Nino took her hand. "You don't know anything, Nancy," he said. "You don't even know that you are a vulture and a shark."

Nancy laughed. "Yes, but who is La Villari?"

"She is someone you have devoured," said Nino.

And, remembering the brazier of c.o.ke, he left for Naples by the next train; for, though he had a nose of putty, he had a heart of gold.

XIV

During the long, dreary journey in an empty carriage of the slow train Nino fought his battles and chastened his soul. He set his conscience on the empty seat before him and looked it in the face. The desires of his heart sat near him, and took his part. His conscience had a dirty face that irritated him; his desires were fair as lilies and had high treble voices that spoke loud. His conscience said nothing, only sat there showing its dirty face and irritating him.

By the time Bologna was reached the lilies had it all their own way.

After all he was young--well, comparatively young; thirty-one is young for a man--and he had his life before him, while Nunziata--well, she had lived her life. And she had had eight years of his: the eight best years, for after all at thirty-one a man is not young--well, not so young. His conscience was staring at him, so he changed argument.

Nunziata did not really love him any more, she had told him so a hundred times during the last two years; it was a burden, a chain of misery to them both. She had herself begged him to leave her after one of those well-remembered, never-ending scenes that were always occurring since she had finally abandoned the theatre for his sake.

She had said: "Go! I implore you to go! I cannot live like this any longer! For my sake, go!" So it was really in order to please her that he had gone.

The face of his conscience opposite him was looking dirtier than ever.

But the treble voices of his desires rang shrill: "He must not forget his duties to himself and to others. He had a duty to his father, who longed to have him near him, settled happily and normally; he had a duty to Valeria, who----" Here he quickly changed argument again. "He had a duty to Nancy, to little, innocent, wonderful Nancy, who understood nothing of the world; she must be saved from designing knaves, from struggling _litterateurs_ and poets who would like to marry her and use her vogue in order to scramble up to a reputation, from the professional _beau jeune homme_ like Aldo, who would break her heart.... It really was his duty----" The train slowed, shivered, and stopped. He was glad to get out, and rush to a hurried supper in the buffet, because the ugly face opposite him was more than he could stand.

All through the night in the slow train to Rome he fought his battles and chastened his soul, and the little ugly face said not a word, but looked at him.

When day dawned he had broken the lilies, and they lay, whiter than before, at his feet. And the face of his conscience was clean. When Rome was reached, where he had three hours to wait for the Naples express, he hurried into the telegraph-office and sent a message to Nunziata:

"Arriving this evening at nine. Forgive. Yours for ever, NINO."

Then, just as he was getting into the hotel omnibus, he learned that a special excursion train was leaving for Naples at once. He could arrive four hours sooner. He hastened back into the station, caught the train, and was already approaching Naples when La Villari received his telegram.

La Villari had just begun her luncheon, and the _spaghetti al burro e formaggio_ lay in a goodly heap of pale gold on her plate. She had just put her fork into them and begun to turn it round and round, when Teresa came in excitedly.

"A telegram, Ill.u.s.trissima," she said.

La Villari opened the telegram. "Misericordia!" she said. "He is coming back."

Teresa cleaned her hands on her ap.r.o.n. What? The Signorino? He was returning?

"Yes, to-night. At nine o'clock," sighed La Villari.

Well, let the Ill.u.s.trissima not allow the spaghetti to get cold. And Teresa sighed also, as she left the room and hustled the telegraph-boy off without giving him a tip.

They had been so happy without the Signorino. They had had such quiet, comfortable meals. The Ill.u.s.trissima had had no nerves, no convulsions, but a good appet.i.te and a pleasant temper. Now it would all begin again: the excitements, the tempers of the Ill.u.s.trissima; the dinner left to get cold while the Ill.u.s.trissima and the Signorino quarrelled; the rushings out of the Signorino; the tears of the Ill.u.s.trissima; the telephone messages; the visitors and relations to argue with and console the Ill.u.s.trissima; then the returnings of the Signorino; and supper for everybody in the middle of the night. It was not a life.

Teresa brought in the auburn cutlet a la Milanese. There! already it was beginning. The Ill.u.s.trissima had not eaten the spaghetti!

"Do not bother me with the spaghetti," said the Ill.u.s.trissima, who already had the nerves. "Let us think about this evening."

"Yes," said Teresa. "Shall we have vol-au-vent that His Excellency likes?"

"Oh, do not bother me with vol-au-vent!" cried the Ill.u.s.trissima. "Do you not understand that he must not find us like this?"

"Vossignoria will put on the blue crepe-de-chine gown," said Teresa; "and I will order the coiffeuse for six o'clock."

Yes, yes; but that was not sufficient. Nino must not find her sitting there waiting for him, as if she had no one in the world but him.

"Go away, Teresa, go away! I must think," she said. And Teresa went to her kitchen grumbling.

La Villari's views of life and her manner of dealing with situations were according to Sardou, Dumas, or D'Annunzio. Nino must either find her supine in a darkened room, with etiolated cheeks and blue shadows under her spent eyes; or then, after his arrival, she must enter, coming from some brilliant banquet, rose-crowned and laughing. She sees him!

She vacillates. Her jewelled hand clutches at her heart. "_Nino!_"--and he is at her feet.... Then he makes her a scene of jealousy. Where has she been? With whom? Where was she when his telegram arrived? Who sends her all these flowers? Pah! He throws them out of the window--and all is as it should be.

As it happened, there were no flowers in the room. So La Villari rang the bell and told Teresa to order fifty francs worth of white roses and tuberoses from the florist, to be brought as soon as possible, and the hair-dresser for six o'clock, and the brougham for seven.

"And, Teresa!..."

Teresa turned back with a dreary face.

"Remember that it was you who opened the telegram. I was out. I am always out. With many people, you understand."

Yes, Teresa understood. And with callous back and shuffling shoes she went away to order the flowers, and the brougham, and the hair-dresser.

La Villari unpinned her hair, put the greater part of it neatly on the dressing-table in readiness for the coiffeuse, rubbed a little lanoline round her eyes, and settled herself with Matilde Serao's "Indomani" to one more peaceful afternoon.

Love was not peaceful, it was agitating and uncomfortable; and keeping up the pretence of being twenty-eight when one is forty-five is a labour and a toil. Of course, she adored Nino; the mere thought of his ever tiring of her, or leaving her, brought visions of despair and vengeance, of vitriol and dagger to her mind. But oh! how she envied those placid women who surrender their youth submissively, and slip serenely into gentle middle-age as a ship glides into quiet waters. With her, because her lover was young, she must grasp and grapple with the engulfing years. She must clutch at her youth as a child clutches a wild bird fluttering to escape. Alas! when the child opens its fingers the prisoner is dead. Better let it fly when it will.

So thought Nunziata Villari. The feathers and the wings still lay in her hand, but youth, the bird, was dead.

She took up the book, and stifled thought under the blanket of Matilde Serao's warm prose.

The excursion train ran into Naples at five o'clock, just as a florist in the Strada Caracciolo was threading a wire into the green throat of the last white rose for the Ill.u.s.trissima. Fifty francs worth of roses in Naples in the month of June are enough to consummate the perfumed death in Freiligrath's "Blumenrache," and then enough to cover the maiden's coffin from wider to narrowest end. It took two men to carry them, tied in huge bunches, along the Strada Caracciolo to the Palazzo Imparato.

Nino from his cab saw two men bearing white flowers far ahead of him, and wondered vaguely for whom they might be.

Then he thought of Nunziata's face as he had last seen it--pallid, with a tortured smile, as she said good-bye. But now he would see her smile again, that pretty tilted smile that was still young....

(The men with the flowers had turned a corner. Nino's cab turned it, too, and there were the men again, marching before him.)

He had been a brute and a hound, but he would atone. He would do the right thing. Nunziata should not be left in tears again, nor again be driven to the little brazier of c.o.ke, like a love-sick grisette....

(The men with the white flowers were alongside. Now they were left behind.)

And now the carriage stopped at the door of the Palazzo Imparato. The driver handed the luggage down, and a waiting lazzarone grabbed and shouldered it. While Nino was paying the fare the men with the flowers came up, and Nino turned to glance at them as they pa.s.sed. _But they did not pa.s.s._ They turned into the Palazzo Imparato and vanished in the shadow of the gateway.

Nino's heart leaped up, and stood still. The lazzarone, watching him, saw tragedy in his face, and was satisfied that the tip would be a large one; for the lazzarone knew that despair is as generous as happiness.

Nino ran, blind with his terrors, up the wide flights of stairs. On Nunziata's landing the men with the flowers stood waiting.