Chapter VIII: Part 8

Lady Wychcote received this with bitter silence; then she said in a low voice of the most concentrated resentment:

"So you propose to leave the burden of your wifely duty on _my_ shoulders?"

"No!" cried Sophy passionately. "As things are now, I have no wifely duty! The only duty left me is my duty to my son and to myself! I have no husband! And while this vile habit lasts, you have no son! He loves only morphia. Morphia is wife and mother and child and God to him. Oh, Lady Wychcote, do you, too, leave him! Leave him to those who can save him. Forsake him so that, from sheer loneliness, he will be forced to find himself again. It is the only way--the only, only way!"

One cannot speak out of the fulness of the heart with genuine, human passion, and not move something--even if it be only the outmost, thinnest veil of the atmosphere of another spirit. Lady Wychcote was stirred unwillingly by this ardent appeal, but she would not yield her pride.

"Pardon me," she said frigidly, "but your desertion of your post only gives me double reason for remaining at mine."

She turned and went regally away towards her own apartments. But in truth her inward spirit was not nearly as determined as her well-corseted back. That Sophy should actually have resolved to leave her alone with Cecil filled her with dismay. She had not realised, until about to lose it, the admirable "buffer" between her and the full consequences of Cecil's "illness," that Sophy's presence had provided. Lady Wychcote had, to a marked degree, your healthy egoist's detestation of sick-rooms. Not only did the mere word "morphinomaniac" fill her with dread, but it roused in her the born Conservative's resentment against anything in the least _outre_ or eccentric. It was Sophy who had watched, pleaded, interviewed doctors, read aloud, endured abuse, lain awake at night. The body of Sophy's vigorous young health had stood between her and that great, drug-poisoned body of her son.

What if...? Yes, to this point had Lady Wychcote been brought by the realisation of her daughter-in-law's imminent departure. What if, after all, the doctors were right? If, for his own sake, it would be better to have Cecil sent to a sanatorium?

XXXI

Sophy gave Tilda and Miller orders to pack, then she sent and asked to speak with Nurse Harding for a moment. She wished to know whether her husband could see her, if he were in a sufficiently rational state for her to talk with him. Anne replied that he had just had his fraction of morphia, and that it was his best hour in the day.

"Well, Daphne?" he said, rather guiltily, when she entered. She marvelled that he could call her "Daphne." It was like throwing the flowers from a sacred grave into the mire. She sat down near him, and said:

"I've come to tell you that I'm going with Bobby to Italy to-morrow."

He looked blank, not taking it in at first; then he scowled.

"I see. Shuffling off this marital coil with a vengeance, ain't you?"

"I'm going with Bobby because he needs me. But even if he didn't need me, I should go. I will not sit by and see you destroy yourself."

"Yes. I can imagine that to hear of the process from a distance would be more agreeable."

"I've tried with all my might to help you. You've only laughed at me. It amused you to deceive me. I was no help to you. If I did help you in any way, it was to ruin yourself."

"Strong words, my love. So you consider me a ruin?"

"Almost."

Her lips quivered. She closed them firmly. For his own good she was not going to let that haggard face move her unduly.

"Mh. I see. Well, though I do not seem to appeal to your compassion, I trust that I do to your sense of the picturesque. Ruins are supposed to be romantic. However, a human ruin hasn't the same value in the landscape as an architectural one. Human ruins are generally put under ground, not on top of it. I dare say the Cecil Chesney ruin will be thus disposed of. Shall you return for the ceremony, or have you decided to live permanently in Italy?"

Sophy looked at him with a sort of impassioned hardness.

"I will come back when you are cured--when you have gone of your own accord to a place where they can cure you. Until then--I will never come back."

He looked at her, hiding his real shock under a harsh sarcasm.

"'These be news!'" he exclaimed dryly. "Unlike the leopard, you seem to have been changing your spots--the spots on the sun of my happiness--the little freckles on the fair lily of your character."

"I have changed," she said. "You have changed me."

"That's very interesting. Our strongest influence seems really to be our unconscious influence. Fancy my having changed the dear partner of my joys and sorrows to this semblance, and all the while being myself in total ignorance of the change! Well, well! The world wags and we wag with it. So you're determined to put off the old Adam--in other words, Cecil Chesney?"

Sophy looked at him for a moment without answering, then she said simply:

"Why should I want to be with you when you treat me like this? Why should I risk my life for a man who doesn't love me?"

"So I don't love you, eh?"

"No."

"You really think that?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you put a poisonous drug before me."

He flushed, biting his lip hard. Then he said in a cold, rough voice:

"Look here--am I to take this announcement seriously?"

"Yes."

"You mean you're really going to cut off to Italy and leave me in the lurch--like a sick dog in a ditch?"

"I'm going to Italy to-morrow."

"God! you're a fine helpmate!" he cried savagely. "'Eyes take your fill ... lips take your last embrace.' Come here!" he barked suddenly, tapping the side of the bed with his gaunt hand. "Come to your husband, wifie, dear!"

Sophy stood up. "No," she said.

"What! You refuse me a chaste embrace?--even at parting? You're really a sublime wife, ain't you?"

"I'm not a wife. I am myself. You are not my husband. You are not even yourself. Until you are yourself I will not come near you. I will not pretend to be your wife."

His face was livid--dreadful. He reared himself in the bed. All his huge frame, so noticeably thinner, trembled. He flung out an arm towards the door.

"Damn you! go, then!" he said behind his teeth. "If you're going, go!"

She was gone while he was yet speaking.

* * * * *

Dr. Carfew arrived at Dynehurst the next morning. Sophy was to leave for the Continent that afternoon. He had a long conference with Lady Wychcote, Gerald, Bellamy and Nurse Harding. Sophy was present but said very little. When Lady Wychcote so far put aside her usual attitude of haughty reserve as to urge the great specialist to take charge of her son's case, he met her courteously but bluntly.

"Unless Mr. Chesney is put in one of the places that I provide for such patients, I cannot do so, your ladyship," he said. "It would be quite useless."

Then the question of committing Cecil to such a place, even without his consent, was discussed. Lady Wychcote listened to the arguments for this course with a moderation which she had not hitherto shown. When Carfew had ended, by explaining at some length, for him, the sound reasons for adopting such a measure in the present case, she sat very thoughtful. All looked at her intently. At last she said:

"You really think that his mind may go, unless he is controlled in time?"

"I do."

"And he is dangerous--to others--to himself?"

"Surely your ladyship has had proof of that."

"Do you mean that he might go to the length of--of self-destruction?"

"Neither his own life nor the lives of others can be safe with an uncontrolled madman--whether his madness is temporary or permanent."

Lady Wychcote turned her lips inward. She was very pale. She had on no rouge whatever to-day. At last she said in a thin voice:

"My own wishes can hardly stand against such a statement from such an authority, Dr. Carfew. But there is my daughter-in-law to consult. Let us hear her opinion."

Sophy turned quietly. She had been looking out of the window at the great, yew-walled garden that swept back from the library windows. She had been thinking how like graves the flower-beds looked. It was a beautiful but sad garden. But she had also been listening attentively to every word. The sudden yielding of her mother-in-law stirred a dark pool of humour lying at the roots of her tragedy. She realised that Lady Wychcote had decided to shift the self-assumed burden of her (Sophy's) "wifely duty" on to the burly shoulders of the specialist.

"I am sure you will agree with us, Mrs. Chesney," Bellamy said eagerly.

"Yes--in one way," she answered. "I am sure that to be in a sanatorium under Dr. Carfew's care is the only thing that can cure Cecil. But----" She hesitated. They all continued to look at her intently. She flushed, then said in a low, firm voice, "But I think it would be useless to put him there by force. He would never forgive it. He would be cured--yes--for the time being. But I know him. The moment that he was free he would begin all over again--unless he went of his own will."

Even Carfew became rather excited.

"But my dear lady! Allow me----" And he began to overwhelm her with scientific refutations of her theory. Bellamy looked aghast and chagrined. Gerald began to fidget with the fixtures on the library table, pressing his moustache between his lips and biting it as was his habit when distressed. Anne Harding gazed at Sophy in blank amazement. Then her brown little mouth pressed together. She was thinking hard.

"Do you mean to say," Lady Wychcote put in when Carfew had finished and Sophy still sat silent, "that, after urging me to send for Dr. Carfew, you will refuse to follow his advice? Refuse to join with me in this--this--evidently necessary course?"

"I can't advise using force on Cecil, Lady Wychcote. It would only make him hate us. It would do no lasting good. Only if he goes of his own accord will it do good."

Lady Wychcote looked expressively at Carfew, whom she had suddenly accepted as an ally. "You see what I have to contend with!" said this look.

They argued with her quite uselessly. She left the room presently, still resolved not to become a party to the removal of Cecil by force from Dynehurst.

The great man shrugged his shoulders, as who should say, "The ways of God and woman are past finding out." Then he looked at his watch. He had still to see the "patient" who had so unexpectedly consented to an interview. In accordance with Bellamy's urgent appeal he had consented to put certain facts before Chesney with unvarnished plainness.

Chesney received him with his sketchy smile.

"Salaam," said he. "It is a relief to receive the Caliph himself, after having had to put up for so long with the Chief Eunuch. At least you're a proper male," he concluded, looking with approval at the lean, massive form of the physician.

Carfew met this imperturbably. He put a few questions, which Chesney fended with his usual half-droll, half-savage ironies, then he said:

"Has it ever occurred to you to think what the _end_ of your 'pleasant vice' will be, Mr. Chesney?"

Cecil frowned. But the next instant he resumed his callous, mocking expression.

"The 'ends' of things, O Guardian of the Faithful," said he, "are with Allah. _He_ ties them into what bow-knots seemeth best to him."

"Shaitan can tie knots as well as Allah," replied Carfew, who was one of the best read men in England, as well as one of her foremost scientists. "He dips them in blood sometimes to warp them tighter," he added grimly.

"Speak more plainly to thy slave, O Chosen of Allah."

"I will," said Carfew. "From what you have said, so far--your allusion to my confrere Bellamy in particular--I gather that you look upon lack of virility as a thing to be scoffed at."

"Naturally. Does not Mahomet report Houris in paradise? There will be no guardians of the Harem there I fancy, O great Caliph!"

"The Paradise of Morphia may begin with houris," said Carfew dryly, "but it ends with horrors--sexless horrors. I would not jeer at sexlessness, if I were you. A fellow-feeling should make you kind."

Fury made Cecil natural if not kind.

"What the hell are you after, you damned charlatan?" he demanded savagely.

"I? I am after making myself clear, as an Irishman would say. I only mean to warn you that the little instrument you prize so much--the hypodermic syringe when used in connection with morphia--produces, in the end, the unfortunate condition which you so deride. Manhood, in every sense of the word, goes down before morphia, Mr. Chesney. I have promised your mother and Dr. Bellamy to put things plainly to you. Perhaps a natural curiosity as to the scientific aspect of your habit may induce you to listen."

This was in fact the case. Carfew's words, while enraging Cecil, had given him pause. He thrust out a sullen lip, glowering at the great man, like Minotaur at one who has just given the yearly boat-load of virgins a shove seaward.

"Well, damn it-- I admit a 'low curiosity.' Get on, can't you?"

Carfew "got on." Coolly and methodically, as though unrolling a neatly illustrated script before the other's eyes, he presented to him a clear, detailed picture of the morphinomaniac's descent of Avernus.

"Little by little, all will go but that one, ever-increasing desire," he concluded; "honour first, then sex, then all human sympathy--then, a small matter perhaps, after these others, but to a well-bred man sufficiently unpleasant to contemplate--personal cleanliness. You will become filthy--you will not care. One thing alone of heaven and earth will be left you--the lust for morphia and its parasite--alcohol. So these two were available, you might stink in the nostrils of God and man--you would be quite indifferent. I remember," he broke off on another tone, seeming not to see the dull, unwilling look of arrestment, as it were, on Chesney's face, "I remember, years ago, reading a clever book by Knatchbull-Hugessen, a little volume of fairy-tales. Among these tales was one called 'Skitzland.' I rather suspect that he was having a fling at us specialists in that sketch; but then there are those who specialise on other things than science--morphia, for instance. To Skitzland were supposed to go those who had sacrificed all senses to one. A man in Skitzland would find himself only a huge ear, or an eye, or a stomach, and so on. Well, Mr. Chesney"--he turned sideways in his chair and fixed his cold, super-intelligent eyes on the sick man's--"your fate in the Skitzland of morphia will be to exist only as one huge, avid, diseased nerve-cell rank with the lust of morphia. Just that. Nothing more. And this diseased nerve-cell which will be you would slay Christ if He appeared again, and you thought the last dose of morphia were secreted in the Seamless Garment. Good-morning."

And he was gone before Cecil could moisten his dry lips to reply.

Anne found him sullenly resentful of the doctor's visit.

"I hope you've packed that old prime faker back to the courts of science," he grumbled, as she busied herself tidying his bed which he had rumpled with his ill-humoured tossings. "I'll none of him nor his damned mountebanking, that's flat."

"He'll none of _you_, unless you do as he wishes, and that's flatter," rejoined Anne tartly.

Chesney gave a whiff of utter contempt.

"Stick myself in one of his man-traps, I suppose you mean. I'll sign to Mephisto with my blood first!--Just let 'em try it on!" he added ominously.

"Oh you make me tired!--tired and sick," flashed Anne Harding. "You talk and act as if we were all trying to lure you to destruction, instead of wearing ourselves to the bone to save you from worse than death! Look here----" She drew up a chair and sat down squarely on it, her little black eyes like coals in which a red spark lingers. "_I'm_ not going to stay on with you as things are, so I might just as well have my say out-- I don't give a hang whether it's 'unprofessional' or not. So I'll just tell you this: Your mother went back on you this morning. I mean she went over to our side--we, who'd put you in a sanatorium ay or no. 'Twas your wife held out against it. And the more I think of it, the more I believe she's right. Says she, 'No, I won't lend myself to using force on him. Unless he goes of his own will it won't do any good.' I didn't think so then. But I do now. If your own will is bent on perdition, not all the other wills in the world are going to save you. That's why I'm going to give you up. I'm too useful, thank God! to waste my time on a man who's hell-bent on his own destruction."

She pushed the chair sharply back, and got up.

"Hold on!" cried Chesney as she turned away. He had listened to her without interruption, a most peculiar expression on his face. "Did I understand you to say that Sophy--that Mrs. Chesney, held out against the lot of 'em?"

"You did. I was one of the 'lot of 'em,' so I ought to know," replied Anne.

"She stood by me--in the face of all that pressure?"

"She stood up for what she believed in-- I don't think that's _you_, just at present," said Anne viciously.

"Hold your tongue, spitfire, and let me think," returned Chesney, but without anger. He lay brooding deeply for some moments. Then he said: "Just go and ask Mrs. Chesney to come here a moment, will you?"

Anne consulted the bracelet watch.

"It's almost time for her to leave. Don't make her miss her train if I fetch her."

"I'll thank you to do what I ask!" said Chesney, looking dangerous. "It's not for you to make conditions when I wish to see my wife."

Anne glanced at him, then went meekly on the errand. She knew exactly when to insert bandelleros and when to apply balm.

Sophy came at once. She looked pale but quiet in her dark brown travelling gown and hat.

"You sent for me, but I was coming anyway to say good-by, Cecil," she said, in her low voice.

He looked at her very strangely, she thought. She never remembered having seen quite this expression on his face.

"It was not exactly to say good-by that I sent for you," he said after a pause. His voice, too, was low. There was some restrained emotion in it, whether anger or regret she could not tell. He continued:

"I sent for you in fact--to--to thank you, among other things."

"To thank me?"

She flushed cruelly. She thought he wished to bait her with his bitter mockery for this last time. He saw her slight figure brace itself, and her hands close nervously. He flushed himself.

"You needn't fear any brutishness on my part, not just now," he said, still in that low voice. "I'm not sneering. I want to thank you for holding out against the others this morning. Nurse Harding told me of it."

"Ah," said Sophy. She drew a deep breath. "I told them it would be no use," she added sadly.

"You were right. Thank you again."

His eyes ran over her travelling costume.

"So you're really going?" he said.

"Yes."

He was silent again. Then he said slowly:

"Well-- I'm going, too."

"What!" said Sophy. She did not understand. She looked frightened. Did he mean that he would try to come with her--follow her?

"You misunderstand me--naturally," he said, with some bitterness. "I do not mean that I am going with you--agreeable as that might be." He could not suppress this mild sneer: his heart was very sore and angry under his cooler mood. "I mean that your confounded magnanimousness has got under my armour-- I'm going to man-handle myself just because you wouldn't let me be man-handled by others."

Sophy held her breath. He knew that trick of hers. It meant that she was moved to the quick and afraid to believe her own senses. His set look broke a little.

"Yes, I mean it," he said rather gruffly. He sneered again, at himself this time. "I don't blame you for looking sceptical-- I believe there's a good authority that says, 'A liar shall not be believed though he speak the truth.'"

White and red flame seemed to flicker over Sophy's face. She put up both hands against her breast.

"_Cecil_...?" she said.

"Yes, my girl," he answered flippantly; "this wary old rat is going to nip into the trap after the excellent bit of cheese you baited it with this morning. Now don't--don't--for God's sake, don't make a fuss!" he ended irritably.

But Sophy had flung herself on her knees beside the bed, hiding her face--regardless of veil and hat. Her voice, smothered in the bedclothes, reached him faintly:

"I'm not going to--don't be afraid-- I'm not going to-- I only wanted to thank--to thank----"

"Me?" asked Chesney sardonically, yet with a hungrily tender look back of his eyes that were bent on the crushed brown-velvet hat.

"No-- God!" said Sophy softly.

Then she rose to her feet again.

"I won't try to say anything," she murmured. "I think you know what I am feeling----"

"Mh-- I couldn't go that far. Women are sealed volumes to an average chap like me. Or, if they aren't sealed, they're written in some hierophantic script that's beyond the poor layman."

He took suddenly a more natural tone.

"But if I've given you a whit of the satisfaction that your plucky stand gave me--why, then, we're quits," he ended.

Sophy held out her hand.

"I shall be thinking of you all the time, Cecil."

"Thanks. You'll send a line now and then?"

"Indeed I will. Every day, if you like."

"No. That's too much to expect. I don't believe in setting kindness tasks. Tell the little chap good-by for me. Hope Italy will make him quite fit."

"I will. Good-by. Some day I'll-- I can't say things now."

"Don't try. I don't want it."

He hesitated, still holding her hand. Then flushed again darkly.

"Would it--er--go too much against the grain for you to give the--er--condemned--a kiss?"

She stooped and kissed him warmly, lifting her veil, and pressing her cheek to his. The great arms held her tight an instant, then pushed her somewhat roughly away.

"Go--there's a good girl--please go----" he said.

This going of Sophy was very different from the last time that he had bidden her from him.

She went; and ten minutes later Nurse Harding came in again.

Her patient had turned his face to the wall and flung an arm over it. She glanced at him curiously from time to time, busying herself here and there about the room in her mouse-like way. Then she drew up the prescribed dose of poison into the little glass and metal instrument, and went over to the bed.

"I say, sir," she began, almost shyly for Nurse Harding. "I wouldn't bother you, but it's time for your hypo----"

He did not stir. Anne blinked.

"Want to play 'good boy' and lengthen the time, sir?"

No answer and no movement. Anne went softly and laid the syringe on the table. Then she came back. She stood for a moment, biting her sharp little knuckles and staring down at the broad back. Then she burst out:

"Mrs. Chesney's told me, sir."

Again she broke off, and again burst forth.

"I--I always said you were an Old Sport.... Now I'll--I'll be hanged--if you ain't the sportiest Old Sport as ever was!"

She spun on her heel, and went out, clacking the door most unprofessionally. She went to have two minutes of what she called a "good blub." It was Sophy's joy, together with Chesney's sudden capitulation, that had upset Nurse Harding. She had become excessively attached to Sophy, and, in spite of all his fundamental brutality, she had a "soft spot" for her patient.

XXXII

The most extraordinary exhilaration came over Sophy from the moment that the little Channel steamer cast off, and she heard the surge of the sea about her and felt the keen tang of its breath upon her face: a sort of light-hearted sense of adventure, of the romance of a lonely setting forth for strange countries. Oddly enough she had never been either to France or to Italy. Now she was going to both those famous lands, and alone--her own courier--her own mistress. She felt what she had once heard an excited child call "journey-proud." And the sense that Cecil was in safe hands, was going of his own accord to a place where cure was certain, left her conscience-free to revel in this sense of delicious detachment. It was as if she had been reborn into some lighter, more tenuous body. She felt as one does in those dreams when, by only holding one's breath and springing upward, one floats delicately free of the law of gravitation--casting off all heaviness of mind and body.

She stayed on deck. Bobby and the two maids were below in a cabin. It was very calm. The sea spread flat and silken under a high moon. She did not feel lonely. This solitude of the sufficient self was ecstasy, after the long, feverish contact with others.

When they landed at Calais, the gay _pizzicato_ of the French tongue gave her such pleasure that she wanted to laugh out like a child suddenly tickled by light fingers. It was so fitting--so deliciously appropriate. Here was she reborn to a new heaven and a new earth. Of course there must be also a new language. How glad she was that her old governess had been French! It seemed that a kindly Fate had been long ago preparing her for this gay moment, as well as this moment for her. She spoke pretty, clear French--had spoken it since babyhood. It was a fresh magic to find herself so well understood. That the day was overcast, as they went rushing on to Paris, through the wide, fenceless, hedgeless fields, did not damp her joyous mood. This greyness was so different from that of England--as different as moonstones from onyx---- She looked at the frail pallor of the sky, and thought of the moonstones of Ceylon, in whose watery silver there is a gleam of blue. She did not care if the sun of France veiled itself; so that Italy burst on her in floods of golden light she was content. She could not bear the thought of seeing Italy, for the first time, demure and grey. On the bright horizon of her fancy it floated like a magic island wrought of golden glass and lapis-lazuli--colonnaded with pale marble--hung round about with gardens like ancient Babylon--crowned with lilies like its own Florence--and with violets like Athens. The "blunt-nosed" bees of Theocritus hummed about it. Song-birds like living jewels flew above it. Alas! She did not know that the inhabitants of her fairyland devour their song-birds.

But though she dreamed of the Italy of poets and painters, she had to go direct to practical Milan. Bellamy thought it important that a certain Dr. Johnson who lived there should see Bobby before she took him to Lago Maggiore for the remainder of the summer.

She found the town so hot and dusty that she decided not to go out until evening. The doctor was to see Bobby next day. She had a light dinner in her own room, then went downstairs to order an open cab. The night was lovely after the scorching day. She thought a drive about the streets would be amusing. Her gay, care-free mood was still upon her. This was Italy--Italy--and day after to-morrow she would be on one of its beautiful lakes. With this thought came the thought of Amaldi. She ought really to let him know that she was in Italy, was going to his own beloved lake. How pleasant it would be to see him again. How surprised he would be. Then, too, to meet his mother--that would be a new pleasure.

She stepped from the marble stairway into the hall of the hotel, remembering all at once that she did not have Amaldi's address. But then "Marchese Amaldi, Lago Maggiore" ought to be enough. Still, yes, it would be better to ask at the office of the hotel. They would doubtless be able to give it to her.

The head-clerk smiled affably as she asked, and made a sweeping gesture with his left arm.

"But, Madame, there is the Marchese himself," said he.

Sophy turned quickly.

Amaldi, who had just entered, was lighting a cigarette, his back turned towards her. Then he turned suddenly just as she had done, and saw her. The next moment she had given him her hand and was explaining how she happened to be in Milan in the dead of summer. Her explanations were a vague murmur to Amaldi. He was thinking that nothing less than Fate had ordered it. It was "meant" that she should come to Italy and that he should be holding her hand in his--after so many bitter dreams. Fate had brought her back into his life--the one woman he had ever desired with his whole being.

He had only a few moments with her, however, before the friend for whom he had called came downstairs. His mother was waiting outside in her carriage. Might she call on Mrs. Chesney next day? Sophy said that she had just been thinking what a pleasure it would be to meet the Marchesa. She smiled at him as she said this and gave him her hand again. Amaldi, who was rather pale, bent and kissed it. Then he joined his mother's guest and they went out together.

Sophy wished that he could have driven with her that evening. He was even nicer than she remembered him.

"I wonder if he is like his mother?" she thought as she got into the little _carozza_ for her lonely outing. "I'm sure to like her if she is anything like him." And all during the drive she kept wishing that Amaldi could have come with her.

Next afternoon the Marchesa called. She was a tall, finely made woman of the Juno type, with beautiful, light brown, sparkling eyes under jet black eyebrows, and a fluff of silken, fox-grey hair that must have been gold-red when she was young. But then, as it was, youth unquenchable laughed from those shrewd, brilliant eyes, though she was sixty. Her little bonnet of white camellias with its big, black bow, that so became her, was all Paris in a hat-frame. She evidently had a "sweet-tooth" for confections in dress, just as some people have for actual bonbons.

She had not talked in her natural, easy, laughing way for ten minutes before Sophy thought her the most delightful woman she had ever known. She asked almost at once to see Bobby--won his heart immediately. Told Sophy that she needn't worry in the least about doctors on the Lake--that there was an excellent one, an old friend of hers, at Stresa--Cesare Camenis.

"Eh!--the _tousin_ (little fellow) has adopted me for his Nonna!" she added, laughing again the next instant, as Bobby hauled himself up by her fan-chain and tried to pull off her bonnet, saying:

"Take off! Tay wiv Bobby!"

As for Sophy, if she had not fallen in love with Amaldi, she had certainly fallen in love with his mother. The feeling was mutual. The Marchesa had had two sons but no daughter. She had always longed for a little girl. Now she thought that she would like to have had a daughter as much like Sophy as possible. And, as this thought came to her, it brought another less agreeable.

The sad destiny of her Marco made the Marchesa very lenient in facing certain problems, though she was essentially a woman of broad, indulgent views. Since twenty-six (he was now thirty-one) he had lived like a widower whom some mistaken vow has cut off from re-marrying. Not that the Marchesa deceived herself with the credulity of the average Anglo-Saxon mother in such cases. She did not for one moment think that her son had led the life of an ascetic during this enforced widowhood. Light _liaisons_ she knew well there had been; but Marco was not a sensualist. Such flitting fires could never really warm or console him. And as she looked now at Sophy, thinking how pleasant it would be to have such a daughter, she also realised that this lovely, tall girl, with her spellbound looking grey eyes, and sensitive, romantic mouth, was the very type of woman to appeal to Marco with the threefold lure of spirit, mind, and flesh. Though he had spoken much of Sophy to his mother, since his return from England, with frank admiration and compassion for her sad fate in being married to such a man as Chesney, he had not given the slightest impression of being _amoureux d'elle_. But there came over the Marchesa a strong prescience of danger--of something to be guarded against. Should Marco see too much of Mrs. Chesney, should he become "in love" with her, why, then there was here no passing _liaison_ to be considered, but something of the nature of tragedy. Not only was Marco bound by his disastrous marriage, but here was a woman doubly bound--not only by marriage, but by motherhood. A bad mother may make an enchanting mistress, but a bad mother will never make a true wife. The Marchesa knew her Marco well. She knew that, should he love a woman of Sophy's type, he would not want her for a mistress, but for a wife. That was what love--the one big, crowning love--would mean to Marco. Now if in future he should love this woman and she him, and should give up her son for him--she would not be what his love had imagined. If she should not give up her son--his love must burn out in bitterness.

Yes, she must watch; she must be wise as many serpents and harmless as a flock of doves; but she must also be prepared, at the first sign of real danger, to give Marco a word of serious warning. This action on her part would have all the more weight with him as she rarely, almost never, interfered in his personal affairs.

And all the time that she was thus reflecting, she smoked Sophy's gold-tipped cigarettes and chatted pleasantly.

Sophy heard with delight that the Marchesa was returning to the Lake the next afternoon by the same train on which she also was going.

* * * * *

She was early at the station. It thrilled her to read the placards with such lovely, well-known names on them. _Como!_--They passed that sign on their way to the carriages bound for Lago Maggiore. It seemed very odd to see that name of romance written upon a railway carriage.

Amaldi and his mother joined her shortly. As they settled down comfortably in the queer little carriage, Amaldi bought copies of the leading Milan papers and handed them in through the window. To Sophy's surprise, when he entered the carriage a few minutes later, he laid a fresh copy of _Harper's_ on the seat beside her, smiling at her astonished look.

"We're very 'up to date,' as you say, in Milan," he laughed.

But Sophy could not read. She was too excited. She sat in a lazy, happy trance gazing from the window.

The Marchesa dozed frankly. Bobby was sound as a top. Sophy had never felt more keenly, vividly awake in her life. She began to day-dream. And as she sat there, now glancing out of window, now watching the pleasant smile which sleep had drawn on the Marchesa's face, now the soles of Bobby's sturdy shoes protruding from under the arm of the seat as he lay with his red curls on Miller's lap, now noticing how sharp-cut was Amaldi's dark, irregular profile against the flashing green outside, she found herself suddenly thinking:

"Suppose this dear, charming woman were my mother-in-law instead of Lady Wychcote--suppose _he_ were my husband--suppose I were Sophy Amaldi instead of Sophy Chesney--going for a happy summer to the Villa Amaldi--sure of kindness, sure of sympathy, sure of love----"

This fancy did not form itself into regular phrases such as these, but came in a flashing, involuntary impression. She started with dismay and glanced around nervously. Amaldi was looking at her. She bent forward, lifting up one of the papers that had fallen to the floor. Her hand touched the Marchesa's foot. That lady started wide awake.

"Oh, _Dio_!" she exclaimed, glancing out. "We're nearly there! Marco, my umbrella, please--and Mrs. Chesney's. You'd better tell the maids to get ready."

She looked tenderly at Bobby. "What a shame to wake the _tousin_!" she said.

Now they were rattling round a great haunch of mountain--the southern flank of the Sasso di Ferro. They had reached Laveno. Lago Maggiore lay before them. The lake spread milkily iridescent. The sky was the colour of periwinkle, with towards the zenith a flight of silver cloud wings. The glimpse of Alps beyond Baveno was a hush of violet. It was one of those delicately veiled afternoons when the Lake is at its best. It looked mysterious, promising, like the tempered beauty of a woman beneath a gauzy _yashmak_.

Amaldi saw the maids and luggage safely on the little steamer that was waiting at the _imbarcadero_. Sophy and Bobby were to go with the Marchesa in the steam-launch.

As into a mirage the little launch shot forth across the Lake. Sophy sat with Bobby in her arms.

But there was something wistful, faintly sorrowful in this aerial beauty. There was a soul in it, a yearning as in all souls. She put down her cheek on Bobby's head, and, thus unseen, the tears came stealing.

"Poor child," thought the Marchesa, who divined those tears she could not see, "poor child ... but I must speak to-night--I must--I really must."

When they reached Baveno, the Marchesa insisted on getting out and going up to the hotel with Sophy to see that she was given nice rooms. Something about the young woman, all alone with her little son, went to her heart. The Marchesa herself had not been very happy in her marriage. Her fullest life had been lived as the mother of her two boys. Thus Sophy and Bobby touched her very nearly.

"She seems quite worn out all of a sudden, poor child," said she, as she rejoined Amaldi. Without apparently looking at her son, she saw the quick change that came over his face when she said that Sophy seemed worn out. He made the _Meccanico_ sit in the bow, and himself steered the little _Fretta_ all the way to "Le Vigne." He talked very little on the way home, chiefly about the farm and the weather. He was afraid it might be going to rain to-morrow. There were clouds slowly rising behind the Sasso.

"Then you'll have to put off your villa-hunt with Mrs. Chesney," he said. He said this very naturally, pronouncing the name without the least self-consciousness. The Marchesa felt that her task was going to be very difficult indeed. She, too, lapsed into silence, now watching the lovely sky, now glancing at her son's dark, nervous hands as they turned the little wheel slightly from time to time. Passionate hands they were. The Marchesa had been a passionate nature herself. She could feel with Marco as well as for him.

Le Vigne, or the Castello Amaldi, as it was sometimes called, lay on the Lombard shore of the Lake not far from Angera. It had been one of the old hunting lodges of the Amaldi, in more sumptuous days. It was really no more a castle than the Castello di Frino, on the hills above the village of Ghiffa; though it had, what Frino had not, a massive reconnoitring tower at one corner of the quadrangle of buildings that formed a court behind the house itself. It made a delightful summer home, standing close to the lake shore and surrounded by a farm of some two thousand acres. It was of white stucco with thick, ancient walls. A terrace along the front led by long, shallow steps to the lawns and gardens, which reached to the water. Behind, in the buildings enclosing the court, were kitchens, laundry, carpenter shop, stables, _et cetera_. Big arched ways led from the cortile into the kitchen garden and the open country beyond.

When the Marchesa had come to Le Vigne as a bride forty years ago, she had regretted that it did not lie in the mountainous portion of the Lake. Now she had grown to love this wistful, reedy shore more than any other part of Lago Maggiore.

She stepped out in the big _darsena_ with a sigh of pleasure, and walked across the lawn, stopping to put a spray of white oleander in her belt.

Marco and his mother dined on the terrace, at a little table set with old Lodi ware. There was a bowl of white oleander--the Marchesa's favourite flower--in the centre. Its fragile blossoms gave off a perfume strangely heady and spiritual at the same time--a faint, sweet perfume as of blossomed peach-kernels.

The dusk came on gradually, spangled with stars and fireflies. All the clouds had melted from the sky. It spread above them like an endless expanse of violet smoke, glittering with vari-coloured sparks.

"No rain for to-morrow, _caro mio_," said the Marchesa, as she and Amaldi sat smoking companionably after dinner, each in a long willow chair. "I can go villa-hunting with your charming friend to-morrow, beyond a doubt."

"Yes. That's good," said Amaldi.

The Marchesa glanced at him. He was smoking contentedly, with a very tranquil expression on his face. It was still light enough to see even the colours of flowers quite plainly. The Marchesa put her own cigarette back between her lips. Then she took it out and looked at it, smiling.

"You haven't noticed my new _splendore_, Marco," she said, waving the gold-tipped cigarette towards him.

"Eh?" he said, as though rousing suddenly.

"These 'gilded luxuries,'" said his mother, indicating the cigarette between her big, handsome fingers.

"Why, Baldi! What swagger!" he laughed, taking in the cigarette. This name of "Baldi," by which both her sons sometimes addressed her, had arisen from the fact that as a bride she had arrived in Italy with a severe cold in her head, and had pronounced her new name "Abaldi." Her husband had begun to call her "Baldi" for fun, in the honeymoon days. Later on the children had taken it up. She associated it more with her boys than with her husband, and liked them to call her so. Only when very serious did they say "Maman."

"Yes. Don't you wonder how I came by such gorgeousness?" she now asked.

"I do indeed. I thought you scorned such vanities."

"I do, as a rule, but that dear thing pressed them on me so prettily that I hadn't the heart to refuse. Mrs. Chesney I mean. She _is_ a dear thing, Marco."

Her son's voice at once became on guard.

"Yes. I thought you would like her," he said. "You know I told you so."

"You didn't tell me half, my dear. She is a very unusual woman indeed--girl, I feel like saying. Really she seems amazingly girlish to have been through such bitter experiences. That terrible dinner you told me of----"

"Yes. That does strike one."

The Marchesa smoked for a few moments.

"Does she seem very _eprise_ with her husband?" she asked at last.

"I haven't seen them together more than twice--I couldn't say. I haven't seen much of Mrs. Chesney herself, you know."

"I didn't know," reflected the Marchesa; but matters seemed to her all the more serious because of that statement. If she, his mother, could see in a few hours the strong influence that Sophy had upon him, and if this influence had resulted from such a slight acquaintance, then it was more necessary than ever that she should speak.

She threw away her cigarette, and leaned back.

"_Caro Marco_," she said, "I'm going to do a thing that I've rarely done. I'm going to do it because I think I ought to, though I dislike doing it very much. And I want you to be indulgent to Baldi--eh? Will you?"

Now Amaldi was more than ever on guard. Something seemed actually to click in his breast. It was the lock of his heart snapping home. It is a way that some heart-locks have of doing at the least touch.

His voice was very gentle and courteous as he said:

"Dear Baldi, you know very well that you can speak to me in any way whatever that you wish."

"_Aie!_" thought the Marchesa. "He's gone under the boat like a sulking _lusc_ (pike). What a dear, fine, provoking boy to be sure!

"Well, then, Marco, I'll come to the point at once," she said in a frank, practical voice. "But first I must ask you if you don't really think that I've trespassed very little on private ground with you, since you've been grown? Even when your marriage was in question, I said nothing after giving you my honest opinion, when you asked for it. Isn't this so?"

"Yes, Maman; it is perfectly true," said Amaldi.

This "Maman" fixed the Marchesa in her opinion that Marco was going to make things as difficult as possible for her. She was no longer his intimate "Baldi," she was the revered "Maman."

"_Ebbene, Caro_, I'm glad you admit that so frankly," she continued, taking her courage in both hands; "because it makes me feel that you will be lenient if what I'm about to say jars on you very much. It's this, _figlio mio_-- I want you to be very, very careful about your attitude towards this lovely, unhappy woman. I see real danger for you there, Marco--unless you are on your guard every moment of the time you are with her. A woman feels such things intuitively--and intuition is a very sure force, no matter what sceptics may say of it. I want you to open your 'mind's eye' wide, my dear boy, and look this possibility squarely in the face. Will you?"

Amaldi sat perfectly still. The only sign that he was moved in any way was the cigarette which went out between his fingers, and which he put to his lips now and then as if unaware that it was out. His mother waited, rather nervous. Then he said quietly:

"I was just trying to see exactly what you meant, Maman. Do you mean that you fear I may compromise Mrs. Chesney by undue attentions?"

The Marchesa felt discouraged, but her will upheld her.

"Not that alone, Marco," she said firmly, "though that might be one of the consequences of what I fear for you. What I meant, in plain language, since you force me to it, is that you may come to care too much for her. There would be no issue to such a thing, Marco. You must see that for yourself. I do you the honour," she added quickly, "of supposing that your feeling for such a woman would be a serious one."

"_Grazie_," said Amaldi. His tone was perfectly respectful, but there was a crisp note in it that hurt his mother. He was in truth deeply indignant, not with her, but with himself, at the idea that his love for Sophy was so transparently evident to observing eyes, when he had thought it hidden in the utmost depths of his being. It was excruciatingly painful and mortifying to him that even his mother should touch on such a subject.

The Marchesa, in the meanwhile, was thinking very hard indeed. She was years in advance of her day in many respects. For instance, she believed that a serious union between a man and woman devotedly loving each other, and determined to be true to that love, is as sacred and worthy a thing, as really and wholly a "marriage," as any union made by priest or law. The law of one's highest being she considered the highest law of all. To the marriage of true hearts and bodies, as well as that of true minds, she would not admit impediment. But--she realised that for the man and woman of her day to enter upon such a marriage was also to enter upon a _Via Crucis_. The massive, sometimes crushing, weight of such a yoke was not to be accepted in any light, joyous spirit of newly kindled passion. Over the gateway of that stern temple of love was written the implacable, well-nigh impossible mandate of the Delphian Oracle, "Know thyself."

Moreover, in her view of the question, the man and woman who would enter on such an engagement must be quite free from certain ties--pre-eminently the tie binding a mother to her children. The Marchesa admitted the forsaking of all in the world for a great love--except the child that a woman had borne into the world.

Marco, despite his luckless marriage, from which as an Italian he could not with dignity escape--(both he and she scorned the idea of his becoming naturalised in another country in order to obtain a divorce there)--Marco she considered free to form a new and serious relationship if he so desired. Therefore, it was not the question of the possible irregularity of his future relations with Sophy that dismayed her; it was that she did not consider Sophy free. She had her son. Never would she receive as Marco's wife the woman who had deserted her child for him. But then, merely glimpsing Sophy as she had done, she felt instinctively that she was incapable of such an act.

Remained then only the possibility of a dark tragedy of unavailing love, and the odious quagmire of scandal.

And thinking as she did, and knowing that her son was well aware of her opinions, this "_Grazie_" ("Thanks") of Marco's hurt her deeply. It seemed to say: "I am glad that at least you do me that much justice."

It was she, however, who broke the silence that followed.

"I shall not allude to this subject again," she said, rising. "This once I felt that I had to speak--no matter how much I hurt or offended you--only this once----"

"_Prego, prego, Maman!_" he murmured in a colourless voice.

"Yes, that I had to do," continued his mother firmly; "for, as I said, there is no issue. Mrs. Chesney has her son. Should you ever care for her--should she ever care for you--her son stands between you. If she were to desert her boy for you--she would not deserve your love. If you wanted her to desert him--you would not deserve hers----"

"_Maman! Te ne scongiuro!_" cried Amaldi, springing to his feet. She could see his face white as silver in the heavy dusk. His brows made a straight line across it.

"I have finished, my son," she said, with dignity. "You will never hear me allude to this again."

And she left him.

XXXIII

The finding of a suitable villa for Sophy proved to be quite an undertaking. Three days did the kindly Marchesa devote to helping her in this quest. And as they chugged about the Lake in the little _Fretta_, Sophy grew more and more impressed with the hideousness of the houses that man had thrust upon this lovely nature. She had dreamed of columns--white columns rising from groves of lemon and orange, reflected in pale blue water. The reality was a noticeable lack of these trees and a collection of ugly boxes, now bristling with ginger-bread towers, gilded, pricked out, machicolated, decorated in red and blue, now roofed and verandahed in clumsy imitation of Swiss chalets, the stucco walls painted to represent yellow wood. Sometimes these houses would be ornamented with gaudy flowers like a frieze of chintz; sometimes they would wriggle all over with the results of modern _graffito_ work. Only a few villas, here and there, were simple and attractive in architecture--and these were always old buildings, not to be rented.

Sophy was in despair. She thought she had better remain at the Hotel Bellevue or slip over to the Eden Hotel in Pallanza. But the Marchesa never gave up an idea once she had determined to accomplish it. So, finally, they found in the "Villa Bianca," near Ghiffa, what even Sophy admitted was the very thing.