Casa Braccio Part 42

She sighed, and in the stillness that followed the little ivory fan rattled as she opened and shut it. To his ear, the tone in which she had spoken had rung false. If only he could have heard her voice speaking as it had once sounded, he must have been touched.

"Yes," she continued. "You loved me, or at least you made me think you did. I was young and I believed you. You do not even say it now. Perhaps because you know how hard it would be to make me believe you."

"No. That is not the reason."

She waited a moment, for it was not the answer she had expected.

"Angelo--" she began, and waited, but he said nothing, though he looked at her. "It is not true, it cannot be true!" she said, suddenly turning her face away, for there was a bitter humiliation in it.

"It is much better to say it at once," he said, with the supernaturally calm indifference which sometimes comes upon very sensitive people when they are irritated beyond endurance. "I did love you, or I should not have married you. But I do not love you any longer. I am sorry. I wish I did."

"And you dare to tell me so!" she cried, turning upon him suddenly.

A moment later she was leaning forward, covering her face with her hands, and speaking through them.

"You have the heart to tell me so, after all I have been to you--the devotion of years, the tenderness, the love no man ever had of any woman! Oh, G.o.d! It is too much!"

"It is said now. It is of no use to go back to a lie," observed Reanda, with an indifference that would have seemed diabolical even to himself, had he believed her outbreak to be quite genuine. "Of what use would it be to pretend again?"

"You admit that you have only pretended to love me?" She raised her flushed face and gleaming eyes.

"Of late--if you call it a pretence--"

"Oh, not that--not that! I have seen it--but at first. You did love me.

Say that, at least."

"Certainly. Why should I have married you?"

"Yes--why? In spite of her, too--it is not to be believed."

"In spite of her? Of whom? Are you out of your mind?"

Gloria laughed in a despairing sort of way.

"Do not tell me that Donna Francesca ever wished you to be married!" she said.

"She brought us together. You know it. It is the only thing I could ever reproach her with."

"She made you marry me?"

"Made me? No! You are quite mad."

He stamped his foot impatiently, and turned away to walk up and down again. His cigar had gone out, but he gnawed at it angrily. He was amazed at what he could still bear, but he was fast losing his head. The mad desire to strangle her tingled in his hands, and the light of the lamp danced when he looked at it.

"She has made you do so many things!" said Gloria.

Her tone had changed again, growing hard and scornful, when she spoke of Donna Francesca.

"What has she made me do that you should speak of her in that way?"

asked Reanda, angrily, re-crossing the room.

"She has made you hate me--for one thing," Gloria answered.

"That is not true!" Reanda could hardly breathe, and he felt his voice growing thick.

"Not true! Then, if not she, who else? You are with her there all day--she talks about me, she finds fault with me, and you come home and see the faults she finds for you--"

"There is not a word of truth in what you say--"

"Do not be so angry, then! If it were not true, why should you care? I have said it, and I will say it. She has robbed me of you. Oh, I will never forgive her! Never fear! One does not forget such things! She has got you, and she will keep you, I suppose. But you shall regret it! She shall pay me for it!"

Her voice shook, for her jealousy was real, as was all her emotion while it lasted.

"You shall not speak of her in that way," said Reanda, fiercely. "I owe her and her family all that I am, all that I have in the world--"

"Including me!" interrupted Gloria. "Pay her then--pay her with your love and yourself. You can satisfy your conscience in that way, and you can break my heart."

"There is not the slightest fear of that," answered Reanda, cruelly.

She rose suddenly to her feet and stood before him, blazing with anger.

"If I could find yours--if you had any--I would break it," she said.

"You dare to say that I have no heart, when you can see that every word you say thrusts it through like a knife, when I have loved you as no woman ever loved man! I said it, and I repeat it--when I have given you everything, and would have given you the world if I had it! Indeed, you are utterly heartless and cruel and unkind--"

"At least, I am honest. I do not play a part as you do. I say plainly that I do not love you and that I am sorry for it. Yes--really sorry."

His voice softened for an instant. "I would give a great deal to love you as I once did, and to believe that you loved me--"

"You will tell me that I do not--"

"Indeed, I will tell you so, and that you never did--"

"Angelo--take care! You will go too far!"

"I could never go far enough in telling you that truth. You never loved me. You may have thought you did. I do not care. You talk of devotion and tenderness and all the like! Of being left alone and neglected! Of going too far! What devotion have you ever shown to me, beyond extravagantly praising everything I painted, for a few months after we were married. Then you grew tired of my work. That is your affair. What is it to me whether you admire my pictures or Mendoza's, or any other man's? Do you think that is devotion? I know far better than you which are good and which are bad. But you call it devotion. And it was devotion that kept you away from me when I was working, when I was obliged to work--for it is my trade, after all--and when you might have been with me day after day! And it was devotion to meet me with your sour, severe look every day when I came home, as though I were a secret enemy, a conspirator, a creature to be guarded against like a thief--as though I had been staying away from you on purpose, and of my will--instead of working for you all day long. That was your way of showing your love. And to torment me with questions, everlastingly believing that I spend my time in talking against you to Donna Francesca--"

"You do!" cried Gloria, who had not been able to interrupt his incoherent speech. "You love her as you never loved me--as you hate me--as you both hate me!"

She grasped his sleeve in her anger, shaking his arm, and staring into his eyes.

"You make me hate you!" he answered, trying to shake her off.

"And you succeed, between you--You and your--"

In his turn he grasped her arm with his long, thin fingers, with nervous roughness.

"You shall not speak of her--"

"Shall not? It is the only right I have left--that and the right to hate you--you and that infamous woman you love--yes--you and your mistress--your pretty Francesca!" Her laugh was almost a scream.