My Friend Prospero Part 11

"Her Pagan name? What is that?" asked Annunziata.

"Maria Dolores, I take it, is her Christian name, come by in Holy Baptism," said John. "But I suppose she will have a Pagan name, come by in the way of the flesh, to round it off with,--just as, for instance, a certain flame of mine, whose image, when I die, they'll find engraved upon my heart, has the Pagan name of Casalone."

Annunziata looked up, surprised. "Casalone? That is my name," she said.

"Yes," said John. "Yours will be the image."

Annunziata gave her head a toss. "Maria Dolores did not tell me her Pagan name," she said.

"At any rate," said he, "to judge by the company she keeps, we may safely cla.s.sify her as unborn. She is probably the daughter of a miller,--of a miller (to judge also a little by the frocks she wears) in rather a large way of business, who (to judge finally by her cultivated voice, her knowledge of languages, and her generally distinguished air) has spared no expense in the matter of her education. I shouldn't wonder a bit if she could even play the piano."

"No," agreed Annunziata, "that is very likely. But why"--she tilted upwards her inquisitive little profile--"why should you think she is the daughter of a miller?"

"Miller," said John, "I use as a generic term. Her father may be a lexicographer or a dry-salter, a designer of dirigible balloons or a manufacturer of air-pumps; he may even be a person of independent means, who lives in a big, new, stuccoed villa in the suburbs of Vienna, and devotes his leisure to the propagation of orchids: yet all the while a miller. By miller I mean a member of the Bourgeoisie: a man who, though he be well to do, well educated, well bred, does not bear coat-armour, and is therefore to be regarded by those who do with their noses in the air,--especially in Austria. Among Austrians, unless you bear coat-armour, you're impossible, you're nowhere. We mustn't let you become enamoured of her if she doesn't bear coat-armour."

Annunziata's eyes, during this divagation, had wandered to the window, the tall window with its view of the terraced garden, where the mimosa bloomed and the blackcaps carolled. Now she turned them slowly upon John, and he saw from their expression that at last she was coming to what for her (as he had known all along) was the real preoccupation of the moment. They were immensely serious, intensely concerned, and at the same time, in their farther recesses, you felt a kind of fluttering shyness, as if _I dare not_ were hanging upon _I would_.

"Tell me," she began, on a deep note, a deep coaxing note.... Then _I dare not_ got the better, and she held back.... Then _I would_ took his courage in both hands, and she plunged. "What have you brought for me from Roccadoro?" And after one glance of half-bashful, all-impa.s.sioned supplication, she let her eyes drop, and stood before him suspensive, as one awaiting the word of destiny.

John's "radiant blondeur," his yellow beard, pink face, and sea-blue eyes, lighted up, more radiant still, with subcutaneous laughter.

"The shops were shut," he said. "I arrived after closing time."

But something in his tone rendered this grim announcement nugatory.

Annunziata drew a long breath, and looked up again. "You have brought me something, all the same," she declared with conviction; and eagerly, eyes gleaming, "What is it? What is it?" she besought him.

John laughed. "You are quite right," he said. "If one can't buy, beg, or borrow, in this world, one can generally steal."

Annunziata drew away, regarded him with misgiving. "Oh, no; you would never steal," she protested.

"I'm not so sure--for one I loved," said he. "What would you have liked me to bring you?"

Annunziata thought. "I liked those chocolate cigars," she said, her face soft with reminiscence of delight.

"Ah, but we mustn't have it _toujours perdrix_," said John. "Do you, by any chance, like marchpane?"

"Marchpane?--I adore it," she answered, in an outburst of emotion.

"You have your human weaknesses, after all," John laughed. "Well, I stole a pocketful of marchpane."

Annunziata drew away again, her little white forehead furrowed.

"Stole?" she repeated, reluctant to believe.

"Yes," said he, brazenly, nodding his head.

"Oh, that was very wrong," said Annunziata, sadly shaking hers.

"No," said he. "Because, in the first place, it's a matter of proverbial wisdom that stolen marchpane's sweetest. And, in the next place, I stole it quite openly, under the eye of the person it belonged to, and she made no effort to defend her property. Seeing which, I even went so far as to explain to her _why_ I was stealing it. 'There's a young limb o'

mischief with a sweet tooth at Sant' Alessina,' I explained, 'who regularly levies blackmail upon me. I'm stealing this for her.' And then the lady I was stealing from told me I might steal as much as ever I thought good."

"Oh-h-h," said Annunziata, a long-drawn _Oh_ of relief. "Then you didn't steal it--she _gave_ it to you."

"Well," said John, "if casuistry like that can ease your conscience--if you feel that you can conscientiously receive it--" And he allowed his inflection to complete the sentence.

"Give it to me," said Annunziata, holding out her hands, and dancing up and down in glee and in impatience.

"Nenni-da," said John. "Not till after dinner. I'm not going to be a party to the spoiling of a fair, young, healthy appet.i.te."

Pain wrote itself upon Annunziata's brow. "Oh," she grieved, "must I wait till after dinner?"

"Yes," said John.

For a breathing-s.p.a.ce she struggled. "Would it be bad of me," she asked, "if I begged for just a _little_ now?"

"Yes," said John, "bad and bootless. You'd find me as unyielding as adamant."

"Ah, well," sighed Annunziata, a deep and tremulous sigh. "Then I will wait."

And, like a true philosopher, she proceeded to occupy her mind with a fresh interest. She looked round the room, she looked out of the window.

"Why do you stay here? It is much pleasanter in the garden," she remarked.

"I came here to seek for consolation. To-day began for me with a tragic misadventure," John replied.

Annunziata's eyes grew big, compa.s.sionating him, and, at the same time, bespeaking a lively curiosity.

"Poor Prospero," she gently murmured. "What was it?" on tip-toe she demanded.

"Well," he said, "when I rose, to go for my morning swim, I made an elaborate toilet, because I hoped to meet a certain person whom, for reasons connected with my dignity, I wished to impress. But it was love's labour lost. The certain person is an ornament of the uncertain s.e.x, and didn't turn up. So, to console myself, I came here."

Annunziata looked round the room again. "What is there here that can console you?"

"These," said John. His hand swept the pictured walls.

"The paintings?" said she, following his gesture. "How can they console you?"

"They're so well painted," said he, fondly studying the soft-coloured canvases. "Besides, these ladies are dead. I like dead ladies."

Annunziata looked critically at the pictures, and then at him with solemn meaning. "They are very pretty--but they are not dead," she p.r.o.nounced in her deepest voice.

"Not dead?" echoed John, astonished. "Aren't they?"

"No," said she, with a slow shake of the head.

"Dear me," said he. "And, when they're alone here and no one's looking, do you think they come down from their frames and dance? It must be a sight worth seeing."

"No," said Annunziata. "These are only their pictures. They cannot come down from their frames. But the ladies themselves are not dead. Some of them are still in Purgatory, perhaps. We should pray for them." She made, in parenthesis as it were, a pious sign of the Cross. "Some are perhaps already in Heaven. We should ask their prayers. And others are perhaps in h.e.l.l," she pursued, inexorable theologian that she was. "But none of them is dead. No one is dead. There's no such thing as being dead."

"But then," puzzled John, "what is it that people mean when they talk of Death?"