Mae Madden Part 15

"And so am I," said Mae.

Norman laughed. "To think of your coming down to work, you young b.u.t.terfly."

"It is what we all have to come to, isn't it?--unless we go to that creature that finds some mischief still for idle hands to do. I don't expect to come to stone-cutting or cattle-driving, but I do expect to settle down into a tolerable housewifely little woman, and--"

"And look after me."

"Yes, I suppose so--and myself, and probably a sewing-cla.s.s and the cook's lame son. Heigh-ho-hum! What a pity it is, that it is so uninteresting to be good."

"How do you know?"

"Don't be saucy. I do know, perfectly well, that Mae Madden, naughty, idle, and silly, may be, after all, not so stupid; but get me good, industrious and wise, and it will take all of my time when I'm not asleep to keep so. No, there'll be nothing to say about me any more.

I'll be as humdrum as--"

"As I am."

"You--why Norman, are you humdrum?"

"Of course I am, dreadfully humdrum. If you and I were in a story-book, you would have ten pages to my one, to keep the reader awake. But then, story-books aren't the end of life. Suppose you, Mae Madden, have been odd, full of variety, ready to twist common occurrences into something startling and romantic, have you been happy? Haven't you been restless and discontented? Now, can't you, grown humdrum and good, be very happy and contented and joyful, even if the sun rises on just about the same Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the year round? You will not do for a story-book then, but won't you do better for life? And, after all, a lively murderer is a great deal more sensational than you could ever be."

"Even when I ran away?"

"Yes. Now, you see, I have been humdrum again, and half preached a sermon."

"All right, sir; so long as you take me for a text, you may preach as you want to, and by and by, I dare say, I shall agree with you."

"It would have been a great deal more interesting if you had married that Italian."

"How do you know I could have married that Italian, my lord? He is going to marry a girl as much more beautiful than I am as--as Bero himself is than you--and yet I would rather have you. And now, don't you dare look at me in that way. I'll never say another nice thing to you if you do.

This artist will think we are--"

"Lovers, my dear. And aren't we?"

Ten days later Norman entered with a letter for Mae. "Read it to me," she said, throwing back the blinds and leaning her elbows on the window-cus.h.i.+on.

"It is from Lillia. Would you rather read it yourself?" "O, no." So Norman read what Lillia had written in her pretty broken English:

"My DEAR MISS MAE:--Thank you of all my heart for your so lovely gift.

I have had so little home since long, long ago my mother died, and now I am to have one as the maid in the picture has. We will marry the fifth day of May at five o'clock, and will wish you to be there. Don't forget me.

"LILLIA."

"Signor Bero has added a postscript, Mae, which you can translate better than I." And Norman handed her the letter. Mae translated it thus:

"Did you know all that the picture would say to me, Signorina? Receive my thanks for it, too, and believe I shall always live worthy of my Italy, my wife and friends that I see in the picture, and of another friend who lives so far away, whom I shall never see again, if I have such a friend. Think of my beautiful Lillia on our wedding day. We shall be married at St. Andrea's, at vesper time.

"Bero."

"And this is the day," said Mae, dropping the note.

"And the very hour, allowing the bride and the sun a few minutes each,"

added Norman, glancing at the clock.

They gaze quietly out of the window of their lodgings on the Borgo Ognissante, but Mae sees far away beyond the Arno, into the church of St. Andrea,--music, and pomp, and beautiful ceremony, and before the altar, a woman in her bridal robes, with heavily figured lace falling over her black hair and white forehead, and against her soft cheeks and shoulders. Her great brown eyes have thrown away the mist of sadness for a luminous wedding veil of joy, and she is Lillia, and by her side, erect, proud, glorious, with a lingering ray of light falling on his golden head, is her happy husband, Bero. They stand before the altar of St. Andrea's. "G.o.d bless you," says Mae aloud. Then her gaze wanders back to the coral and mosaic shops below in the street, and up across to the opposite window, where a long-haired, brown-moustached, brown-eyed man leans, puffing smoke from his curved lips, and holding his cigarette in his slender fingers. She meets his gaze now, as she has met it before. "He is wondering what life will bring to these two young people, I fancy," says Mae.

"Our own wedding-day, Mae," Norman replies; and they both forget all about Lillia, and Bero, and the stranger, and suddenly leave the window.

The long-haired man puffs his cigar in a little loneliness, and wishes that wedding bells might ring for his empty heart too.