Meanwhile an extra _lira_ or two in a poor woman's pocket was not to be despised. Also instant dismissal would be the penalty of a refusal, and who could stand out against the _Padrone_ when he glared at one with those awful eyes? Oh, certainly the Signora's lot was not one to be envied, even though she were a lady and had fine clothes and jewels!

Such were the humble reflections of a.s.sunta as she fanned the fire, and it gave her considerable satisfaction to think that her confessor Don Bazzanti was right in saying that rich and poor alike have their troubles.

"Signor Iddio is just, after all," thought a.s.sunta piously, and crossed herself. It may give the moralist pleasure to observe that the circ.u.mstances that ground the soul of Ragna to the earth, made as a sequence, for the contentment of her cook.

CHAPTER X

Angelescu had spent the morning in the Uffizi, devoting his visit to the three or four paintings he really liked. Of these, the Madonna of the Goldfinch absorbed most of his time; the artless att.i.tude of the children, the virginal grace of the Mother and the tender background with its suggestion of Florence in the distance, gave him the suggestion of the veiled delicacy of early spring, the faint perfume of early violets wafted from the slopes of Fiesole, the embroidery of almond-blossom against the sky. Other pictures claimed his attention, but he returned again and again to the "Cardellino," drawn by the exquisite purity of conception and execution that the divine Raphael must have acquired by some mysterious communion with angels. The face of the Madonna reminded him of someone he had known, but so vaguely that he made no attempt to capture the vague suggestion. The sweet Madonna-face continued to haunt him, and now as he lounged in his room, after luncheon, it floated before him wreathed in the pale blue fumes of his cigarette.

The years had pa.s.sed over him lightly, though any close observer would have noted the slightly increased sternness discernible in the set of the mouth, the squaring of the lean jaw. The eyes were as kind as ever, the brow as calm, the hair had streaks of grey at the temples, but was no thinner than of old.

On leaving the service, he had made a two years trip round the world, and had then, after a year, spent in the capitals of Europe, joined an exploring expedition to the heart of Africa. From thence he had returned to India, and while there, a sudden desire had seized him to revisit Italy, the land of his youthful dreams. Often during these years of voluntary exile had the face and form of Ragna risen before his eyes; she had left an indelible impression on him. He had been sincere when he said and wrote, "Now and always." His was a tenacious nature, both in hate and in love, and the circ.u.mstances attending his love for Ragna had been such as to brand that pa.s.sion upon his soul, as a mark made upon soft clay is fixed forever by the firing in the kiln. His love for her and his indignation at the unworthiness of her betrayer had caused him to break all the threads of his life, had made of him a wanderer upon the face of the earth. True to his word, he had never seen Prince Mirko again, after that last interview in Rome, and if he sometimes thought wistfully of the earlier days of boyish comradeship, the brutal revelation of the real character of the man had effectually killed all but a somewhat sentimental cast of memory. He had been thoroughly and simply in earnest in the letter which he had written to Ragna on leaving Rome, and her answer had hurt him. He understood her however, too well, not to read between the lines of her answer, and to see in the apparently cold and self-sufficient note, the effort of a nature grievously wounded, striving to hide that wound, even from the hand of the physician.

"She will understand in time, and will turn to me," he thought, and had been content to wait. As time went on and no word came from her, he placed her, as it were, in the inner sanctuary of heart and mind, apart from the daily interests of his life. She was not dethroned, he still awaited her summons,--it had become a habit of mind with him to believe that it would come--but he was unconsciously growing to consider the eventuality of that summons more in the light of a possibility than of a probability. This, until his visit to Rome.

It seemed to him on his arrival there, that the old memories lay in wait for him in the streets, the old pain awoke in his heart, the old indignation burned in his veins. He knew himself for a lonely man, up-rooted from his own country, and the regret for what might have been, had Ragna but accepted his proposal, aroused in him a burning resentment against fate.

Under the spur of this resurrection of feeling, he seemed to awake from a long sleep, and he wondered at the lethargy in which he had been content to lie. He saw, in the light of revivified emotion that what was lacking in his life was Ragna and what she symbolized to him: affection and home-ties, and that he now felt the want of her as a painful deprivation and no longer as a vague lack, he wondered that he had been able to go on so long leaving the course of events to chance; it seemed unworthy of his very masculine energy. Why had he waited helplessly on an improbable (he recognised the fact now), appeal? Why had he not followed the girl, or at least kept in touch with her, renewed his offer, forcibly turned her to himself? At the time he had felt that any such action would be indelicate, unworthy of him; but now, his deeper understanding showed him that he had erred on the side of too great delicacy, that the prizes of life are for those who seize them. He thought bitterly of the five wasted years.

What had Ragna done? Where had she gone? Back to Norway, perhaps?

With a faint hope of tracing her, he went to the pension in the Piazza Montecitorio, where she had stopped. Yes, the landlady remembered the Norwegian ladies, but that was over five years ago. No, they had never returned. Sorry to disappoint the Signore.

He thought of Fru Boyesen in whose care he had formerly addressed New Year's cards to Ragna, and wrote her a note asking her if she could give him any information as to her niece's whereabouts.

"She will probably not deign to answer, she will think her niece's affairs none of my business, but at least I shall have done what I could," he said to himself.

What with the insistence of old memories and the disappointment of his forlorn hope of finding some trace of Ragna, Rome had become intolerable to him, so he wended a leisurely way to Florence where he hoped to receive an answer from Fru Boyesen, and we now see him lazily stretched on a sofa in his room his mind full of Ragna, and the Madonna-face which reminded him of her, although he did not know it, the resemblance being more of expression than of feature, floating in the smoke wreaths about his head.

The window was open, and his eye went to where, far over the roofs, S.

Miniato enshrined in Cypress rose white and aloof, against the background of sky. Spring was merging into early summer, and the sun beat already white and glaring on the deserted Lung' Arno below. The mountains of Vallombrosa rose cool and green at the head of the valley; it was so clear he could even distinguish the white dots of houses composing the little hamlet perched on the ledge. Down in the river an _arenaiuolo_ poled his boat in a leisurely fashion, a long pink shirt,--the only garment he boasted--flapping limply about his thin, brown legs.

Angelescu, lying back on the couch, his hands clasped above his head, felt agreeably tired from his morning's doings, half-drowsy, yet not inclined to sleep. He felt still less inclined to read, however, his unfinished novel lay unheeded on the floor by his side and he was debating inwardly how best to pa.s.s the time till four o'clock when he could go to the _sferisterio_ and watch a match game of _pallone_, when a page knocked at his door and brought him a note on a salver.

"From a lady, Signor Conte, she is waiting for the answer."

A lady? What lady could be writing to him? Some chance acquaintance of his travels perhaps, who had recognised him from a distance. He tore open the envelope and read with eyes that seemed suddenly petrified in their sockets:

"I saw in the paper that you are stopping here. I _must_ see you, that is if you still think of me in the same way as when you wrote to me in Rome. If not, let me go away as I have come, don't try to see me. I shall await your answer.

"RAGNA."

The note had evidently been written in a hurry, under pressure of some extraordinary emotion, so much the handwriting told him. For the rest, she wanted him, she appealed to him, for he read the appeal in the few words of the note. What could it mean? How did she happen to be here?

He stood with the note in his hand, lost to his surroundings, fairly dazed by the unexpectedness of the summons, now that it had come. The boy ventured to remind him of his presence.

"What message shall I give the lady, Signor Conte?"

"Tell her,--or stay, I will take her the answer myself. Where is she?"

"In the drawing-room, Signor Conte."

Thrusting the note into his pocket, Angelescu strode from the room and made his way to the drawing-room with beating heart.

A graceful figure rose from the sofa to meet him, both hands outstretched. He took them and drawing Ragna to him, clasped her in his arms; she submitted for an instant, but speedily released herself.

"No, no!" she cried. "You must not! You do not know!"

CHAPTER XI

Waiting for him there, in the hotel drawing-room, Ragna had pa.s.sed through all the varying emotions of excitement, hope, fear and nervous dread, the last named possessing her to such an extent that when the step of Angelescu rang in the mosaic paved corridor and sounded on the threshold, she hardly dared raise her eyes to him. All at once it seemed to her a terrible thing to have done,--to have presumed on the words of a letter five years old to such an extent as to throw herself on the generosity of a man, who by this time would have every right to consider her a stranger. The blood burned in her cheeks, tears of shame and misgiving rose in her eyes, and as Angelescu paused in the doorway the beating of her heart almost choked her while a strange thrill ran through her body. Summoning all her courage, she desperately raised her eyes, and meeting his expression of joyful surprise, the eagerness of his look, rose and moved impulsively towards him. It was true then, he still loved her!

The pressure of his arms, however, brought her to a realization of all the barriers the years had raised between them,--she must tell him, and perhaps when he knew all, the light would fade from his eyes, the eager flush from his cheeks! He had greeted her as the Ragna he had parted from in Rome, how would he take the fact of her being the actual wife of another? She was tempted to put off the evil day, to accord herself one hour, at least, of unspoilt happiness, but she was no coward, she recognised that the issue must be faced and at once, that she had already put herself into an equivocal position by accepting his embrace, since he as yet knew nothing. As she freed herself, he made an effort to retain her, but her out-flung hand repelled him.

"No, no!" she said, "you must not. You do not know!"

"I know that the moment for which I have waited so long has come at last! I have awaited your summons five years now. Five years! Think of it, Ragna!"

"But you have not yet learned my reasons--"

"That is true," he a.s.sented gravely, "but to me the fact that you have come to me is all-sufficing. I am glad that you have done it of your own accord. Think, Ragna, just two weeks ago, I wrote to your Aunt in Christiania to try and trace you. I--I had grown tired of waiting, I realized that I had been a fool from the first, that I should never have let you slip out of my life, and I did, and for so long."

"Yes, yes," she interrupted breathlessly, "you should not have left me!"

"After your answer to my letter, I was afraid of offending you--I thought it would be better to wait until you made some sign--"

"Oh, my foolish letter!" groaned Ragna. "But I was not myself when I wrote it. I was wild with pain and humiliation, I--"

"I know, dear, I know, and it has been my fault if I have lost sight of you through all these years. I realized that in Rome. When I had tried to find some trace of you there, and failed, I wrote to your Aunt. After all that had happened there, Rome was intolerable to me,--you can understand that--and I came here to await an answer."

"Aunt Gitta is dead," said Ragna. Oh how much there was to say, how much that he must know, before she allowed him to go further! And the things he said, or rather implied--his unchanging devotion, his happiness at finding her, were so perilously sweet to hear. In his presence she felt herself transported to another atmosphere, poles apart from the one she had just left. It transformed her, she felt a different creature already.

Still the past must be dealt with; she gathered herself together for the effort of telling him, but as her lips parted, two English ladies entered the drawing-room, followed by a waiter with a tea-tray. They installed themselves at a small table near a window, casting curious glances the while, at the two standing in the middle of the room,--for both Ragna and Angelescu had been too absorbed in one another to remember the small conventionalities of life.

"What a bore!" said Angelescu impatiently--"and the worst of it is that there is no place in this hotel where we can be by ourselves. What shall we do, Ragna? We must be alone somewhere--is there any place we can drive to?"

"Yes," said Ragna eagerly, guiltily glad of the short reprieve. "Let us drive out into the country, we shall be alone there."

She seated herself while Angelescu went for his hat and tried to collect her ideas, to marshal the facts that must be told. It seemed so cruel that the beauty of their meeting should be dimmed if not destroyed by reason of the very cause that had brought that meeting about. What would he do, what would he say, when he knew? Would it change him? A cold fear gripped her heart, but through it, she felt the happy bound and surge of her pulses at the recollection of the tender expression of his eyes, the radiance of his dear bronzed manly face.

"I must have loved him even then," she marvelled to herself, thinking of their former meetings, for she knew now that she loved him and it seemed to her that it had been so always, ever since she could remember. When she had seen his name in the paper, how spontaneous had been her impulse towards him, how unhesitating the instinct to fly to him for refuge!

"Only, why did I not realize it before?" she asked herself.