"Do you think it is likely?" asked Veronica, interrupting him in a tone of increasing anxiety.

He turned to her again, and watched her face, curiously, wondering whether she loved the man, after all.

"I hope not," he answered quietly. "But it was a fatiguing drive, and he hardly slept at all last night. I suppose that the excitement kept him awake. He should rest as soon as possible."

"Very well," said Veronica. "I will take his father and mother away and give them tea. Stay with him and make him lie down and sleep, if possible. Dinner is at half-past seven. Let me know if we are to wait for him."

She went to Gianluca's side and spoke to the d.u.c.h.essa.

"Shall I show you your rooms?" she asked. "Then we can have tea. Don Gianluca must be tired, and he should have quiet and rest before dinner--or if he prefers it, we will not expect him to-night. Sleep first, and decide afterwards," she added, addressing Gianluca himself, and her tone grew suddenly gentle as she spoke to him.

"You are very wise for your age, my dear child!" answered the d.u.c.h.essa, in the motherly tone that irritated Veronica.

The old gentleman nodded gravely, being quite too much preoccupied and surprised to judge at all of his hostess's wisdom, but delighted with the effect which the change of air seemed already to have produced upon Gianluca.

They went away together, leaving the invalid with Taquisara and his own servant. Veronica led them to her favourite room, then showed them their own, and went back to wait for them, while Elettra brought the tea, just as she had done of old in the Palazzo Macomer. Veronica watched her while she was arranging the tea-table. Elettra, who rarely spoke unbidden, ventured to make a remark.

"Their Excellencies will be surprised at being waited on by women," she said; for though she hated all men-servants, she had pride for the great old house her fathers had served.

"They will be surprised at so many things that they will not notice it,"

answered her mistress, thoughtfully.

Elettra glanced at her quickly, but said nothing and went away, leaving her alone. She sat quite still, and did not move until the old couple came back, ten minutes later. She moved chairs forward for them to sit in, and poured out a cup of tea for each. Meanwhile they all three made little idle observations about the weather and the place.

The d.u.c.h.essa, holding her cup in her hand, looked at the door from time to time, as though expecting some one to come in. At last she could contain her curiosity no longer.

"And where is your companion, my dear?" she asked suddenly.

"In the imagination of society, d.u.c.h.essa," answered Veronica. "I have none. I live alone."

The d.u.c.h.essa almost dropped her cup.

"Alone?" she cried, in amazement. "You live alone? In such a place as this!" She could not believe her ears.

"Yes," said Veronica, smiling. "Does it seem so very terrible to you? I live alone--and I am waited on only by women. I daresay that surprises you, too."

"Alone?" The Duca had got his breath, and sat open-mouthed, holding his tea-cup low between his knees, in both hands. "Alone! At your age! A young girl! But the world--society? What will it think?"

"Unless it thinks as I do, I do not care to know," answered Veronica, indifferently. "Let me give you some bread and b.u.t.ter, Duca."

"Bread and b.u.t.ter? No--no thank you--no--I--I am very much astonished! I am stupefied! It is the most extraordinary thing I ever heard of!"

"Of course everybody thinks that you have an elderly companion--" chimed in the d.u.c.h.essa.

"One of your Spanish relations," said the Duca, with anxious eyes.

"Surely, she was here--"

"And is away just now," suggested his wife. "That accounts for--"

"Not at all," said Veronica, almost laughing. "She never existed. I came here alone, I live here alone, and I mean to live here alone as long as I please. The world may say what it pleases. I shall be three-and-twenty years of age on my next birthday. Ask Don Teodoro whether I am not able to take care of myself--and of Muro, too, for that matter!"

"Who is Don Teodoro?" asked the d.u.c.h.essa, nervously, and still altogether horrified.

"The parish priest," said Veronica. "A very learned and charitable old man. He dines with me every evening."

"Then," replied the d.u.c.h.essa, with a beginning of relief, "then you, and your good priest, and your woman, make a sort of--of what shall I say--a sort of little religious community here? Is that it?"

"We are not irreligious," Veronica replied, still at the point of laughter. "Most of us hear ma.s.s every morning--the church is close by the gate, on the other side of the great tower, you know--and we do not eat meat on fast days--"

"Yes, yes, I understand!" interrupted the d.u.c.h.essa, grasping at any straw by which she could drag the extraordinary young princess within conceivable distance of what she herself considered socially proper.

"And you spend your time in good works, in the village, of course, and in edifying conversation with Don Teodoro. Yes--I see! As you put it at first, it was a little startling, but I understand it better now. You understand it, Pompeo, do you not? It is quite clear, now."

The Duca rejoiced in the baptismal name of Pompey, like many of his cla.s.s in the south, whereas the name of Caesar is more common about Rome.

"I have at least done something for the village," said Veronica. "It was in a bad state when I came here."

"It is a very clean village," observed the Duca, whose eyes still had a puzzled look in them, though his jaw had slowly recovered from its fall of amazement. "I saw no pigs in the streets. One generally sees a great many pigs in these mountain towns."

"I turned them out," said Veronica.

She went on to give a little account of the improvements she had introduced, not in vanity, but to keep them from returning to the subject of her living alone. They listened with profound interest, and with almost as much astonishment as they had shown at first.

"But do you find no opposition here?" asked the Duca. "You seem to do just as you please."

"Of course," answered Veronica. "The place belongs to me. Why should I not do as I like? There are a few tolerably well-to-do people here, who own a little property. Everything I do is to their advantage as well as to that of the poor peasants, so that they all side with me. No," she concluded thoughtfully, "I do not think that any one would oppose me in Muro. But if any one should, I have decided what to do!"

"And what should you do?" asked the d.u.c.h.essa, rather nervously.

"I should send the whole family to America, with a little money in their pockets. They are always glad to emigrate, and the opposition would be quite out of the way in the Argentine Republic." Veronica laughed quietly.

When the Duca and his wife went to dress for dinner they had some very disturbing ideas concerning the character of the young Princess of Acireale.

CHAPTER XXII.

Taquisara, almost for the first time in his life, did not know how to act, but in accepting Veronica's invitation he felt that he could really be of use to Gianluca, and he saw how unbendingly determined the young princess was that he should stay. He had very good reasons for not staying, but they were of such a nature that he could not explain them to her. He had the power, he thought, to leave Muro at a moment's notice, and in yielding to Veronica's insistence, he was only submitting, as a gentleman should, in small matters, rather than engage in a contest of will with a woman. Yet he knew the matter was neither small nor indifferent, when he gave way to her, and afterwards.

Gianluca appeared at the dinner hour and reached the dining-room with his friend's help. He was placed on Veronica's left, in consideration of being an invalid, though Taquisara should have been there, according to Italian laws of precedence. Veronica had insisted that Don Teodoro should come, at all events on this first evening. She did not choose that the learned old priest should be merely the companion of her loneliness; and besides, she knew that his presence would probably prevent the Duca and d.u.c.h.essa from returning to the question of her solitary mode of life. She was also willing to let them see that the humble curate was a man of the world.

It was a day of surprises for the old couple, and their manners were hard put to it to conceal their astonishment at the way in which Veronica dined. They were, indeed, accustomed to a singular simplicity in the country, and to country dishes, as almost all the more old-fashioned Italians are, but in the whole course of their highly and rigidly aristocratic lives they had never been waited on by two women in plain black frocks and white ap.r.o.ns. The Duca, indeed, found some consolation in the delicious mountain trout, the tender lamb, the perfect salad, and the fine old malvoisie, for he liked good things and appreciated them; but the d.u.c.h.essa's nature was more austerely indifferent to the taste of what she ate, while her love of established law insisted with equal austerity that any food, good or bad, should be brought before her in a certain way, by a certain number of men, arrayed in coats of a certain cut, and shaven till their faces shone like marble. In a measure, it was a slight upon her dignity, she thought, that Veronica should let her be served by waitresses. On the other hand, she reflected upon the conversation which had taken place at tea, and was forced to admit that she had then discovered the only theory on which she could accept Veronica's anomalous position, and conscientiously remain in the house. Either she must look upon the castle of Muro and its inhabitants as a sort of semi-religious community of women, or else, in her duty to the world, and the station to which she had always belonged, she must raise her voice in protests, loud and many. For many reasons, she did not wish to insist too much, and she did her best to seem indifferent, keeping her arguments before her mind while she ate. The chief of them was, indeed, that she clung desperately to the hope of a marriage; but in her heart there was something else, and she knew that she was afraid of Veronica. It seemed ridiculous, but it was true. And her husband was even more afraid of the dominating young princess than she. They never acknowledged the fact to each other, when they exchanged moralities, and discussed Veronica, but each was afraid, and suspected the other of similar cowardice.

The d.u.c.h.essa did her best to seem indifferent; but now and then, when one of the women changed her plate, or poured something into her gla.s.s, she could not help slowly looking round, with an air of bewilderment, as though expecting to see a man in livery at her elbow.

As for Gianluca, Veronica had described in her letters the way in which she lived; and Taquisara's face more often betrayed amus.e.m.e.nt than surprise at what he saw in the world. On the present occasion, having accepted the situation into which his affection for his friend had led him, he had accepted it altogether, and behaved as though he were at a dinner party in Naples, cheerfully making conversation, telling amazing stories of brigandage in Sicily, asking Veronica questions about the surrounding country, and giving such sc.r.a.ps of news about mutual friends as his letters had recently brought him.

Veronica had never seen the man under such circ.u.mstances, and she was surprised by his readiness and by his ability to help her in a rather difficult situation. He said nothing which she could compare with what Gianluca wrote. He never spoke of himself, and she did not afterwards remember that he had made any very brilliant observation; and yet, when dinner was over, she wished to hear him talk more, just as she had once longed to hear him say again the things he had said to her for Gianluca's sake in Bianca's garden. She had never met any one who seemed to have such a decided personality, without the slightest apparent desire to a.s.sert it. Instinctively, as women know such things, she felt that he was a very manly man, very simple and brave, and vain, if at all, with the sort of vanity which well becomes a soldierly character--the little touch of willing recklessness that easily stirs woman's admiration. What women hate most, next to cowardice, is, perhaps, the caution of the very experienced brave man--and they hate it all the more because they cannot despise it with any show of reason.