He stooped and kissed her hand, held it for a moment or two in his own, and with a very faint "Good-bye," turned away and left her. He turned suddenly around after a few paces, and came back. "May I ask one question, Alice, before I go?"

"I don't know whether I shall answer it," said she, with a faint smile.

"I cannot afford to add jealousy to my other torments. Tell me, then--"

"Take care, sir, take care; your question may cost you more than you think of."

"Good-bye,--good-bye," said he, sadly, and departed. "Are the horses ready, Fenton?" asked he, as his servant came to meet him.

"Yes, sir; and Captain Lyle has been looking for you all over the garden."

"He's going,--he 's off, Bella," said Alice, as she sat down beside her sister's bed, throwing her bonnet carelessly down at her feet.

"Who is going?--who is off?" asked Bella, eagerly.

"Of course," continued Alice, following up her own thoughts, "to say 'Stay' means more than I like to be pledged to,--I couldn't do it."

"Poor Tony!--give him my love, Alice, and tell him I shall often think of him,--as often as ever I think of bygone days and all their happiness."

"And why must it be Tony that I spoke of?" said Alice, rising, while a deep crimson flush covered her face and brow. "I think Master Tony has shown us latterly that he has forgotten the long ago, and has no wish to connect us with thoughts of the future."

CHAPTER x.x.x. CONSPIRATORS

In one of those low-ceilinged apartments of a Parisian _hotel_ which modern luxury seems peculiarly to affect, decorating the walls with the richest hangings, and gathering together promiscuously objects of art and _virtu_, along with what can minister to voluptuous ease, Maitland and Caffarelli were now seated. They had dined, and their coffee stood before them on a table spread with a costly dessert and several bottles, whose length of neck and color indicated choice liquor.

They lounged in the easiest of chairs in the easiest of att.i.tudes, and, as they puffed their havannahs, did not ill-represent in tableau the luxurious self-indulgence of the age we live in. For let us talk as we will of progress and mental activity, be as boastful as we may about the march of science and discovery, in what are we so really conspicuous as in the inventions that multiply ease, and bring the means of indulgence within the reach of even moderate fortune?

As the wood fire crackled and flared on the ample hearth, a heavy plash of hail struck the window, and threatened almost to smash it.

"What a night!" said Maitland, drawing closer to the blaze. "I say, _Carlo mio_, it's somewhat cosier to sit in this fashion than be toddling over the Mont Cenis in a shabby old sledge, and listening to the discussion whether you are to spend the night in the 'Refuge No.

One, or No. Two.'"

"Yes," said Caffarelli, "it must have been a great relief to you to have got my telegram in Dublin, and to know that you need not cross the Alps."

"If I could only have been certain that I understood it aright, I 'd have gone straight back to the north from whence I came; but there was a word that puzzled me,--the word _calamita_. Now we have not yet arrived at the excellence of accenting foreign words in our telegraph offices; and as your most amiable and philosophical of all nations has but the same combination of letters to express an attraction and an affliction, I was sorely puzzled to make out whether you wrote with or without an accent on the last syllable. It made all the difference in the world whether you say events are a 'loadstone' or a 'misfortune.' I gave half an hour to the study of the pa.s.sage, and then came on."

"_Per Bacco!_ I never thought of that; but what, under any circ.u.mstances, would have induced you to go back again?"

"I fell in love!"

Caffarelli pushed the lamp aside to have a better view of his friend, and then laughed long and heartily. "Maso Arretini used often to say, 'Maitland will die a monk;' and I begin now to believe it is quite possible."

"Maso was a fool for his prediction. Had I meant to be a monk, I 'd have taken to the cowl when I had youth and vigor and dash in me, the qualities a man ought to bring to a new career. Ha! what is there so strange in the fact that I should fall in love?"

"Don't ask as if you were offended with me, and I 'll try and tell you."

"I am calm; go on."

"First of all, Maitland, no easy conquest would satisfy your vanity, and you'd never have patience to pursue a difficult one. Again, the objects that really have an attraction for you--such as Ambition and Power--have the same fascination for you that high play has for a gambler. You do not admit nor understand any other; and, last of all,--one is nothing if not frank in these cases,--you 'd never believe any woman was lovely enough, clever enough, or graceful enough to be worthy of Norman Maitland."

"The candor has been perfect. I 'll try and imitate it," said Maitland, filling his gla.s.s slowly, and slightly wetting his lips. "All you have just said, Carlo, would be unimpeachable if all women were your countrywomen, and if love were what it is understood to be in an Italian city; but there are such things in this dreary land of fog and snow-drift as women who do not believe intrigue to be the chief object of human existence, who have fully as much self-respect as they have coquetry, and who would regard no addresses so offensive as those that would reduce them to the level of a cla.s.s with which they would not admit companionship."

"Bastions of virtue that I never ask to lay siege to!" broke out the other, laughing.

"Don't believe it, Carlo. You'd like the campaign well, if you only knew how to conduct it. Why, it's not more than a week ago I quitted a country-house where there were more really pretty women than you could number in the crowd of one of your ball-rooms on either Arno or Tiber."

"And, in the name of Heaven, why didn't you bring over one of them at least, to strike us with wonderment and devotion?"

"Because I would not bring envy, malice, and jealousy to all south of the Alps; because I would not turn all your heads, or torment your hearts; and lastly, because--she would n't come. No, Carlo, she would n't come."

"And you really asked her?"

"Yes. At first I made the lamentable blunder of addressing her as I should one of your own dark-skinned damsels, but the repulse I met taught me better. I next tried the serious line, but I failed there also; not hopelessly, however,--at least, not so hopelessly as to deter me from another attempt. Yes, yes; I understand your smile, and I know your theory,--there never was a bunch of grapes yet that was worth going on tiptoe to gather."

"Not that, but there are scores within reach quite as good as one cares for," said Caffarelli, laughing. "What are you thinking of?" asked he, after a pause.

"I was thinking what possible hope there was for a nation of twenty millions of men, with temperament like yours,--fellows so ingrained in indolence that the first element they weigh in every enterprise was, how little trouble it was to cost them."

"I declare," said the Italian, with more show of energy, "I 'd hold life as cheaply as yourself if I had to live in your country,--breathe only fogs, and inhale nothing pleasanter than coal-smoke."

"It is true," said Maitland, gravely, "the English have not got climate,--they have only weather; but who is to say if out of the vicissitudes of our skies we do not derive that rare activity which makes us profit by every favorable emergency?"

"To do every conceivable thing but one."

"And what is that one?"

"Enjoy yourselves! Oh, _caro amico_, you do with regard to your pleasures what you do with your music,--you steal a little from the Continent, and always spoil it in the adaptation."

Maitland sipped his wine in half-sullen silence for some minutes, and then said, "You think then, really, we ought to be at Naples?"

"I am sure of it. Baretti,--do you forget Baretti? he had the wine-shop at the end of the Contrada St. Lucia."

"I remember him as a Caraorrista."

"The same; he is here now. He tells me that the Court is so completely in the hands of the Queen that they will not hear of any danger; that they laugh every time Cavour is mentioned; and now that both France and England have withdrawn their envoys, the King says openly, 'It is a pleasure to drive out on the Chiaja when one knows they 'll not meet a French gendarme or an English detective.'"

"And what does Baretti say of popular feeling?"

"He says the people would like to do something, though n.o.body seems to know what it ought to be. They thought that Milano's attempt t 'other day was clever, and they think it might n't be bad to blow up the Emperor, or perhaps the Pope, or both; but he also says that the Camorra are open to reason, and that Victor Emmanuel and Cavour are as legitimate food for an explosive sh.e.l.l as the others; and, in fact, any convulsion that will smash the shutters and lead to pillage must be good."

"You think Baretti can be depended on?"

"I know he can. He has been Capo Camorrista eight years in one of the vilest quarters of Naples; and if there were a suspicion of him, he'd have been stabbed long ago."

"And what is he doing here?"

"He came here to see whether anything could be done about a.s.sa.s.sinating the Emperor."