THE inarticulate voice of the crowd had grown to a roar and the ominous note Tarsis caught was now a distinct expression of horror. It rose above the tittle-chat, the tinkling of wine-glasses, the laughter and all the clack and fizzle of the gay assemblage, sending the guests to the windows and bringing the music to a stop. Hera took the arm of her husband, and they started for the staircase. A few steps and they were face to face with Sandro.
“I beg your pardon, Signore,” he said, his lips twitching.
“What is it?” Tarsis asked.
“I have to tell you, Signore, that his Majesty will not be here”—an odd fling of cynicism, innocent as it was untimely, born of the servant’s awe of his master rather than of an instinct to break the news by degrees.
Tarsis looked as if he would strike the man. He moved closer to him, fists clinched at his side. “What do you mean?” he demanded.
“The King is dead!”
Those within hearing echoed the words, pressing nearer to Sandro, and from the windows, by which the news had come from the street, guests swept toward the group about Tarsis, exclaiming, “The King is slain!”
Tarsis gripped Sandro’s arm. “Tell what you know!” he commanded him.
“I know only this, Signore,” he began—and the jewelled women and decorated men narrowed the circle about him: “I got it from a customs guard at the gate. His Majesty had just started from the athletic grounds. A young workman walked up to the carriage and shot him at three paces.”
“At three paces!” several women repeated, shocked anew by this detail of the crime.
“What kind of man is the assassin?”
“The guard said he is a silk-weaver and an anarchist. That was the rumor from Monza. They have him in charge.”
At the word anarchist, Tarsis, with a quick movement, turned from Sandro and set his gaze on Mario Forza. The act was so marked that every eye followed his. Mario returned a steady look, and for a moment they stood thus, to the amazement of all.
Electric light flooded the scene, flashing back from the gems of the women. There was the hubbub of the crowd in the street, with its hue and cry. From the gardens the scent of magnolia came in on the evening breeze. With a shuddering fear Hera saw the veins of her husband’s neck strain, as she remembered them in that hour of wrath in the monastery. He moved a pace closer to Mario. “Honourable Forza,” he said, his voice like an edged blade, “the worst has happened. Are you content?”
The others were mystified, but Mario had an inkling of what he meant. “Why do you ask that?” he inquired, striving to be calm.
“Because it is your work!” the other answered, savagely.
“Do you mean, Signor Tarsis, that I have had a hand in this assassination?”
“That is precisely what I mean.”
“The assertion is absurd, and it is a lie!” Mario declared. “I regret that I have to say this to you in your own house, but you have forced me to it.”
Tarsis tossed his head and laughed mockingly. His studied decorum of the gentleman was forgotten, and he stood forth in the truth of his native self. A moment he eyed the man he hated in a vulgar effect of shrewdness, then shook an index finger sidewise before Mario’s face, as the Sicilian peasant uses to denote that he is not to be gammoned.
“Signori,” he began, turning to the astonished guests at his side, “this man knows how to play the traitor and at the same time act the innocent. He and I understand each other excellently. We shall have no denial from him on that point, I think,” he added, throwing a glance at his wife. “There are one or two more here who understand.”
“I thought he knew something,” whispered Signora Nobody-in-particular to her companion. “Delicious! He’s going to tell!”
A similar thought must have impelled Mario. He stepped forward a little, and, with the sole purpose of saving an insensate husband from sullying his wife’s name, he spoke to Tarsis, his tone severe, but not without a shade of entreaty.
“Guard your tongue,” he said. “If you have a quarrel with me, this is not the time or place.”
Tarsis faced him, with blazing eyes, his last vestige of restraint thrown off. “I will be judge of the time and place to speak!” he exclaimed. “You know too well what I meant when I said this is your work. Perhaps there are some here who do not catch my meaning. You and your crew of demagogues are to blame for the King’s death. I charge you with it publicly. You poison the minds of ignorant people, set the workers against their betters, teach them to hate authority, incite them to riot and bloodshed. I say that you have plotted against the King’s life, and are just as much the taker of it as the miscreant who fired the shot.”
It was so different from what he had expected and dreaded that Mario felt more of relief than resentment. That Tarsis had omitted Hera’s name seemed a full requital for the wrong done him in that reckless accusation. Nevertheless, he would have replied to it but for the Cardinal, who raised his hand and invoked peace in the name of heaven.
“It is hard to hold one’s peace,” Tarsis protested sullenly, “when such a deed is done, and the instigator of it stands before one’s eyes under his own roof.”
Mario was about to leave the palace, but the Cardinal touched his arm. “Stay a while,” he said, “and I will go with you.” For a moment he held Tarsis in the regard of his kindly though keen eyes, as if studying him. “Much of the injustice that man does his neighbour is by reason of his seeing him through the glass but darkly,” he affirmed, in the manner of one who would dispel a misunderstanding. “It is not the first time that the Honourable Forza has been called a demagogue, but always it has been a calumny. I, who am his friend and know him, can do no less than say this. To be a demagogue, I take it, is to be at war with truth—to strive for popular favour by inflaming the selfish passions of men. I am sure he has not done that. He has wielded a lance, and an able one, but always it has been the lance of truth and valour. He has striven to mellow the world’s hard hopes with even-handed justice. Wrong is not a mender of wrong. The sorrow we all feel in this hour and revengeful passions go ill together. The occasion does not call for denunciation or abuse of men or doctrines. Let us try to find the use there may be in this as in all adversity. Anarchy has no more determined foe than Signor Forza. His war is upon offenders against human justice, and that is the same as war upon anarchy. No one loves his country more than he, no one loved the King more. I know that his public services are in harmony with the things that we all should hold best—the Church, which is of Christ, and Italy, which is our country.”
In the hush that reigned Mario said, “I thank your Eminence,” and Hera, silently, breathed a thanksgiving.
Tarsis had not spoken his last word. His lips were curving with the sarcastic smile that he could summon. “I perceive,” he remarked, “that your Eminence has become an apostate to the New Democracy.”
The Cardinal made no reply, though he stood a second or two weighing the words. Then, with the calmness of one who has schooled himself to avoid fruitless and painful discussion, he turned, smiling, to Mario.
“Shall we go, Honourable?” he said, and the other inclined his head. They gave a parting word to Hera, and, bowing to the rest of the company, moved toward the door. As they passed nearly all made reverence to the Cardinal. Their exit proved the signal for a general departure of the guests, and with scant ceremony the company began to go its way.