They were sound. Then patting him softly on the neck, he said in an indefinable tone of gentleness--'Go, Mallecho, go----'

And he followed him with his eyes till he disappeared.

Directly he had changed his clothes, he went in search of Ludovico Barbarisi and the Baron di Santa Margherita.

Both instantly accepted the office of arranging preliminaries with Rutolo. He begged them to hasten matters as much as possible.

'Fix it all by this evening. To-morrow by one o'clock I absolutely must be free. But let me sleep till nine to-morrow morning. I dine with the Ferentinos, then I shall look in at the Palazzo Giustiniani, and after that I shall go to the Club, but it will be late--You will know where to find me. Many thanks, my dear fellows, and _a rividerci_.'

He repaired to the grand stand, but avoided approaching Donna Ippolita at once. He smiled, feeling every feminine eye upon him. Many a fair hand was held out, many a sweet voice called him familiarly--'Andrea'--some of them even a little ostentatiously. The ladies who had bet upon his horses told him the amount of their winnings, others asked curiously if he were really going to fight.

It seemed to him that in one day he had reached the summit of adventurous glory. He had come out victor in a record race, had gained the graces of a new love, magnificent and serene as a Venetian Dogaressa, had provoked a man to mortal combat and now was pa.s.sing calm and courteous--but neither more so nor less than usual--amid the openly adoring smiles of all these fair women.

'See the conquering hero comes!' cried Ippolita's husband with outstretched hand and pressing Andrea's with unusual warmth.

'Yes, indeed; quite a hero!' echoed Donna Ippolita in the superficial tone of necessary compliment, affecting ignorance of the real drama.

Sperelli bowed and pa.s.sed on, feeling strangely embarra.s.sed by Albonico's excessive friendliness. A suspicion crossed his mind that he was grateful to him for having provoked a quarrel with his wife's lover, and the cowardice of the man brought a supercilious smile to his lips.

Returning from the races on the Prince di Ferentino's mail coach, he espied Giannetto Rutolo tearing back to Rome in a little two-wheeled trap behind a great fast-trotting roan; bending forward with head down, a cigar between his teeth and utterly regardless of the injunctions of the police to keep in the line. Rome rose up before them, black against a band of saffron light, and in the violet sky above that light the statues on the Basilica of San Giovanni stood out exaggeratedly large.

And Andrea then fully realised the pain he was inflicting on this man's soul.

CHAPTER X

At the Palazzo Giustiniani that evening, Andrea said to Ippolita Albonico, 'Well then, it is a fixed thing that I expect you to-morrow between two and five?'

She would like to have said: 'Then you are not going to fight to-morrow?' but she did not dare.

'I have promised,' she replied.

A minute or two afterwards, her husband came up to Andrea and taking his arm with much effusion, began asking particulars about the duel. He was a youngish man, slim, with very thin fair hair and colourless eyes and projecting teeth. He had a slight stammer.

'Well, well--so it is to come off to-morrow, is it?'

Andrea could not repress his disgust, and let his arm hang loosely at his side to show that he was in no mood for these familiarities. Seeing the Baron di Santa Margherita enter the room, he disengaged himself quickly.

'Excuse me, Count,' he said, 'I want to speak to Santa Margherita.'

The Baron met him with the a.s.surance that all was in order. 'Very good--at what hour?'

'Half-past ten at the Villa Sciarra. Rapiers and fencing-gloves, _a outrance_.'

'Whom else have you got for seconds?'

'Roberto Casteldieri and Carlo de Souza. We settled everything as quickly as possible, avoiding formalities. Giannetto had got his seconds already. We arranged the proceedings at the Club without any fuss. Try not to be too late in going to bed--you must be dead tired.'

But, heedless of this good advice, on leaving the Palazzo Giustiniani, Andrea betook himself to the Club, where Santa Margherita came upon him at two o'clock in the morning, and, forcing him to leave the card-tables, bore him off on foot to the Palazzo Zuccari.

'My dear boy,' he said reproachfully as they walked along, 'you are really foolhardy. In a case like this, the smallest imprudence might lead to fatal results. To preserve his full strength and activity, a good swordsman should have as much care for his person as a tenor has for his voice. The wrist is as delicate an organ as the throat--the articulations of the legs as sensitive as the vocal chords. The mechanism suffers from the smallest disturbance; the instrument gets out of gear and will not answer to the player. After a night of play or drink, Camillo Agrippa himself could not thrust straight, and his parries were neither sure nor rapid. An error of a hair's breadth will suffice to let three inches of steel into one's body.' They were at the top of the Via Condotti, and in the distance they could see the Piazza di Spagna, lighted up by the full moon, the stairway bathed in silver, and the Trinita de' Monti rising into the soft blue.

'Certainly,' continued the Baron, 'you have great advantages over your adversary, amongst others, a cool head--also you have been out before. I saw you in Paris in your affair with Gauvaudan--you remember? A grand duel that! You fought like a G.o.d!'

Andrea laughed, much gratified. The praise of this unrivalled duellist made his heart swell with pride, and infused fresh vigour into his muscles. Instinctively, he grasped his walking stick, and repeated the famous pa.s.s which pierced the arm of the Marquis de Gauvaudan the previous winter.

'Yes,' he said, 'it was a direct return hit after a parry of "contre de tierce."'

'On the floor, Giannetto Rutolo is a skilful swordsman, but in the open he gets confused. He has only been out once before with my cousin Ca.s.sibile, and he came off badly. He does far too much of the one, two,--one, two, three business in attacking. Stop thrusts and hits with a _half volte_ would be useful to you. It was just in that way that my cousin touched him in the second round. And those thrusts are your special _forte_. Keep a sharp look-out and try to keep your distance.

And do not forget that you have to do with a man whom, as I hear, you have robbed of his mistress, and to whom you lifted your whip.'

They had reached the Piazza di Spagna. The Barcaccia splashed and gurgled softly, glistening under the moon that was mirrored in its waters. Four or five hackney carriages stood in a line with their lamps lighted. From the Via del Babuino came a tinkle of bells, and the dull tramp of hoofs, as of a herd in motion.

At the foot of the steps the Baron took leave of him.

'Good-bye then, till to-morrow. I shall be with you a little before nine with Ludovico. You must make a pa.s.s or so, just to unstiffen the muscles. We will see about the doctor. Off with you now and get a good sleep.'

Andrea mounted the steps. At the first broad landing, he stood still to listen to the tinkle of the approaching bells. In truth, he did feel rather tired, and even a little heartsick. Now that the excitement called up by the conversation on fencing, and the recollection of his former doughty deeds in that line had subsided, a sense of dissatisfaction had come upon him, confusedly, as yet, and mingled with doubt and regret. After being on the stretch throughout the violent feverish incidents of the day, his nerves relaxed under the balmy influences of the spring night. Why should he, without any excuse of pa.s.sion, out of mere caprice, from pure vanity and arrogance, have taken pleasure in awakening the hatred, and deeply wounding the heart of a fellow man? The thought of the horrid pain that must be torturing his adversary filled him with a sort of compa.s.sion. Elena's image flashed before him, and he called to mind the anguish he had endured the year before, what time he had lost her--his jealousy, his anger, his nameless torments. Then, as now, the nights were serene and calm, and filled with perfume, and yet how they weighed upon his spirit! He inhaled the fragrant breath of the roses blooming in the little gardens about, and watched the flock of sheep pa.s.sing through the Piazza below.

The ma.s.s of thick white fleece advanced with a continuous undulating motion, a compact and unbroken surface, like a muddy wave pouring over the pavement. A sharp quavering bleat would mingle with the tinkling bells to be answered by other voices, fainter and more timid; from time to time, the mounted shepherds, riding at either side or behind the flock, gave a sharp word of command, or used their long staves. The splendour of the moonlight lent to this pa.s.sage of flocks through the midst of the slumbering city the mystery of things seen in a dream.

Andrea recalled one serene February night when, on coming away from a ball at the English Emba.s.sy, he and Elena had met a flock of sheep in the Via Venti Settembre which obliged their carriage to stop. Elena, her face pressed to the window, watched the sheep crowding against the carriage wheels, and pointed to the little lambs with childish delight; and he with his face close to hers, his eyes half closed, listened to the pattering hoofs, the bleating, the tinkling bells.

Why should these recollections of Elena come back to him just now?--He resumed his way slowly up the steps, his feet heavy with fatigue, his knees giving way beneath him. Suddenly the thought of death flashed across his mind. 'What if I were killed, or received such a wound as to maim me for life?' But his thirst for life and pleasure caused his whole being to revolt against such a sinister possibility. 'I _must_ come off victorious!' he said to himself. And he began reviewing all the advantages that would fall to him from this second victory: the prestige of his success, the fame of his prowess, Ippolita's kisses, new loves, new pleasures, the gratification of new whims.

Presently, however, he bethought him of the necessary precautions for insuring his bodily vigour. He went to bed and slept soundly till he was awakened by the arrival of his seconds; took his customary shower-bath; had a strip of linoleum laid down and invited Santa Margherita and then Barbarisi to exchange a few pa.s.ses with him, during which he executed with precision several stop thrusts.

'In capital form!' the Baron congratulated him.

Sperelli then took two cups of tea and some biscuits, donned a very easy pair of trousers, comfortable shoes with low heels and a very slightly starched shirt; he prepared his gloves by moistening the palm slightly and rubbing in powdered resin; arranged a leather strap for fastening the guard to his wrist; examined the blade and the point of both rapiers; omitted no precaution, no detail.

When all was to his satisfaction--'Let us be going now,' he said; 'better be on the ground before the others. What about the doctor?'

'He will be waiting for us there.'

On the way down stairs they met Grimiti, who had come on behalf of the Marchesa d'Ateleta.

'I shall follow you to the Villa and then bring the news as quickly as possible to Francesca,' said he.

They all went down together. The Duke jumped into his buggy and the others entered a closed carriage. Andrea made no show of indifference or good spirits--to make jokes before engaging in a serious duel seemed to him execrably bad taste--but he was perfectly calm. He smoked and listened composedly to Santa Margherita and Barbarisi, who were discussing--apropos of a recent case in France--whether it was legitimate or not to use the left hand against an adversary. Now and again, he leaned forward to look out of the window.

On this May morning Rome shone resplendent under the caressing sun. Here a fountain lit up with its silvery laughter a little piazzetta still plunged in shadow; there the open gates of a palace disclosed a vista of courtyard with a background of portico and statues; from the baroque architecture of a brick church hung the decorations for the month of Mary. Under the bridge, the Tiber gleamed and glistened as it hurried away between the gray-green houses towards the island of San Bartolomeo.

After a short ascent, the whole city spread out before them, immense, imperial, radiant, bristling with spires and columns and obelisks, crowned with cupolas and rotundas, clean cut out of the blue like a citadel.

'_Ave Roma, moriturus te salutat!_' exclaimed Andrea Sperelli, throwing away the end of his cigarette. 'Though, to tell the truth, my dear fellows.' he added, 'a sword-thrust would decidedly inconvenience me this morning.'

They had reached the Villa Sciarra, already partially profaned by the builders of modern houses, and were pa.s.sing through an avenue of tall and slender laurels bordered by hedges of roses. Santa Margherita, putting his head out of the window, caught sight of another carriage standing in the drive before the villa.