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<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> It was a couple of months after Easter, in the spring days of May. The flood of tourists had ebbed away immediately after the great church festivities; and Rome was already very hot and growing very quiet. One morning, when Cornélie was crossing the Piazza di Spagna, where the sunshine streamed along the cream-coloured front of the Trinita de’ Monti and down the monumental staircase, where only a few beggars and the very last flower-boy sat dreaming with blinking eye-lids in a shady corner, she saw the prince coming towards her. He bowed to her with a smile of gladness and hastened up to speak to her: “How glad I am to meet you! I am in Rome for a day or two, on my way to San Stefano, to see my father on business. Business is always a bore; and this is more so than usual. Urania is at Nice. But it is too hot there and we are going away. We have just returned from a trip on the Mediterranean. Four weeks on board a friend’s yacht. It was delightful! Why did you never come to see us at Nice, as Urania asked you to?” “I really wasn’t able to come.” “I went to call on you yesterday in the Via dei Serpenti. They told me you had moved.” He looked at her with a touch of mocking laughter in his small, glittering eyes. She did not speak. “After that I did not like to commit a further indiscretion,” he said, meaningly. “Where are you going?” “To the post-office.” “May I come with you? Isn’t it too hot for walking?” “Oh, no, I love the heat! Come by all means, if you like. How is Urania?” “Very well, capital. She’s capital. She’s splendid, simply splendid. I should never have thought it. I should never have dared to think it. She plays her part to perfection. So far as she is concerned, I don’t regret my marriage. But, for the rest, Gesu mio, what a disappointment, what a disillusion!” “Why?” “You knew, did you not—I even now don’t know how—you knew for how many millions I sold myself? Not five millions but ten millions. Ah, signora mia, what a take in! You saw my father-in-law at the time of our wedding. What a Yankee, what a stocking-merchant and what a tradesman! We’re no match for him: I, Papa, or the marchesa. First promises, contracts: oh, rather! But then haggling here, haggling there. We’re no good at that: neither Papa nor I. Aunt alone was able to haggle. But she was no match for the stocking-merchant. She had not learnt that, in all the years during which she kept a boarding-house. Ten millions? Five millions? Not three millions! Or yes, perhaps we did get something like that, plus a heap of promises, for our children’s children, when everybody’s dead. Ah, signora, signora, I was better off before I was married! True, I had debts then and not now. But Urania is so economical, so practical! I should never have thought it of her. It has been a disappointment to everybody: Papa, my aunt, the monsignori. You should have seen them together. They could have scratched one another’s eyes out. Papa almost had a stroke, my aunt nearly came to blows with the monsignori.... Ah, signora, signora, I don’t like it! I am a victim. Winter after winter, they angled with me. But I didn’t want to be the bait, I struggled, I wouldn’t let the fish bite. And then this came of it. Not three millions. Lire, not dollars. I was so stupid, I thought at first it would be dollars. And Urania’s economy! She allows me my pocket-money. She controls everything, does everything. She knows exactly how much I lose at the club. Yes, you may laugh, but it’s sad. Don’t you see that I sometimes feel as if I could cry? And she has such queer notions. For instance, we have our flat at Nice and we keep on my rooms in the Palazzo Ruspoli, as a pied-à-terre in Rome. That’s enough: we don’t come often to Rome, because we are ‘black’ and Urania thinks it dull. In the summer, we were to go here or there, to some watering-place. That was all right, that was settled. But now Urania suddenly conceives the notion of selecting San Stefano as a summer residence. San Stefano! I ask you! I shall never be able to stand it. True, it’s high up, it’s cool: it’s a pleasant climate, good, fresh mountain air. But I need more in my life than mountain air. I can’t live on mountain air. Oh, you wouldn’t know Urania! She can be so awfully obstinate. It’s settled now, beyond recall: in the summer, San Stefano. And the worst of it is that she has won Papa’s heart by it. I have to suffer. They’re two to one against me. And the worst of it is that Urania says we shall have to be very economical, in order to do San Stefano up a bit. It’s a famous historical place, but fallen into grisly disrepair. It’s not our fault: we never had any luck. There was once a Forte-Braccio pope; after that our star declined and we never had another stroke of luck again. San Stefano is the type of ruined greatness. You ought to see the place. To economize, to renovate San Stefano! That’s Urania’s ideal. She has taken it into her head to do that honour to our ancestral abode. However, she has won Papa’s heart by it and he has recovered from his stroke. But can you understand now that il povero Gilio is poorer than he was before he acquired shares in a Chicago stocking-factory?” There was no checking his flow of words. He felt profoundly unhappy, small, beaten, tamed, conquered, destroyed; and he had a need to ease his heart. They had passed the post-office and now retraced their steps. He looked for sympathy from Cornélie and found it in the smiling attention with which she listened to his grievances. She replied that, after all, it showed that Urania had a real feeling for San Stefano. “Oh, yes!” he admitted, humbly. “She is very good. I should never have thought it. She is every inch a princess and duchess. It’s splendid. But the ten millions: gone, an illusion!... But tell me: how well you’re looking! Each time I see you, you’ve grown lovelier and lovelier. Do you know that you’re a very lovely woman? You must be very happy, I’m certain! You’re an exceptional woman, I always said so. I don’t understand you.... May I speak frankly? Are we good friends, you and I? I don’t understand. I think what you have done such a terrible thing. I have never heard of anything like it in our world.” “I don’t live in your world, prince.” “Very well, but all the same your world must have much the same ideas about it. And the calmness, the pride, the happiness with which you do, just quietly, as you please! I think it perfectly awful. I stand aghast at it.... And yet ... it’s a pity. People in my world are very easy-going. But that sort of thing is not allowed!” “Prince, once more, I have no world. My world is my own sphere.” “I don’t understand that. Tell me, how am I to tell Urania? For I should think it delightful if you would come and stay at San Stefano. Oh, do come, do: come to keep us company. I entreat you. Be charitable, do a good work.... But first tell me, how shall I tell Urania?” She laughed: “What?” “What they told me in the Via dei Serpenti, that your address was now Signor van der Staal’s studio, Via del Babuino.” Laughing, she looked at him almost pityingly: “It is too difficult for you to tell her,” she replied, a little condescendingly. “I will myself write to Urania and explain my conduct.” He was evidently relieved: “That’s delightful, capital! And ... will you come to San Stefano?” “No, I can’t really.” “Why not?” “I can no longer move in the circle in which you live, after my change of address,” she said, half laughing, half seriously. He shrugged his shoulders: “Listen,” he said. “You know our Roman society. So long as certain conventions are observed ... everything’s permitted.” “Exactly; but it’s just those conventions which I don’t observe.” “And that’s where you are wrong. Believe me, I am saying it as your friend.” “I live according to my own laws and I don’t want to move in your world.” He folded his hands in entreaty: “Yes, yes, I know. You are a ‘new woman.’ You have your own laws. But I beseech you, take pity on me. Be an angel of mercy and come to San Stefano.” She seemed to hear a note of seduction in his voice and therefore said: “Prince, even if it agreed with the conventions of your world ... even then I shouldn’t wish to. For I will not leave Van der Staal.” “You come first and let him come a little later. Urania will be glad to have his advice on some artistic questions, concerning the ‘doing up’ of San Stefano. We have a lot of pictures there. And old things generally. Do let’s arrange that. I am going to San Stefano to-morrow. Urania will follow me in a week. I will suggest to her to ask you down soon.” “Really, prince ... it can’t happen just yet.” “Why not?” She looked at him for some time before answering: “Shall I be candid with you?” “But of course!” They had already passed the post-office twice. The street was quite silent and deserted. He looked at her enquiringly. “Well, then,” she said, “we are in great financial difficulties. We have no money at present. I have lost my little capital; and the small sum which I earned by writing an article is spent. Duco is working hard, but he is engaged on a big work and making nothing in the meantime. He expects to receive a bit of money in a month or so. But at the moment we have nothing, nothing at all. That is why I went to a shop by the Tiber this morning to ask how much a dealer would give for a couple of old pictures which Duco wants to sell. He doesn’t like parting with them, but there’s no help for it. So you see that I can’t come. I should not care to leave him; besides, I should not have the money for the journey or a decent wardrobe.” He looked at her. The first thing that he had noticed was her new and blooming loveliness; now he noticed that her skirt was a little worn and her blouse none too fresh, though she wore a couple of roses in the waist-band. “Gesu mio!” he exclaimed. “And you tell me that so calmly, so quietly!” She smiled and shrugged her shoulders: “What would you have me do? Moan and groan about it?” “But you are a woman ... a woman to revere and respect!” he cried. “How does Van der Staal take it?” “He is a bit depressed, of course. He has never known money trouble. And it hinders him from employing his full talent. But I hope to help him bear up during this difficult time. So you see, prince, that I can’t come to San Stefano.” “But why didn’t you write to us? Why not ask us for money?” “It is very nice of you to say that, but the idea never even occurred to us.” “Too proud?” “Yes, too proud.” “But what a position to be in! What can I do for you? May I give you two hundred lire? I have two hundred lire on me. And I will tell Urania that I gave it to you.” “No, thank you, prince. I am very grateful to you, but I can’t accept it.” “Not from me?” “No.” “Not from Urania?” “Not from her either.” “Why not?” “I want to earn my money and I can’t accept alms.” “A fine principle. But for the moment ...” “I remain true to it.” “Will you allow me to tell you something?” “What?” “I admire you. More than that: I love you.” She made a gesture with her hand and wrinkled her brows. “Why mayn’t I tell you so? An Italian does not keep his love concealed. I love you. You are more beautiful and nobler and superior to anything that I could ever imagine any woman to be.... Don’t be angry with me: I am not asking anything of you. I am a bad lot, but at this moment I really feel the sort of thing that you see in our old family-portraits, an atom of chivalry which has survived by accident. I ask for nothing from you. I merely tell you—and I say it in Urania’s name as well as my own—that you can always rely on us. Urania will be angry that you haven’t written to us.” They now entered the post-office and she bought a few stamps: “There go my last soldi,” she said, laughing and showing her empty purse. “We wanted the stamps to write to the secretary of an exhibition in London. Are you seeing me home?” She saw suddenly that he had tears in his eyes. “Do accept two hundred lire from me!” he entreated. She smilingly shook her head. “Are you dining at home?” he asked. She gave him a quizzing look: “Yes,” she said. He was unwilling to ask any further questions, was afraid lest he should wound her: “Be kind,” he said, “and dine with me this evening. I’m bored. I have no friends in Rome at the moment. Everybody is away. Not at the Grand-Hôtel, but in a snug little restaurant, where they know me. I’ll come and fetch you at seven o’clock. Do be nice and come! For my sake!” He could not restrain his tears. “I shall be delighted,” she said, softly, with her smile. They were standing in the porch of the house in the Via del Babuino where the studio was. He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a fervent kiss upon it. Then he took off his hat and hurried away. She went slowly up the stairs, mastering her emotion before she entered the studio. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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