"Has it come to this?" cried Mae, half jestingly, half bitterly. "Are nor my very eyes my own? I shall feel, Albert, as if you were trying to bind me in that chain you threatened," and Mae started: her fingers had felt another sc.r.a.p of paper among the flowers, but she did not drop it from the carriage, as her first impulse was; she held it tight and close in her warm right hand until she was fairly at home and safe in her own room. Then she opened and read in an Italian hand, "To my little Queen of the Carnival."

Could he have written that as he stood by the wonderful veiled lady, with her white mysterious beauty, with the purple shadows about her dark eyes, while she--and Mae looked in her gla.s.s again. What did she see?

Certainly a different picture, but a picture for all that. Life and color and youth, a-tremble and a-quiver in every quick movement of her face, in the sudden lifting of the eyelids, the swift turn of the lips, the litheness and carelessness of every motion; above and beyond all, the picture possessed that rare quality which some artist has declared to be the highest beauty, that picturesque charm which shines from within, that magnetic flash and quiver which comes and goes "ere one can say it lightens."

The veiled lady's face was stranger, more mysterious, to an artistic or an imaginative mind; but youth, and intense life, and endless variety usually carry the day with a man's captious heart, and so Bero called Mae

"My little Queen of the Carnival."

CHAPTER VIII.

Mae's good times were greatly dimmed after this by the thought that she was watched. The bouquets which came daily from Bero troubled her also not a little. They were invariably formed of the same flowers, and might easily attract Edith's attention and possible suspicion. So she stayed home from the Corso one day not long after, when she was in a particularly Corso-Carnival mood. She wandered helplessly about, restless and full of desire to be down at the balcony with the rest. And such a strange thing is the human heart, that it was Norman Mann's face she saw before her constantly, and she found Miss Rae's little twinkling sort of eyes far more haunting than those of her veiled friend.

The rich life in Mae's blood was surging in her veins and must be let off in some way. If she had had her music and a piano she might have thrown her soul into some great flood-waves of harmony. The Farnesina frescoes of Cupid and Psyche over across the Tiber would have helped her, but here she was alone, and so she did what so many "fervent souls"

do--scribbled her heart out in a colorful, barbarous rhyme. Mae had ordinarily too good sense for this, too deep a reverence for that world of poetry, at the threshold of which one should bow the knee, and loose the shoe from his foot, and tread softly. She didn't care for this to-day. She plunged boldly in, wrote her verse, copied it, sent it to a Roman English paper, and heard from it again two days later, in the following way.

The entire party were breakfasting together, when Albert suddenly looked up from his paper and laughed. "Look here," he cried. "Here is another of those dreadful imitators of the Pre-Raphaelite school. Hear this from a so-called poem in the morning's journal:

'The gorgeous brown reds Of the full-throated creatures of song.'"

"I don't see anything bad in that," said Eric, helping himself to another m.u.f.fin. "What is the matter with you?"

"Matter enough," returned Albert. "Because their masters, sometimes, daub on colors with their full palettes and strong brushes, this feeble herd tag after them and flounder around in color and pa.s.sion in a way that is sickening."

"Go on," shouted Eric, "he is our own brother, Mae, after all, you see.

Fancy my Lord Utilitarian turning to break a lance in defence of beauty.

Edith, you and the picture-galleries are to blame for this."

Mae had been paying great attention to her rolls and coffee, and very little apparently to the conversation, but she spoke eagerly now.

"Their masters do not daub. They do hold palettes full of the strongest, richest colors, and dare lay them, in vivid flecks, on their canvas.

They do not care if they may offend some modern cultivated eyes, used only to the invisible blues and shadowy greens and that host of cold, lifeless, toneless grays, of refined conventional art. They know well enough that their satisfying reds and browns and golds of rich, free nature will go to the beating hearts of some of us."

Mae had a way of dashing into conversation abruptly, and the Madden family had been brought up on argument and table-talk. So the rest of the party ate their breakfast placidly enough. "Mae's right," said Eric, a trifle grandly, "only, to change the figure of speech for one better fitted for the occasion, they may satiate, though they never starve you.

But they are wonderfully fine, sometimes. O, bother, I never can quote, but there is something about 'I will go back to the great sweet mother."'

"Or this," suggested Mae,

"'And to me thou art matchless and fair As the tawny sweet twilight, with blended Sunlight and red stars in her hair.'"

"I love my masters," continued this young enthusiast, "because they fling all rules aside, and cry out as they choose. It is their very heart's blood and the l.u.s.ty wine of life that they give you, not just a sc.r.a.p of 'rosemary for remembrance' and a soothing herb-tea made from the flowers of fancy they have culled from those much travestied, abominable fields of thought."

"And this from a lover of Wordsworth, who holds the 'Daffodils' and 'Lucy' as her chief jewels, and quotes the 'Immortality' perpetually!"

cried Eric. "If any body ever wandered up and down those same fields of thought, by more intricate, labyrinthine pa.s.sages and byways, I'd like to know of him. Talk about soothing herbs, bless me, it's hot catnip-tea, good and strong, that he serves up in half of his strings about--"

"O, Eric, hush," cried Mae, "I am afraid for you with such words on your lips. Think of Ananias."

"Before you children go wandering off on one of your poet fights," broke in Albert, "let me take you to task, Mae, for stealing; that l.u.s.ty wine you talked of just now is in the poem (?) I hold in my hand."

"Do read it to us," said Edith, "and let us judge for ourselves." So Albert began:

ALL ON A SUMMER'S DAY.

"Far away the mountains rise, purpling and joyous, Through the half mist of the warm pulsing day, while nigh At hand gay birds hang swinging and floating And waving betwixt earth and sky, Ringing out from ripe throats A sensuous trickling of notes, That fall through the trees, Till caught by the soft-rocking breeze They are borne to the ears of the maiden.

Her eyes wander after the sound, And glimpses she catches along Through green broad-leaved shadows, Through sunbeams gold-strong, Of the gorgeous brown reds of the full-throated creatures of song.

One hand on her brown bosom rests, Rising and falling with every heart-beat Of the delicate, slow-swelling b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

A lily, proud, all color of amber and wine, Waves peerless there, by right divine Queen o'er the moment and place.

As the wind bends her coaxingly, Brushes softly the maiden's white hand-- That falls with an idle grace, Listlessly closed at her side-- With a rippling touch, such as the tide, Rising, leaves on a summer day, On the quiet sh.o.r.e of some peaceful bay.

There she stands in the heavily-bladed gra.s.s, Under the trumpet-vine, Drinking long, deep, intoxicate draughts Of Nature's l.u.s.ty, live wine.

There he sees her as he approaches; Then pauses, as full on his ear There swells, on a sudden, loud and clear, A wonderful burst of song.

A mad delicious glory; a rainbow rhythm of life, Strong and young and free, a burst of the senses all astrife, Each one fighting to be first, While above, beyond them all, Loud a woman's heart makes call."

"Now, fire ahead," said Eric, "get your stones ready. Mrs. Jerrold, pray begin; let us put down this young parrot with her 'l.u.s.ty, live wine.'"

"Her?" exclaimed Edith. "Him, you mean."

"Not a bit of it; a woman wrote that, didn't she?"

Eric was very confident. Norman agreed with him, and he glanced at Mae to discover her opinion. There was a look of secret amus.e.m.e.nt in her face, and a dim suspicion entered his mind, which decided him to watch her closely.

"Well," said Mrs. Jerrold, "I will be lenient. You children may throw all the stones. It is not poetry to my taste. There's no metre to it, and I should certainly be sorry to think a woman wrote it."

"Why?" asked Mae, quickly, almost commandingly. Norman glanced at her.

There was a tiny rosebud on each cheek.

"Because," replied Mrs. Jerrold, "it is too--too what, Edith?"

"Physical, perhaps," suggested Edith.

"It is a satyr-like sort of writing," suggested Norman.

"I should advise this person," said Edith--

"To keep still?" interrupted Eric.

"No, to go to work; that is what he or she needs."

"That is odd advice," said Mae; "suppose she--or he--is young, doesn't know what to do, is a traveler, like ourselves, for instance."

"There are plenty of benevolent schemes in Rome, I am sure," said Edith, a trifle sanctimoniously.

"And there's study," said Albert, "art or history. Think what a chance for studying them one has here. Yes, Edith is right--work or study, and a general shutting up of the fancy is what this mind needs."