Chapter XLIII: A Crisis

"It seems to me," said the princess, as she placed the will on the console at the Piccinino's elbow, "that we are digressing a little from the real question. I will remind your lordship of the facts. My uncle has a few moments to live, and he will not think of his will again. Thus the day when the document must be produced is near at hand. Now, I am very desirous that when that day comes it shall be in the doctor's hands and not in mine."

"That is a very noble scruple on your part," rejoined the Piccinino, in a firm tone which concealed his irritation; "but I have the same scruple on my own account, and, as everything strange and mysterious that happens on this island is attributed to the fabulous Captain Piccinino, I do not wish to have any hand in this restitution. Your ladyship will be kind enough, therefore, to arrange it in whatever way you may deem best. It was not I who stole the will. I found it on the thief. I bring it back; and I consider that I have done enough not to deserve the charge of lukewarmness in your service. Doubtless Abbé Ninfo's disappearance will soon be noticed, and the name of the Piccinino will occur at once to the popular imagination as well as to the crafty brains of the police authorities. Result, fresh investigations on the heels of those of which my humble personality is already the object, and which I have escaped thus far only by a miracle. I have accepted the risks of this affair; I have the _monster_ in my power. Your highness's mind is at rest concerning the safety of your friends and your own freedom of action. You are in possession of the document that entitles you to great wealth. Do you wish my life? I am ready to lay it down for you a hundred times; but bid me to do it, and do not drive me to my destruction by subterfuges, without giving me the consolation of knowing that I die for you."

The Piccinino uttered these last words in a tone that made it impossible for Agatha longer to avoid entering upon a delicate subject.

"Captain," she said, forcing herself to smile, "you judge me ill if you think that I wish to rid myself of my burden of gratitude to you. My disinclination to take this paper, which represents to me the title to great wealth, should prove my confidence in you and my purpose to allow you to dispose absolutely of everything that belongs to me."

"I do not understand, signora," replied the bandit, moving restlessly on his chair. "Did you think that I came to your assistance merely to do a profitable stroke of business, and for no other purpose?"

"Captain," replied Agatha, outwardly unmoved by the Piccinino's real or pretended indignation, "you style yourself, and justly, the _justicier d'aventure_. That is to say, you do justice according to your heart and your conscience, without regard to formal laws, which are very often contrary to those of natural and divine justice. You assist the weak, you rescue victims, you protect those whose feelings and opinions seem to you to deserve your esteem against those whom you regard as the enemies of your country and of mankind. You punish cowards and you prevent the execution of their base designs. All this is a mission which legally constituted society does not always understand, but of which I appreciate the real merit and heroism. Need I say more to convince you of my esteem for you, and do you think that I have failed to manifest it? But since society denies the propriety of your intervention, and since, in order to continue it, you are forced to provide yourself with abundant resources, it would be insane--it would be impertinent--to seek your protection without offering you the means of putting it forth and of extending its scope. I thought of that--I could not fail to think of it; and I determined not to deal with you as with an ordinary advocate, but to allow you to fix yourself the price of your loyal and generous services. I should have considered that I insulted you by putting a price upon them. In my eyes they are beyond price. That is why, while I invite you to draw at your discretion upon a princely fortune, I am still forced to rely upon your modesty and generosity to consider that I have paid my debt to you."

"These are very flattering words, and your highness's soft speech would fascinate me, if my ideas were such as you attribute to me. But if you will deign to be seated a moment and listen to me, I shall be able to explain my ideas without fear of abusing the patience with which you honor me."

"On my word!" thought Agatha, as she took a seat at some distance from the Piccinino, "this man's persistence is like destiny, inevitable."

"I shall soon have finished," continued the Piccinino, with a crafty smile, when he saw that she was seated at last. "I look after my own interests while looking after other people's, that is true; but every man understands the advantages of life as circumstances impel him to do. Some people want nothing but gold. Those are vulgar instances,--the market price, as they say, I believe. But with certain others, who are more wealthy in charms and in noble qualities than in ducats, the intelligent man aspires to a less vulgar recompense. The material wealth of a person like Princess Agatha is a mere trifle compared with the treasures of generosity and delicacy which her heart contains. And if the man of action, who has devoted himself to her service, has done so with a certain degree of promptitude and zeal, is he not at liberty to aspire to some nobler gratification than that of putting his hand in her purse? Ah! yes, there are moral joys far more exalted, and the offer of your fortune as a substitute for them is so far from satisfying me, that it wounds my heart and my mind like an insult."

Agatha began to be really terrified, for the Piccinino had risen and drawn nearer to her. She dared not change her position, she feared that she should tremble and turn pale; and yet, brave as she was, that young man's face and voice caused her a frightful shock. His dress, his features, his manners, his voice awoke a whole world of memories within her, and, strive as she would to raise him to a level where she could esteem him and be truly grateful to him, an unconquerable aversion closed her heart to such sentiments. She had so long refused Fra Angelo's suggestions that this man's assistance should be procured, that she would assuredly have persisted in not having recourse to him, had it not been certain that Abbé Ninfo had tried to hire him to procure the assassination or abduction of Michel, pointing to the will as a means of rewarding his services.

But it was too late. The noble-hearted and ingenuous Capuchin of Bel Passo had not foreseen that his former ward, whom he had accustomed himself to look upon as a child, might fall in love with a woman several years older than himself. And yet what was more natural? The persons for whom one has much respect have no age. To Fra Angelo the Princess of Palmarosa, Saint Agatha of Catania, and the Madonna, had no sex even. If anyone had interrupted his sleep to tell him that at that moment Agatha was in imminent danger from his ward, he would have exclaimed: "Ah! the wretched boy must have seen her diamonds!" And, as he started to go to the princess's assistance, he would have said to himself that she had but a word to say to keep the brigand at a distance; but Agatha felt an invincible repugnance to say that word, and she still hoped that she would not be forced to that expedient.

"I understand very well, signor captain," she said with increasing coldness, "that you ask for no other reward but my esteem; but I repeat that I have proved it to you on this very occasion, and I think that your pride should be satisfied."

"Yes, signora, my pride; but it is not a question of my pride alone. Nor are you sufficiently well acquainted with it to measure its extent and to know whether it is not superior to any pecuniary sacrifice that you could make in my favor. I do not want your will, I want no part of your fortune, now or ever, do you understand?"

And he knelt at her feet and took her hand with savage vehemence.

Agatha rose, and yielding to an indignant, perhaps injudicious impulse, she took the will from the console.

"Since that is so," she said, trying to tear it, "it is as well that this fortune should be neither mine nor yours, for the recovery of this paper is the least important service you have rendered me, captain; and had it not been connected with another of much greater importance, I should never have asked you to do it. Let me destroy this will, and then you can ask me for a legitimate share of my affection, without my blushing to listen to you."

But the parchment resisted the efforts of her weak hands, and the Piccinino had time to take it from her and place it under a large piece of Roman mosaic, which lay on the console, and which she would have had even more difficulty in lifting.

"Let us put this aside," he said, with a smile, "and think no more about it. Let us suppose even that it never existed; we are well aware that it cannot be a bond between us, and that you owe me nothing in exchange for your fortune. I know that you are already rich enough to do without these millions; I know too that, if you were penniless, you would not give your friendship as the reward of a mere pecuniary service which you expected to pay for with money. I admire your pride, signora; I appreciate it, and I am proud to appreciate it. Ah! now that we have put that prosaic thought out of our hearts, I feel much happier, for I hope! I feel much bolder, too, for the friendship of such a woman as you seems to me so desirable that I would risk everything to obtain it."

"Do not speak of friendship," said Agatha, pushing him away, for he was beginning to handle her long tresses and to wind them about his arm as if to chain himself to her; "speak of the gratitude I owe you; it is very great, I shall never deny it, and I will prove it to you when occasion offers, against your will if I must. The service you have rendered me entitles you to services from me, and some day we shall be quits! But friendship implies mutual sympathy, and, in order to obtain mine, you must earn it and deserve it."

"What must I do?" cried the Piccinino, vehemently. "Speak! oh! I implore you, tell me what I must do to win your love!"

"Respect me in the depths of your heart," she replied, "and do not approach me with those bold eyes and that self-satisfied smile, which are an insult to me."

Seeing her cold and lofty bearing, the Piccinino was angry; but he knew that anger is an unwise counsellor. He desired to please her, and he controlled his temper.

"You do not understand me," he said, leading her back to her chair and sitting down beside her. "Oh! no, you fail utterly to understand a heart like mine! You are too much the woman of the world, too politic, and I am too ingenuous, too rough, too uncivilized! You are afraid of wild outbreaks on my part, because you see that I love you madly; but you are not afraid of causing me pain, because you have no conception of the pain your indifference may cause me. You think that a mountaineer of Ætna, a brigand and adventurer, can know only sensual transports; and when I ask you for your heart, you think that you have to defend your person. If I were a duke or marquis, you would listen to me without alarm, you would console me for my grief; and, pointing out to me that your love was out of the question, you would offer me your friendship. And I should be gentle, patient, prostrate at your feet in melancholy and affectionate gratitude. It is because I am of the common people, a peasant, that you deny me even your sympathy! Your pride takes fright because you think that I demand something as a right acquired by my services, and you continue to throw my services at my head as if I relied upon them as entitling me to a recompense from you, as if I remembered them when I am looking at you and talking with you! Alas! I do not know how to express myself; I simply say what I think, without torturing my mind to find a way to convince you of it without saying it. I know nothing of the art of your flatterers; I am no more a courtier of beauty than of power, and the curse that rests upon my life makes it impossible for me to play the attendant cavalier like the Marquis della Serra. I have but an hour at night to come, at the risk of my life, to tell you that I am your slave, and you answer that you do not choose to be my sovereign, but my debtor, my customer, who will pay me handsomely! Fie, fie, signora! you place an ice-cold hand upon a burning heart!"

"If you have in your mind nothing more than friendship," said Agatha, "if you really aspire to be one of my friends simply, I will promise you that that may come about----"

"Let me speak!" rejoined the Piccinino, with renewed animation, his face lighting up with the beauty which was his when he was really moved. "At first I dared not ask you for anything more than your friendship, and it was your childish fright that forced the word love from my lips. Very good! what more can a man say to a woman to restore her courage? I love you, therefore you should not tremble when I take your hand. I respect you, as you see, for we are alone, and I am in perfect control of my passions; but I cannot control my thoughts and the outbursts of my love. I have not my whole life in which to prove it to you. I have but this instant in which to tell you of it, so listen. If I could pass six hours of every day at your feet, like the marquis, I might perhaps be satisfied with the feeling that you have for him; but, as I have only this hour which is passing before me like a vision, I must have your love, or else a despair which I dare not imagine. So let me speak of love; listen to me and do not be afraid. If you say no, it shall be no, but if you would listen to me without thinking of protecting yourself, if you would deign to understand me once for all, if you would forget the world you live in, and the pride which is out of place here, and which has no existence in the sphere in which I live, you would be touched because you would be convinced. Oh! yes. If you were a simple soul, and if you did not put prejudices in the place of the pure inspirations of nature and of truth, you would feel that there is one heart more youthful and more ardent than all those you have spurned, the heart of a lion or tiger with men, but a man's heart with women, a child's heart with you! You would pity me at least. You would see my life as it is: constantly tormented and threatened, a never-ending nightmare! And solitude! Ah! it is solitude of the heart above all else which is killing me, because my heart is even harder to please than my senses. You know how I bore myself with Mila this morning, do you not? She is beautiful, surely, and neither in character nor in mind is she one of the common herd. If I had chosen to love her, and if I had felt for a single moment that I did love her, she would have loved me, she would have been mine all her life. But with her I thought only of you. You are the one whom I love, and you are the only woman I have ever loved, although I have been the lover of many women! Love me then, though it be but for a moment, just long enough to tell me so, or else, when I return to-night by a certain spot called the _Destatore's_ Cross, I shall go mad! I shall dig into the earth with my nails, to insult and cast to the winds the ashes of the man who gave me life."

At these last words Agatha lost all her strength; she turned pale; a shudder ran through her every limb, and she threw herself back in her chair as if a blood-stained spectre had passed before her eyes.

"Oh! hush, hush!" she cried; "you do not know the pain you cause me!"

The Piccinino could not understand the cause of this sudden and intense emotion; he misunderstood it utterly. He had spoken with a vehemence of voice and expression which would have persuaded any other woman than the princess. He had fascinated her with his gleaming eyes; he had intoxicated her with his breath, at all events he thought so. He had been so often justified in thinking so, even when he had not felt a tithe of the desire this woman inspired in him! He believed that she was vanquished, and, putting his arms about her, seeking her lips, he felt sure that her passions, taken by surprise, would do the rest. But Agatha eluded his caresses with unexpected vigor, and as she rushed toward a bell-cord, Michel darted between her and the Piccinino, with blazing eyes and with a dagger in his hand.