The Place of Honeymoons Part 17

"The padre could give lessons in kindness and shrewdness to any other man I know. If he hadn't chosen the gown he would have been a poet. I love the padre, with his snow-white hair and his withered leathery face. He was with the old king all through the freeing of Italy."

"And had a fine time explaining to the Vatican," sniffed the mother.

"Some day I am going to confess to him."

"Confess what?" asked Celeste.

"That I have wished the Calabrian's voice would fail her some night in _Carmen_; that I am wearing shoes a size too small for me; that I should like to be rich without labor; that I am sometimes ashamed of my calling; that I should have liked to see father win a prizefight; oh, and a thousand other horrid, hateful things."

"I wish to gracious that you would fall violently in love."

"Spiteful! There are those lovely lace collars; come on."

"You are hopeless," was the mother's conviction.

"In some things, yes," gravely.

"Some day," said Celeste, who was a privileged person in the Harrigan family, "some day I am going to teach you two how to play at foils. It would be splendid. And then you could always settle your differences with bouts."

"Better than that," retorted Nora. "I'll ask father to lend us his old set of gloves. He carries them around as if they were a fetish. I believe they're in the bottom of one of my steamer trunks."

"Nora!" Mrs. Harrigan was not pleased with this jest. Any reference to the past was distasteful to her ears. She, too, went regularly to confession, but up to the present time had omitted the sin of being ashamed of her former poverty and environment. She had taken it for granted that upon her shoulders rested the future good fortune of the Harrigans. They had money; all that was required was social recognition. She found it a battle within a battle. The good-natured reluctance of her husband and the careless indifference of her daughter were as hard to combat as the icy aloofness of those stars into whose orbit she was pluckily striving to steer the family bark. It never entered her scheming head that the reluctance of the father and the indifference of the daughter were the very conditions that drew society nearward, for the simple novelty of finding two persons who did not care in the least whether they were recognized or not.

The trio invaded the lace shop, and Nora and her mother agreed to bury the war-hatchet in their mutual love of Venetian and Florentine fineries.

Celeste pretended to be interested, but in truth she was endeavoring to piece together the few facts she had been able to extract from the rubbish of conjecture. Courtlandt and Nora had met somewhere before the beginning of her own intimacy with the singer. They certainly must have formed an extraordinary friendship, for Nora's subsequent vindictiveness could not possibly have arisen out of the ruins of an indifferent acquaintance. Nora could not be moved from the belief that Courtlandt had abducted her; but Celeste was now positive that he had had nothing to do with it. He did not impress her as a man who would abduct a woman, hold her prisoner for five days, and then liberate her without coming near her to press his vantage, rightly or wrongly. He was too strong a personage. He was here in Bellaggio, and attached to that could be but one significance.

Why, then, had he not spoken at the photographer's? Perhaps she herself had been sufficient reason for his dumbness. He had recognized her, and the espionage of the night in Paris was no longer a mystery. Nora had sent her to follow him; why then all this bitterness, since she had not been told where he had gone? Had Nora forgotten to inquire? It was possible that, in view of the startling events which had followed, the matter had slipped entirely from Nora's mind. Many a time she had resorted to that subtle guile known only of woman to trap the singer. But Nora never stumbled, and her smile was as firm a barrier to her thoughts, her secrets, as a stone wall would have been.

Celeste had known about Herr Rosen's infatuation. Aside from that which concerned this stranger, Nora had withheld no real secret from her. Herr Rosen had been given his conge, but that did not prevent him from sending fabulous baskets of flowers and gems, all of which were calmly returned without comment. Whenever a jewel found its way into a bouquet of flowers from an unknown, Nora would promptly convert it into money and give the proceeds to some charity. It afforded the singer no small amus.e.m.e.nt to show her scorn in this fashion. Yes, there was one other little mystery which she did not confide to her friends. Once a month, wherever she chanced to be singing, there arrived a simple bouquet of marguerites, in the heart of which they would invariably find an uncut emerald. Nora never disposed of these emeralds. The flowers she would leave in her dressing-room; the emerald would disappear. Was there some one else?

Mrs. Harrigan took the omnibus up to the villa. It was generally too much of a climb for her. Nora and Celeste preferred to walk.

"What am I going to do, Celeste? He is here, and over at Cadenabbia last night I had a terrible scene with him. In heaven's name, why can't they let me be?"

"Herr Rosen?"

"Yes."

"Why not speak to your father?"

"And have a fisticuff which would appear in every newspaper in the world?

No, thank you. There is enough scandalous stuff being printed as it is, and I am helpless to prevent it."

As the climb starts off stiffly, there wasn't much inclination in either to talk. Celeste had come to one decision, and that was that Nora should find out Courtlandt's presence here in Bellaggio herself. When they arrived at the villa gates, Celeste offered a suggestion.

"You could easily stop all this rumor and annoyance."

"And, pray, how?"

"Marry."

"I prefer the rumor and annoyance. I hate men. Most of them are beasts."

"You are prejudiced."

If Celeste expected Nora to reply that she had reason, she was disappointed, Nora quickened her pace, that was all.

At luncheon Harrigan innocently threw a bomb into camp by inquiring: "Say, Nora, who's this chump Herr Rosen? He was up here last night and again this morning. I was going to offer him the cot on the balcony, but I thought I'd consult you first."

"Herr Rosen!" exclaimed Mrs. Harrigan, a flutter in her throat. "Why, that's...."

"A charming young man who wishes me to sign a contract to sing to him in perpetuity," interrupted Nora, pressing her mother's foot warningly.

"Well, why don't you marry him?" laughed Harrigan. "There's worse things than frankfurters and sauerkraut."

"Not that I can think of just now," returned Nora.

CHAPTER XI

AT THE CRATER'S EDGE

Harrigan declared that he would not go over to Caxley-Webster's to tea.

"But I've promised for you!" expostulated his wife. "And he admires you so."

"Bosh! You women can gad about as much as you please, but I'm in wrong when it comes to eating sponge-cake and knuckling my knees under a d.i.n.ky willow table. And then he always has some frump...."

"Frump!" repeated Nora, delighted.

"Frump inspecting me through a pair of eye-gla.s.ses as if I was a new kind of an animal. It's all right, Molly, when there's a big push. They don't notice me much then. But these six by eight parties have me covering."

"Very well, dad," agreed Nora, who saw the storm gathering in her mother's eyes. "You can stay home and read the book mother got you yesterday. Where are you now?"

"Page one," grinning.

Mrs. Harrigan wisely refrained from continuing the debate. James had made up his mind not to go. If the colonel repeated his invitation to dinner, where there would be only the men folk, why, he'd gladly enough go to that.

The women departed at three, for there was to be tennis until five o'clock. When Harrigan was reasonably sure that they were half the distance to the colonel's villa, he put on his hat, whistled to the dachel, and together they took the path to the village.

"We'd look fine drinking tea, wouldn't we, old scout?" reaching down and tweaking the dog's velvet ears. "They don't understand, and it's no use trying to make 'em. Nora gets as near as possible. Herr Rosen! Now, where have I seen his phiz before? I wish I had a real man to talk to. Abbott sulks half the time, and the Barone can't get a joke unless it's driven in with a mallet. On your way, old scout, or I'll step on you. Let's see if we can hoof it down to the village at a trot without taking the count."

He had but two errands to execute. The first was accomplished expeditely in the little tobacconist's shop under the arcade, where the purchase of a box of Minghetti cigars promised later solace. These cigars were cheap, but Harrigan had a novel way of adding to their strength if not to their aroma. He possessed a meerschaum cigar-holder, in which he had smoked perfectos for some years. The smoke of an ordinary cigar became that of a regalia by the time it pa.s.sed through the nicotine-soaked clay into the amber mouthpiece. He had kept secret the result of this trifling scientific research. It wouldn't have been politic to disclose it to Molly. The second errand took time and deliberation. He studied the long shelves of Tauchnitz. Having red corpuscles in superabundance, he naturally preferred them in his literature, in the same quant.i.ty.

"Ever read this?" asked a pleasant voice from behind, indicating _Rodney Stone_ with the ferrule of a cane.