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IV

"I tell you that it is a pazzia– a madness," said Giacinta Rossano. "The girl is a good girl, and I am sorry for her – shut up in this dreary house with a step-mother and a priest. But we are not of their world, and they are not of ours. The princess has made that very clear from the first."

"And what does it matter?" Silvio Rossano exclaimed, impetuously. "We are not princes, but neither are we beggars. Does not everybody know who my father is, Giacinta? And some day, perhaps, I shall make a name for myself, too – "

Giacinta glanced at her brother proudly.

"Yes," she said, "I believe you will – I am sure you will, if – " And then she hesitated.

"If what?" demanded Silvio.

"If you do not make an imbecile of yourself first," his sister replied, dryly.

Silvio Rossano flung the newspaper he had been reading on to the floor, and his eyes flashed with anger. In a moment, however, the anger passed, and he laughed.

"All men are imbeciles once in their lives," he said, "and most men are imbeciles much more frequently – "

"Oh, with these last it does not matter," observed Giacinta, sapiently; "they do themselves no harm. But you – you are not of that sort, Silvio mio. So before making an imbecile of yourself, it will be better to be sure that it is worth the trouble. Besides, the thing is ridiculous. People do not fall in love at first sight, except in novels – and if they do, they can easily fall out of it again."

"Not the other ones," said Silvio, briefly.

"The other ones? Ah, I understand," and Giacinta looked at him more gravely. She was very fond of this only brother of hers, and very proud of him – proud of his already promising career and of his frank, lovable disposition, as well as of his extreme good looks. In truth, when she compared Silvio with the large majority of young men of his age and standing, she had some reason for her pride. Unlike so many young Romans of the more leisured classes, Silvio Rossano had never been content to lead a useless and brainless existence. Being an only son, he had been exempt from military service; but, instead of lounging in the Corso in the afternoons and frequenting music-halls and other resorts of a more doubtful character at night, he had turned his attention at a comparatively early age to engineering. At the present moment, though barely five-and-twenty, he had just completed the erection of some important water-works at Bari, during the formation of which he had been specially chosen by one of the most eminent engineers in Italy to superintend the works during the great man's repeated absences elsewhere. Thanks to Silvio Rossano's untiring energy and technical skill, as well as to his popularity with his subordinates and workmen, serious difficulties had been overcome in an unusually short space of time, and a government contract, which at one moment looked as if about to be unfulfilled by the company with whom it had been placed, was completed within the period agreed upon. There could be little doubt that, after his last success, Silvio would be given some lucrative work to carry out, and, in the mean time, after an absence of nearly a year, he had come home for a few weeks' rest and holiday, to find his father and sister installed in Palazzo Acorari.

It was, perhaps, not to be wondered at if Giacinta Rossano felt uneasy in her mind on her brother's account. She knew his character as nobody else could know it, for he was barely two years younger than she, and they had grown up together. She knew that beneath his careless, good-natured manner there lay an inflexible will and indomitable energy, and that once these were fully aroused they would carry him far towards the end he might have in view.

The interest that Donna Bianca Acorari had aroused in Silvio had not escaped Giacinta's notice. She had observed where his gaze had wandered so frequently during the midnight mass a few nights previously, and, knowing that Silvio's life had been too busy a one to have left him much time to think about love, she had marvelled at the effect that Bianca Acorari seemed suddenly to have had upon him. Since that night, whenever they were alone together, he would begin to question her as to the surroundings of their neighbors on the floor below them, and urge her to make friends with Donna Bianca. It was in vain that Giacinta pointed out that she had only interchanged a word or two with the girl in her life, and that there was evidently a fixed determination on the princess's part not to permit any acquaintance.

This last argument, she soon discovered, was the very worst that she could use. Like most Romans of the bourgeoisie to which he by birth belonged – and, indeed, like Romans of every class outside the so-called nobility – Silvio was a republican at heart so far as social differences were concerned; nor – in view of the degeneracy of a class which has done all in its power in modern days to vulgarize itself in exchange for dollars, American or otherwise, and to lose any remnant of the traditions that, until a generation ago, gave the Roman noblesse a claim upon the respect of the classes nominally below it – could this attitude be blamed or wondered at.

At first, Giacinta had laughed at her brother for the way in which he had fallen a victim to the attractions of a young girl whom he had never seen before, but she had very soon begun to suspect that Silvio's infatuation was no mere passing whim. She was well aware, too, that passing whims were foreign to his nature. Since that Christmas night, he had been more silent and thoughtful than she had ever seen him, except, perhaps, in his student days, when he had been working more than usually hard before the examinations.

Of Bianca Acorari herself he spoke little, but Giacinta understood that the drift of his conversation generally flowed towards the family on the piano nobile and how its members occupied their day. Moreover, Silvio, she observed, was much more frequently in casa than was altogether natural for a young fellow supposed to be taking a holiday, and he appeared to be strangely neglectful of friends and acquaintances to whose houses he had formerly been ready to go. Another thing, too, struck Giacinta as unusual, and scarcely edifying. Silvio had never been remarkable for an alacrity to go to mass, and Giacinta knew that he shared the professor's views on certain subjects, and that he had little partiality for the clergy as a caste. Apparently, however, he had suddenly developed a devotion to some saint whose relic might or might not be in the church of Santa Maria in Piazza Campitelli, for Giacinta, to her surprise, had met him face to face one morning as she had gone to mass there, and on another occasion she had caught a glimpse of his figure disappearing behind a corner in the same church. It was only charitable, she thought, casually to inform this devout church-goer that the Princess Montefiano had a private chapel in her apartment, in which the Abbé Roux said mass every morning at half-past eight o'clock.

In the mean time, the professor, occupied with his scientific research, was in happy ignorance of the fact that disturbing elements were beginning to be at work within his small domestic circle, and Giacinta kept her own counsel. She hoped that Silvio would soon get some employment which would take him away from Rome, for she was very sure that nothing but mortification and unhappiness would ensue were he to make Bianca Acorari's acquaintance.

Some days had elapsed since Christmas, and Giacinta Rossano had not again seen either Bianca or the princess. Under the circumstances, she by no means regretted the fact, for she rather dreaded lest she and her brother might encounter them on the staircase, and then, if Silvio behaved as he had behaved in the Sudario, the princess would certainly suspect his admiration for her step-daughter.

In Rome, however, families can live under the same roof for weeks, or even months, without necessarily encountering each other, or knowing anything of each other's lives or movements; and it so happened that no opportunity was given to Giacinta, even had she desired it, again to interchange even a formal greeting with the girl who had evidently made such an impression at first sight on her brother.

Of late, too, Silvio's interest in their neighbors had apparently diminished, for he asked fewer questions concerning them, and occasionally, Giacinta thought, almost seemed as though desirous of avoiding the subject.

She was not altogether pleased, however, when, after he had been at home about a month, Silvio one day announced that he had been offered work in Rome which would certainly keep him in the city for the whole summer. It was delightful, no doubt, to have him with them. She saw that her father was overjoyed at the idea, and, had it not been for other considerations, Giacinta would have desired nothing better than that Silvio should live permanently with them, for his being at home made her own life infinitely more varied. She could not help wondering, however, whether Bianca Acorari had anything to do with Silvio's evident satisfaction at remaining in Rome. Hitherto, he had shown eagerness rather than disinclination to get away from Rome, declaring that there was so little money or enterprise in the capital that any young Roman wishing to make his way in the world had better not waste his time by remaining in it.

Now, however, to judge of Silvio's contented attitude, he had found work which would be remunerative enough without being obliged to seek it in other parts of Italy or abroad. And so the weeks went by. Lent was already over, and Easter and spring had come, when Giacinta made a discovery which roused afresh all her uneasiness on her brother's behalf.

In some way or another she began to feel convinced that Silvio had managed either to meet Bianca Acorari, or, at all events, to have some communication with her. For some little time, indeed, she had suspected that his entire cessation from any mention of the girl or her step-mother was not due to his interest in Bianca having subsided. Silvio's interest in anything was not apt easily to subside when once fully aroused, and that it had been fully aroused, Giacinta had never entertained any doubt. Chance furnished her with a clew as to where Silvio's channels of communication might possibly lie, if indeed he could have any direct communication with Donna Bianca, which, under the circumstances, would seem to be almost incredible.

It so happened that one April morning, when summer seemed to have entered into premature possession of its inheritance, when the Banksia roses by the steps of the Ara Coeli were bursting into bloom and the swifts were chasing each other with shrill screams in the blue sky overhead, Giacinta was returning from her usual walk before the mid-day breakfast, and, as she turned into the little piazza in which Palazzo Acorari was situated, she nearly collided with Silvio, apparently engaged in lighting a cigarette. There was nothing unusual in his being there at that hour, for he sometimes returned to breakfast a casa, especially on Thursdays, when little or no work is done in Rome in the afternoons, and this was a Thursday. It struck her, nevertheless, that Silvio seemed to be somewhat embarrassed by her sudden appearance round the corner of the narrow lane which connected the piazza with the Piazza Campitelli. His embarrassment was only momentary, however, and he accompanied her to the palazzo. The cannon at San Angelo boomed mid-day as they turned into the portone, and was answered by the bells of the churches round. As they slowly mounted the staircase, a lady came down it. Giacinta did not know her by sight, and, after she had passed them, she half-turned to look at her, for she fancied that a glance of mutual recognition was exchanged between her and Silvio, though the latter raised his hat only with the formality usual in passing an unknown lady on a staircase. The stranger seemed to hesitate for a moment, as though she were disconcerted at seeing Silvio in another person's company. The lady continued her way, however, and if Giacinta had not happened to look round as she and Silvio turned the corner of the staircase, she probably would have thought no more of her, for she was not particularly remarkable, being merely a quietly dressed woman, perhaps eight-and-twenty or thirty years of age, neither good-looking nor the reverse. But, as Giacinta looked, the lady coughed, and the cough re-echoed up the staircase. At the same time she dropped a folded piece of paper. Apparently she was unconscious that she had done so, for she continued to descend the stairs without turning her head, and disappeared round the angle of the court-yard.

"She has dropped something, Silvio," Giacinta said. "Had you not better go after her? It is a letter, I think."

"Of course!" Silvio answered, a little hastily. "I will catch up with her and give it to her," and he turned and ran down the staircase as he spoke.

Giacinta, leaning over the balustrade, saw him pick up the piece of paper. Then he crumpled it up and thrust it into his pocket.

"That," said Giacinta to herself, "was not prudent of Silvio. One does not crumple up a letter and pocket it if one is about to restore it to its owner, unless one's pocket is its proper destination."

Nevertheless, Silvio continued to pursue the lady, and three or four minutes or more elapsed before he rejoined his sister.

"Well," Giacinta observed, tranquilly. "You gave her back her letter?"

"It was not a letter," said Silvio, "it was only a – a memorandum – written on a scrap of paper. A thing of no importance, Giacinta."

"I am glad it was of no importance," returned Giacinta, not caring to press her original question. "Do you know who she is?" she added.

"I think," answered Silvio, carelessly, "that she must be the lady who comes to teach the princess's daughter."

"Step-daughter," corrected Giacinta, dryly.

"Of course – step-daughter – I had forgotten. Do you know, Giacinta," he continued, "that we shall be very late for breakfast?"

It was a silent affair, that breakfast. The professor had been occupied the whole of the morning in correcting the proofs of a new scientific treatise, and he had even brought to the table some diagrams which he proceeded to study between the courses. Silvio's handsome face wore a thoughtful and worried expression, and Giacinta was engrossed with her own reflections.

Presently Professor Rossano broke the silence. He was eating asparagus, and it is not easy to eat asparagus and verify diagrams at the same time.

"Silvio," he said, mildly, "may one ask whether it is true that you have fallen in love?"

Silvio started, and looked at his father with amazement. Then he recovered himself.

"One may ask it, certainly," he replied, "but – "

"But one should not ask indiscreet questions, eh?" continued the professor. "Well, falling in love is a disease like any other – infectious in the first stage – after that, contagious – decidedly contagious."

Silvio laughed a little nervously. "And in the last stage?" he asked.

"Oh, in the last stage one – peels. H one does not, the affair is serious. I met Giacomelli yesterday – your maestro. He said to me: 'Senator, our excellent Silvio is in love. I am convinced that he is in love. It is a thousand pities; because, when one is in love, one is apt to take false measurements; and for an engineer to take false measurements is a bad thing!' That is what Giacomelli said to me in Piazza Colonna yesterday afternoon."

Silvio looked evidently relieved.

"And may one ask whom I am supposed to be in love with?" he demanded.

"As to that," observed the professor, dryly, "you probably know best. All that I would suggest is, that you do not allow the malady to become too far advanced in the second stage – unless" – and here he glanced at Giacinta – "well, unless you are quite sure that you will peel." And with a quiet chuckle he turned to his diagrams again.

Silvio caught his sister's eyes fixed upon him. Giacinta had perhaps not entirely understood her father's metaphors, but it was very clear to her that others had noticed the change she had observed in Silvio. He had evidently been less attentive to his work than was his wont; and the eminent engineer under whom he had studied and made a name for himself, becoming aware of the fact, had unconsciously divined the true cause of it. The Commendatore Giacomelli had doubtless spoken in jest to the father of his favorite pupil, thinking that a parental hint might be useful in helping Silvio to return to his former diligence. Giacinta knew her father's good-natured cynicism well enough, and felt certain that, though treating the matter as a joke, he had intended to let Silvio know that his superiors had noticed some falling off in his work.

But Giacinta was, unfortunately, only too sure that the right nail had been hit on the head, even if the blow had fallen accidentally. She did not feel uneasy lest her father should discover the fact, nor, if he did so, that he would make any efforts to discover the quarter in which Silvio's affections were engaged. The professor lived a life very much of his own, and his nature was a singularly detached one. His attitude towards the world was that of a quiet and not inappreciative spectator of a high comedy. His interests were centred in the stage, and also in the stage-machinery, and he was always ready to be amused or to sympathize as the case might be, in the passing scenes which that complex machinery produced. Giacinta often wondered whether her father ever thought of the possibility of her marriage, or ever considered that her position as an only daughter was somewhat a lonely one. He had never made the faintest allusion to the subject to her; but she was sure that if she were suddenly to announce to him that she was going to marry, he would receive the information placidly enough, and, when once he had satisfied himself that she had chosen wisely, would think no more about the matter. And it would be the same thing as far as Silvio was concerned – only, in Silvio's case, if Donna Bianca Acorari were the object on which he had set his affections, Giacinta was certain that the professor would not consider the choice a wise one. He had a great dislike to anything in the nature of social unpleasantness, as have many clever people who live in a detached atmosphere of their own. In print, or in a lecture-room, he could hit hard enough, and appeared to be utterly indifferent as to how many enemies he made, or how many pet theories he exploded by a logic which was at times irritatingly humorous and at times severely caustic. But, apart from his pen and his conferences, the Senator Rossano was merely a placid individual, slightly past middle age, with a beard inclining to gray, and a broad, intellectual forehead from under which a pair of keen, brown eyes looked upon life good-naturedly enough. Perhaps the greatest charm about Professor Rossano was his genuine simplicity – the simplicity which is occasionally, but by no means always, the accompaniment of intellectual power, and the possession of which usually denotes that power to be of a very high order. This simplicity deceived others not infrequently, but it never deceived him; on the contrary, it was perpetually adding to his knowledge, scientific and otherwise.

Both Professor Rossano's children had inherited something of their father's nature, but Silvio had inherited it in a more complex way, perhaps, than his sister. In him the scientific tendency had shown itself in the more practical form of a love for the purely mechanical and utilitarian. Nevertheless, he had the same detached nature, the same facility for regarding life from the objective point of view, as his father, and the same good-humored if slightly cynical disposition. Of the two, Giacinta was probably the more completely practical, and had, perhaps, the harder disposition. Nor was this unnatural; for their mother had died when Silvio was a child between five and six years old, and Giacinta, being then nearly eight, had speedily acquired a certain sense of responsibility, which, owing to the professor's absorption in his scientific researches, largely increased as time went on. But Giacinta, also, had her full share of good-nature and sympathy, though she was incapable of, as it were, holding herself mentally aloof from the world around her as did her father and, to a certain degree, her brother.

Breakfast over, Professor Rossano soon retired again to the correction of his proofs, leaving Giacinta and Silvio alone together. For a short time neither of them spoke, and Silvio apparently devoted his whole attention to the proper roasting of the end of a "Verginia" cigar in the flame of a candle. Giacinta meditated on the possible contents of the piece of paper that she felt positive was still lying in a crumpled condition in her brother's pocket, and wondered what particular part the lady who had passed them on the staircase might be playing in the business – though she had already made a very natural guess at it. She would have given a good deal to know whether the note – or the memorandum, as Silvio had called it, with a possibly unconscious humor that had made Giacinta smile – was written by Bianca Acorari herself or by the quietly dressed young person who was, no doubt, Bianca's daily governess. If it were from Donna Bianca, then things must have advanced to what the professor would have termed the contagious stage – only Giacinta did not employ that simile, its suggestiveness having escaped her – which would be a decidedly serious affair. If, however, as was far more probable, the missive came from the governess, who had been disappointed of the expected opportunity to give it to Silvio unobserved, and so had dropped it for him to pick up, the matter was serious, too, but not so serious. If Silvio had won over the governess to aid him in furthering his plans, Giacinta thought that she, too, might manage to do a little corrupting on her own account with the same individual. It did not immediately strike her that Silvio's sex, as well as his particularly attractive face and personality, might have removed many difficulties out of his path in dealing with the demure-looking female who devoted three hours a day to the improvement of Donna Bianca's education.

Presently, Giacinta became restive under the prolonged silence which followed the professor's departure from the room.

"You see, Silvio," she observed, as though she were merely continuing an interrupted conversation, "it is not only I who notice that you have had your head in the clouds lately – oh, ever since Christmas. And first of all, people will say: 'He is in love' – as Giacomelli said to papa yesterday; and then they will begin to ask: 'Who is the girl?' And then, very soon, some busybody will find out. It is always like that. And then – "

"Yes, Giacinta – and then?" repeated Silvio.

"I will tell you!" returned Giacinta, decidedly. "Then that priest, Monsieur l'Abbé Roux, as they call him, will be sent by the princess to see papa, and there will be well, a terrible disturbo– "

"The Abbé Roux can go to hell," observed Silvio.

"Afterwards – yes, perhaps. Papa has several times given him a similar permission. But in the mean time he will make matters exceedingly unpleasant. After all, Silvio," Giacinta continued, "let us be reasonable. The girl is an heiress – a princess in her own right, and we – we are not noble. You know what the world would say."

Silvio Rossano glanced at her.

"We are Romans," he said, "of a family as old as the Acorari themselves. It is true that we are not noble. Perhaps, when we look at some of those who are, it is as well! But we are not poor, either, Giacinta – not so poor as to have to be fed by rich American and English adventurers at the Grand Hôtel, like some of your nobles."

Giacinta shrugged her shoulders. "Donna Bianca Acorari is of that class," she said, quietly.

Silvio instantly flew into a rage. "That is so like a woman!" he retorted. "Do you suppose I meant to imply that all our nobles are like that? Each class has its canaglia, and the pity of it is that the foreigners as a rule see more of our canaglia than they do of the rest, and judge us accordingly. As to Donna Bianca Acorari, we can leave her name out of the discussion – "

Giacinta laughed. "Scarcely," she said; "but, Silvio mio, you must not be angry. You know that I do not care at all whether people are noble by birth or whether they are not. All the same, I think you are preparing for yourself a great deal of mortification; and for that girl, if you make her care for you, a great deal of unhappiness. You see how she is isolated. Does anybody, even of their own world, ever come to visit the princess and Donna Bianca? A few old women come occasionally, and a few priests – but that is all. Who or what the girl is being kept for I do not know – but it is certainly not for marriage with one not of her condition. Besides, except as her fidanzato, what opportunity could you have, or ever hope to have, of seeing her or of knowing what her feelings might be towards you?"

"And if I know them already?" burst out Silvio.

Giacinta looked grave.

"If you know them already," she said, "it means – well, it means that somebody has been behaving like an idiot."

"I, for instance!" exclaimed Silvio.

"Certainly, you – before anybody, you. Afterwards – "

"Afterwards – ?"

"The woman who dropped the note that you have in your pocket."

"Giacinta!"

"Oh, I am not an imbecile, you know, Silvio. You were waiting for that woman to come away from her morning's lessons with Bianca, and I do not suppose it is the first time that you have waited for her – and – and, what is to be the end of it all, Heaven only knows," concluded Giacinta. It was a weak conclusion, and she was fully aware of the fact; but a look on Silvio's face warned her that she had said enough for the moment.

He took his cigar from his lips and threw it out of the open window. Then, rising from his chair, he came and stood by his sister.

"I will tell you the end of it," he said, very quietly – and his eyes seemed to send forth little flashes of light as he spoke. "The end of it will be that I will marry Bianca Acorari. You quite understand, Giacinta? Noble or not, heiress or not, I will marry her, and she will marry me."

"But, Silvio – it is impossible – it is a madness – "

"Basta! I say that I will marry her. Have I failed yet in anything that I have set myself to do, Giacinta? But you," he added, in a sterner voice than Giacinta had ever heard from him – "you will keep silence. You will know nothing, see nothing. If the time comes when I need your help, I will come to you and ask you to give it me, as I would give it you."

Giacinta was silent for a moment. Then she plucked up her courage to make one more effort to stem the current of a passion that she felt would carry Silvio away with it, she knew not whither.

"But the girl," she said, "she is almost a child still, Silvio. Have you thought what unhappiness you may bring upon her if – if the princess, and that priest who, they say, manages all her affairs, should prove too strong for you? You do not know; they might put her in a convent – anywhere – to get her away from you."

Silvio Rossano swore under his breath.

"Basta, Giacinta!" he exclaimed again. "I say that I will marry her."

And then, before Giacinta had time to reply, he suddenly kissed her and went quickly out of the room.