The Child of Pleasure Part 2

'Why yes, of course, Filippo, you cried the wares,' said Donna Francesca. 'Now what a pity you were not there, _cugino mio_! For five louis you might have eaten fruit out of which I had had the first bite, and have drunk champagne out of the hollow of Elena's hands for five more.'

'How scandalous!' broke in the Baroness d'Isola, with a horrified grimace.

'Ah, Mary, I like that! And did you not sell cigarettes that you lighted up first yourself for a louis?' cried Francesca through her laughter.

Then she became suddenly grave. 'Every deed, with a charitable object in view, is sacred,' she observed sententiously. 'By merely biting into fruit, I collected at least two hundred louis.'

'And you?' Andrea Sperelli turned to Elena with as constrained smile--'With your human drinking-cup--how much did you get?'

'I?--oh, two hundred and seventy louis.'

Everybody was full of fun and laughter, excepting the Marchese d'Ateleta, who was old, and afflicted with incurable deafness; was padded and painted--in a word, artificial from head to foot. He was very like one of the figures one sees at a wax work show. From time to time--usually the wrong one--he would give vent to a little dry cackling laugh, like the rattle of some rusty mechanism inside him.

'However,' Elena resumed, 'you must know, that after a certain point in the evening, the price rose to ten louis, and at last, that lunatic of a Galeazzo Secinaro came and offered me a five hundred lire note, if I would dry my hands on his great golden beard!'

As was ever the case at the d'Ateletas', the dinner increased in splendour towards the end; for the true luxury of the table is shown in the dessert. A mult.i.tude of choice and exquisite things, delighting the eye no less than the palate, were disposed with consummate art in various crystal and silver-mounted dishes. Festoons of camellias and violets hung between the vine-wreathed eighteenth century candelabras, round which sported fairies and nymphs, and on the wall-hangings more fairies and nymphs, and all the charming figures of the pastoral mythology--the Corydons, the Phylises, the Rosalinds--animated with their sylvan loves one of those sunny Cytherean landscapes originated by the fanciful imagination of Antoine Watteau.

The slightly erotic excitement, which is apt to take hold upon the spirits at the end of a dinner graced by fair women and flowers, betrayed itself in the tone of the conversations, and the reminiscences of this bazaar, at which the ladies--urged on by a n.o.ble spirit of emulation in collecting the largest sums--employed the most unheard of audacities to attract buyers.

'And did you accept it?' asked Andrea of the d.u.c.h.ess.

'I sacrificed my hands on the altar of Benevolence,' she replied.

'Twenty-five louis more to my account!'

'_All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand._' He laughed as he quoted Lady Macbeth's words, but, in reality, his heart was sore with a confused, ill-defined pain, that bore a strong resemblance to jealousy. And suddenly he became aware of something excessive, almost--it might be--a touch of the courtesan, defacing the manners of the great lady. Certain inflections of her voice, certain tones of her laughter, here a gesture, there an att.i.tude, certain glances, exhaled a charm that was perhaps a trifle too Aphrodisiac. She was, besides, somewhat over-lavish with the visible favours of her graces, and the air she breathed was continually surcharged with the desire she herself excited.

Andrea's heart swelled with bitterness; he could not take his eyes off Elena's hands. Out of those hands, so delicately, ideally white and transparent, with their faint tracery of azure veins--from those rosy hollowed palms, wherein a chiromancer would have discovered many an intricate crossing of lines, ten, twenty different men had drunk at a price. He could _see_ the heads of these unknown men bending over her and drinking the wine. But Secinaro was one of his friends--a great handsome jovial fellow, imperially bearded like a very Lucius Verus, and a most formidable rival to have. He felt as if the dinner would never come to an end.

'You are such an innovator,' Elena was saying to Donna Francesca, as she dipped her fingers into warm water in a pale blue finger-gla.s.s rimmed with silver, 'Why do you not revive the ancient fas.h.i.+on of having the water offered to one after dinner with a basin and ewer? The modern arrangement is very ugly, do you not think so, Sperelli?'

Donna Francesca rose. Every one followed her example. Andrea, with a bow, offered his arm to Elena and she looked at him without smiling as she slowly laid her hand on his arm. Her last words were gaily and lightly spoken, but her gaze was so grave and profound that the young man felt it sink into his very soul.

'Are you going to the French Emba.s.sy to-morrow evening?' she asked him.

'Are you?' Andrea asked in return.

'I am.'

'So am I.'

They smiled at one another like two lovers.

'Sit down,' she added as she sank into a seat.

The seat was far from the fire, with its back to the curve of a grand piano which was partially draped in some rich stuff. At one end of the divan, a tall bronze crane held in his beak a tray hanging by three chains like one side of a pair of scales, and on it lay a new book and a little j.a.panese scimitar--a _waki-gas.h.i.+_--the scabbard and hilt encrusted with silver chrysanthemums.

Elena took up the book, which was only half cut, read the t.i.tle, and then replaced it on the tray which swung to and fro. The scimitar fell to the ground. As both she and Andrea stooped to pick it up, their hands met. She straightened herself up and examined the beautiful weapon with some curiosity, retaining it in her hand while Andrea talked about the new novel, insinuating into his remarks general arguments upon love; and her fingers wandered absently over the chasing of the weapon, her polished nails seeming a repet.i.tion of the delicate gems that sparkled in her rings.

Presently, after a pause, Elena said without looking at him: 'You are very young--have you often been in love?'

He answered by another question--'Which do you consider the truest, n.o.blest way of love--to imagine you have discovered every aspect of the eternal Feminine combined in one woman, or to run rapidly over the lips of woman as you run your fingers over the keys of a piano, till, at last, you find the sublime chord of harmony?'

'I really cannot say--and you?'

'Nor I either--I am unable to solve the great problem of sentiment.

However, by personal instinct, I have followed the latter plan and have now, I fear, struck the grand chord--judging, at least, by an inward premonition.'

'You fear?'

'_Je crains ce que j'espere._'

He instinctively employed this language of affected sentiment to cloak his really strong emotion, and Elena felt herself caught by his voice as in a golden net and drawn forcibly out of the life surrounding them.

'Her Excellency the Princess di Micigliano!' announced a footman.

'Count di Gissi!'

'Madame Chrysoloras!'

'The Marchese and the Marchesa Ma.s.sa d'Alba!'

The rooms began to fill rapidly. Long s.h.i.+mmering trains swept over the deep red carpet, white shoulders emerged from bodices starred with diamonds, embroidered with pearls, covered with flowers, and in nearly every coiffure glittered those marvellous hereditary gems for which the Roman n.o.bility are so much envied.

'Her Excellency the Princess of Ferentino!'

'His Excellency the Duke of Grimiti!'

The guests formed themselves in various groups, the rallying points of gossip and of flirtation. The chief group, composed exclusively of men, was in the vicinity of the piano, gathered round the d.u.c.h.ess of Scerni, who had risen to her feet, the better to hold her own against her besiegers. The Princess of Ferentino came over to greet her friend with a reproach.

'Why did you not come to Nini Santamarta's to-day? We all expected you.'

She was tall and thin with extraordinary green eyes sunk deep in their shadowy sockets. Her dress was black, the bodice open in a point back and front, and in her hair, which was _blond cendre_, she wore a great diamond crescent like Diana. She waved a huge fan of red feathers hastily to and fro as she spoke.

'Nini is at Madame Van Hueffel's this evening.'

'I am going there later on for a little while, so I shall see her,'

answered the d.u.c.h.ess.

'Oh, Ugenta,' said the Princess turning to Andrea, 'I was looking for you to remind you of our appointment. To-morrow is Thursday and Cardinal Immenraet's sale begins at twelve. Will you fetch me at one?'

'I shall not fail, Princess.'

'I simply must have that rock crystal.'

'Then you must be prepared for compet.i.tion.'

'From whom?'

'My cousin for one.'