THE room was large, and low, and white. There was a little balcony hanging from the windows; the usual bright-coloured pattern on the walls; the usual sofa and chairs, and little rug on the tiled floor. Harry had not taken any particular care of his room or its decoration. The lamp burned with three little clear tongues of flame in the centre of the scene. Paolo sat in a large chair, thrown back, his little intelligent, intent face showing from the dark background; his feet flicking in front of him. As for Harry, he was too shy to sit still and tell his story under the light of his friend’s large, eager eyes, which leaped at the words before they were said. He was walking about from one end of the room to the other. On the table was the little coffee-pot, the thick, white cups upon a tray. Harry did not despise black coffee now. Sometimes he came up to the table, and poured it out and swallowed it hastily; while all the time Paolo, swinging his foot in front of him, and leaning back in his chair, never took from him his eager black eyes.
“And the short and the long of it,” said Harry, “is that I have fallen in love.” He turned his back to his companion as he spoke, and stood looking out from the open window. “I have been about the house so much, and seen the young lady so often, that without thinking, and without meaning it, I have just fallen in love. Jove! what a beautiful night it is!” said Harry; “I never saw the stars so bright: that’s just the position of affairs. She is quite out of my rank, I know, as impossible as the stars themselves: but that’s how it is.”
“Fallen—in lofe?” Paolo mused for a moment over the words. “It is droll, the English way of speaking. Is it then a deep, or a sea, or a precipice, that you—fall.”
“Oh, don’t bother,” cried Harry. “To be sure it is a deep, and a sea, and a precipice. Why, every fool knows that. You are never thinking of anything of the sort, going along quite quietly, minding your own business—when all in a moment down you go squash, and there’s no help for you any more.”
Paolo smiled a benevolent but somewhat tremulous smile.
“The young lady is very beautiful—that goes without saying,” he said. “I had thought you would have taken your freedom a little longer, and you wish to marry and range yourself. Bene! it will be what you call all oop with me,” said Paolo, with a slight quiver; “a wife—that goes not along with a friend—not a friend of the heart like me. It makes a beginning to many things, but also to some an end.”
“Good gracious!” cried Harry, “do you mean to say you don’t understand me? Am I in a condition to marry? I have not a penny. I have my little salary, and that is all. If I could jump up and ask her to marry me, above-board in our English way, do you think I’d ask any advice about it? I don’t want you to tell me she’s nice, I know that myself a great deal better than you could tell me. It is just because I can’t marry, and ought to hold my tongue and never say a a word about it—and yet can’t help seeing her continually, that I don’t know what to do.”
Paolo looked at him with a still more wistful, anxious face. He was terribly perplexed. There was an alternative which was not at all impossible to his imagination; but having on many occasions already come in contact forcibly with the English mind, as represented in Harry, he was afraid to state or refer to the other side of the question, which nevertheless was not at all terrible to himself. He looked very wistfully and earnestly in his friend’s face, trying hard to read and make out what was in it. What was in it? Did he mean——? Paolo could not tell whether he might venture to say what he would have said easily enough to many of his other friends.
“You would then—that understands itself; but to put it into words, above all with an English what you call Puritano—like you; you would then—make a little arrangement—you would then propose—without going to church.”
“Eh?” said Harry. He turned round upon his friend with blazing eyes. “Eh?” The monosyllable was more terrible than a whole chapter of invectives. Astonishment, non-comprehension, yet at the same time alarmed and furious understanding were in it. Paolo, who was a miracle of quick intelligence, saw all that was in Harry’s look almost before he himself was conscious of it, and he mended his indiscretion with the rapidity of lightning.
“I have make a mistake,” he said. “I have not understood. It is so sudden, I had no preparation. If you will perhaps tell me again?”
Harry stared with wide open eyes like a bull, not quite knowing whether to charge an adversary, or to turn away from an insignificant intruder. The more peaceable impulse prevailed. He had stood still gazing at Paolo, who, mentally trembling, though he put the best face he could outwardly upon the matter, met his friend’s gaze with a deprecating smile. After a minute he resumed his pacing about the floor.
“I see you don’t understand,” he said, with something between a groan and a sigh. “Well then, I’ll try again. Here are the circumstances. I am admitted to the house, a very nice house, in which I am very happy. The father puts faith in me; he trusts me like a friend; the young lady is—everything that is nice. Well! don’t you see? like a fool, instead of keeping quiet and enjoying all this, like a fool I have gone and fallen in love with her. And last night I was as near betraying myself—— Now if I go on I’ll be more and more tempted to betray myself. I can’t keep away from the house—it is not possible. I can’t offer to the young lady because I am not good enough for her, and I have no money. Now what am I to do?”
“You were at the house of the Signor Vice-Consul last night?”
“Never mind where I was,” said Harry sharply, “tell me what I am to do.”
“It would be well, amico mio, that your confidence was more great, or none at all,” said Paolo. “If it should happen that I possessed the acquaintance of the father and the daughter——” There was a little incipient smile upon his lip that drove Harry wild.
“I believe you think badly of every woman,” he cried; “all the worse for you if you do. I am not going to make any confidences of that sort. Look here—you know more about society than I do. You know how people are expected to behave here. Ought I just to cut the whole concern, though I don’t want to—and take myself off?”
Harry came to a sudden stop in front of his friend when he asked this question, and, for his part, Paolo almost screamed with alarm.
“Cut—the whole concern? That is to go away?”
“To go away,” said Harry, discharging all the breath out of his capacious chest in one great sigh, and throwing himself into the second great chair opposite Paolo. His friend grew pale; his olive cheeks were blanched; the lids were puckered round his anxious and almost despairing eyes.
“That is what you must not do—that is what you shall not do! It is not permitted to throw away, to make such a sacrifice,” cried Paolo, with a rapid succession of phrases, one broken sentence hurrying upon another. “No, no, no, no. Imagine to yourself that all goes so well. The world regards you with so favourable eyes; you are everywhere received, everywhere received!—a favourite, Isaack mio. But no, no; this must not be—for a girl—for a promise—for a caprice, you will not throw away your career.”
Harry did not say anything. He lay back drearily in his chair, his whole person making one oblique line from his head, which rested on the back of the chair, to the feet stretched out on the floor. He was not likely to talk about his career, but he felt to the bottom of his heart the dismal alternative: to go away; to throw up everything; to resign himself to another new and much less favourable beginning. His new start in Leghorn had been made in circumstances so extraordinarily favourable that they looked like a romance, and he himself could scarcely believe them true—all the more reason why he should not presume now upon the hospitality of the house which had taken him in; but he never could by any possibility hope for such another piece of good fortune. In all this he put Rita herself out of the question. Perhaps he did not feel, as a lover sometimes does, as if his entire life was involved in her acceptance of him. He was a sober-minded young man. It would cost him a great wrench, it would take the colour and the pleasure out of his life if he were banished from the happy rooms in which she reigned. But yet, honour requiring it, he could do this and live; he was not afraid of himself so far. But how to continue here in the enjoyment of his other advantages and withdraw from the house in which he had been received so kindly, he did not know. It would be impossible without explanations, and what explanation could he give?
“Look you ’ere,” said Paolo, rising in his turn, taking advantage of all the devices of oratory to move his friend, “lofe, that is one thing; life, that is another. For a capriccio I say nothing. We all have such; by times it will seem as though you live not but in possession of the object; but after, that will pass, and you will laugh, and all will go on as before.”
“Hold your tongue; you don’t know anything about it,” said Harry, with a contemptuous wave of the hand.
“I have had my experiences like another,” said Paolo, mildly. “I am not an ignorant. It is for a moment you suffer, you think all is ovare. But—oh, bah!—when it is ovare so many things remain. There is the bureau,” said Paolo, counting on his fingers, “there are the events of the day; there is the table—for you must always eat; there is society—which is made,” he added sententiously, “of other objects. In brief, amico mio, there is to live. That must be done all the same. For the moment it may be hard—but sooner or later the time of calm will arrive—What then? If it be certain that an hour will come when you will have had enough, when you will become weary——”
Harry sat up in his chair. “What are you talking about?” he said.
With his honest English imagination he did not know what the other meant. He had never read a French novel in his life (he could not, indeed, if he had wished), nor any English ones of that sort. According to him, when a man “fell in love” it was with the intention of marrying the girl he loved, and living happy ever after. The idea that it would last only for so long, and that there would come a time when you would have enough, and be weary—a moment which must arrive sooner or later—was such a thing as had no meaning to him. Paolo turned, too, when his friend said this, and gazed at him, startled and wondering. Suddenly the little Italian became aware that he was speaking another language, a tongue unknown to Harry. He did not know Harry’s tongue so far as this went, but being very quick and intelligent he perceived at once that it was not the same as his, and that in speaking as he did he had completely missed Harry’s comprehension. This took away from him the power of speech. How was he to find out Harry’s language? They remained for a full minute thus, baffled each by each, gazing at each other: Paolo, small and keen, trying hard to make his friend out; Harry, large, obtuse, confused, wondering what on heaven and earth this strange little being could mean.
“Look here,” he said at last, “I’m English, you know. I don’t follow you a bit. Perhaps you’re too refined, and all that. You don’t fathom my difficulty, and I don’t understand in the least what you mean. Here’s what I want: just listen. I am fond of a girl, but I daren’t tell her I’m fond of her, because you know I have nothing to marry on, and I am not such a cur as to ask her to bury herself up for years waiting for me; and besides, it wouldn’t be handsome to her father, who has been very kind to me. What am I to do? Ought I to go right away? I don’t want to do that. Or can you tell me how I’m to put a padlock on my tongue, and go on seeing her, and never betray myself? No, by Jove! I don’t think I am strong enough for that.”
“There is one thing will make it more easy,” said Paolo—he had dived deep into the records of his own experience to find precedents, but he found nothing which could throw any light upon so strange a case, and he was now casting about blindly for something to say—“there is one thing. This lady, this Signorina—is she then—what shall you call it? disposed to respond to you?”
Harry’s face grew crimson. He gave a rapid glance back upon all their intercourse. He seemed to see Rita’s unconscious, tranquil face. Even when he had made that foolish speech about taking her to England she had been moved not a hair’s breadth. She had taken it with perfect calm, as one who had never thought upon the subject might quite well do. “I don’t think so,” he said, quickly, not looking his friend in the face.
“Then it is moche more easy,” said Paolo. “There is nothing to do, amico mio, but to be silent—what you call hold your tongue: and all will be ovare. When the lady will respond it is different—when she will give you a glance, a smile, a permission to say what perhaps ought not to be said.”
“There is nothing of the kind in the whole business,” said Harry, bluntly; “you are thinking of your intrigues, and all that Italian nonsense. English girls don’t understand it any more than I do.”
“Then the Signorina—is English?” Paolo ventured here to give vent to a little laugh. “But you must not be too secure that she understands no more than you. Perhaps there is in the lady a little Italian blood!”
“Paolo,” said Harry, “you have the most unreasonable, idiotic, offensive prejudice against——”
And here he paused—for had he not been careful all this time to keep in the background the name of the lady? He stopped, and he looked at Paolo with curious, anxious, defiant eyes.
Paolo would have laughed had he dared: but he did not venture to laugh. It was too serious. “I have no prejudice,” he said. “It may be that I think a little in Italian, one cannot help one’s thoughts. But then why will you ask me? If the lady is indifferent where then is the difficulty of to hold your tongue? But if that is otherwise—listen. The papa, it is to him one speaks when it is of marriage. Love, that is another thing. You do not understand, amico,” said Paolo, with a plaintive tone, “the difference. There is great difference. They are two things all-together. Marriage,” once more he counted upon his fingers, “that will mean the papa; love—ah! that will mean the moment, the opportunity, the response.”
To these last words Harry paid no attention. He scarcely heard them. But the others seemed to throw a sudden light upon the whole subject. He rose up again and resumed his promenade about the room, biting his nails and knitting his brows. “By Jove,” he said, at last, “Paul-o, you’re not half such a foolish little beggar as you look. That is the thing to do. I wonder I never thought of it myself. To be sure, that’s the thing to do.”
“What is the thing to do?” Paolo asked, bewildered. But his friend made him no direct answer. After a good deal more of that pacing up and down, he came back and patted his counsellor on the back so vigorously that he almost took away Paolo’s breath.
“That is the very thing,” Harry said. “You are a clever little beggar after all. I should never have hit it out all by myself; but I see now, it’s the right thing to do. Not too easy though; I can’t say that I shall like it a bit; but one can see in a moment that it’s the right thing to do.”
“What is the right thing?” Paolo asked again; but he got no reply. Harry fell a-musing as he sometimes did, letting the little Italian go on with talk, to which his friend paid no attention; and afterwards he walked with Paolo to his rooms, paying just as little regard to what he said. It was another clear, starlight night, soft and cool as the nights are in an Italian spring. There was no chill to freeze the blood; but all was balmy and soft. He went along the streets with their high houses reaching almost up to the sky, looking up to the narrow lane of radiant blue above, all living and sweet with stars. He thought his problem over again, going step by step over the same way which he had traversed before—and it seemed to him that he had at last found the true and the only solution. He could not withdraw himself from the Vice-Consul’s house without an explanation; that would be impossible; therefore the only thing to be done was to go to the Vice-Consul himself, and tell him how the case stood. “I cannot be sure of myself if I go on seeing her every day; therefore I must give up seeing her every day, and you must know why.” Probably he would not tell his story so briefly as this; there would be explanations to give, and many digressions probably from the main theme; but that in effect would be all that Harry would have to say; and certainly it was the right thing to do. He took it for granted that Paolo had suggested it, though in reality it was an alternative of a much less satisfactory kind that Paolo had suggested; but all the rest that he had said vanished from Harry’s practical mind, leaving this one piece of advice behind, and no more. Paolo was no fool, though his way of thinking might not be much like an Englishman’s. Englishmen did not go to the father first, but to the daughter, to know what their chances were; but for once in a way the other mode was the best. He took a long walk after he left his friend, traversing all the streets which now he knew so well, and further still to where the salt air of the sea blew in his face, and refreshed his soul. He would not trifle with the occasion, but go at once to-morrow and get it off his mind. So he said to himself. And he came home past the house from which he was henceforward to be banished. It was late, and the sitting-rooms were all dark; but Harry knew that a little light in one window indicated Rita’s room—probably the faint little veilleuse which watched over her sleep; and that in another was the lamp by which the Vice-Consul was smoking his last cigar. He stood and looked piteously at the house. It had been a kind of home to him, in one way more than his own home had ever been. Standing outside in the night it appeared beautiful to him, as never house had appeared before. He had not appreciated the bric-à-brac, or known what to say about the pictures; but now each article of the furniture suddenly appeared to him in a new light. It was all beautiful; it was such a place as a palace might be—a house for a queen; and to think that he had almost lived in it for so long, and that now he was to enter there no more! Harry was not like the Peri at the gate of Paradise; he had a still more pathetic, a heart-rending sense of loss. He had been there yesterday; but he was not to be there again perhaps for ever. Why should he go away? and yet he must go away; he must keep himself at a distance from those dear doors. Slowly there gathered in his eyes a painful dew; it did not fall in tears, which he would have scorned himself for shedding, but it blurred and magnified all he saw. Yesterday so much at home, so familiar in the place, to-morrow with no entrance possible to him any more! and all by no fault of his or anyone’s; by no levity on her part, or presumption on his; all unawares, no one thinking of any danger. It seemed to Harry, standing outside there, as if there was something very hard in such a wayward accident of fate, as if some malign spirit must have taken pleasure in twisting the threads wrongly; in making trouble out of the most innocent situations in life. He had never meant to go further than liking—no one could help going as far as liking; but the unlucky fellow, without meaning it, had taken the step farther, and loved; and now all his card-castle of happiness had tumbled down, and everything was over. There was nothing wrong in it—no fault in it one way or another: and yet a great many faults would have produced less confusion and pain.