"To Muro! I have often wished to see the place where they murdered Queen Joanna."

"I have never been there myself, though it belongs to me," answered Veronica. "Her ghost has it all to itself now. They say that she sits at the head of the grand staircase, once a year, at midnight, and shrieks. If you wish to see Muro, you had better go before I am there,"

she added, with a smile. "I shall be there alone, and I could not possibly receive you, as I could not even offer you a cup of tea, you know."

"What an absurd inst.i.tution society is," observed Taquisara, with contempt. "The priest says, 'Ego conjungo vos'; and you are licensed to snap your fingers at everything that has bound you until that moment, as though the law of your marriage were your divorce from law."

"That sounds clever," said Veronica; "but I do not believe it is."

He laughed, indifferently; and after a moment or two, she looked at him, and smiled.

"I did not mean to be so rude," she said.

So they talked in small, objectless remarks, and questions, and answers, neither witty nor quite witless; but Veronica did not refer to Gianluca, and Taquisara knew that for the present he had better let matters alone.

Presently Bianca spoke across to Veronica, and the conversation became general. In the course of it, Gianluca spoke to Veronica, and she answered him, and then asked him a question. She was surprised to find that, so long as the others were joining in whatever was said, he seemed quite at his ease, though his colour came and went frequently. On the whole, she had a much better impression of him this time than she had retained after the former meeting, when he had seemed so utterly helpless and shy in her presence. But when both men rose to go away she could not help comparing them again.

Even then, it seemed to her that the comparison was less unfavourable to Gianluca than she had expected that it must be. He was tall and well-proportioned, and in spite of the slight difficulty in walking, which she had to-day noticed for the first time, he was graceful and of easy carriage. His extreme languor in moving was, perhaps, what displeased her the most. When he had entered the room, she had been annoyed at his coming; but now she was rather sorry, than otherwise, that he was going away so soon. Possibly, as she had expected nothing, she was the more easily satisfied. Taquisara, too, had disappointed her.

He had talked very much like any one else, and not at all as he had talked at that first meeting. Veronica felt that she was indifferent.

Bosio's untimely death had terribly changed the face of the world for her, she thought.

A cold listlessness, unfamiliar to her nature, came over her when the two men were gone. Before long Ghisleri appeared, and there was tea and more conversation. He was thought to be an agreeable man, and people said that he talked well. Veronica wondered vaguely what Bianca saw in him that made her like him so much. But it struck her that the question had not presented itself to her before that day, and that, on the whole, she liked her friend's friend very well.

Presently she left them to themselves in the drawing-room and went to her own room to write a long letter to Don Teodoro, who was now in Muro, and actively engaged in carrying out her wishes for improving the condition of the poor there. As she wrote, her interest in life revived, after having been unaccountably suspended for half an hour, and she felt again all her enthusiasm for the chief object she now had in view.

Soon after this, too, she began to examine the state of the big farms through which she often rode with Bianca, asking questions of the people and entering into conversation with the local under-steward when she chanced to meet him. As was to be expected, the news that the young princess now took an active interest in the administration of her estates soon went abroad amongst the peasants. They soon knew her by sight and were only too ready to come and stand at her stirrup and pour out the tale of their woes, since she was condescending enough to listen. Sometimes, if she found a case of anything like oppression, she interfered. Sometimes, and this was what more often happened, she helped some poor man with money--in order that he might be able to pay his rent to herself. Bianca laughed once at a charity of this kind, but Veronica held her own.

"The rule is for everybody," she said. "They must pay their rents, or go. If I choose to help those who have had trouble, that is my affair, and not the business of the under-steward with whom they have to do.

Besides, if the rent is remitted this year, they will expect the same thing in the future, whereas they know that a little money is a pa.s.sing charity on which they cannot count with certainty. The less publicity there is about charity, the more of self-respect remains to those who profit by it."

Bianca glanced sideways at Veronica's face as the latter finished speaking, and she felt that the girl was not cast in the same mould as herself.

"I wonder whether you will ever marry," she said thoughtfully, after a short pause.

"Why? What has that to do with it?" asked Veronica.

"Your husband will find that it has a great deal to do with it, my dear," Bianca answered, with a smile, and speculating upon the possible fate of the Princess of Acireale's future husband.

"Oh,--of course, I should not let him interfere in anything of this kind," said Veronica, gravely. "He should not come between me and my people."

She sat very straight on her horse, and the girl's small head and aquiline features had a dominating expression. A struggling man, with such a look, is a man who means to win, and generally does, whatever the nature of the race may be.

"But I shall never marry," Veronica added presently, and her face softened as she thought of the dead betrothed. "There is plenty to do in the world, without marrying, if one will only do it."

"If you do not, there will be one free man more in the world," answered Bianca.

Veronica laughed a little.

"I daresay I should have my own way," she said.

The longer Veronica stayed with her, the more thoroughly was Bianca convinced of this, and she wondered why it should have taken her so long to discover that the quiet, sallow-faced, gentle-mannered little girl, whom she had first known at the convent school, was developing a character which might some day astonish every one who should attempt to oppose her. It had been a growth of strength, with an accentuation of wilfulness, and it had not been at all apparent at first.

So they lived quietly together, in spite of the Cardinal Campodonico's objections and arguments, and, little by little, Veronica became quite used to her absolute independence of plan and action, and the idea of taking an elderly gentlewoman for a companion grew more and more distasteful to her.

Meanwhile her aunt was living all alone at the Palazzo Macomer. Many communications pa.s.sed between the two, about matters of business, during the earlier weeks after their final separation, but they did not meet.

As neither of them ever went into the world, it was extremely improbable that they should meet at all, except by agreement.

Gianluca came to the villa again, ten days after the visit last spoken of. And after that he came often, at irregular intervals, generally once or twice a week. The first disappointing impression, which Veronica had retained so long, gradually wore away, and she liked him very much better than she had ever thought possible. Bianca never left the two alone together. She felt more than ever responsible for Veronica, now, and bound to observe the customs and traditions in which both had been brought up. She was wise enough to know, too, that after such an unlucky beginning, it would be better for Gianluca if a long time pa.s.sed before he had another chance of pouring out his heart to the young girl. Things might go by contraries, she thought. Contempt might turn to familiarity, familiarity to friendship, and friendship to love. The first change had already taken place, and the others might come in time.

Before the spring came, Veronica knew that Taquisara had not been guilty of exaggeration in describing his friend's character. Gianluca was all that his friend had painted him, and perhaps more. Unfortunately, he was not at all the kind of man whom Veronica would ever be inclined to fancy for a husband. It was easy for her to respect him, as she came to know him better; it would have been hard not to like him, but it seemed impossible to her that she should ever love him.

Taquisara came very rarely--not more than three or four times in the course of the winter. He came alone, and did not stay long. Veronica saw that he avoided her on those few occasions, and preferred to talk with Bianca, though she was sometimes aware that he was looking at her earnestly, when her eyes were half turned from him.

Gianluca seemed to grow a little stronger towards the spring. At least, he was less transparently thin; but the difficulty he had in walking was more apparent than before.

CHAPTER XVII.

As Gianluca's spirits revived, and he began to take courage again and find new hope that Veronica might marry him after all, her position as a permanent guest in Bianca's house became a subject of especial displeasure to the Della Spina family. They wished to renew their proposals for a marriage, and they found themselves stopped by the fact that Veronica was no longer under the charge of any relative to whom they could have communicated their offer.

No one knew exactly what had happened before Christmas at the Palazzo Macomer excepting the persons concerned; but there is inevitably a certain amount of publicity about all business transactions connected with real estate, and somehow a story had filtered from the financial to the social world, which more or less explained Veronica's conduct. It was said that Gregorio, whom most people had detested, had mismanaged her fortune, though nothing was hinted about any great fraud; and people added that when the day of reckoning had come he had found himself ruined, and had lost his mind; Matilde, as guardian, had incurred the young princess's displeasure, but the latter had treated her generously, allowing her to live in the palace, which was now undoubtedly Veronica's property. Some persons told a story of an attempt made by a servant to poison the Macomer household, but the majority laughed at the tale, and said that Gregorio had been too poor, or too stingy, to have his copper saucepans properly tinned, and that a grain of verdigris would poison half a regiment, as every Italian knows.

However that might be, no one was responsible for Veronica, but Veronica herself, unless Cardinal Campodonico still had some authority over her, which seemed more than doubtful. The old Duca made him a formal visit, and a formal proposition. His Eminence smiled, looked grave, smiled again, and replied that in a long and varied experience of the world he could not remember to have met with just such a case; that so far as he could understand, the young Princess of Acireale was her own mistress, and would make her own choice, if she made any; but that she had been heard to say that she would never marry at all. This, however, the cardinal thought impossible.

"Then," said the Duca della Spina, "you advise me to go directly to the young lady and ask her whether she will marry my son."

"My friend," replied the cardinal, "this is a case in which I would rather not give advice. I have no doubt that whatever you do will be well done, and I wish you all possible success."

The old Duca shuffled out of the cardinal's study, more puzzled than ever, and went home to tell his wife and Gianluca and Taquisara the result of the interview. Taquisara was in the confidence of the family, and spent much of his time with his friend.

"I am at my wits' end," concluded the old n.o.bleman, shaking his head, and looking sorrowfully at his son. "If you wish it, I will go to Donna Veronica myself. It would be--well--very informal, to say the least.

Poor Gianluca! My poor boy! If you would only be satisfied to marry your cousin Vittoria, it would be a question of days! Of course--I understand--her complexion is an obstacle," he added reflectively. "It will probably improve, however."

No one answered him, Taquisara broke the silence, after a pause.

"You must either speak to the Princess Corleone," he said, "or Gianluca must speak to Donna Veronica for himself."

Gianluca said nothing to him, but by a glance he reminded his friend of his former attempt. So they came to no conclusion, though it was clear that Veronica now liked Gianluca quite enough, in their opinion, to marry him at once. But he himself, remembering his discomfiture, knew that the time had not yet come, though he had hopes that it might not be far off. On that very day he went to Bianca's villa, and stayed an unreasonably long time, in the hope that Ghisleri might appear, for he found Bianca and Veronica alone. Pietro would have talked with Bianca, and he himself would have had a chance, perhaps, to judge of his actual position. He was no longer shy and awkward, now, when he was with the young girl. But Ghisleri did not come, and Gianluca went home, disappointed and disconsolate.

"I suppose that if we were in Sicily," he said to Taquisara on the following morning, "you would propose to carry her off by force. You once advised me to do something of the sort."

"That is a proceeding which needs the consent of the lady," answered the Sicilian. "The 'force' is employed against the relations. Now Donna Veronica has none to speak of so far as I can see. It is a case for persuasion."

Gianluca sighed. Matters were at a deadlock, and Veronica had announced her intention of going to Muro alone, before long. Once established there, she might stay in the mountains until the following autumn, unapproachable in her maiden solitude, as she had told Taquisara.

Gianluca might knock at her gate, there, but he would certainly not be admitted.

"You despise me," he said to his friend. "You think me weak and helpless, and you fancy that if you were in my place you could do better. But I do not believe you could."