Cecilia Part 11

Another pause, not long, but strangely breathless.

"I have seen men badly frightened in battle," Lamberti went on. "The cheeks get hollow all at once, the eyes are wide open, with black rings round them, the face turns a greenish grey, and the sweat runs down the forehead into the eyebrows. Men totter with fear, too, as if their joints were unstrung. But I never saw a woman really terrified before.

There was a sort of awful tension of all her features, as though they were suddenly made brittle, like beautiful gla.s.s, and were going to shiver into fragments. And her eyes had no visible pupils--her lips turned violet. I remember every detail. Then, without warning, she shrieked and staggered backwards; and she turned as I moved to catch her, and she ran like a deer, straight up the court, past those basins they have excavated, and up two or three steps, to the dark rooms at the other end."

"And what did you do?" asked Guido, wondering.

"My dear fellow, I turned and went back as fast as I could, without exactly running, and I found the guide looking for me below the temple, for he had not seen me go into the Vestals' house. What else was there to be done?"

"Nothing, I suppose. You could not pursue a lady who shrieked with fear and ran away from you. What a strange story! You say you only know her slightly."

"Literally, very slightly," answered Lamberti.

He had become fluent, telling his story almost excitedly. He now relapsed into his former mood, and stared at the pamphlet before him a moment, before shutting it and putting it away from him.

"It is like all those things--perfectly unaccountable, except on a theory of coincidence," said Guido, at last. "Will you have any cheese?"

Lamberti roused himself and saw the servant at his elbow.

"No, thank you. I forgot one thing. Just as I awoke from that dream last night, I heard the door of my room softly closed."

"What has that to do with the matter?" enquired Guido, carelessly.

"Nothing, except that the door was locked. I always lock my door. I first fell into the habit when I was travelling, for I sleep so soundly that in a hotel any one might come in and steal my things. I should never wake. So I turn the key before going to bed."

"You may have forgotten to do it last night," suggested Guido.

"No. I got up at once, and the key was turned. No one could have come in."

"A mouse, then," said Guido, rather contemptuously.

CHAPTER V

Cecilia Palladio was very much ashamed of having uttered a cry of terror at the sight of Lamberti, and still more of having run away from him like a frightened child. To him it seemed as if she had really shrieked with fear, whereas she fancied that she had scarcely found voice enough to utter an incoherent exclamation. The truth lay somewhere between the two impressions, but Cecilia now felt that she could easily have accounted for being startled into crying out, but that it would always be impossible to explain her flight. She had run the whole length of the Court, which must be fifty yards long, before realising what she was doing, and had not paused for breath till she was out of his sight and within the second of the three rooms on the left. There were no gates to the rooms then, as there are now, and she could not have given any reason for her entering the second instead of the first, which was the nearest. The choice was instinctive.

She certainly had not gone there to join the elderly woman servant who had come to the Forum with her. That excellent and obedient person was waiting where Cecilia had made her sit down, not far from the entrance to the Forum, and would not move till her mistress returned. The young girl hated to be followed about and protected at every step, especially by a servant, who could have no real understanding of what she saw.

"I shall only be seen by foreigners and Cook's Tourists," she had said, "and they do not count as human beings at all!"

Therefore the middle-aged Petersen, who was a German, and therefore a species of foreigner herself, had meekly sat down upon the comparatively comfortable stone which Cecilia had selected for her, and which was one of the steps of the Julian Basilica. She was called Frau Petersen, Mrs.

Petersen, or Madame Petersen, according to circ.u.mstances, by the servants of different nationalities who were successively in the employment of the Countess Fortiguerra, for she was a superior woman and the widow of a paymaster in the Bavarian army, and so eminently respectable and well educated that she had more than once been taken for Cecilia's governess.

Petersen was excessively near-sighted, but her nose was not adapted by its nature and position for wearing eyegla.s.ses; for it was not only a flat nose without anything like a prominent bridge to it, but it was placed uncommonly low in her face, so that a pair of eyegla.s.ses pinched upon it would have found themselves in the region of Petersen's cheek-bones. Even when she wore spectacles, they were always slipping down, which was a great nuisance; so she resigned herself to seeing less than other people, except when something interested her enough to make the discomfort of gla.s.ses worth enduring.

This sufficiently explains why she noticed nothing unusual in Cecilia's looks when the latter came back to her, pale and disturbed; and she had not heard her mistress's faint cry, the distance being too great for that, not to mention the fact that the huge ruins intercepted the sound.

Cecilia was glad of that, as she drove home with Petersen.

"Signor Lamberti has called," said the Countess Fortiguerra the next day at luncheon. "I see by his card that he is in the Navy. You know he is one of the Marchese Lamberti's sons. Shall we ask him to dinner?"

"Did you like him?" enquired Cecilia, evasively.

"He is not very good-looking," observed the Countess, whose judgment of unknown people always began with their appearance, and often penetrated no farther. "But he may be intelligent, for all that," she added, as a concession.

"Yes," said Cecilia, thoughtfully, "perhaps."

"I think we might ask him to dinner, then," answered the Countess, as if she had given an excellent reason for doing so.

"Is it not rather early, considering that we have only met him once?"

Cecilia ventured to ask.

"I used to know his mother very well, though she was older than I. It is pleasant to find that he is so intimate with Signor d'Este. We might ask them together."

"After the garden party," suggested Cecilia. "Of course, as you and the Marchesa were great friends, that is a reason for asking the other, but Signor d'Este--really! It would positively be throwing me at his head, mother!"

"He expects it, my dear," answered the Countess, with more precision than tact. "I mean," she added hastily, "I mean, that is, I did not mean----"

Cecilia laughed.

"Oh yes, you did, mother! You meant exactly that, you know. You and that dreadful old Princess have made up your minds that I am to marry him, and nothing else matters, does it?"

"Well," said the Countess, without any perceptible hesitation, "I cannot help hoping that you will consent, for I should like the match very much."

She knew that it was always better to be quite frank with her daughter; and even if she had thought otherwise, she could never have succeeded in being diplomatic with her. While her second husband had been alive, her position as an amba.s.sadress had obliged her to be tactful in the world, and even occasionally to say things which she had some difficulty in believing, being a very simple soul; but with Cecilia she was quite unable to conceal her thoughts for five minutes. If the girl loved her mother, and she really did, it was largely because her mother was so perfectly truthful. Cynical people called her helplessly honest, and said that her veracity would have amounted to a disease of the mind if she had possessed any; but that since she did not, it was probably a form of degeneration, because all perfectly healthy human beings lied naturally. David had said in his heart that all men were liars, and his experience of men, and of women, too, was worth considering.

"Yes," Cecilia said, after a thoughtful pause, "I know that you wish me to marry Signor d'Este, and I have not refused to think of it. But I have not promised anything, either, and I do not like to feel that he expects me to be thrust upon him at every turn, till he is obliged to offer himself as the only way of escaping the persecution."

"I wish you would not express it in that way!"

The Countess sighed and looked at her daughter with a sort of half-comical and loving hopelessness in her eyes--as a faithful dog might look at his master who, seeming to be hungry, would refuse to steal food that was within reach. The dog would try to lead the man to the bread, the man would gently resist; each would be obeying the dictation of his own conscience--the man would know that he could never explain his moral position to the dog, and the dog would feel that he could never understand the man. Yet the affection between the two would not be in the least diminished.

On the next evening Cecilia found herself next to Guido d'Este at dinner. Though she was not supposed to make her formal appearance in society before the garden party, the Countess's many old friends, some of whom had more or less impecunious sons, were anxious to welcome her to Rome, and asked her to small dinners with her mother. Guido had arrived late, and had not been able to speak to her till he was told by their host that he was to take her in. It was quite natural that he should, for, in spite of his birth, he was only plain Signor d'Este, and was not ent.i.tled to any sort of precedence in a society which is, if anything, overcareful in such matters.

Neither spoke as they walked through the rooms, near the end of the small procession. Guido glanced at the young girl, who knew that he did, but paid no attention. He thought her rather pale, and there was no light in her eyes. Her hand lay like gossamer on his arm, so lightly that he could not feel it; but he was aware of her perfectly graceful motion as she walked.

"I suppose this was predestined," he said, as soon as the rest of the guests were talking.

She glanced at him quickly now, her head bent rather low, her eyebrows arching higher than usual. He was not sure whether the little irregularity of her upper lip was accentuated by amus.e.m.e.nt, or by a touch of scorn.

"Is it?" she asked. "Do you happen to know that it was arranged?"

It was amus.e.m.e.nt, then, and not scorn. They understood each other, and the ice was in no need of being broken again.

"No," Guido answered with a smile. Then his voice grew suddenly low and earnest. "Will you please believe that if I had been told beforehand that I was asked in order to sit next to you, I would not have come?"

Cecilia laughed lightly.