The Beautiful Lady

Chapter Six

How can I tell of the lady of the pongee—now that I beheld her? Do you think that, when she came that night to the salon where we were awaiting her, I hesitated to lift my eyes to her face because of a fear that it would not be so beautiful as the misty sweet face I had dreamed would be hers? Ah, no! It was the beauty which was in her heart that had made me hers; yet I knew that she was beautiful. She was fair, that is all I can tell. I cannot tell of her eyes, her height, her mouth; I saw her through those clouds of the dust of gold—she was all glamour and light. It was to be seen that everyone fell in love with her at once; that the chef d’orchestre came and played to her; and the waiters—you should have observed them!—made silly, tender faces through the great groves of flowers with which Poor Jr. had covered the table. It was most difficult for me to address her, to call her “Miss Landry.” It seemed impossible that she should have a name, or that I should speak to her except as “you.”

Even, I cannot tell very much of her mother, except that she was adorable because of her adorable relationship. She was florid, perhaps, and her conversation was of commonplaces and echoes, like my own, for I could not talk. It was Poor Jr. who made the talking, and in spite of the spell that was on me, I found myself full of admiration and sorrow for that brave fellow. He was all gaieties and little stories in a way I had never heard before; he kept us in quiet laughter; in a word, he was charming. The beautiful lady seemed content to listen with the greatest pleasure. She talked very little, except to encourage the young man to continue. I do not think she was brilliant, as they call it, or witty. She was much more than that in her comprehension, in her kindness—her beautiful kindness!

She spoke only once directly to me, except for the little things one must say. “I am almost sure I have met you, Signor Ansolini.”

I felt myself burning up and knew that the conflagration was visible. So frightful a blush cannot be prevented by will-power, and I felt it continuing in hot waves long after Poor Jr. had effected salvation for me by a small joke upon my cosmopolitanism.

Little sleep visited me that night. The darkness of my room was luminous and my closed eyes became painters, painting so radiantly with divine colours—painters of wonderful portraits of this lady. Gallery after gallery swam before me, and the morning brought only more!

What a ride it was to Venice that day! What magical airs we rode through, and what a thieving old trickster was time, as he always becomes when one wishes hours to be long! I think Poor Jr. had made himself forget everything except that he was with her and that he must be a friend. He committed a thousand ridiculousnesses at the stations; he filled one side of the compartment with the pretty chianti-bottles, with terrible cakes, and with fruits and flowers; he never ceased his joking, which had no tiresomeness in it, and he made the little journey one of continuing, happy laughter.

And that evening another of my foolish dreams came true! I sat in a gondola with the lady of the grey pongee to hear the singing on the Grand Canal;—not, it is true, at her feet, but upon a little chair beside her mother. It was my place—to be, as I had been all day, escort to the mother, and guide and courier for that small party. Contented enough was I to accept it! How could I have hoped that the Most Blessed Mother would grant me so much nearness as that? It was not happiness that I felt, but something so much more precious, as though my heart-strings were the strings of a harp, and sad, beautiful arpeggios ran over them.

I could not speak much that evening, nor could Poor Jr. We were very silent and listened to the singing, our gondola just touching the others on each side, those in turn touching others, so that a musician from the barge could cross from one to another, presenting the hat for contributions. In spite of this extreme propinquity, I feared the collector would fall into the water when he received the offering of Poor Jr. It was “Gra-a-az’, Mi-lor! Graz’!” a hundred times, with bows and grateful smiles indeed!

It is the one place in the world where you listen to a bad voice with pleasure, and none of the voices are good—they are harsh and worn with the night-singing—yet all are beautiful because they are enchanted.

They sang some of our own Neapolitan songs that night, and last of all the loveliest of all, “La Luna Nova.” It was to the cadence of it that our gondoliers moved us out of the throng, and it still drifted on the water as we swung, far down, into sight of the lights of the Ledo:

     “Luna d’ar-gen-to fal-lo so-gnar—
     Ba-cia-lo in fron-te non lo de-star....”
 

Not so sweetly came those measures as the low voice of the beautiful lady speaking them.

“One could never forget it, never!” she said. “I might hear it a thousand other times and forget them, but never this first time.”

I perceived that Poor Jr. turned his face abruptly toward hers at this, but he said nothing, by which I understood not only his wisdom but his forbearance.

“Strangely enough,” she went on, slowly, “that song reminded me of something in Paris. Do you remember”—she turned to Poor Jr.—“that poor man we saw in front of the Cafe’ de la Paix with the sign painted upon his head?”

Ah, the good-night, with its friendly cloak! The good, kind night!

“I remember,” he answered, with some shortness. “A little faster, boatman!”

“I don’t know what made it,” she said, “I can’t account for it, but I’ve been thinking of him all through that last song.”

Perhaps not so strange, since one may know how wildly that poor devil had been thinking of her!

“I’ve thought of him so often,” the gentle voice went on. “I felt so sorry for him. I never felt sorrier for any one in my life. I was sorry for the poor, thin cab-horses in Paris, but I was sorrier for him. I think it was the saddest sight I ever saw. Do you suppose he still has to do that, Rufus?”

“No, no,” he answered, in haste. “He’d stopped before I left. He’s all right, I imagine. Here’s the Danieli.”

She fastened a shawl more closely about her mother, whom I, with a ringing in my ears, was trying to help up the stone steps. “Rufus, I hope,” the sweet voice continued, so gently,—“I hope he’s found something to do that’s very grand! Don’t you? Something to make up to him for doing that!”

She had not the faintest dream that it was I. It was just her beautiful heart.

The next afternoon Venice was a bleak and empty setting, the jewel gone. How vacant it looked, how vacant it was! We made not any effort to penetrate the galleries; I had no heart to urge my friend. For us the whole of Venice had become one bridge of sighs, and we sat in the shade of the piazza, not watching the pigeons, and listening very little to the music. There are times when St. Mark’s seems to glare at you with Byzantine cruelty, and Venice is too hot and too cold. So it was then. Evening found us staring out at the Adriatic from the terrace of a cafe’ on the Ledo, our coffee cold before us. Never was a greater difference than that in my companion from the previous day. Yet he was not silent. He talked of her continually, having found that he could talk of her to me—though certainly he did not know why it was or how. He told me, as we sat by the grey-growing sea, that she had spoken of me.

“She liked you, she liked you very much,” he said. “She told me she liked you because you were quiet and melancholy. Oh Lord, though, she likes everyone, I suppose! I believe I’d have a better chance with her if I hadn’t always known her. I’m afraid that this damn Italian—I beg your pardon, Ansolini!—”

“Ah, no,” I answered. “It is sometimes well said.”

“I’m afraid his picturesqueness as a Kentucky Colonel appeals to her too much. And then he is new to her—a new type. She only met him in Paris, and he had done some things in the Abyssinian war—”

“What is his rank?” I asked.

“He’s a prince. Cheap down this way; aren’t they? I only hope”—and Poor Jr. made a groan—“it isn’t going to be the old story—and that he’ll be good to her if he gets her.”

“Then it is not yet a betrothal?”

“Not yet. Mrs. Landry told me that Alice had liked him well enough to promise she’d give him her answer before she sailed, and that it was going to be yes. She herself said it was almost settled. That was just her way of breaking it to me, I fear.”

“You have given up, my friend?”

“What else can I do? I can’t go on following her, keeping up this play at second cousin, and she won’t have anything else. Ever since I grew up she’s been rather sorrowful over me because I didn’t do anything but try to amuse myself—that was one of the reasons she couldn’t care for me, she said, when I asked her. Now this fellow wins, who hasn’t done anything either, except his one campaign. It’s not that I ought to have her, but while I suppose it’s a real fascination, I’m afraid there’s a little glitter about being a princess. Even the best of our girls haven’t got over that yet. Ah, well, about me she’s right. I’ve been a pretty worthless sort. She’s right. I’ve thought it all over. Three days before they sail we’ll go down to Naples and hear the last word, and whatever it is we’ll see them off on the ‘Princess Irene.’ Then you and I’ll come north and sail by the first boat from Cherbourg.

“I—I?” I stammered.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m going to make the aged parent shout with unmanly glee. I’m going to ask him to take me on as a hand. He’ll take you, too. He uses something like a thousand Italians, and a man to manage them who can talk to them like a Dutch uncle is what he has always needed. He liked you, and he’ll be glad to get you.”

He was a good friend, that Poor Jr., you see, and I shook the hand that he offered me very hard, knowing how great would have been his embarrassment had I embraced him in our own fashion.

“And perhaps you will sail on the ‘Princess Irene,’ after all,” I cried.

“No,” he shook his head sadly, “it will not happen. I have not been worth it.”