"What strange creatures men are!" she said satirically, "Even you, clever, and gifted with an insight into human nature, seem to be actually surprised that our poor, pretty little Sylvie looks ill! With half Rome declaring that she WAS the mistress of Fontenelle, and the other half swearing itself black in the face that she IS the mistress of Gherardi, she certainly ought to be very happy, ought she not?

Indeed, almost dancing with the joy and consolation of knowing how pleasant her 'Society' friends are making her life for her!"

Aubrey's heart beat violently.

"Princesse," he said, in a low tone of vibrating earnestness, "If I thought--if I could think such abominable lies were told of her . . ."

"Chut!" And the Princesse smiled rather sadly,--"It is not like you to 'pretend,' Mr. Leigh--You DO know,--you MUST know--that a coa.r.s.e discussion over her name was the cause of the duel between the Marquis Fontenelle and that miserable vaurien of the stage, Miraudin,--gossip generously lays the two deaths at her door--and the poor child is as innocent of harm as the lilies we have just seen left to die in the darkness of St. Cecilia's tomb. The fact is, she came to Rome to escape the libertinage and amorous persecution of Fontenelle; and she never knew till the day she heard of his death, that he had followed her. Nor did I. In fact, I asked him to be my escort to Rome, and he refused.

Naturally I imagined he was still in Paris. So we were all in the dark,--and as often happens in such cases, when the world does not know whom to blame for a disaster, it generally elects to punish the innocent. All the Saints we have heard about this morning, bear witness to THAT truth!"

Aubrey lifted his eyes and looked yearningly at the sylph-like figure of Sylvie walking a little ahead of him with her friend Angela.

"I thought," he said hesitatingly,--"I confess, I thought there might have been something between her and the late Marquis . . ."

"Of course there was something!" answered the Princesse impatiently, "Oh, mon Dieu! Plus de sottises! There always IS something where Sylvie is, Mr. Leigh! She cannot smile or sing, or turn her head, or raise her eyes, or smell a bunch of violets, without some one of your audacious s.e.x conceiving the idea of making himself agreeable and indispensable to her. And when she will not compromise herself--(is that not your convenient little phrase?)--she is judged much more severely than if she had done so! And do you know why? Because you men can never endure defeat in love-matters! You would rather spread abroad the rumour that you had conquered, than confess that your libertinism had been perceived and repulsed with indignation and scorn! And I will tell you another thing if you do not know it. In the frequent destruction of an innocent woman's reputation. it is a rejected suitor who generally starts the first rumour and hands the lie over to debased women, knowing that THEY may be trusted to keep it up!"

Aubrey flushed, and winced under the lash of her cutting words. "You are very cruel, Princesse!" he said, "Surely unnecessarily bitterly cruel!"

"Cher philosophe, I have loved!" she replied, "And that is why I am cruel. I have loved and have been deceived in love,--and that kind of thing often turns the most patient Griselda into an exceptionally fierce tiger-cat! I am not quite a tiger-cat,--but I confess I do not like one-sidedness in anything, Nature's tendency being to equalise--equalise--till we are all flattened down into one level,--the grave! At the present moment we are treading on a mixture of kings and saints and heroes,--all one soil you see, and rather marshy,--badly in need of draining at all times!" She laughed a little. "Frankly, I a.s.sure you, it is to me the most deplorable arrangement that a true woman should be destined to give all the pa.s.sion and love of her life to one man, while the same man scatters his worthless affections about like halfpence among dozens of drabs! My dear Mr. Leigh, do not frown at me in that tragic way! I am not blaming YOU! I am not in the least inclined to put you in the general category,--at least not at present.

You do not look like the ordinary man, though you may be for all that!

Expression is very deceptive!" She laughed again, then added, "Think of our sweet Angela, for instance! Unless a merciful Providence intervenes, she will marry Florian Varillo,--and no doubt he will make her invite Mademoiselle Pon-Pon to her house to dine and sleep!"

"She loves him!" said Aubrey simply.

"Yes, she loves him, because she deludes herself with the idea that he is worthy of love. But if she were to find him out her whole soul would indignantly repulse him. If she knew all _I_ know of him, she would rather embrace the mildewy skeleton of San Carlo Borromeo, with the great jewels glistening in his ghastly eye-sockets, than the well-fed, fresh coloured Florian Varillo!"

"If you fear for her happiness, why not warn her?" asked Aubrey.

"Warn her against the one creature she loves in the world?" said the Princesse, "Thanks very much! I would rather not. She would never speak to me again, and I should lose every chance of comforting or helping her when affliction comes--as of course it is bound to come! Each individual man or woman makes his or her own life,--we poor 'friends'

can only stand and look on, waiting till they get into the muddle that we have always foreseen, and then doing our best to drag them out of it; but G.o.d Himself I think, could not save them from falling into the muddle in the first place. As for Sylvie, I have advised her to leave Rome and go back to Budapest at once."

Aubrey started.

"Why?"

"Why? Can you ask? Because she is misjudged here on account of Fontenelle's death, and calumniated and wronged; because the women hate her for her beauty and wealth, and the men hate her too because she will not flatter them by accepting their ridiculous attentions. She will be much happier in her own home,--such a grand old castle it is!--a cl.u.s.ter of towers and broad battlements, with purple mountains in the background, and tall pine-trees everywhere . . ."

"It must be lonely for her!" said Aubrey quickly, "She is so mignonne--so caressable--so made for love and care and tenderness--"

Here he broke off, vexed with himself for having said so much,--and his face flushed warmly. The Princesse stopped in her walk and looked at him straightly.

"Mr. Leigh," she said, "I think--I hope you are an honest man! And do you know the best advice I can give you?"

He answered no word, but his eyes questioned her meaning.

"Remain honest!" she said, smiling an answer to his look, "Be true to your own instincts and highest impulses. Do not allow yourself to be swayed by opinion or rumour; stand clear of both,--and treat even a woman as you would treat a man!--squarely--candidly--faithfully!"

She moved on and rejoined her companions, and Aubrey followed. The Comtesse Hermenstein's carriage was waiting for her, and the Comtesse herself was just entering it with Angela Sovrani as he came up.

"Good-bye, Mr. Leigh," she said gently, extending her hand, "I may not see you again perhaps. I am going home to Buda this week."

"Must you go?" he asked, looking earnestly into the lovely eyes, lovelier than ever in their present sorrowful languor.

"I think so," she answered, "I may wait to see Angela's great picture, but--"

"Do not hurry your departure," said Aubrey, speaking in a softer tone--"Tell me--may I come and see you this evening,--just for a few moments?"

His eyes rested on her tenderly, and at the pa.s.sion of his glance her own fell.

"If you like--yes," she murmured. And just then the Princesse D'Agramont approached.

"May I drive you home, Mr. Leigh?" she asked.

"Thank you!" And Aubrey smiled as he accepted the invitation.

And presently the carriages started, Sylvie's light victoria leading, and the Princesse D'Agramont's landeau following. Half way back to Rome a picturesque little beggar, whose motley-coloured rags scarcely clothed his smooth brown limbs, suddenly sprang out of a corner where he had been in hiding with a great basket of violets, and threw the whole fragrant heap dexterously into Sylvie's carriage, crying out,

"Bellissima Signora! Bellissima! Bellissima! Un soldo! Un soldo!"

Laughingly Sylvie threw out four or five francs, but Aubrey, carried beyond all prudence by catching a glimpse of Sylvie's pretty head gleaming above the great purple cl.u.s.ter of violets she had caught and held, tossed a twenty-franc piece to the clever little rascal who had by "suiting the action to the word, and the word to the action" as Italians so often do, gained a week's earnings in one successful morning.

And the evening came, misty but mild, with the moon peering doubtfully through a fleecy veil of fine floating vapour, which, gathering flashes of luminance from the silver orb, turned to the witch-lights of an opal,--and Aubrey made his way to the Casa D'Angeli, which in his own mind he called the "Palais D'lffry," in memory of the old Breton song Sylvie had sung. On giving his name he was at once shown up into the great salon, now made beautiful by the picturesque and precious things acc.u.mulated there, and arranged with the individuality and taste of the presiding spirit. She was quite alone, seated in a deep easy chair near the fire,--and her dress, of some faint sh.e.l.l-pink hue, clung about her in trailing soft folds which fell in a glistening heap of crushed rose-tints at her feet, making a soft rest for her tiny dog who was luxuriously curled therein. The firelight shed a warm glow around her,--flickering brightly on her fair hair, on her white arms, and small hands where one or two diamonds flashed like drops of dew,--and Aubrey, as he entered, was conscious of an overpowering sense of weakness, poverty of soul, narrowness of mind, incompetency of attainment,--for the tranquillity and sweet perfection of the picture his eyes rested upon--a picture lovelier than even the Gretchen which tempted Goethe's Faust to h.e.l.l,--made him doubtful of his own powers--mistrustful of his own worth. In his life of self-renunciation among the poorer cla.s.ses, he had grown accustomed to pity women,--to look upon them more or less as frail, broken creatures needing help and support,--sometimes to be loved, but far more often to be despised and neglected. But Sylvie, Comtesse Hermenstein, was not of these,--he knew, or thought he knew that she needed nothing. Beauty was hers, wealth was hers, independence of position was hers; and if she had given a smile or nod of encouragement, lovers were hers to command.

What was he that he should count himself at all valuable in her sight, even as the merest friend? These despondent thoughts were doubly embittered by the immense scorn he now entertained for himself that he should have been such a fool as to listen for a moment to the silly and malignant gossip circulated among the envious concerning a woman who was admittedly the superior of those who calumniated her. For clearest logic shows that wherever superiority exists, inferiority rises up in opposition, and the lower endeavours to drag the higher down. Such vague reflections, coursing rapidly through his, brain, gave him an air of embarra.s.sment and awkwardness not by any means common to him, as he advanced, and Sylvie, half rising from her chair, greeted him in her turn with a little touch of shyness which sent a wave of soft colour over her face, and made her look ten times prettier than ever.

"I am glad to find you alone--" he began.

"Yes? I am generally alone," answered Sylvie with a little smile--"except for Katrine--she would be here to welcome you this evening, but she has a very bad neuralgic headache--"

"I am very sorry," murmured Aubrey, with hypocritical earnestness, all the while devoutly blessing Madame Bozier's timely indisposition. "She is a great sufferer from neuralgia, I believe?"

"Yes . . ." and Sylvie, to divert the cloud of embarra.s.sment that seemed to be deepening rather than dispersing for them both, rang the bell with a pretty imperativeness that was rather startling to Aubrey's nerves.

"What is that for?" he enquired irrelevantly.

"Only for coffee!"

Their eyes met,--the mutual glance was irresistible, and they both laughed. Sylvia's Arab page entered in response to her summons, a pretty dusky-skinned lad of some twelve years old, picturesquely arrayed in scarlet, and bearing a quaintly embossed gilt salver with coffee prepared in the Arabian fashion.

"Do you like coffee made in this way?" asked Sylvie, as she handed Aubrey his cup.

Aubrey's eyes were fixed on the small white hand that looked so dainty, curled over the trifle of Sevres china that was called a coffee-cup,--and he answered vaguely,

"This way? Oh, yes--of course--any way!"

A faint smile lifted the rosy corners of Sylvie's mouth as she heard this incoherent reply--and the Arab page rolled his dark eyes up at his fair mistress with a look of dog-like affectionate enquiry, as to whether perhaps some fault in his serving had caused that little playful enigmatical expression on the face which he, in common with many others of his s.e.x, thought the fairest in the world. The coffee dispensed and the page gone, there followed a spell of silence. The fire burned cheerily in the deep chimney, and the great logs cracked and spluttered as much as to say, "If these two curious people can find nothing to talk about, we can!" And then, just as luck would have it, a burning ember suddenly detached itself from the rest and fell out blazing on the hearth--Sylvie sprang up to push it back, and Aubrey to a.s.sist her,--and then, strange to relate--only the occult influences of attraction know how it happened--the little difficulty of the burning ember brought those two other burning embers of humanity together--for Aubrey, hardly conscious of what he did, caught Sylvie's swaying, graceful figure as she rose from bending over the fire, closely in his arms, with a pa.s.sion which mounted like a wave to tempest height, and knew no further hesitation or obstacle.

"Sylvie! Sylvie! I love you!--my darling! I love you!--"

No answer came, for there was none needed. Her face was hidden on his breast--but he felt rather than saw the soft white arms and dainty hands moving tremblingly upwards, till they closed round him in the dear embrace which meant for him from henceforth the faith and love and devotion of one true heart through all the sorrows and perplexities as well as the joys and triumphs of life. And when, with his heart beating, and all his pulses thrilling with the new ecstacy that possessed him, he whispered a word or two that caused the pretty golden head to raise itself timidly--the beautiful dark blue eyes to grow darker with the tenderness that overflowed the soul behind them, and the sweet lips to meet his own in a kiss, as soft and fragrant as though a rose had touched them, it was small blame to him that for a moment he lost his self-possession, and drawing her closer in his arms, showered upon her not only kisses, but whispered words of all that tender endearment which is judged as "foolish" by those who have never had the privilege of being made the subject of such priceless and exquisite "fooling." And when they were calmer, and began to think of the possibility of the worthy Bozier suddenly recovering from her neuralgia and coming to look after her pupil,--or the undesired but likely entrance of a servant to attend to the lamps, or to put fresh wood on the fire, they turned each from the other, with reluctance and half laughing decorum,--Sylvie resuming her seat by the fire, and Aubrey flinging himself with happy recklessness in a low fauteuil as near to her as could be permitted for a gentleman visitor, who might be considered as enthusiastically expounding literature or science to a fascinating hostess. And somehow, as they talked, their conversation did gradually drift from pa.s.sionate personalities into graver themes affecting wider interests, and Aubrey, warming into eloquence, gave free vent to his thoughts and opinions, till noticing that Sylvie sat very silent, looking into the fire somewhat gravely, he checked himself abruptly, fancying that perhaps he was treading on what might be forbidden ground with her whose pleasure was now his law. As he came to this sudden pause, she turned her soft eyes towards him tenderly, with a smile.

"Well!" she said, in the pretty foreign accent which distinguished her almost perfect English, "And why do you stop speaking? You must not be afraid to trust me with your closest thoughts,--because how can our love be perfect if you do not?"