The count was not at all wanting in politeness this morning. Italians never are, except it be to their wives or their servants, but it seemed to Murietta, who stood there quietly on his ground and also on his guard, that he was just a little over anxious to get in the carriage and get his wife away.
"That man," said the artist, after lifting his hat to the countess as the carriage whirled away, "that man simply has a property in that woman. Whatever they may say, he is a knave, and if he is not as great a knave as the admiral, it is not because he lacks the motive, but the brain."
"Beautiful horses," said the secretary, looking in the direction the Arabs had just taken down the drive.
"Yes, and beautiful men those fellows of the desert" answered Murietta, as the three friends once more fell in together and sought the deeper shade, for the sun was now high and hot when you were not protected by the wood or the plash of a fountain.
"Ah, but my friend Murietta," laughed Carlton, "has a better eye for beautiful women than for beautiful horses, or beautiful men either!"
"So I fear, so I fear; and if a secretary may be permitted to say as much, all Rome is perfectly well aware of the fact."
"Gentlemen," said Murietta, earnestly and emphatically, "that for what all Rome may say!" and he snapped his fingers in the air with a force not to be mistaken; "but as for that lady, the lady to whom I spoke, and of whom you speak, she is a stranger here in a strange land, and in trouble."
"Ah," said the good secretary quietly, "that is a good beginning for a novel!"
"Come, come, Murietta, you are indeed putting it strong! The lady may be a stranger, and also in a strange land, but she is hardly among strangers."
"Please to explain," said Murietta, as they walked on through the wood together.
"Well, a ladly who is with her husband and has her children or her child about her, and has besides an income that supports a palace and a small army of servants, can hardly be said to be among strangers!"
"And then the count is so very, very kind; why, do you know," said the secretary, "he can scarcely speak of her or her malady without tears?"
"Her malady!" exclaimed Murietta, stopping short in the road as he moved between his two friends.
"Yes, her malady. The countess, did you not know it, is mad."
"Then so am I mad!" answered the man with earnestness.
"Not at all unlikely!" laughed Carlton, "only your madness, my dear boy, is a sort of innocence that makes us like you all the more, and not afraid to be with you; while that of the countess is of a dangerous nature, and the poor count has no alternative but to put her in a mad house, or keep a constant watch over her."
"And how noble it is in him to give up his life to taking care of her," said the secretary zealously. "Why, the old admiral tells me that the count scarcely sleeps from one week's end to another."
"The admiral!" said Murietta with a sneer, as he thought of what the countess had just whispered in his ear.
"Ah, I see," returned the secretary, "you are disposed to laugh at the rough but honest old sailor, but he is just the man for the place. You could not expect a prince or a man of an over sensitive nature to consent to become the guardian or body guard, as it were, of a mad woman. No, no, it takes pluck, and patience, and gentleness, and a great deal of good sound sense and firmness; and all these qualities the old admiral possesses, I am sure."
"I am bound to say I never liked the old admiral," added Carlton. "He is either a very flat old fool, or a very deep knave, and I do not know which, and besides, I do not know that it is any of my business."
"No, no; he is neither the one nor the other. I know the man, and I know human nature. We novelists must study human nature. We must make it a speciality in order to succeed. That is my speciality. Well, this man, the admiral, is simply an honest, happy go lucky old seaman, who is honest to the core himself, and of course thinks everyone else so. For my part I should like first rate to put him in a novel as the hero of a great humanitarian enterprise, and a man who went about in a blunt, honest way, doing good to everyone and not asking or expecting any return."
"I am afraid there would be but little good done in the world if it was left for that man to do it," said the artist, "and I should be very sorry to fall in with your hero on the highway of a night, I assure you!"
"Why! good heavens! do you fear that he would rob you?"
"He would either rob me or run away."
"Ha, you painters, you study only nature gienerally. We novelists study human nature. If we did not we would not get on. You can give me the tints and the bloom and the beauty of that bank of rose and briar to a nicety and precision that I would despair of. But you cannot tell one man or one man's motive where I, as a novelist, can tell a hundred."
"Well, well, whatever there is in the old admiral, either good or bad, it matters little to me; but I do pity the poor count from the bottom of my heart, for he has a hard time of it, and all Rome sympathises with him most deeply," said Carlton.
"And the lady?" said Murietta, stopping suddenly again and looking Carlton in the face inquiringly.
"Well, yes; I pity the lady too, I suppose. At least I had not thought of that. She somehow never seemed to challenge my sympathy. She is always smiling, always bantering, sometimes saying very wild and often very pointed things."
"While he, her lord, who sits in watch and judgment over her," said Murietta, as they moved on, "does ask you for pity, does pose and profess, and bend down and keep himself all the time in favourwith the world, like a hound as he is, winning the world's good will at the risk of his wife's good name."
The party had passed through the valley of close wood and climbed the etone step before the fountain.
"We will meet this evening," said the secretary, reaching his hand as if glad to break off the unpleasant subject of the unfortunate countess, "this evening at the palace of the cloudy old general, who is all the time dreaming and drifting away on his battle cloud."
"And may we meet in peace!" smiled Murietta. He took his hand and said good-bye, as if he bad just now thought of this approaching evening for the first time, when it had been in his heart, been standing there as the one great coming event of his life, every hour since he had met her in that little haven at the head of the long and tiresome corkscrew stairs the week before.
How cunning is love! He deceives everyone. He will be frank with no one. He deceives the heart he dwells in most of all.
The two artists moved on down the slope toward the gate with great stone eagles over it in silence. The red monks had finished their game of ball, and were now gathering together in groups in the long grass and out of the sun. The king, too, had gone back with his suite from his morning ride, and the many carriages were gradually finding the gate that led out of the wood and back to Rome.
Carriages were passing down the drive toward the gate in hundreds as our friends kept on under the locust trees that were white and fragrant with flowers and full of the drowsy sound of bees.
Murietta was thinking, and he was thinking too of the countess with the deepest concern. He was conscious that he had done nothing, said nothing, nay thought nothing whatever that could possibly have been construed either by the world or by her into an improper act or word or thought, or anything but the highest and most holy motive.
And yet Rome was loud with her name and his, if the not over sensitive Carlton and the very stupid but good-natured secretary were to be believed. What could he do? lie turned this over and over in his mind, and then feeling still helpless and at the mercy of the many idle tongues, he found relief in the fact that he had promised to stand by her side if ever she needed assistance, and the further fact that her father was on his way to Rome, and so with an effort dismissed the subject from his mind.
They were passing under an arch by some sarcophagi and an obelisk, where the drive is very narrow, and the carriages were jammed and blocked for a moment in the road.
The artist lifted his eyes, and then let them fall in an instant, as if they had received the full light of the sun.
He lifted his eyes again and bowed. The lady, the one fair woman, Annette, had recognized him, and inclined her head from her carriage, where she sat by the side of her lather the general, who still rode on his battle cloud and saw no one.
The carriage passed on instantly, but the lady half turned her head, half looked back over her shoulder as she whirled out of sight; looked back at the artist in the old way as he had ever painted her. But this time she smiled, and the man was instantly made more happy than he had been that morning with all the smiles of nature in his face.
The gay and careless Carlton stopped suddenly, with his feet on the edge of the green grass under a white locust tree with the sound of the bees above them, and turning sharp, looked his friend in the face, and said slowly but severely,
"You are a fool!"
"Since you are so in earnest," answered Murietta, also stopping and looking up as if at the bees in the locust blossoms, "you perhaps will be kind enough to tell me on what particular act of mine you base this voluntary but no doubt very honest opinion."
"Well," said Carlton, half leaning against the locust tree, and also looking up at the bees as if he felt rather in doubt about the ground on which he was now about to tread once more, "well, you eee that I happen to know you have been following this beautiful lady, the belle of Italy, for years."
"And?" queried Murietta half smiling, and looking away to the left under the locust boughs at a party of red monks.
"And you have found her, and she favours you as she would not favour a prince! Why, just fancy," and here the man brougbt his eyes down from the bees up in the white blossoms, "just fancy a lady in her position picking you out of this vast army of vagabonds here on foot, and turning in her carriage and speaking to you with her eyes, and looking after you down the avenue."
"And therefore I am a fool; a fortunate fool, eh?"
"No, not therefore. Not for that," answered the other seriously. "No, my friend Murietta, you are so blind and ao careless of the great world that crushes or crowns us. Pardon me for alluding to the countess once more after what passed in the Caffe Greco."
"Go on," answered Murietta, still looking away under the white boughs at the red monks moving along the sward of long green grass, with the great brown wall of Rome for a background, "Go on, you are pardoned for all your sins in that direction, according to the Church, for forty days to come."
"Well, then, do you not know that when that fair lady Annette leaned from her carriage and looked at you, she looked at you through a cloud, a perfect thunder cloud, that you have brought about your own head with your own hands."
"Heavens! what do you speak of?"
"I speak of the countess again, your pink countess and the poor half distracted count. If there is no one in Rome among all your admirers friend enough to tell you of your folly, I will take the responsibility myself."
"But what have I done?" asked Murietta eagerly, looking his friend in the face.
"Nought, so far as I know. In fact I know, I, who know that you love but this one fair woman who has just passed, know perfectly well that you have done nothing, or, at least, if you have done anything, you have done it with tlie best of intentions. But the world, Murietta, does not know it — the world does not know you."
"Then pray tell me what this great big world, as you call it, says of my sin."
"Well," began Carlton, as he laid one forefinger meditatively across the other, and speaking very slowly and earnestly, "the old admiral says, and the great little world of Rome believes him, that you are winning the affections of the countess away from her lord, and that she is too weak of mind to resist; that, in fact, you are about to betray and mislead and ruin a lady who is insane and irresponsible."
Murietta's fingers twisted nervously, and his lips were pale as ashes. He reached out to the hedge, and plucking a bunch of budding roses and twigs and leaves, he crushed them all together between his fingers, but did not answer.
"It sounds dreadful, does it not?"
"It is a crime," said Murietta at last, with a sigh, "by the side of which murder is but a child's amusement!"
"Of course I know better. And to come back to the fair lady who has just passed, and who looked on you so favorably, she, too, must know better. Yet, seeing her so friendly, and remembering that you had just left the side of the countess, I could not help saying as I did — You are a fool."
"Well, I may be a fool. But, Carlton, that admiral is a knave of the deepest quality, and that count is a scoundrel and a coward. And what is more, now mark me, that countess is no more insane than yourself."
Carlton shrugged his shoulders and looked away up the avenue at the approaching night.
"She is in trouble, and so far from being insane, it takes all the talent of these two scoundrels to watch her. Two men, you see, against one poor invalid woman."
"Ah! but you know," cried Carlton, "these lunatics are oftentimes the most cunning, and often elude the whole set of keepers at an asylum."
"No matter. She is not insane. I have served her in a small way. I stand ready to do so even to the risk of life."
"You risk more than life, you risk your good name."
"So much the more credit and honour! Even a dog can die. But mark me. Since this thing is being said of me I shall walk through Rome, reach my hand to this lady, and defy them all."
"Well, you will find yourself alone. Here, shake hands! The lady has not one friend in the city. She is so sarcastic and bittcr in what little she has to say. I tell you the whole town is In sympathy with the count, and that she stands alone."
"Then ten times the reason I should stand by her side. O brave city! most valiant little world! to take the side so unanimously of the strong!"
"Come, we will not shake hands now," said Carlton as he passed his hand through the arm of his friend and the two went on slowly down the avenue, "but I will tell you what to do."
"Well, I will hear you with patience."
"If," began Carlton, throwing up his head, "if, as you imagine, an American lady is being imposed upon and is the victim of some plot in this strange land, then lay the matter before the consul. But be advised, and do not commit yourself to this lady's follies or freaks, whatever they may be."
"The American consul?"
"Yes, the American consul."
"Cariton, do you know what an American consul is? Well, he is a poor, lean, hungry dyspeptic, whose greatest achievement in life has been in procuring the place he occupies, and whose sole capacity is addressed to the work of holding it."
"But they are here in these foreign lands for the purpose of protecting strangers."
"Possibly away back in the early history of the government there existed a tradition to that effect, but it is now obsolete. The business of the politic, cautious, and noncommittant consul of today is to protect himself. But besides, in justice to these poor pensioners, who have served some political master at home and are now having their reward, or rather punishment, you must know that they have but little power and less money. They can affix a seal to a document and send home a sailor who has been unjustly discharged in a foreign land, and there their power and authority ends."
Carlton looked incredulous.
"All this is strictly true," continued Murietta, "they have a name and that is all. They have hardly bread enough to live upon. They are literally like the Italian nobility of the Ghetto. I happen to know the consul at Naples, He is a gentleman, a perfect gentleman, and a very learned man, yet he has neither power nor money. He is literally starved. I think he is the leanest American I ever saw abroad."
"No," said Murietta emphatically, as they passed through the gate and Carlton was still silent, "if you want anyone helped in Italy, don't fancy you can jfind a consul either capable or willing to assist. You must do it yourself."
"Well, well," said Carlton at last, as if he had been thinking, "suppose you help this lady in any imaginary trouble, what will come of that, and where Avill it end?"
"Time enough to think of the consequence, Carlton, after the task. I am not a merchant, I am a soldier by nature, and a knight by birth and culture. I am not a cautious man or a coward. Caution belongs to politicians."
"However, we leave Rome soon," said Carlton, with another light toss of the head, "and then there will be at least the end of a chapter of the story, if not of a volume."
"Yes, that I know was our agreement. We leave Rome together for Venice, and the time agreed upon comes on, but," he turned, lifted his finger as both stopped, and again looked the man in the face before him, "I have just promised the countess not to leave Rome till her father arrives, and I will not."
The two men looked at each other again, one with a sort of remonstrance in his face, and the other with quiet determination, and then they moved on with the crowd.
"And when will her father arrive?" asked Carlton, in a half doubting, half moody manner.
"I do not know. But he will certainly be here before long. It is safe to say he will be here before our day of departure, so do not yet borrow any trouble in that quarter. Possibly he will arrive tomorrow."
"And if he arrives tomorrow?"
"If he arrives tomorrow, or whenever he arrives, my relations with the countess cease. He will be able to protect her from the wretches that surround her."
"To protect her from her husband," half laughed Carlton.
"Certainly! to protect her from her husband," cried the artist emphatically. "Do you not know that there are such things as tyrants and gaolers and all but murderers in some palaces? Do you not know that the handsome man — the good fellow, as he is called by his friends — the man who gives his time to his friends, his money to the wine dealer, and God knows what to his wife, is nearly half the time a murderer?"
Again Carlton was arrested, and as they passed by a fountain, turned and looked amazed at his friend, as he continued —
"These petty tyrants are wife murderers, they kill their wives by inches. They sometimes drive them to madness, but offeener drive them into eternity. And what is most terrible, they know it. These handsome, gay, gallant, carpet knights, who are all the time posing before the world and winning its worthless applause, as princes of good fellows, know perfectly well the crime they commit. They see their poor, persecuted wives die day by day, inch by inch, and take a delight in it."
"Well," answered Carlton at last, as if recovering himself, "that is an open question, and a question that will keep; but now, suppose the lady's father comes tomorrow?"
"Then I am ready to go with you to Venice tomorrow."
"Good! Then we will reform tomorrow."
"Reform?"
"Ah, yes, reform! You know I am always reforming tomorrow," answered Carlton, as he reached his hand to say goodnight, at the end of the Corso. "Tomorrow, my boy, is the best of all days to reform. The great mysterious tomorrow that ever ends before!" He waved his hand as he turned towards the Forum of Trajan, and said, as he looked back, "Tomorrow, we will reform tomorrow!"
Start reading Chapter 42 ofThe One Fair Lady