Chapter XXXIII: The Ring

"There!" said the girl, closing the door with a touch of vexation, "the evil spirit has a grudge against me! Just because I took it into my head to water a poor flower, I am in danger of being torn to pieces by evil tongues and scolded by my father--and above all by Michel, who is such a tease with me!"

"Dear child," said Magnani, "people would not dare to speak of you as they speak of others; you are so different from all the other girls in our suburb! Everybody loves you and respects you as no one of them will ever be loved and respected. Besides, as it is on my account--or rather on account of my poor flowers--that you have run this risk, you need not have the slightest fear. Woe to the man who dares to speak ill of you!"

"All the same, I shall never dare to pass that horrible cobbler."

"You are quite right. It is his breakfast time. His wife has called him twice already. He will go directly. Wait here a few seconds, perhaps a minute--especially as I should like to say a word to you, Mila."

"What have you to say to me, pray?" she replied, taking a chair which he offered her, and which was the only one in the room. She was trembling with violent inward excitement, but she affected a careless air which her position seemed to impose upon her. It was not that she was afraid of Magnani; she knew him too well to fear that he would take advantage of the tête-à-tête; but she feared, more than ever before, that he would guess the secret of her heart.

"I don't know just what I have to say to you," rejoined Magnani. "It seemed to me that it would be for you to say something to me."

"I!" cried proud little Mila, rising. "I have nothing to say to you, I give you my word, Signor Magnani!"

And she was about to leave the room, preferring the gossip of the neighborhood to the danger of being found out by the man she loved, when Magnani, surprised by her movement, and observing her sudden flush, began to suspect the truth.

"Dear Mila," he said, placing himself in front of the door, "one moment's patience, I beg you. Do not let people see you, and do not be angry with me if I detain you a moment. The consequences of a pure accident may be very serious to a man who is determined to kill or be killed to defend the honor of a woman."

"In that case, do not speak so loud," said Mila, struck by Magnani's expression; "for that miserable cobbler may overhear us. I know," she continued, allowing him to lead her back to her chair, "that you are brave and generous, and that you would do for me what you would do for your own sister. But I am not anxious that that should happen, for you are not my brother, and you cannot justify me by fighting my battles. People would say all the more evil of me, or else we should be compelled to marry, which would not suit either of us."

Magnani gazed into Mila's black eyes, and, seeing how proud they were, he speedily renounced the presumptuous idea that had caused him both fear and pleasure as it flashed through his mind.

"I understand perfectly well that you do not love me, my dear Mila," he said with a sad smile. "I am not lovable, and it would be the most melancholy thing on earth, after being compromised by me, to pass your life with such an unsociable being."

"That is not what I meant to say," replied the crafty maiden. "I have much esteem and friendship for you; I have no reason for concealing that fact from you; but I have an inclination for another. That is why I am so distressed and tremble so at being shut up in this room with you."

"If that is so, Mila," said Magnani, bolting his door and closing the window-shutter so hastily that he nearly consummated the ruin of his convolvulus, "let us take all necessary precautions to prevent anyone knowing that you are here. I swear to you that you shall go out without anybody suspecting it, though I have to put all the neighbors out of the way by force--though I have to stand guard until night."

Magnani tried to be playful, and imagined that he was very much relieved to find that he was not called upon to defend himself against Mila's love; but it saddened him to hear the girl declare her affection for another, and his candid face expressed, despite his efforts, a painful disappointment. Had she not previously confessed it to him during their long vigil, and had she not by that confidence invested him in a certain sense with the duties of a brother? He was determined to execute worthily that sacred mission; but how did it happen that a moment before it had startled him to see her in anger, and why had his heart, nourished so long upon an insane and bitter passion, felt suddenly revivified and rejuvenated by the unexpected presence of this child who had entered through his window like a sunbeam?

Mila was stealthily watching him. She saw that she had struck home. "O untamed heart," she said to herself, with silent but intense joy, "I have you now; you shall not escape me."

"My dear neighbor," said the artful minx, "pray do not be offended at what I have just told you, and do not look upon it as an affront to your merit. I know that any other than myself would be flattered to be compromised by you, with the hope of becoming your wife; but I am neither a liar nor a flirt. I am in love, and, as I have confidence in you, I tell you of it. I know that it cannot cause you any pain, since you have given up all thought of marriage, and since you detest all women, except a single one who is not myself."

Magnani made no reply. The cobbler was still singing. "It is my fate," thought Magnani, "not to be loved by any woman and never to be cured of my love."

Mila, inspired by that species of divination which love gives to women, even to those who have had no experience and have read but little, said to herself--and justly--that Magnani, being stimulated in his passion by suffering and absence of hope, would be alarmed and repelled at the idea of love being offered to him unasked--a too-ready, alluring love; consequently she represented herself as invulnerable and protected against him by another attachment. In that way she lured him by making him suffer, and that was, in truth, the only way in which he could be lured. By changing the form of his torture, she paved the way for his cure.

"Mila," he said to her at last, pointing to a heavy ring of chased gold which he wore on his finger, and which she had already noticed, "can you tell me the source of this beautiful present?"

"That?" she said, looking at the ring with feigned astonishment. "It is impossible for me to tell you anything about it. But I no longer hear your neighbor; farewell. By the way, Magnani, you look very tired. You were resting when I came in; you would do well to rest a little more. None of us are in any danger at this moment. I am not, because my father and brother are about the house. They are not, because it is broad daylight and the house is full of people. Sleep, my dear neighbor. If it is only for an hour, that will give you strength to go on with your rôle of guardian of the family."

"No, no, Mila. I shall not sleep, and, indeed, I have no desire to; for, say what you will, there are some strange, inexplicable things still going on in this house. I confess that I lost myself a moment, just as day was breaking. You were asleep; you were locked into your room; the man in the cloak had gone. I had sat down under your gallery, saying to myself that the first step that shook it would wake me instantly if I should happen to fall asleep. And thereupon I did actually fall asleep. For five minutes perhaps, not more, for it was not perceptibly lighter when I woke again. Well! when I opened my eyes, I fancied that I saw a corner of a dress or a black veil, which flitted by me and disappeared like a flash. I made a vague, fruitless effort to seize that vision with the hand that lay half open on the bench at my side. But in my hand, or beside it--I don't know which--was an object which I dropped at my feet, and instantly picked up again: it was this ring. Have you any idea to whom it belongs?"

"Such a fine ring cannot belong to anyone in the house," Mila replied; "but I think I know it."

"And I know it, too," said Magnani; "it belongs to Princess Agatha. For five years I have seen it on her finger, and it was there the day she came into my mother's room."

"It is a ring that came to her from her own mother, she told me so! But how does it happen to be on your hand to-day?"

"I relied upon you to explain that prodigy to me, Mila; that is what I wanted to ask you."

"Upon me? Why upon me?"

"You are the only one in this house in whom the princess is sufficiently interested to have given her so handsome a present."

"And if she had given it to me," she said, in a superb and mocking tone, "do you suppose that I would have deprived myself of it in your favor, Signor Magnani?"

"No, surely not; you should not and would not have done it; but you might have passed along the gallery and dropped it, for I was just under the rail."

"No, I did not! Besides, didn't you see a black dress beside you? Am I dressed in black?"

"I thought, however, that you might have gone down into the yard during that moment that I was asleep, and that, to punish me or to make sport of me, you played that joke on me. If that is the case, Mila, you must agree that the punishment was too light, and you ought to have poured water on my face instead of keeping it for my flowers. But take your ring, I don't want to keep it any longer. It wouldn't be a suitable thing for me to wear, and I should be afraid of losing it."

"I swear to you that that ring was never given to me, that I did not go into the yard while you were asleep; and I will not take what belongs to you."

"As it is impossible that Princess Agatha should have come here this morning----"

"Oh! to be sure, that is impossible!" said Mila, with mischievous gravity.

"And yet she did come here!" said Magnani, thinking that he could read the truth in her gleaming eyes. "Yes, yes, Mila, she came here this morning! You are impregnated with the perfume that her clothes exhale; either you touched her cape, or she kissed you, not more than an hour ago."

"Great heaven!" thought the girl, "how well he knows everything that has any connection with Princess Agatha! how shrewdly he guesses, when she is in question! Suppose it were she with whom he is in love? Well! God grant that it may be, for she will help me to cure him; she loves me so dearly!"

"You don't answer me, Mila," continued Magnani. "Since you are found out, confess."

"I do not even know what you said," she replied; "I was thinking about something else--about going away!"

"I will help you; but first I will beg you to put this ring on your finger so that you may return it to Princess Agatha; for she surely lost it when she passed me."

"And supposing that she did come here, which is absurd, my dear neighbor, why should she not have made you this present?"

"Because she must know me well enough to be sure that I would not accept it."

"You are proud!"

"Very proud, you have said it, my dear Mila! It is not in the power of any person to put a material price on the devotion which my heart gives joyfully. I can conceive that a great nobleman may present a gold chain or a diamond to the artist who has delighted him for an hour by his genius, but I could never understand why he should want to pay the man of the people from whom he feels justified in asking a proof of affection. Moreover, that would not be the case here. In notifying me that your brother was in some danger, Princess Agatha simply pointed out to me a duty, which I should have performed as zealously if anyone else had given me the same warning. It seems to me that I am sufficiently her friend and your father's, and I might also venture to say yours, to be ready to stand guard, to fight, and to go to prison for one of you, without being hired to do so by anyone. Don't you believe it, Mila?"

"I do believe it, my friend," she replied; "but I believe also that you misinterpret this gift altogether, if it is a gift. Princess Agatha knows better than you or I that friendship is not to be bought with money and jewels. But she probably feels, as you and I do, that when friendly hearts unite to aid one another, esteem and sympathy increase in proportion to the zeal which each one displays. In many cases a ring is a pledge of friendship, not payment for service rendered; for you have rendered the princess a service by protecting us, that is certain; although I do not know how it comes about, her cause is bound up with ours, and our enemies are hers. If you reflect on what I have told you, you will realize that this ring has a sentimental value in the princess's eyes, not a material value, as you say; for it is a trinket not especially valuable in itself."

"You told me that it came to her from her mother, did you not?" said Magnani, deeply moved.

"And you yourself noticed that she always wore it! If I were in your place, and were sure that that ring had been given to me, I would never part with it. I would not wear it on my finger, where it would attract too much attention from envious creatures, but on my heart, where it would be like a blessed relic."

"In that case, my dear Mila," said Magnani, touched by the extreme delicacy with which the girl tried to allay the bitterness of his heart, and to make him accept her rival's gift with pleasure, "in that case, take this ring back to her, and if she really meant to give it to me, if she insists upon my keeping it, I will keep it."

"And you will wear it on your heart as I told you?" asked Mila, looking him through and through with courageous but anxious eyes. "Remember," she added, vehemently, "that it is the pledge of a patron saint; that the woman whom you love, whoever she may be, cannot deserve that you should sacrifice it to her, and that it would be far better to throw it into the sea than to profane it by an act of ingratitude!"

Magnani was dazzled by the flame that flashed from Mila's great black eyes. Did she guess the truth? Perhaps! but if she simply relied upon Magnani's gratitude for the woman who had saved his mother, she was no less noble and generous in seeking to procure for him the pleasure of believing in that good fairy's friendship. He began to feel infected by the chaste and deep-rooted ardor which she carried concealed in her heart, and that proud and passionate heart revealed itself against its will, amid its efforts to subdue itself or to keep quiet.

An impulsive outburst of gratitude and tenderness brought Magnani to his knees at the girl's feet.

"Mila," he said, "I know that Princess Agatha is a saint, and I do not know whether my heart is worthy to receive a relic from her. But I do know that there is but a single other heart in the world to which I would be willing to entrust it; so never fear; no woman, except you, will ever seem to me pure enough to wear this ring. Put it on your finger now, in order to give it back to the princess or to keep it for me."

Mila, when she had returned to her room, had a moment's dizziness, as if she were going to faint. Her heart throbbed wildly with mingled feelings of consternation and delirious joy. At last she heard her father, who was impatient for his breakfast, crying:

"Well, little one, we are hungry, and thirsty above all! for it's hot already and the paints make your throat dry."

Mila hastened to wait upon them; but when she placed her jug on the table at which they were breakfasting, she noticed that it was empty. Michel offered to go and refill it, after making fun of her absent-mindedness. Sensitive to the reproof, and making it a point of honor to be her old father's only servant, Mila snatched the jug from him and ran lightly to the fountain.

This fountain was a beautifully clear spring which gushed from the very heart of the lava, in a soft of cliff behind the house. It not infrequently happens in those regions overrun by lava, that springs become choked up by volcanic matter and disappear, to appear again after the lapse of several years. The people dig in search of the former bed. They find that the water has broken out a passage under the cold fires of the volcano, and, as soon as it is given an opportunity, it rushes to the surface, as pure and healthful as before. The one which bathed the base of Pier-Angelo's house bubbled up at the bottom of a deep excavation that had been made in the rock, to which a picturesque staircase led. It formed a little basin for the laundresses, and a quantity of white linen, hung upon all the walls of the grotto, kept it constantly dark and cool there. Pretty Mila, as she tripped up and down that steep staircase ten times a day, with her jug upon her head, was a most perfect model for those classical figures which the painters of the last century inevitably placed in all their Italian landscapes; and in truth what more natural accessory, what more charming _local color_ could one give to those pictures than the faces and costumes, the majestic yet sprightly attitudes of those graceful, brown nymphs?