she commented. “What did you call them?”

“They belonged to a temple of Minerva.”

Sylvia reflected.

“Then—” she hesitated—“they must be old, I suppose?”

“Very,” he said, smiling.

“Ah, I thought so. I know one used to learn something about Minerva in one’s lesson books.”