XVII.

In one of the few remaining streets of Rome which the vandal hand of the modern builder and restorer has not meddled with, stands the "Casa D'Angeli", a sixteenth-century building fronted with wonderfully carved and widely projecting balconies--each balcony more or less different in design, yet forming altogether in their entirety the effect of complete sculptural harmony. The central one looks more like a cathedral shrine than the embrasure of a window, for above it angels' heads look out from the enfolding curves of their own tall wings, and a huge shield which might serve as a copy of that which Elaine kept bright for Lancelot, is poised between, bearing a lily, a cross, and a heart engraven in its quarterings. Here, leaning far forward to watch the intense gold of the Roman moon strike brightness and shadow out of the dark uplifted pinions of her winged stone guardians, stood Sylvie Hermenstein, who, in her delicate white attire, with the moonbeams resting like a halo on her soft hair, might have easily pa.s.sed for some favoured saint whom the sculptured angels were protecting. And yet she was only one whom the world called "a frivolous woman of society, who lived on the admiration of men". So little did they know her,--so little indeed does the world know about any of us. It was true that Sylvie, rich, lovely, independent, and therefore indifferent to opinions, lived her own life very much according to her own ideas,--but then those ideas were far more simple and unworldly than anybody gave her credit for. She to whom all the courts of Europe were open, preferred to wander in the woods alone, reading some favourite book, to almost any other pleasure,--and as for the admiration which she won by a look or turn of her head wherever she went, nothing in all the world so utterly bored her as this influence of her own charm. For she had tried men and found them wanting. With all the pent-up pa.s.sion of her woman's soul she longed to be loved,--but what she understood by love was a much purer and more exalted emotion than is common among men and women. She was suffering just now from an intense and overpowering ennui. Rome was beautiful, she averred, but dull. Stretching her fair white arms out over the impervious stone-angels she said this, and more than this, to someone within the room, who answered her in one of the most delightfully toned voices in the world--a voice that charmed the ear by its first cadences, and left the listener fascinated into believing that its music was the expression of a perfectly harmonious mind.

"You seem very discontented," said the voice, speaking in English, "But really your pathway is one of roses!"

"You think so?" and Sylvie turned her head quickly round and looked at her companion, a handsome little man of some thirty-five years of age, who stretching himself lazily full length in an arm-chair was toying with the silky ears of an exceedingly minute j.a.panese spaniel, Sylvie's great pet and constant companion. "Oh, mon Dieu! You, artist and idealist though you are--or shall I say as you are supposed to be," and she laughed a little, "you are like all the rest of your s.e.x! Just because you see a woman able to smile and make herself agreeable to her friends, and wear pretty clothes, and exchange all the bon mots of badinage and every-day flirtation, you imagine it impossible for her to have any sorrow!"

"There is only one sorrow possible to a woman," replied the gentleman, who was no other than Florian Varillo, the ideal of Angela Sovrani's life, smiling as he spoke with a look in his eyes which conveyed an almost amorous meaning.

Sylvie left the balcony abruptly, and swept back into the room, looking a charming figure of sylph-like slenderness and elegance in her clinging gown of soft white satin showered over with lace and pearls.

"Only one sorrow!" she echoed, "And that is--?"

"Inability to win love, or to awaken desire!" replied Varillo, still smiling.

The pretty Comtesse raised her golden head a little more proudly, with the air of a lily lifting itself to the light on its stem--her deep blue eyes flashed.

"I certainly cannot complain on that score!" she said, with a touch of malice as well as coldness--"But the fact that men lose their heads about me does not make me in the least happy."

"It should do so!" and Varillo set the little j.a.panese dog carefully down on the floor, whereupon it ran straight to its mistress, uttering tiny cries of joy, "There is no sweeter triumph for a woman than to see men subjugated by her smile, and intimidated by her frown;--to watch them burning themselves like moths in her clear flame, and dying at her feet for love of her! The woman who can do these things is gifted with the charm which makes or ruins life,--few can resist her,--she draws sensitive souls as a magnet draws the needle,--and the odd part of it all is that she need not have any heart herself--she need not feel one pulse of the pa.s.sion with which she inspires others--indeed it is better that she should not. The less she is moved herself, the greater is her fascination. Love clamours far more incessantly and pa.s.sionately at a closed gate than an open one!"

Sylvie was silent for a minute or two looking at him with something of doubt and disdain. The room they were in was one of those wide and lofty apartments which in old days might have been used for a prince's audience chamber, or a dining hall for the revelry of the golden youth of Imperial Rome. The ceiling, supported by eight slender marble columns, was richly frescoed with scenes from Ariosto's poems, some of the figures being still warm with colour and instinct with life--and on the walls were the fading remains of other pictures, the freshest among them being a laughing Cupid poised on a knot of honeysuckle, and shooting his arrow at random into the sky. Ordinarily speaking, the huge room was bare and comfortless to a degree,--but the Comtesse Sylvie's wealth, combined with her good taste, had filled it with things that made it homelike as well as beautiful. The thickest velvet pile carpets laid over the thickest of folded mattings, covered the marble floors, and deprived them of their usual chill,--great logs of wood burned cheerfully in the wide chimney, and flowers, in every sort of quaint vase or bowl, made bright with colour and blossom all dark and gloomy corners, and softened every touch of melancholy away. A grand piano stood open,--a mandoline tied with bright ribbons, lay on a little table near a cl.u.s.ter of roses and violets,--books, music, drawings, bits of old drapery and lace were so disposed as to hide all sharp corners and forbidding angles,--and where the frescoes on the wall were too damaged to be worth showing even in outline, some fine old Flemish tapestry covered the defect. Sylvie herself, in the exquisite clothing which she always made it her business to wear, was the brilliant completion of the general picturesqueness,--and Florian Varillo seemed to think so as he looked at her with the practised underglance of admiration which is a trick common to Italians, and which some women accept as a compliment and others resent as an insult.

"Do you not agree with me?" he said persuasively, with a smile which showed his fine and even teeth to perfection, "When the chase is over the hunters go home tired! What a man cannot have, that very thing is what he tries most to obtain!"

"You speak from experience, I suppose," said Sylvie, moving slowly across the room towards the fire, and caressing her little dog which she held nestled under her rounded chin like a ball of silk, "And yet you, more than most men, have everything you can want in this world--but I suppose you are not satisfied--not even with Angela!"

"Angela is a dear little woman!" said Florian, with an air of emotional condescension, "The dearest little woman in the world! And she is really clever."

"Clever!" echoed Sylvie, "Is that all?"

"Cara Contessa, is not that enough?"

"Angela is a genius," averred Sylvie, with warmth and energy, "a true genius!--a great,--a sublime artist!"

"Che Che!" and Varillo smiled, "How delightful it is to hear one woman praise another! Women are so often like cats spitting and hissing at each other, tearing at each other's clothes and reputations,--clothes even more than reputations,--that it is really quite beautiful to me to hear you admire my Angela! It is very generous of you!"

"Generous of me!" and the Comtesse Hermenstein looked him full in the eyes, "Why I think it an honour to know her--a privilege to touch her hand! All Europe admires her--she is one of the world's greatest artists."

"She paints wonderfully well,--for a woman," said Varillo lazily, "But there is so much in that phrase, cara Contessa, 'for a woman'. Your charming s.e.x often succeeds in doing very clever and pretty things; but in a man they would not be considered surprising. You fairy creatures are not made for fame--but for love!"

The Comtesse glanced him up and down for a moment, then laughed musically.

"And for desertion, and neglect as well!" she said, "And sometimes for bestowing upon YOUR charming s.e.x every fortune and every good blessing, and getting kicked for our pains! And sometimes it happens that we are permitted the amazing honour of toiling to keep you in food and clothing, while you jest at your clubs about the uselessness of woman's work in the world! Yes, I know! Have you seen Angela's great picture?"

Again Florian smiled.

"Great? No! I know that the dear little girl has fixed an enormous canvas up in her studio, and that she actually gets on a ladder to paint something upon it;--but it is always covered,--she does not wish me to see it till it is finished. She is like a child in some things, and I always humour her. I have not the least desire to look at her work till she herself is willing to show it to me. But in myself I am convinced she is trying to do too much--it is altogether too large an attempt."

"What are YOU doing?" asked Sylvie abruptly.

"Merely delicate trifles,--little mosaics of art!" said Varillo with languid satisfaction, "They may possibly please a connoisseur,--but they are quite small studies."

"You have the same model you had last year?" queried Sylvie.

Their eyes met, and Varillo shifted uneasily in his chair.

"The same," he replied curtly.

Again Sylvie laughed.

"Immaculate creature!" she murmured, "The n.o.blest of her s.e.x, of course! Men always call the women who pander to their vices 'n.o.ble'."

Varillo flushed an angry red.

"You are pleased to be sarcastic, fair lady." he said carelessly, "I do not understand--"

"No? You are not usually so dense with me, though to those who do not know you as well as I do, you sometimes appear to be the very stupidest of men! Now be frank!--tell me, is not Pon-Pon one of the 'n.o.ble'

women?"

"She is a very good creature," averred Varillo gently, and with an air that was almost pious,--"She supports her family entirely on her earnings."

"How charming of her!" laughed Sylvie, "And so exceptional a thing to do, is it not? My dressmaker does the same thing,--she 'supports' her family; but respectably! And just think!--if ever your right hand loses its cunning as a painter, Angela will be able to 'support' YOU!"

"Always Angela!" muttered Varillo, beginning to sulk, "Cannot you talk of something else?"

"No,--not for the moment! She is an interesting subject,--to ME! She will arrive in Rome to-morrow night, and her uncle Cardinal Bonpre, will be with her, and they will all stay at the Sovrani Palace, which seems to me like a bit of the Vatican and an old torture-chamber rolled into one! And, talking of this same excellent Cardinal, they have almost canonized him at the Vatican,--almost, but not quite."

"For what reason?"

"Oh, have you not heard? It appears he performed a miracle in Rouen, curing a child who had been a cripple ever since babyhood, and making him run about as well and strong as possible. One prayer did it, so it is said,--the news reached the Vatican some days ago; our charming Monsignor Gherardi told me of it. The secretary of the Archbishop of Rouen brought the news personally to the Holy Father."

"I do not believe it," said Varillo indifferently, "The days of miracles are past. And from what I know, and from what Angela has told me of her uncle, Cardinal Bonpre, he would never lend himself to such nonsense."

"Well, I only tell you what is just now the talk at the Vatican," said Sylvie, "Your worthy uncle-in-law that is to be, may be Pope yet! Have you heard from Angela?"

"Every day. But she has said nothing about this miracle."

"Perhaps she does not know,"--and Sylvie began to yawn, and stretch her white arms above her head lazily, "Oh, DIO MIO! How terribly dull is Rome!"

"How long have you been here, Contessa?"

"Nearly a week! If I am not more amused I shall go away home to Budapest."

"But how is one to amuse you?" asked Varillo, sitting down beside her and endeavouring to take her hand. She drew it quickly from him.

"Not in that way!" she said scornfully, "Is it possible that you can be so conceited! A woman says she is dull and bored, and straightway the nearest man imagines his uncouth caresses will amuse her! TIENS TIENS!

When will you understand that all women are not like Pon-Pon?"