Murietta found his way home under the shadow of the Tarpeian Rock, long after nightfall. It was pleasant to again bathe in the sunshine, sweet to hear the hearty voices of the Saxon from out the West, and he lin- gered late and long on the hill.
He did not intend to return to his cell on the side of the Capitoline by way of the Corso; but he went that way nevertheless in spite of himself, and when he came opposite to a great palace not far from the palace of the Bonapartes he stopped, looked eagerly in through the high portals at the little forest of shrubs and flowers, and at last, lifting his hat and kissing his hand, he passed on towards his home.
As he was turning out of sight of this palace, he paused, lifted his hat again, looked long at the home of the woman he still loved in spite of himself, and then bowing his head he turned away, saying as he walked slowly on:
"I scattered roses in her path, and yet she would not know me if we were to meet today."
The artist slept late, and rose more cheerful than the little countesses had ever seen him. He even whistled a love tune as he went down stairs at an early hour in the afternoon on his way to the gathering, the open air reception on the Pincian Hill.
The sun was brighter than ever. The whole hilltop blossomed with beautiful women from the four wide quarters of the Christian world. They walked, they rested in the sun on the benches by the beautiful figures in marble and by the fountains where white swans swam in reedy little lakes, or drove in the great girdle of carriages that kept whirling and whirling and whirllng around on the rim of the blossoming hill.
Mollie Wopsus poked the footman in the back, who set things in order to stop the carriage. Then Mollie reached her hand to Marietta, and seemed so very happy.
This time there was a perfect swarm of gilded butterflies about this wild flower from California, and she fairly revelled in her glory.
The old General Wopsus, too, came in for a good share of compliment and flattery, and with all his sound railroad sense, was not at all displeased at it.
He sat back there before his daughter as a sort of king on his throne receiving homage and bestowing honours. In fact, he was in some sense a sort of king even at home amongst the "vulgar"Americans, for he was the great railroad king of the West.
His wife, Mrs. General Wopsus, sat beide her daughter, a careworn woman, with the lines of her husband's railroads written all over her face. A good woman was she as ever breathed, full of heart and soul and sympathy for all things, rational and irrational; yet, like most of her country women, most uncommonly weak on the subject of rank and titles. Besides that, she was a woman; and being a woman, how could she but be overcome and made almost daft with this flood of flattery and compliment that poured in upon the little group of Wopsuses this morning, as it was drawn in a sort of triumphal procession around the hill, followed and fawned upon by a hundred men in glittering arms and uniforms yellow with gold.
"Oh, ain't it jolly?" shouted Miss Wopsus as the artist pushed back his hat and took her extended hand.
Whatever it was she referred to as being particularly "jolly" he did not know, perhaps she did not know herself. The reasonable thing is to suppose that she felt "jolly" on general principles.
"Oh, ain't it gay though!"
She threw out her arms, parasol and all, and caught the artist around the neck as if she were going to salute him or drag him into the carriage and cover him up in her lap.
The Italians — princes, dukes, counts, marquises, and barons — who had sprung forward as she threw her arms out, now saw that the embrace was not for them, and they fell back to a respectful distance, tapped their sword hilts, smiled pleasantly, looked at each other, patted the sand with their boots, and kept time to the music, and watched till Mollie Wopsus was done with the stranger.
"Oh, ain't it delicious living in foreign lands?" The pretty Califomian loosened her arms from the artist, clasped her hands, and setting her head to one side, looked up in an ecstasy of delight.
The good Mrs. Wopsus was so affected that a little express train of shining tears started down one of the railroad lines, but collided at the corner of one of the nuerous junctions, and went all to pieces.
"But then you see, Mr. Murietta, they are not all foreigners. And the Americans"— here Mollie's head drooped to one side again, the clasped hands went up, and the soft brown eyes went down "the Americans, you know, Mr. Murietta, are so, so very, very vulgar. You see, Mr. Murietta, they were not even educated abroad. 0, Count Paolini says they are so, so vulgar!"
Then she sighed as she thought of Paolini, and her head fell down, and her hands went up and clasped, as if in a sort of petition to the railroad king for her lover the count.
Dear spoilt little Mollie Wopsus! She had been to school almost a year in Paris. Therefore Mollie had been educated in Europe, and felt that she had a perfect right to cut her American friends — save a very few favoured ones like the famous artist — and she did cut them on every posible occasion.
The music had again reached the high note, and the leaves were dancing on the trees, and the palm was reaching his broad hands to give the blessing, and the horses were prancing and shaking the harness.
Mollie caught the artist by the cloak, lifted her sceptre like parasol, pulled, and landed him, with her father's help, in the seat by the side of the king of railroads.
The horses pressed forward; the Italian knights and noblemen fell back, hat in hand, at precisely the same moment, made preisely the same low bow with precisely the same gesture, as if they had all been parts of a sort of machine in first rate working order, which had been set in motion by the wheels of the carriage of the Wopsuses.
"Yes, we are going to Court. Pa's going to Court. Mamma's going to Court. We are all going to Court. And we, bet your life! we go on our own hook, don't we, pa?"
Pa pecked his head a little as if he had been a parrot on a pole, and went on with his thinking.
"Look here, I'll tell you something." Mollie reached out, took the artist by the cloak, and pulled him towards her. "You see,"she went on "the rest of 'em have to go to the minister. There they register in a book, and the minister gets 'em invited to Court. Pshaw! Not for Joseph!" She snapped her fingers in the air, and then, taking up her parasol, made several sword thrusts at the naked boughs that hung above the carriage as it whirled on around the Pincian. "Not much! We go cross lots — we do, don't we, pa?"
Pa again pecked his head at the daughter, and kept up his thinking about his gridiron of raiboads in the great West. But the kind mother was again so affected by the happiness of her daughter and their good fortune among the great people of this foreign land, that she again sent a little express train of shining tears down one of her numerous railroad lines, till it collided against a pleasant smile at the comer of her mouth.
"Here they come! look, here they come! Look, here they come!"
Mollie had thrown down her parasol, and was now clasping her chubby hands with perfect delight. The carriage was again rolling up to the point where she had parted with her suitors.
True enough, they were coming trooping through the beds and avenues of flowers, and winding in and out through the cariages, and coming up straight to the presence of the railroad king and his daughter with the ten milllon dowry.
"Dear, dear! Mr. Murietta, what could you have said about me yesterday? I declare it was bad enough yesterday, but today it is perfectly alarming. And I tell you, look here," She reached and caught the artist again by the cloak and pulled him forward so that her parents might not hear. "look here! I think I can do better than take Count Paolini. Count Paolini is all right, you know, and I tell you it will break my heart to give him up. It will break my heart, but I can do better — I — I-" She put up her hands and burst into tears. "It will break — break— it will break my — my — boo, hoo, hoo!"
"Poor, poor, dear child! Now just see what your cruelty has done. I told you it would kill her — break her — break — break — boo, hoo, hoo." Mrs. Wopsus also wept.
The carriage spun through the crowd and sped on around the hill, while the polite Italians lifted their hats, and the machinery that seemed to be attached to the carriageheels went through the same operation as before.
This time the kind hearted mother sent two long and very heavily laden express trains of tears down her railroad lines, and there was no collision this time till they came to the chin, where they hung and swung like little light-limbed boys swingng at gymnastics there in the gardens.
Suddenly Murietta started almost from his seat. They were driving right beside the most beautiful woman in all that gatherng of beauty. It was the Countess Edna, dressed as usual in rosy pink, with her rosy scarf blowing loosely back and about her shoulders. She looked like a great rich rose just opened, fragrant, full, and ready to be gathered by any hand that was bold enough to pluck it from the tree.
The same subdued sadness about her; the same careless repose; the half hiding away; the lounging back in the carriage; the indifference about her dress, as if she tried hard to not be so beautiful, and was only beautiful because she could not help it.
Murietta hesitated a moment before liftng his hat. Her lips parted. The man bowed and half rose in his seat with admiration.
"Jove! what a beauty"ejaculated the railroad king, speaking for the first time.
"Oh, who's that pink princess?" cried Mollie, loud enough almost for the marble statue there of Rienzi to have heard.
The countess smiled at this, and the two carriages drove on the road together, and drove up together in the long shadow of the great palace, for it was nearly sunet.
There were informal introductions passed; and to the delight and relief of Murietta, Mollie took it upon herself to say all that was necessary to be said, and perhaps a great deal more.
Murietta was moody once more. This beautiful woman had always made him unertain of his footing. He had never felt safe in her presence. It always seemed to him that she filled up the whole atmosphere, and absorbed him to herself without knowing or intending it.
He had not kept his promise to return to her, because in the first place he could not, and then after his illness he would not, but had firmly resolved to forget her. At this moment, as he sat there silent, and Mollie prattled on, his resolution had fled the walls of Rome, and he sat there a captive to his queen.
How Mollie did talk! and how she did tell the "pink princess" all her life, and all the life of her father, and the life of her mother, and all her love and her longing for dear, dear Paolini!
And how politely the countess listened, or pretended to listen, all the time smiling half sadly, and not saying one word.
"And oh! the vulgar Americans, couness! how shall we escape them? They are not even educated abroad, you know! countess, is there a place, can you tell me where there is a place, do you think there is any place where there are no Americans?"
The sun was down; the carriages were parting; good-byes were hastily said; but Mollie shouted back "Is there a place where there are no Americans?"
The countess smiled as her carriage passed; and with a half-playful light in her great full eyes, lifted her face towards Heaven! And that was Mollie's answer.
Start reading Chapter 22 ofThe One Fair Lady