The Guests Of Hercules Part 39

There was no one in the pretty American-looking drawing-room when Nathalie ushered her in. Throwing a quick glance around, the Princess chose a chair so placed that her back was turned not only to the window but to a table with an electric lamp on it, which would in all probability soon be lighted. Hardly was she seated, when the door was thrown open quickly, and Mary came in.

Princess Della Robbia rose, her left arm thrust into her big ermine m.u.f.f, so that her right hand might be free if it must be given in greeting. But she did not step forward as if eager to greet Vanno's fiancee.

"Princess Della Robbia?" Mary said, rather shyly. "How good of you to come to see me."

She put out her hand and took that of the Princess. This brought them close together, and as they were of nearly the same height, they looked into each other's faces, though the Princess still kept her head slightly bent, her eyes and forehead in shadow.

"Marie Grant!"

Mary cried out the name sharply.

"Hus.h.!.+" said the Princess, with a convulsive pressure on the other's hand. "For G.o.d's sake! Don't ruin me!"

Mary, with the last rays of afternoon light full on her face, turned pale to the lips, and the pupils of her eyes seemed to dilate.

"Oh, Marie, darling!" she faltered. "I wouldn't ruin you for the world--not to save my life. I--it was only that I was so surprised. I'm glad--very glad to see you. I've dreamed of you a thousand times--and just before coming to Monte Carlo, too. I expected some one else when I came into this room, a Princess Della Robbia----"

"I am Princess Della Robbia," Marie said in a veiled, dead voice.

"You--but I don't understand----"

"I'll tell you. I want to tell you," the Princess broke in quickly, the words almost jumbled together in her haste. "We must talk before any one comes. Will any one come?"

"No, no," Marie soothed her. "Mrs. Winter is out. She won't be back till four. It's only a little after three."

The Princess thrust her arm through her m.u.f.f so that she could take both Mary's hands. She pressed them tightly, her fingers jerking as if by mechanism. "I've come--I've got to throw myself on your mercy," she said.

"Don't," Mary implored, "use such words to me. Oh, Marie, how strange--how strange everything is! The night before I left the convent, Peter--dear Peter, who loves you too, always--said that perhaps my dreams meant that you thought of me sometimes--that we might meet. Then I didn't expect to come here. She told me not to come. But she said, 'Anything can happen at Monte Carlo.'"

"Anything can happen anywhere," the Princess answered in a m.u.f.fled voice. "It is a terrible world. It's been a terrible world for me since I saw you. And now--just when it's turned into heaven, you can send me down to h.e.l.l."

"It kills me to hear you talk so," Mary said, tears rising in her eyes, and falling slowly. "_I!_ Why, Marie dearest, didn't you just hear me say I'd rather die than hurt you? I don't know what you mean."

"Do you understand that I'm married to the brother of the man you're engaged to marry?"

"Why--yes. You told me that you--that you're the Princess Della Robbia."

"Well, my husband _doesn't know_. n.o.body in my life now, knows anything about--the part that came before. n.o.body must know. I'd kill myself rather than have Angelo find out, or even suspect. He thinks I----" She stopped, and choked. "He thinks I am----" The sob would come. She broke down, crying bitterly. "Oh, Mary, I love him so. I wors.h.i.+p him. He thinks I'm everything sweet and good and innocent, that I'd give my soul to be, for his sake. And now you've come----"

"You don't think I'll tell!"

"Not if you say you won't. But I didn't know. You were always so good.

You might have thought it your duty. Mary--you won't tell Vanno? I couldn't bear it!"

"I won't tell Vanno, or any one at all."

"You're sure--_sure_ you won't let anything drop, by mistake?"

"Explain to me exactly what you want me to do," Mary said, "and I'll do it. Are we to have been strangers to each other till to-day--is that it?"

"Yes, that's the best thing: less complicated. It will save telling lies."

"I should hate to tell lies," said Mary.

"You needn't. Oh, the hundreds and thousands I've had to tell! The dreary, uphill work! But now I'm on the hill, the beautiful hill in the suns.h.i.+ne where my husband lives. And I'm going to stay there if I have to wade in lies."

Mary s.h.i.+vered a little at the words and the look in Marie's eyes as they stared behind the spider web veil. But she tried not to show that she was shocked. She felt she would give her hand to be cut off rather than hurt this miserable girl who had sinned and suffered, and now stood desperately at bay.

"Try to be happy; try to trust me," she said. "We used to be such friends."

"That was my only hope when I found that Vanno was engaged to you, and that we should have to meet," Marie confessed. "I hated to come, but I had to brave it out. And I thought it just possible you mightn't recognize me, after all these years." She pushed up her veil nervously.

"Haven't I changed? Do say I've changed!"

"Your hair looks lighter. There's more red in it, surely," Mary reflected aloud. "It used to be a dark brown. Now it's almost auburn."

"I bleach it. I began to do that when I first thought of trying to--get back to things. I wanted to make myself different, so that if any of the people who saw me when I--was down, came across me again, they mightn't be sure it was I--they might think it was just a resemblance to--another woman. I took the name of Gaunt instead of Grant, because it was so nearly the same, it might seem to have been a very simple mistake, if any complication came. And I went to live far away from every one I'd ever known. I chose Dresden. I can hardly tell why, except that I'd never been there, and I wanted to paint. I stayed at first in a pension kept by an artist's wife. The artist helped me, and I did very well with my work. That's what saved me. If I hadn't had that talent, there would have been only one of two things for me to do: kill myself, or--worse."

"Let's not think of it, since it's all over," said Mary, gently. She took Marie by the hand again, and made her sit down on Rose Winter's chintz covered sofa. Then she sat beside her friend and almost timidly slid an arm round her waist.

"All over!" the Princess echoed, in a voice so weary and old, so unlike the bright sleigh-bell gayety Angelo knew, that he would hardly have recognized his wife. "That's the horrible part--that's the punishment: never to know whether it's 'all over,' or whether at any minute, just as one begins to dare feel a little happy and safe, one isn't going to be found out. For instance, when my husband wanted a villa at Cap Martin.

Once, before I knew we would be coming here, I told him that I'd never been to the Riviera. It was necessary to tell him that. But, Mary, I had been. It makes me sick when I think what a short time ago it was. I came to Monte Carlo with--_him_, and we stopped for weeks at a big hotel. Every day and all day we were in the Casino. Afterward we went to Russia, and it was in Russia he left me--in St. Petersburg. Often I go back there in dreams, and to Monte Carlo too. I suppose you _knew_ about me, always--you and--Peter?"

"Neither of us knew much. But I know all I want to know--unless you feel there's anything it would do you good to tell."

"It does me a little good to be able to speak out to some one for the first time in years, now the worst is over, and I haven't to be afraid of you. If you could dream what I went through to-day! Mary, are you sure--sure of yourself--that you won't give me away?"

"Very, very sure," Mary answered steadily. "I think it would have been better if you'd told the Prince before you married him, and then you'd have nothing to fear now, but----"

"He wouldn't have married me. One of my great attractions in his eyes was--what I have not. You don't know that family yet, Mary. I think the brothers are a good deal alike in some ways, though Angelo is more of a saint than Vanno. They adore purity in women. I think they both have a sort of pitying horror for women who aren't--innocent."

Mary was silent. She had reason to believe that the Princess was right.

"And I couldn't give him up," Marie went on. "It was too much even for G.o.d to expect. It was such a beautiful romance--the first true romance in my life. It seemed to be recreating me. I almost felt as if his love would _make_ me worthy if I could only take and keep it. It was a dreadful risk, but--I dared it, and I'd do it again, if I had it to do, even if I paid by losing my soul. I used to think at first that perhaps when we'd been married a long time, and I was sure of his love, I might tell him--a little, not everything. But now I know that I never, never can. It would be a thousand times worse than before, if he found out. It would mean my death, that's all. I couldn't look into his eyes, his dear, beautiful eyes that adore me, that I adore. You haven't seen him yet. But you know Vanno's eyes, and what it would be to see them turn cold after they have been--stars of love. That expresses them."

"Yes, that expresses them," Mary almost whispered. She closed her eyelids for an instant and Vanno's eyes looked into hers, as they had looked in the cure's garden, after the first kiss. Nothing that Marie could have said would have made her understand as clearly. If she were as Marie was, she felt that she could not tell Vanno, now that his eyes had wors.h.i.+pped her. She would not marry him and _not_ tell, if there were things that ought to be told; but she would go away, far away, where the dear eyes might never look at her again.

"You don't know yet what it is to love," Marie went on; and Mary answered, as if she were speaking to herself, "I almost think I do know--now."

"If you do, you can understand me."

"I am beginning to understand," Mary said.

"You swear that you've said nothing to Vanno, to make him suspect? When he told you about his brother and sister-in-law, did he mention my name as--as a girl?"

"He said your name was Marie Gaunt----"

"Oh! And then?"