"Pray do."

"Very well. Last month in an Italian city----"

"Florence, naturally, I notice that you frequently go there."

"Yes, Florence. A friend of mine, a painter, went there to live three years ago, with his wife, a woman who would not perhaps be called beautiful, but who is really full of charm and grace. When my travels bring me in their neighbourhood I never miss an occasion to see them, for we are very old friends. He and I, you see, were young together for six months. He tells me everything, and I tell him many things. Philip, we will call him that, if you like, made a love match which, as it happened, was excellent from a worldly standpoint, too. They were the most utterly devoted couple for nearly four years. That is a long while.

Eighteen months ago, on one of those journeys to Florence which you have noticed, I easily detected that Philip's wife had a lover. A young fellow, an Italian n.o.ble with a great name and a slender purse, beautiful as a young wild animal crouching for game--well dressed, though not as quietly as could be, with a pretty talent for sculpture, which he had the good sense never to mention. Their art had brought the two men together, and Alice--we will take the chances of calling Philip's wife by that name--had, I do not know exactly how, come under a new attraction, the strength of which increased as time, through the monotony of habit, blunted the formerly supreme charm of her husband.

"On his side, Philip had gradually returned to studio 'affairs,' giving as an excuse his research after forms, att.i.tudes, and colours, during that relaxing of the body which follows the strain of the model's pose, and is like life after death. He confessed all this to me without reserve, obviously satisfied that his wife, whose 'angelic sweetness'

and 'tact' he could not sufficiently praise--was willing to leave him a free field for his fancies.

"'I still love her!' he said, in all sincerity. 'But I have to think of my painting, do I not?'

"Giovanni, naturally, had a great admiration for Philip's talent, and made no secret of it. As for Alice, she regarded her husband as nothing less than a genius. When Philip was dissatisfied with his work he was frankly unbearable. He indulged in grumbling and complaining and bursts of anger, followed by long periods of depression. If, on the other hand, he had succeeded in satisfying himself, it was worse still, for then one had to endure the recital of the entire performance, down to the least trifling detail of composition or execution. At first one might listen with pleasure, or at least benevolence. But the wearisome repet.i.tion from morning until night finally became tedious, even exasperating, when Philip, with a childish insistence, invited replies, denials, the better to confound his opponent. The docile Giovanni and the sincerely admiring Alice lent themselves resignedly to these gymnastic exercises of patience, but when days and days had been spent in the occupation, both, exhausted by their efforts, must have longed in body and soul for a distraction more or less in accordance with current social customs. As might have been expected, they found it in each other, and from that moment peace descended upon the happy home.

"When I discovered the affair between Alice and Giovanni in the course of a visit to Fiesole, where I came upon them suddenly in such a state of blind absorption that they did not even raise their eyes at the sound of my footsteps, I judged that pa.s.sion was at flood tide. They did not even trouble to conceal themselves, so that had I not been careful, I should not have escaped the annoyance of an encounter, the revelations of which could hardly have been blinked. I took the course of going often to see Philip at his studio, where he had an important piece of work under way, and I was able to leave town without disturbing the happy quietude of all concerned.

"On my return the following year it seemed to me at first that nothing had changed in the arrangement of which I had the secret. Still, Philip seemed to me less absorbed in his art. I often caught him with his eyes obstinately fixed upon his wife, who, while avoiding them, seemed troubled by the obsession of his gaze. Did he suspect something? I did not long entertain this idea, for he talked to me with such warmth about Alice, that I could not restrain an exclamation of surprise.

"'G.o.d forgive me, Philip,' I cried. 'You are in love! And with your wife! What has happened?'

"'Nothing' he said. 'I have never ceased to love her.'

"And one confidence leading to another, I learned that a flirtation by every rule was going on between the two. For a year they had been living in separate apartments. At first the doors had been on the latch, but later they had definitely been locked. One day, for no particular reason, Philip had wondered why, and found no answer. Alice, when questioned, had had nothing to say, but 'Not now--later,' which could not fill the function of reasons. That another should have won the heart which belonged to him could never have occurred to Philip. But as his mind and senses became insistent, sentiment woke up, too. So that the inconstant husband began a definite siege of the unfaithful wife.

"Alice appeared to be flattered by the homage, but held back by a sense of duty toward her lover. As for Giovanni, confident in the stability of his dominion, he was entertained by the performance in which his vanity saw nothing but an innocent game started by Alice for the sake of keeping him on the alert. It was Philip, and no longer Giovanni, who filled Alice's drawing room with flowers. Giovanni amusingly called my attention to this detail, with the fine confidence of a man sure of his power. He was, after all, fond of Philip, and pitied him for his wasted pains.

"I went to spend six months in Rome, and on my way back to Paris, stopped for a week in Florence. I was convinced at once and beyond a doubt that the legitimate betrayal had been consummated, and that the blind lover Giovanni was being cynically duped. Alice had become her husband's mistress. I must add, that though the factors were inverted, the sum of happiness appeared the same. Contentment continued to reign in Philip's household, as it had not ceased to do since his wedding day, thanks to the three successive combinations. I even judged that this time there was a chance of it becoming a settled condition, for Philip no longer bored us with his pictures, being completely absorbed in the business of making himself agreeable to his wife, for whom the pleasure of the conjugal affair was enhanced by the delicately perverse spice of the secret connected with Giovanni. The value of his conquest rose appreciably in Giovanni's eyes at sight of Philip in love, and he peacefully admired as his achievement the perfect contentment of the household. He was even beginning to cast his eyes about him, and I was not too greatly surprised when I saw him disposed to make love to me.

Everybody's destiny was sealed. The divorce between Giovanni and Alice which, I suppose, already existed in fact, would soon be formally acknowledged.

"I was in the habit of going at nightfall to sit in the Loggia dei Lanzi to see all Florence pa.s.s on its way home, for has not the Piazza della Signoria for centuries and centuries been the town's general meeting ground? I have made curious observations there. After a glance at the Perseus, I used to go and sit on the upper one of the steps that make seats like those of an amphitheatre against the long back wall, and there, hidden in the shadow, screened from view by the famous group of the Rape of the Sabines, gaze about me, dream, and wait for chance to send an inspiration or a friendly face to tear me from my thoughts.

"One evening I had lingered in my hiding place. Darkness had come.

Ammanati's Neptune and Gian Bologna's Cosimo peopled the night with motionless ghosts. Suddenly two shapes rose under the arches, a man and a woman with arms entwined. They glided whispering toward the Sabine voluptuously struggling in the arms of her new master, and there, out of sight of the rare pa.s.sers, but fully in my sight, clasped each other in a long embrace. Finally I saw their faces. They were Philip and Alice, who, driven from home by Giovanni's presence, had come to hide in the public square and make love.

"'Giovanni must have been surprised,' Philip was saying, 'at not finding us in. But really, he is too indiscreet.'

"'Do you know what you ought to do?' asked Alice, after a silence, 'You ought to advise him to take a little journey to Rome--or elsewhere.'

"'A good idea. I will do so.'

"Two weeks later Giovanni came to see me in Paris, and made amorous proposals to me. I still have to laugh when I think of his discomfited face at the sweeping courtesy I made him. It happened only three days ago. What do you say to my story?"

"I should have to know the end of it."

"Nothing ever ends. Everything keeps on."

"Well, it is an exception, that is all I can say."

"I admit it. But out of what are rules made, if you please? Is it not out of exceptions when there are enough of them? I bring my contribution. You ought in return to tell me some fine story of absolute monogamic fidelity."

"Such things exist."

"a.s.suredly. I know a case. Never were two mortals more unhappy. Their whole life was one prolonged battle."

"From which you conclude----?"

"That we are all exceptions, my dear friend, and that we all establish our great intangible laws only for other people, reserving the right to take or to leave as much of them for ourselves as we choose. Good luck.

Good-bye!"

XXIV

A HUNTING ACCIDENT

I again met the charming woman to whom I owe the story of the Florentine love affairs just related.

"What news of Don Giovanni?" I asked.

"I saw him yesterday, by chance. He confessed that he did not know the reason of his exile. I gently insinuated that the husband might have something to do with it. The idea made him laugh, and he answered: 'Anything is likelier than that!' which made me laugh in my turn."

"All blind, then?"

"And the result: Peace and happiness."

"And clear vision?"

"Clear vision would simply mean tragedy, because of each one regarding his own infidelities as unimportant, only to reach the unexpected conclusion that those of his partner are unforgivable crimes. Not logical, but very human."

"And do you not think that conjugal fidelity is human, too?"

"Excuse me, I expressly told you that I had once seen a case of it."

"And might one hear the story of this solitary case?"

"An uneventful drama. Nothing is less romantic than virtue. You must be aware of that."

"But does happiness lie in romance?"

"That I cannot say. Possibly, because the reality will never equal the dream. At all events, my faithful pair were the most unhappy mortals I have ever known."

"Do tell me about them."

"Oh, it is very simple. You know that I was brought up in England, near the little town of Dorking. I still have friends there whom I visit occasionally, when I want a change from Italy. Surrey is a picturesque region, where lazy rivers wind their way to the sea between green banks, through wide, fertile valleys at the foot of wooded hills. Everywhere woods and streams, and ravines crested with yews and ancient oaks. Pale, misty skies spread a mother-of-pearl canopy over the wide expanses of thick gra.s.s. It is a fox hunting country, and I humbly confess that there are to my mind few pleasures in life equal to the wild intoxication of a mad, aimless gallop, in which, what with hedges and ditches, rivers and precipices, one risks breaking one's neck a hundred times a day. You will from current pictures of it get a fairly good idea of the sport. It is a headlong rush to get--one does not clearly know where. Nothing stops one, nothing furnishes a sufficient reason for turning back. Onward, and still onward! The horses themselves are infected with the general madness. Accidents make no difference. A fallen horse scrambles to his feet again, an unseated rider gets back into the saddle. Some are carried home on stretchers. At night the fallen are counted. In three curt words their friends sympathize with them for having to wait three weeks before going at it again.

"A few years ago, in one of these hunting tumults, I stopped to get my breath after a long gallop on my cob. I was on a wide heath overlooking the valley that ends at the red spires of Dorking. A silvery river, whose name I forget, and a sprinkling of pools set patches of sky in the vast stretch of flowering green. At the horizon a tower is seen, famous in the district, a memorial of the whimsey of a pious personage, who had himself buried there head downward so as to find himself standing upright on the day of the resurrection, when, it seems, the world will be upside down.