Cecilia Part 26

Cecilia rang for the excellent Petersen, and said that she would wear the new costume which had arrived from Doucet's two days ago.

There was certainly no reason why she should not wish to look well on this day of all others, and as she turned and saw herself in the gla.s.s, she had not the least thought of making a better impression than usual on Guido. She was far too sure of herself for that. If she chose, he would ask her to marry him though she might be dressed in an old waterproof and overshoes. It was merely because she was happy and was sure that she was going to do the right thing. When a normal woman is very happy, she puts on a perfectly new frock, if she has one, in real life or on the stage, even when she is not going to be seen by any one in particular. In this, therefore, Cecilia only followed the instinct of her kind, and if the pretty new costume had not chanced to have come from Paris, she would not have missed it at all, but would have worn something else. As it happened to be ready, however, it would have been a pity not to put it on, since she expected to remember that particular day all the rest of her life.

Petersen said it was perfection, and Cecilia was not far from thinking so, too.

CHAPTER XIII

Guido d'Este was already in the drawing-room with the Countess when Cecilia entered, but she knew by their faces and voices that they had not been talking of her, and was glad of it; for sometimes, when she was quite sure that they had, she felt a little embarra.s.sment at first, and found Guido a trifle absent-minded for some time afterwards.

She took his hand, and perhaps she held it a second longer than usual, and she looked into his eyes as she spoke to her mother. Yesterday she would have very likely looked at her mother while speaking to him.

"I hope I am not late," she said, "Have I kept you waiting?"

"It was worth while, if you did," Guido said, looking at her with undisguised admiration.

"It really is a success, is it not?" Cecilia asked, turning to her mother now, for approval.

Then she turned slowly round, raised herself on tiptoe a moment, came back to her original position, and smiled happily. Guido waited for the Countess to speak.

"Yes--yes," the latter answered critically, but almost satisfied. "When one has a figure like yours, my dear, one should always have things quite perfect. A woman who has a good figure and is really well dressed, hardly ever needs a pin. Let me see. Does it not draw under the right arm, just the slightest bit? Put your arm down, child, let it hang naturally! So. No, I was mistaken, there is nothing. You really ought to keep your arm in the right position, darling. It makes so much difference! You are not going to play tennis, or ride a bicycle in that costume. No, of course not! Well, then--you understand. Do be careful!"

Cecilia looked at Guido and smiled again, and her lips parted just enough to show her two front teeth a little, and then, still parted, grew grave, which gave her an expression Guido had never seen. For a moment there was something between a question and an appeal in her face.

"It is very becoming," he said gravely. "It is a pleasure to see anything so faultless."

"I am glad you really like it," she answered. "I always want you to like my things."

Everything happened exactly as she had expected and wished, and the Countess, when she had sipped her cup of coffee after luncheon, went to the writing table in the boudoir, and though the door was open into the great drawing-room, she was out of sight, and out of hearing too.

Cecilia did not sit down again at once, but moved slowly about, went to one of the windows and looked down at the white street through the slats of the closed blinds, turned and met Guido's eyes, for he was watching her, and at last stood still not far from him, but a little further from the open door of the boudoir than he was. At the end of the room a short sofa was placed across the corner; before it stood a low table on which lay a few large books, of the sort that are supposed to amuse people who are waiting for the lady of the house, or who are stranded alone in the evening when every one else is talking. They are always books of the type described as magnificent and not dear; if they were really valuable, they would not be left there.

"How you watch me!" Cecilia smiled, as if she did not object to being watched. "Come and sit down," she added, without waiting for an answer.

She established herself in one corner of the short sofa behind the table, Guido took his place in the other, and there would not have been room for a third person between them. The two had never sat together in that particular place, and there was a small sensation of novelty about it which was delightful to them both. There was not the least calculation of such a thing in Cecilia's choice of the sofa, but only the unerring instinct of woman which outwits man's deepest schemes at every turn in life.

"Yes," Guido said, "I was watching you. I often do, for it is good to look at you. Why should one not get as much aesthetic pleasure as possible out of life?"

The speech was far from brilliant, for Guido was beginning to feel the spell, and was not thinking so much of what he was saying as of what he longed to say. Most clever men are dull enough to suppose that they bore women when they suddenly lose their cleverness and say rather foolish things with an air of conviction, instead of very witty things with a studied look of indifference. The hundred and fifty generations of men, more or less, that separate us moderns from the days of Eden, never found out that those are the very moments at which a woman first feels her power, and that it is much less dangerous to bore her just then than before or afterwards. It is a rare delight to her to feel that her mere look can turn careless wit to earnest foolishness. For nothing is ever more in earnest than real folly, except real love.

"You always say nice things," Cecilia answered, and Guido was pleasantly surprised, for he had been quite sure that the silly compliment was hardly worth answering.

"And you are always kind," he said gratefully. "Always the same," he added after a moment, with a little accent of regret.

"Am I? You say it as if you wished I might sometimes change. Is that what you mean?"

She looked down at her hands, that lay in her lap motionless and white, one upon the other, on the delicate dove-coloured stuff of her frock; and her voice was rather low.

"No," Guido answered. "That is not what I mean."

"Then I do not understand," she said, neither moving nor looking up.

Guido said nothing. He leaned forwards, his elbows on his knees, and stared down at the Persian rug that lay before the sofa on the smooth matting. It was warm and still in the great room.

"Try and make me understand."

Still he was silent. Without changing his position he glanced at the open door of the boudoir. The Countess was invisible and inaudible.

Guido could hear the young girl's soft and regular breathing, and he felt the pulse in his own throat. He knew that he must say something, and yet the only thing he could think of to say was that he loved her.

"Try and make me understand," she repeated. "I think you could."

He started and changed his position a little. He had been accustomed so long to the belief that if he spoke out frankly the thread of his intercourse with her would be broken, that he made a strong effort to get back to the ordinary tone of their conversation.

"Do you never say absurd things that have no meaning?" he asked, and tried to laugh.

"It was not what you said," Cecilia answered quietly. "It was the way you said it, as if you rather regretted saying that I am always the same. I should be sorry if you thought that an absurd speech."

"You know that I do not!" cried Guido, with a little indignation. "We understand each other so well, as a rule, but there is something you will never understand, I am afraid."

"That is just what I wish you would explain," replied the young girl, unmoved.

"Are you in earnest?" Guido asked, suddenly turning his face to her.

"Of course. We are such good friends that it is a pity there should ever be the least little bit of misunderstanding between us."

"You talk about it very philosophically!"

"About what?" She had felt that she must make him lose patience, and she succeeded.

"After all, I am a man," he said rather hoa.r.s.ely. "Do you suppose it is possible for me to see you day after day, to talk with you day after day, to be alone with you day after day, as I am, to hear your voice, to touch your hand--and to be satisfied with friendship?"

"How should I know?" Cecilia asked thoughtfully. "I have never known any one as well as I know you. I never liked anyone else well enough," she added after an instant.

A very faint colour rose in her cheeks, for she was afraid that she had been too forward.

"Yes. I am sure of that," he said. "But you never feel that mere liking is turning into something stronger, and that friendship is changing into love. You never will!"

She said nothing, but looked at him steadily while he looked away from her, absorbed in his own thought and expecting no answer. When at last he felt her eyes on him, he turned quickly with a start of surprise, catching his breath, and speaking incoherently.

"You do not mean to tell me--you are not----"

Again her lips parted and she smiled at his wonder.

"Why not?" she asked, at last.

"You love me? You?" He could not believe his ears.