Casa Braccio Part 47

They went into the work-room together, and Gloria sat down on one of the rush chairs, and told Griggs what she had done. He walked slowly up and down while she was speaking, his eyes on the pattern of the old carpet.

"I might have stayed," she said at last. "The servants did not even know that I had been out of the house."

"You should have stayed," said Griggs. "I ought to say it, at least."

But as he spoke the mask softened and the rare smile beautified for one instant the still, stern face.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

REANDA neither wished to see Gloria again, nor to take vengeance upon Paul Griggs. He was not a brave man, morally or physically, and he was glad that his wife had left him. She had put him in the right, and he had every reason for refusing ever to see her again. With a cynicism which would have been revolting if it had not been almost childlike in its simplicity, he discharged his servants, sold his furniture, gave up his apartment in the Corso, and moved back to his old quarters in the Palazzetto Borgia. But he did not acknowledge Gloria's note in any other way.

She had left him, and he wished to blot out her existence as though he had never known her, not even remembering the long two years of his married life. She was gone. There was no Gloria, and he wished that there never had been any woman with her name and face.

On the third day, he met Paul Griggs in the street. The younger man saw Reanda coming, and stood still on the narrow pavement, in order to show that he had no intention of avoiding him. As the artist came up, Griggs lifted his hat gravely. Reanda mechanically raised his hand to his own hat and pa.s.sed the man who had injured him, without a word. Griggs saw a slight, nervous twitching in the delicate face, but that was all. He thought that Reanda looked better, less hara.s.sed and less thin, than for a long time. He had at once returned to his old peaceful life and enjoyed it, and had evidently not the smallest intention of ever demanding satisfaction of his former friend.

Francesca Campodonico had listened in nervous silence to Reanda's story.

"She has done me a kindness," he concluded. "It is the first. She has given me back my freedom. I shall not disturb her."

The colour was in Francesca's face, and her eyes looked down. Her delicate lips were a little drawn in, as though she were making an effort to restrain her words, for it was one of the hardest moments of her life. Being what she was, it was impossible for her to understand Gloria's conduct. But at the same time she felt that she was liberated from something which had oppressed her, and the colour in her cheeks was a flash of satisfaction and relief mingled with a certain displeasure at her own sensations and the certainty that she should be ashamed of them by and bye.

It was not in her nature to accept such a termination for Reanda's married life, however he himself might be disposed to look upon it.

"You are to blame almost as much as Gloria," she said, and she was sincerely in earnest.

She was too good and devout a woman to believe in duelling, but she was far too womanly to be pleased with Reanda's indifference. It was wicked to fight duels and unchristian to seek revenge. She knew that, and it was a conviction as well as an opinion. But a man who allowed another to take his wife from him and did not resent the injury could not command her respect. Something in her blood revolted against such tameness, though she would not for all the world have had Reanda take Gloria back.

Between the two opposites of conviction and instinct, she did not know what to do. Moreover, Reanda had struck his wife. He admitted it, though apologetically and with every extenuating circ.u.mstance which he could remember.

"Yes," he answered. "I know that I did wrong. Am I infallible? Holy Saint Patience! I could bear no more. But it is clear that she was waiting for a reason for leaving me. I gave it to her, and she should be grateful. She also is free, as I am."

"It is horrible!" exclaimed Francesca, with sorrowful emphasis.

She blamed herself quite as much as Reanda or Gloria, because she had brought them together and had suggested the marriage. Reanda's thin shoulders went up, and he smiled incredulously.

"I do not see what is so horrible," he answered. "Two people think they are in love. They marry. They discover their mistake. They separate.

Well? It is finished. Let us make the sign of the cross over it."

The common Roman phrase, signifying that a matter is ended and buried, as it were, jarred upon Francesca, for whom the smallest religious allusion had a real meaning.

"It is not the sign of the cross which should be made," she said sadly and gravely, and the colour was gone from her face now. "There are two lives wrecked, and a human soul in danger. We cannot say that it is finished, and pa.s.s on."

"What would you have me do?" asked Reanda, almost impatiently. "Take her back?"

"No!" exclaimed Francesca, with a sharp intonation as though she were hurt.

"Well, then, what? I do not see that anything is to be done. She herself can think of her soul. It is her property. She has made me suffer enough--let some one else suffer. I have enough of it."

"You will forgive her some day," said Francesca. "You are angry still, and you speak cruelly. You will forgive her."

"Never," answered Reanda, with emphasis. "I will not forgive her for what she made me bear, any more than I will forgive Griggs for receiving her when she left me. I will not touch them, but I will not forgive them. I am not angry. Why should I be?"

Francesca sighed, for she did not understand the man, though hitherto she had always understood him, or thought that she had, ever since she had been a mere child, playing with his colours and brushes in the Palazzo Braccio. She left the hall and went to her own sitting-room on the other side of the house. As soon as she was alone, the tears came to her eyes. She was hardly aware of them, and when she felt them on her cheeks she wondered why she was crying, for she did not often shed tears, and was a woman of singularly well balanced nature, able to control herself on the rare occasions when she felt any strong emotion.

In spite of Reanda's conduct, she determined not to leave matters as they were without attempting to improve them. She wrote a note to Paul Griggs, asking him to come and see her during the afternoon.

He could not refuse to answer the summons, knowing, as he did, that he must in honour respond to any demand for an explanation coming from Reanda's side. Gloria wished him to reply to the note, giving an excuse and hinting that no good could come of any meeting.

"It is a point of honour," he answered briefly, and she yielded, for he dominated her altogether.

Francesca received him in her own small sitting-room, which overlooked the square before the Palazzetto. It was very quiet, and there were roses in old Vienna vases. It was a very old-fas.h.i.+oned room, the air was sweet with the fresh flowers, and the afternoon sun streamed in through a single tall window. Francesca sat on a small sofa which stood crosswise between the window and the writing-table. She had a frame before her on which was stretched a broad band of deep red satin, a piece of embroidery in which she was working heraldic beasts and armorial bearings in coloured silks.

She did not rise, nor hold out her hand, but pointed to a chair near her, as she spoke.

"I asked you to come," she said, "because I wish to speak to you about Gloria."

Griggs bent his head, sat down, and waited with a perfectly impa.s.sive face. Possibly there was a rather unusual aggressiveness in the straight lines of his jaw and his even lips. There was a short silence before Francesca spoke again.

"Do you know what you have done?" she asked, finis.h.i.+ng a st.i.tch and looking quietly into the man's deep eyes.

He met her glance calmly, but said nothing, merely bending his head again, very slightly.

"It is very wicked," said she, and she began to make another st.i.tch, looking down again.

"I have no doubt that you think so," answered Paul Griggs, slowly nodding a third time.

"It is not a question of opinion. It is a matter of fact. You have ruined the life of an innocent woman."

"If social position is the object of existence, you are right," he replied. "I have nothing to say."

"I am not speaking of social position," said Donna Francesca, continuing to make st.i.tches.

"Then I am afraid that I do not understand you."

"Can you conceive of nothing more important to the welfare of men and women than social position?"

"It is precisely because I do, that I care so little what society thinks. I do not understand you."

"I have known you some time," said Francesca. "I had not supposed that you were a man without a sense of right and wrong. That is the question which is concerned now."

"It is a question which may be answered from more than one point of view. You look at it in one way, and I in another. With your permission, we will differ about it, since we can never agree."

"There is no such thing as differing about right and wrong," answered Donna Francesca, with a little impatience. "Right is right, and wrong is wrong. You cannot possibly believe that you have done right. Therefore you know that you have done wrong."

"That sort of logic a.s.sumes G.o.d at the expense of man," said Griggs, calmly.