Olive in Italy Part 32

Olive lost patience. "I wonder you had the heart to risk spoiling its contour," she said resentfully.

"With my fist, you mean?"

"I--I am very sorry--" she began. He saw that she was crying, and he was perplexed, not quite understanding what she wanted of him.

"What am I to say to you?" He came over and sat down beside her, and she let him hold her hand. "I know so little--not even your name. I have asked no questions, but of course I saw-- Why do you not go back to your friends?"

She dried her eyes. "I have cousins in Milan, but I have lost their address, and they would not be able to help me. I have burnt my boats.

I used to give lessons, but it was not easy to find pupils, and then I met Rosina. I cannot go back to being a governess after being a model.

I have done no wrong, but no one would have me if they knew. You see one has to go on--"

"Have you known Tor di Rocca long? He was here last winter. He has a villa somewhere outside Rome. I think it belonged to his mother. She was an Orsini."

"You are not going to fight him?"

Outside, in the ilex wood, birds were calling to one another. The sun gilded the green of the gnarled old trees; it had rained in the night, and the garden was sweet with the scent of moist earth. The young man sighed. He had meant to take his "little brother" into the Campagna this April day to see the spring pageant of the skies, to hear the singing of larks high up at heaven's gate, the tinkling of sheep bells, the gurgling of water springs half hidden in the green lush gra.s.s that grows in the shadow of the ruined Claudian aqueducts.

"Camille, answer me."

He got up and went back to his easel. "You must run away now," he said. "I can't work this morning. I think I shall go to Naples for a few days, but I will let you know when I return. We must get on with the 'Rosamund.'"

She went obediently to put on her hat, but the face she saw reflected in the little hanging mirror was pale and troubled. He came with her to the door, and when she gave him her hand he bent to kiss it. Her eyes filled again with tears. He will be killed, she thought, and for me.

"Don't fight! For my sake, don't. I shall begin to think that I am a creature of ill-omen. They say some women are like that; they have the _mal occhio_; they give sorrow--"

"That is absurd," he said roughly, and then, in a changed voice, "Good-bye, child."

CHAPTER VII

Olive walked home to Ripetta. She felt tired and shaken, and unhappily conscious of some effort that must be made presently.

"He will be killed--and for me." "For me." "For me." She heard that echo of her thought through all the clamour of the streets, the shrill cries, the clatter of hoofs, the rattling of wheels over the cobble stones. She heard it as she climbed the stairs to her room. When she had taken off her hat and coat she poured some eau-de-cologne with water into a cup and drank it--not this time to Italy or the joy of life. She lay down on her bed and stayed there for a while, not resting, but thinking or trying to think.

Was she really a sort of number thirteen, a grain of spilt salt, ill-omened, disastrous? Camille would not think so; but it seemed to her that she had never been able to make anyone happy, and that there must be some taint in her therefore, some flaw in her nature.

Now, here, at last, was a thing well worth doing. She must risk her soul, lose it, perhaps, or rather, exchange it for a man's life. She had h.o.a.rded it hitherto, had been miserly, selfish, seeking to save the poor thing as though it were a pearl of price. Now she saw herself as the veriest rag of flesh parading virtue, useless, comfortless, helpless, clinging to her code, and justifying all the trouble she gave to others by a reference to the impalpable, elusive and possible non-existent immortal and inner self she had held so dear. She was ashamed. Ah, now at last she would give ungrudgingly.

Her feet should not falter, nor her eyes be dimmed by any shadow of fear or of regret, though she went by perilous ways to an almost certain end.

Soon after noon she got up and prepared to face the world again, and towards three o'clock she returned to the Villa Medici. She had to ring the porter's bell as the garden gate was shut, and the old man came grumblingly as usual.

"Monsieur Michelin will see no one. Did he not tell you so this morning?"

"But I have come for Monsieur Gontrand," she said.

She hoped now above all things to find the black Gascon alone in his _atelier_ near the Belvedere. The first move depended upon him, and there was no time to spare. She determined to await his return in the wood if he were out, but there was no need. He opened his door at once in answer to her knocking.

"I have come--may I speak to you for a moment?" she began rather confusedly. He looked tired and worried, and was so evidently alarmed at the sight of her, and afraid of what she was going to say next, that she could hardly help smiling. "I want to ask you two questions.

I hope you will answer them."

"I should be glad to please you, mademoiselle, but--"

She hurried on. "First, when are they going to fight? Oh, tell me, tell me! I know you were to be with him. I know you are his friend. Be mine too! What harm can it do? I swear I will keep it secret."

"Ah, well, if you promise that," he said. "It is to be to-morrow afternoon."

"Where?"

He shook his head. "I really cannot tell you that."

"Well, the hour is fixed. It will not be changed?"

"No, the Prince preferred the early morning, but Michelin has an appointment he must keep with Vandervelde at noon."

"Nothing will persuade him to alter it then?" she insisted.

"Nothing."

"That is well," she said sighing. "Good-bye, M'sieur Gontrand.

You--you will do your best for Camille."

"You may rely on me," he answered.

She went down the steps of Trinita del Monte, and across the Piazza di Spagna to the English book-shop at the corner, where she bought a _Roman Herald_. Three minutes study of the visitors' list sufficed to inform her that the Prince was staying at the Hotel de Russie close by. The afternoon was waning, and already the narrow streets of the lower town were in shadow; soon the shops would be lit up and gay with the gleam of marbles, the glimmer of Roman pearls and silks, and the green, grotesque bronzes that strangers buy.

Olive walked down the Via Babuino past the ugly English church, crossed the road, and entered the hall of the hotel in the wake of a party of Americans. They went on towards the lift and left her uncertain which way to turn, so she appealed to the gold-laced, gigantic, and rather awful porter.

"Prince Tor di Rocca?"

He softened at her mention of the ill.u.s.trious name.

"If you will go into the lounge there I will send to see if the Prince is in. What name shall I say?"

"Miss Agar. I have no card with me."

She chose a window-seat near a writing-table at the far end of the room, and there Filippo found her when he came in five minutes later.

He was prepared for anything but the smile in the blue eyes lifted to his, and he paled as he took the hand she gave and raised it to his lips.

"Ah," he said fervently, "if you were always kind."

"You would be good?"

"Yes."

"For a week, or a month? But you need not answer me. Filippo, I should like some tea."