Pietro Ghisleri Part 26

"I think it is." Ghisleri was trembling with anger from head to foot, but his voice was still steady.

"I do not," answered Gianforte, scornfully. "If she were here to judge us, if she could see that the man who was loved to the last by Bianca Corleone--G.o.d give her rest!--would live down to such a level, would live to throw himself at the feet of a Maddalena dell' Armi--ah, I have touched you now!--she would--"

Ghisleri's face was livid.

"She whose name you are not more worthy to speak than I, never meant that I should not defend a good and helpless woman because the liar who accuses her chances to be called Gianforte Campodonico."

"And the one who defends her, Pietro Ghisleri," retorted Gianforte.

"Where can my friends find yours?"

"At my lodging, if that suits them."

"Perfectly."

Campodonico turned on his heel and slowly went towards the group at the other end of the room. Ghisleri followed him at a distance, lighting a fresh cigarette as he walked. He had recovered his composure the moment he had felt himself freed from the obligation to bear the insults heaped upon him by Bianca Corleone's brother.

It must not be supposed that no one had watched the two as they stood talking before the picture. More than one person had noticed the fierce look in Campodonico's eyes, and the unnatural paleness of Ghisleri's face. One of these was Donna Maria Boccapaduli.

"I suppose you have been discussing that painting," she said carelessly to Pietro. "People always do."

"Yes," answered Ghisleri, as indifferently as he could.

"And what was the result of the discussion?"

"We agreed to differ." Pietro laughed a little harshly.

As soon as possible he excused himself and got away, for he had only just the time necessary to find a couple of friends and explain matters, before going to the ball to meet the Contessa, as he had promised to do.

He had forgotten an important detail, however, and as he pa.s.sed Campodonico who was also going away, and without his wife, on pretence of an engagement at the club, he stopped him.

"By the by," he said, "I suppose we are ostensibly quarrelling about a painter, or something of that sort."

"Yes--anything. Zichy, for instance. Everybody saw us looking at the picture. You like it and I do not."

"Very well."

So they parted, to meet, in all probability, at dawn on the following morning, in a quiet place outside the city. Ghisleri found two friends in whose hands he placed himself, telling them that he was quite indifferent to the weapons, and only desired to meet his adversary's wishes as far as possible, since the affair was very insignificant. He remarked in an indifferent tone that, as he had once fought with Campodonico, using foils, and as the latter had not seemed satisfied on that occasion, he had no objection to pistols, if the opposite side preferred them. He wished everything to be arranged as amicably as possible, he said, and without any undue publicity. He left them at his lodging and departed to keep his engagement at the emba.s.sy. As he drove through the bitter air in an open cab, he meditated on his position, and wondered what Maddalena would say when she learned that he had been out with his old adversary. She should not know anything about the encounter until it was over, if he could keep it from her. At all events, he reflected, he had done all that a man could do to keep out of a quarrel, as he had promised her he would, and he had been driven to break a promise of a far more sacred nature than the one he had given her. If she knew the truth, too, it was for her, and for her alone, that he was to fight. He wondered whether people would say it was for Laura Arden's sake, on account of the discussion about the evil eye which had taken place at table. The suggestion annoyed him very much, but he reached his destination before he had found time to reason out the whole case, or to decide what to do. In any event it would be better if people thought that he had taken the foils in defence of an unprotected widow like Laura, than for the good name of the Contessa dell' Armi.

She was there before him, looking very lovely in a gown of palest green, half covered with old lace. The shade suited her fair hair and dazzling skin, and she looked taller in faint colours, as short women do. He found her seated in one of the smaller rooms through which he had to pa.s.s on his way to the great ball-room, and she was surrounded by four or five men of the gay set, all talking to her at once, all trying to be extremely witty, and all wishing that the others would go away. But the Contessa held her own with them, making no distinction, and keeping up the lively, empty, rattling conversation without any apparent difficulty. Pietro sat down in the circle, and made a remark from time to time, to which she generally gave a direct answer, until, little by little, she was talking with him alone, and the others began to drop away as they always did in the course of half an hour when Ghisleri appeared in Maddalena's neighbourhood. It was a thing perfectly understood, as a matter not even worth mentioning.

"Will you get me something to drink?" she said when only Spicca was left by her side.

Pietro went off towards the supper-room, which was rather distant, and as a dance was just over and the place was crowded, it was some minutes before he could get what he wanted, and go back to her with it. Spicca looked at him with an odd expression of something between amus.e.m.e.nt and sympathy as he rose and left the two together, and Ghisleri at once saw that something unusual had occurred in his absence, for Maddalena was very pale, and her hand shook violently as she took the gla.s.s he brought her.

"What is the matter?" he asked anxiously, as he sat down.

"Something very disagreeable has happened," she answered, looking round nervously.

The sofa on which they sat stood out from one side of a marble pillar, with its back to the side of the room the guests crossed who went directly to the ball-room, and facing the side by which they went from the ball-room to the rooms beyond, and to the supper-room, for there were four doors, opposite each other, two of which opened into the great hall where the dancing was going on. Maddalena was seated at the end of the sofa which was against the pillar, so that a person pa.s.sing through behind her might easily not notice her presence.

"Pray tell me what it is," said Ghisleri.

"Just as you went to get me the lemonade, I heard two people talking in a low voice behind me," said Maddalena. "They must have stopped first by the door--I looked round afterwards and saw them, but I do not know either of them--some new people from one of the other emba.s.sies, or merely foreigners here on a visit. They spoke rather bad French. There was a man and a lady. They saw you cross the room and the lady asked the man who you were, and the man told her, saying that he only knew you by sight. The lady uttered an exclamation, and said that you were the one man in Rome whom she wished to see because you had been loved by--you know whom I mean--I know it hurts you to speak of her, and I understand it. The man laughed and said there had been others since, and that there was especially a certain Marquise d' Armi, as he called me, who was madly in love with you. The most amusing part of the whole thing, concluded the man, was that you were perfectly indifferent to her, as everybody knew. It was horrible, and I almost fainted. Dear old Spicca went on talking, trying to prevent me from hearing them. It was just like him."

The Contessa's lip trembled, and her eyes glittered strangely as she looked at Pietro.

"It is horrible," he said, in a low voice. He had thought that he had felt enough emotions during that day, but he was mistaken. Even now there were more in store for him. He was deeply shocked, for he guessed what she must have suffered.

"Horrible--yes! But oh--can you not tell me it is not true? Do you not see that my heart is breaking?"

"No, dearest lady," he answered tenderly, trying to soothe her. "Not one word of it is true. How can you make yourself unhappy by thinking such a thing?"

Maddalena drew a painful breath. He spoke very kindly, but there was no ringing note of pa.s.sion in his voice as there had once been. With a sudden determination that surprised him, she rose to her feet.

"Take me to the ball-room," she said hurriedly. "I shall cry if I stay here."

It was almost a relief to Ghisleri to see her accept the first man who presented himself as a partner and whirl away with him into the great hall. He stood leaning against the marble door-post, watching her as she wound her way in and out among the many moving couples. He was conscious that he might very possibly never see her again. Campodonico would of course select pistols, and meant to kill him if he could. He might succeed, though duels rarely ended fatally now-a-days. And if he did, Maddalena dell' Armi would be left to her fate. He was horror-struck when he thought of it. She might never know why he had fought, and she would perhaps believe to her last day that he had sacrificed his life for Laura Arden. He could leave a letter for her, but letters often fell into the wrong hands through faithless servants when the people who had written them were dead. Besides, would she believe his words? She had very little faith in his love for her. He sighed bitterly as he thought how right she was in that. He could see the pale, small, cla.s.sic features, and the half pitiful, half scornful look of the beautiful mouth. "His last bit of comedy!" she would exclaim to herself, as she tossed his last note into the fire. And again she would be right, in a measure. In the case of risking sudden death, he said to himself that it was indeed a strange bit of comedy. He knew that he did not love her as he should. Why should he fight for her, then?

But his manliness rose up at this and smote his cynicism out of the field for a time. That little he owed Maddalena, at least--he could not do less than defend her, at whatever cost, and he knew well enough that he always would. As for his wish that she might know it, that was nothing but his own detestable vanity. For his own part, he wished with all his heart that the next morning might end his existence. He had never valued his life very highly, and of late it had been so little to his taste that he was more than ready to part with it, even violently.

The future did not appall him, although, strangely enough, he was very far from being an unbeliever, and had been brought up to consider a sudden end, in mortal sin, as the most horrible and irreparable of misfortunes. To him, in his experience of himself, no imaginable suffering could be worse than the self-doubt, the self-contempt, and the self-hatred which had so often tormented him during the past years. If he were to be punished for his misdeeds with the same torture, even though it were to be never-ending, at least he should bear the pain of it alone, such as it was, without the necessity for hiding it and for going through the daily mummery of life with an indifferent face. And in that state there would be no more temptation of the kind he feared. What he had done up to the hour of death would close the chronicle of evil, and in all ages there would be no more. He was used to such refinements of cruelty as perdition could threaten him with, for he had practised them upon his own heart.

So the man "who did not care" stood watching the ball, and people envied him his successes, and his past and present happiness, and all that he had enjoyed in his three-and-thirty years of life, little dreaming of what was even then pa.s.sing in his thoughts, still less that he was waiting for the message which should inform him of the place and hour fixed for encountering the man who most hated him in the world, and who had once before vainly attempted to take his life.

At the other end of the great hall the Contessa dell' Armi had paused in her waltz to take breath, and found herself next to Donna Maria Boccapaduli.

"You have not heard the news," said the latter in a low voice, bending towards Maddalena, and holding up her fan before her face. "We have all been dining at Casa San Giacinto, sixteen of us besides themselves--the two Campodonico, ourselves, Pietrasanta--ever so many of us. Ghisleri was there, next to me, and there was a discussion about the evil eye, because Pietrasanta broke a gla.s.s just as he uttered the name of the lady we do not mention--you know which--Ghisleri's friend. And then, I do not know how it was, but Ghisleri and Campodonico contradicted each other about it, because Campodonico said she was a jettatrice and Ghisleri said she was not, you know. After dinner the two went and talked in whispers at the other end of the big room, and Ghisleri looked ghastly white, and Campodonico was so angry that his eyes were like coals. A few minutes later, they both went away in a great hurry--Campodonico left his wife there. It certainly looks as though there were to be a duel to-morrow. You know how they hate each other, and how they fought long ago about that wonderful Princess Corleone who died. I can remember seeing her before I was married."

The Contessa listened to the end. She could not have grown paler than she was on that evening, but while Donna Maria was speaking the shadows deepened almost to black under her eyes, and the veins in her throat swelled and throbbed so that they hurt her. She succeeded in controlling all other outward signs of emotion, however, and when she spoke her voice was calm and quiet.

"I hardly believe that those two will fight," she said. "But, of course, they may. We shall probably know to-morrow."

Making a little sign to her partner, she began to dance with him again, and continued to waltz until the music ceased a few minutes later. She stopped near the door where Ghisleri was standing, and looked at him. He immediately came to her side, and she left the man she had been dancing with and moved away with Pietro towards a distant room, not speaking on the way. They sat down together in a quiet corner, and he saw that she was very much moved and probably very angry with him.

"Will you please to tell me the truth?" she said, in a hard voice. "I have something to ask you."

"Yes. I always do," he answered.

"Is it true that there is a quarrel between you and Don Gianforte Campodonico?"

"Yes--it is true," replied Ghisleri, after hesitating a few seconds.

"And that you had a discussion with him about Lady Herbert at the San Giacinto's dinner table?"

"Yes," admitted Ghisleri, who saw that his worst fears were about to be realised.

"Are you going to fight?" asked Maddalena, in a metallic tone.

"Yes. We are going to fight."

"So you have already forgotten what you promised me this afternoon. You said you would do all a man could do to avoid a quarrel--for my sake.