When she said timidly a moment later that she must be going now, he did not try to detain her, only lifted the hand that had lain upon his breast, and held it to his lips, then to his eyes a moment.

In some natures tenderness springs from pa.s.sion; in others pa.s.sion can only flower from tenderness. Sophy was of the latter type. With all her capacity for suffering, she could never have felt the excoriating pain of the being bound by sensual fascination to another whom it knows to be despicable. This quality in the very essence of her nature was the secret of her ardent ventures in love and her equally ardent recoils from it.

But though her present love for Amaldi was all tenderness there was in it also such anguish as pa.s.sion sometimes brings. Pure as it was, almost mystic in its exaltation, it yet shamed her to herself. Was she then the sort of woman who loves, and loves and loves indefinitely? She fought her way out of this doubt, only to stand confounded and miserable before the bald fact that she had had two husbands, one of whom was still living, and yet, that in a future no matter how vague and distant, she contemplated taking another. "It must be a long, long time...." she had written Amaldi after those moments in Clarges Street. "Years and years, perhaps. It isn't that I shrink from you, my dear one--oh, you know that!--but from the thought of marriage with any one. I can't help it, dearest. I told you that you would need all your patience with me---- Yes-- I shall try you sorely I'm afraid. I wonder--but no--when I think of your love for me, I feel that I have never before known real love.

And see how selfish I am with you! This is your reward--a cruel egoist, who can't give you up--who can't give you herself. That is the truth, Marco. It isn't that I will not-- I _cannot_. Besides----"

Here she had laid aside her pen in despair. It was the thought of Bobby that had come to her. How tragic and ridiculous to think of giving her son two fathers besides the real father who had died when he was a baby!

Yes, this thought was nothing less than hideous. The absurdity in it was grim as the _risus sardonicus_. And yet--and yet---- Like poor Desdemona she perceived here a divided duty. This duty to her son was tremendous--yet was there not also a duty towards the man who had loved her for long years, whom she had told that she loved in return? Perhaps, when Bobby had grown up---- Yes, that would make things different. But could any man be constant for all those added years--had she a right to ask such constancy? And even then--to take a third husband! The words of Christ to the woman of Samaria came back to her: ".... _Thou hast well said, I have no husband. For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast, is not thy husband._"... Five husbands or three ... what real difference was there? She felt stunned with self-abas.e.m.e.nt and misery. A voice within her kept crying: "Too late! too late!" But when she thought of her life without him it seemed vain and empty. Even the thought of her son could not fill that void.

Nano Amaldi's injuries proved far less serious than was at first believed. Within ten days after his accident he was able to travel, and he and Marco went together to stop with their mother on the Brenta, near Venice--where she had taken a friend's villa for the months of September and October.

From this place Amaldi wrote to Sophy, asking her if it would not be possible for her to come to Venice during the autumn. His mother longed to see her, and people could hardly talk if they met occasionally under such circ.u.mstances. He also told her in this letter that Barti, the family lawyer, had gone to Switzerland to inquire about the formalities necessary for the divorce.

Sophy had intended going to Italy in September. Now it seemed to her that there could be no objection to her choosing Venice as a stopping place. She longed to talk with the old Marchesa almost as much as she longed to see Amaldi. To talk with his mother would lift some of the load of doubt and pain from her heart, she thought.

But when she mentioned this plan to her cousin, Sue looked anxious. She was thinking of Lady Wychcote--of what she might think and say when she heard that Sophy was going to Italy. Her native shrewdness would lead her to surmise something very like the truth, Sue felt sure, while her dislike for Sophy would cause her to put the worst construction on it.

However, to her great relief, Lady Wychcote took the news of the projected trip to Venice with composure. She was even affable about it and said in a letter on the subject that she envied Sophy the pleasure of seeing Venice for the first time, and of being out of England during September. But as Susan pondered this letter afterwards, something in its very affability made her nervous. It struck her as odd that Lady Wychcote, after having called Sophy's attention so insistently to the danger of possible gossip about her and Amaldi, and now knowing that there actually had been gossip on the subject, should suddenly hear without protest of any kind that Sophy intended going to Italy. If Susan had been aware of the fact that Lady Wychcote also knew of Sophy's visit to Amaldi's lodgings, she would have returned to America rather than have gone with her to Venice.

Lady Wychcote did know of it, however, and from a sure source--from her own brother, Colonel Bollingham, a retired and grouchy old Anglo-Indian, who had always taken Sophy at his sister's valuation and had no more love for her than had her ladyship.

He had chanced to be pa.s.sing on the other side of the street when Sophy and Susan got out of their cab before Amaldi's lodgings. His sister had talked with him about her fears in that regard. The accident, of which he had read that morning, caused him to put two and two together--making a round dozen, after the custom of his type of arithmetician.

"The little hussy...." he muttered, as the two figures disappeared within a house opposite. "'Clarges Street'.... So it was, b'gad!"

He posted forthwith to Dynehurst with this news. After the first start of surprise at his disclosure, her ladyship showed a calmness that quite outraged him.

"Gad!... Cissy!... You take it d.a.m.n coolly, 'pon my word!" said he.

"I am thinking," replied Lady Wychcote quietly. "It requires a great deal of thought ... such a thing as you have just told me, James."

"The devil it does!" exclaimed the irascible Colonel. ".... Bundle her out on the double-quick, say I! What the deuce!... Is a woman like that to have the upbringing of your only grandson?"

His sister regarded his inflamed countenance with lenient sarcasm.

"'Bundling out' is doubtless a simple matter in the army, James," said she. "But you wouldn't find it quite so simple in this case. The Court would hardly deprive a woman of the guardianship of her child because she'd been seen to go ... _with another woman_ ... to inquire after an injured man ... ostensibly a friend ... who may or may not be her lover...."

The Colonel b.u.mbled like an angry hornet. "Who's this other woman, anyhow?" demanded he. Then answered himself as crusty old gentlemen so often do. "In my opinion she's only a common...." The Colonel's language became very Anglo-Indian indeed.

But Lady Wychcote succeeded in calming him down and finally persuading him that her method would be the wisest and surest.

It was on a day all magical with shine and storm that Sophy journeyed to Venice across the Lombard plain. As they neared the sea one-half the sky was thunderous blue, one-half like golden crystal. Green marsh lands spread in gentle melancholy beneath. Suddenly two orange sails in sunlight unfurled their burning petals against the green. And these great, burning sail-petals, drifting slowly along hidden waterways across the sad, green reaches, lent a thrill as of the pa.s.sionate mystery of the sea to the tranquil inland.

There was more pain than joy for Sophy in this beauty. One should first see Venice with first love in one's heart, not third love, she told herself bitterly. And she was glad that she had written Amaldi not to meet her. As much as she longed to see him, she was relieved to think that she would have some hours in which to adjust her mood to this rather overwhelming loveliness before seeing him again. As they went up the Grand Ca.n.a.l towards the Rio San Vio, where she had taken a flat, the Vesper bells began to ring. A feeling of sadness, almost of apprehension, stole over her. The clear, liquid voices of the bells seemed warning her of something. She began to wonder if she had been right to come to Venice....

But the next day when she saw Amaldi she was glad again. This love that he gave her was very wonderful. She remembered, wincing, how she had once longed for Loring to give her a love like that of the old Romaunts.

Now this love was really hers. Yet she felt that she was cruel to accept it--taking so much yet willing to give so little; for when she saw Amaldi this first time after telling him that she cared "more than she knew"--she realised that what she offered him was indeed the shadow of a flame. And yet ... she could not give him up. This shadow was, after all, cast by a flame. But she shivered, thinking of the dreary service of patience that she demanded of him.

Amaldi on his side, however, was quite content for the present with the fact that she loved him--that this love had been strong enough to cause her to tell him of it. He had that genius of pa.s.sion which knows how to wait. When the right hour struck he would wait no longer, he told himself. He did not believe for a moment that years would have to pa.s.s before Sophy would come to him as his wife. He did not wish things different. It would have repelled him if Sophy could have shown pa.s.sionate feeling for him so soon after her second unhappy marriage.

But some day----

Barti was still in Switzerland. There were some points that needed clearing up, he wrote, but he and the Swiss lawyer Beylan, thought that all could be arranged. He expected to come to Venice very shortly.

After she had been three days in Venice, Sophy went by gondola up the Brenta with Amaldi to see his mother, who had been confined to the house for some time by an attack of rheumatism. Sue and Bobby were with them.

The boy seemed as fond of Amaldi as ever, yet every now and then when he thought that others were not noticing, he looked at the young man with a grave, pondering look. He was not jealous of him, yet as much as he liked him, he was hoping that "Mother wouldn't have him round too much."

It was so jolly when he and mother went for larks quite alone.

From the moment that the Marchesa took her in her arms and kissed her as a mother kisses her daughter, a weight seemed to fall from Sophy's heart. There was something in the kiss so natural, so warm, so consoling. It said better than words could have done, "I understand. I approve. Be happy, my dear--be happy."

She held the Marchesa very tight--his mother who might some day be her mother. Tears sprang in spite of her. The Marchesa kissed away these tears.

"It will all come right, dear--_Speriamo bene_!" she murmured, smiling.

But the next day something occurred that cast a shadow over all. Susan received a cable from America telling her that her only sister had died suddenly. As this sister was a widow and left three little children Susan felt that she must go to America at once.

When Sophy returned from seeing her cousin off for Genoa, a profound, desolate sadness overcame her--a sense of apprehension. The old adage kept going through her mind: "It never rains but it pours." She could not get away from the idea that other painful things were going to happen. Besides, she loved Sue dearly, and missed her, and would miss her more and more. The thought of a paid "companion" filled her with distaste. Yet she couldn't now stay on in Venice for some weeks, as she had meant to, with only Bobby and Rosa. Harold Grey had been ill with influenza and would not join them until October; and all the more when he came would she need some woman to play propriety.

Intolerant and careless of the world's opinion as she was too apt to be, she felt that it would not do for her to remain all alone in Venice with Amaldi as her only acquaintance there. But then she felt that she _must_ stay till Barti came. She couldn't leave Marco anxious and hara.s.sed with doubt, for during the last few days she had come to the conclusion that he was far more anxious about the divorce than he would admit to her.

.... Rain was falling. With slim, grey-white rods it beat the surface of the water. She could see it rushing like a host with lances down the Grand Ca.n.a.l, past the palace of Don Carlos. Her heart grew heavier and heavier.

Amaldi, who had insisted on accompanying Susan to Genoa, returned two days later. Something preoccupied and sad in his manner struck Sophy.

"What is it?" she urged. "You are troubled. Tell me."

He confessed at last that he was a little worried at Barti's delay. He feared that there might be some serious doubt about the final issue of the question.

"Barti's a good soul," he ended. "Almost too soft-hearted.... I can't help feeling that he's rather shirked telling me things, perhaps ...

that he's still shirking. I can't explain this delay on his part, in any other way...."

He broke off and they looked at each other rather blankly. And it was as they were silently looking at each other in that sorrowful, baffled fashion that Rosa ushered in Lady Wychcote.

As Sophy went forward to greet her, the old adage again began its thrumming in her mind: "_It never rains but it pours.... It never rains but it pours_...."

L

Had Susan been present, she would have felt very apprehensive at the pleasant, matter-of-fact way in which her ladyship greeted Amaldi. But Sophy was simple-minded enough to be greatly relieved by it. She explained about Susan--that Amaldi had just returned from seeing her off for America. Lady Wychcote seemed really shocked to hear of Miss Pickett's trouble.

"And what a loss to you, too!" she said. "I can't conceive of anything more odious than having a hireling for a companion. Of course you will have a companion...?"