Chapter III: The Compact

Even as he spoke, Tiretta regretted, and blushed over, the nature of his mission. It was not its insolence--that was nothing in those days; it was its obvious misapplication. For here was no rustic Hebe, no frolic _campagnarde_, as he had at first inclined to suppose, but a damsel of position, as seemed somehow evident from her manner. That, eloquent to him of the inexplicable shibboleth of caste, told him, being a gentleman and a Gileadite, that he had presumed. He awaited in considerable trepidation her answer.

It followed, and without hesitation, witheringly enough.

“My will, monsieur, now and always, is to be spared the impertinences of strangers.”

If she could be more than gracious to her inferiors, Don Philip’s daughter could repel crushingly the undesired approaches of her equals. Tiretta, with a thorn in his heart, could not but observe, and admire, with what grace the bedraggled little beauty commanded the situation; how, sopped and ruffled as she was, she could triumph in her conscious indignation over unflattering circumstance. Her hair was tumbled, her pretty hat was awry; her two little feet peeped from their muddy fringe, and one had no shoe on it; yet, booted and martial as he was, she could make him feel his inferiority in a way that was at once a charm and a humiliation.

“Impertinence, madam,” he said, “is the last thing I made myself deputy for. If----”

She interrupted him: “You know the terms of your own service, monsieur, better than I. I would accept the lesser dishonour, if I were you, and go without more words.”

He flushed up to the roots of his hair.

“Do you see this, madam?” he said. He held out the green intaglio. “I fling it from me as I do your unpardonable innuendo”--and he spun the accursed thing from him into the middle of the pool.

Isabella, paralysed an instant, the next turned her back on him.

“Come, Bissy,” she said, “I need a gentleman escort, and you shall be mine to the carriage.”

But Bissy hung back. His eyes were fixed on the pool, his thoughts on the covetable plunder so wantonly--or happily--committed to it. Was it conceivable a man might dare for profit what he had refused to gallantry? The ring had shone and looked heavy; the water in the creek was daily sinking. And, even while he pondered, Madam de Gonzalès, flushed and peevish, hove into view, followed by Aquaviva in a state of dancing irritation.

The _gouvernante_ paused, in heavy wonder over the tableau presented.

“Heyday!” she said: “What is the meaning of all this? Cannot I close my eyes a moment but you must be forgetting yourself and your position, little Infanta of Spain? An endless, insufferable task for one, is it not?” Her thick-lidded eyes travelled from Isabella to the stranger, and back again. “Who is this, and what have you been doing? My God, a fine state you are in! All dumb and confounded, too. Fie, fie, girl--don’t tell me it is an assignation!” She wheeled round on Aquaviva, red with fury. “It is a trick, is it? You have been throwing dust in my eyes, you infamous old scoundrel? You have been lending yourself to this tryst on the pretence of instructing her Excellency in horticulture.”

“Dust!” roared the old man. “It is the dust you yourself raise that blinds you. What do you all mean interfering with my work and disturbing the peace of my garden. I want nothing more than to be rid of the lot of you.”

“Isabella!” cried the _gouvernante_.

“I answer for myself, madam,” said the girl, her face quite pale and set; “and never, you may be sure, but with silence to insult. I am sorry you are displeased with my state, but----”

“Your father, the duke, shall hear of it,” cried the old lady.

“I will tell him myself,” said Isabella, “and of your interpretation of it.”

“It is a natural one, is it not?” said madam, but with a falling face.

“To the Marquise de Gonzalès,” said Isabella. “Shall we return to the carriage, madam?”

Tiretta, with a fine red on his cheek, came forward.

“I, also,” he said, “desire to answer for myself. The Count of Falckenstein----”

“Eh!” cried the marquise, with a little whisk and start.

“I said the Count of Falckenstein, madam, happening to cross yonder ford a few minutes ago on his road to Milan, encountered the vision of a nymph exploring these waters knee-deep in quest of lilies, and sent me with a compliment to greet the subject of so charming a picture. That, upon my honour, constitutes my share in this ‘assignation.’”

The old dame’s face, while Tiretta spoke, was a study. Perplexity struggled there with amazement and relief. She laughed, as he finished, on a little high note of understanding and indulgence.

“And it was very natural of his Excellency,” she said. “I, for one, decline to blame him for it. When rank forgets itself in such naughty vagaries as miss’s here, it must look to be accepted by strangers at its own valuation. Luckily, as you will please to inform the count, the like of this is with her Excellency a rare ebullition. She can do justice to her training, as you have heard; and I, though made the victim of the principles I have inculcated, can rejoice, at least, in such vindication of my teaching.”

She dropped, or rather heaved, a profound curtsey; and Tiretta bowed as profoundly--an obeisance in which he sought to include, furious as he was at heart, the object of this jobation. But Isabella, standing pale and haughty, was very far from responding.

“An apology, madam!” she said--“from us! He will please to inform the count! I think I have not heard you aright.”

“Pooh, child!” said the marquise good-humouredly. “You have heard; and I have heard. But it is possible we may draw different conclusions. Bon voyage, monsieur. We had some news of his Excellency’s passing.”

Tiretta rejoined his travelling companion, who during all this time had been chafing in his inability to detect what was passing within the enshrouding coverture of foliage. The archduke greeted him with some impatience.

“Well,” he said. “Did beauty accept the gage?”

“The gage,” said Tiretta, “lies sunk and damned to all eternity within the pool.”

“She threw it there?”

“_I_ threw it there.”

“_You_, sir?”

“_I_, your Highness; and may you be damned with it before I consent ever again to risk being mistaken for your pander.”

The prince, shrinking amazed a moment as if he had been struck, stalked to the carriage, entered it, and sat down.

“Shall I walk?” said Tiretta, grimly, at the door.

The other hesitated; then silently, peremptorily, touched the seat beside him. Tiretta, without a word, occupied it, and the carriage rolled on its way.

Presently, urged beyond endurance, Joseph spoke.

“This is very amusing. You would appear to have met with some rebuff. Surely, in so harmless a gallantry, you would not blame me for consequences quite unforeseen. Is it injured vanity, or another’s innuendo, that saddles you with that hurtful title.”

“Another’s innuendo,” said the soldier shortly.

“The lady’s?”

“The lady’s.”

“She said?”

“She said, what the Infanta Isabella, daughter of Don Philip, was privileged to say to a poor devil approaching her with that insult in his hand.”

“It was the Infanta?”

“It was the Infanta.”

* * * * * * *

“Tiretta, my dear friend, tell me exactly what were her words?”

“She desired, sir, to be spared the impertinences of strangers; and when I answered with the respectful gallantry of my mission, she retorted as only a woman can retort with impunity.”

“A woman! Yet the vision of that child! I am sorry for you, Tiretta--and I am sorry for myself.”

“You have need to be.”

“Why? Did she know me for whom I was?”

“I can answer for the marquise; I cannot answer for her. Likely not; and, if likely, happily not; else I think you would find her more woman than child if you came to woo. Be content for that, if it pleases you. I do not fancy, from what I noticed, that the marquise will enlighten her. You can be sorry, provisionally, nevertheless.”

The young archduke gloomed, and was silent for a while. It was not that he resented the other’s freedom. Tiretta was constituted his privileged favourite for the time being, and might speak his mind liberally on most matters. It was rather, perhaps, that he cogitated the invidious position of princes, who, having austere far-seeing mothers to arrange matches for them, must accommodate themselves at bidding to double leading-strings, without being given a choice as to the partner with whom they were destined to run in couple. It made no difference that inclination in himself might jump with another’s policy. He would have wished to be free to woo in the sense that Tiretta, being of the small and independent, meant it. He did not fear the issue; he only coveted the free-will which would have lent a glamour to the pursuit. What if, after all, he were to find himself bound to one predisposed against him? He wished that she knew him, and knew him better; so, for the time at least, had that rebellious vision wrought upon his emotions. Presently, with a sigh, he looked up.

“She struck me as very beautiful, Tiretta,” he said.

“Well, I am prejudiced,” answered the soldier drily. “I cannot admire unkindness.”

“That is to be the true child you are,” said Joseph. “Affection is the only beauty to a child’s perceptions. Besides, you are not very susceptible, I think, to feminine attractions. I have observed that in you.”

“O! have you?”

“Come, Tiretta man, cheer up. After all, the young lady’s vindication of her position was the commendable thing. One might have regarded her escapade otherwise in a less admiring light.”

“So the keeper, no doubt, counsels resignation to the poor wretch he has caught and mauled in a mantrap.”

Joseph laughed. He thought the comparison, in their relative positions, ridiculous. Of course he did. What importance had this dear fellow’s feelings in the context? The point was that he himself might have been misrepresented to the lady. Following that train of thought, he fell into a profound meditation, from which he did not rouse himself for several minutes. Then he stirred, like a man who had come to a conclusion which was to be immutable and final.

“I wish,” said he, “satisfaction on a point or two--as to whether, for instance, that escapade argued a characteristic lack of dignity on the lady’s part, or was due merely to a rare ebullition of high spirits, instigated possibly by opposition.”

“Yes,” said Tiretta.

“I wish, if properly assured on that question, to ascertain what is the lady’s real opinion of me, and if she was led in any way to associate my near presence with the episode.”

“Yes,” said Tiretta.

“I am not a bad fellow,” said Joseph. “Am I, Tiretta?”

“You are a very good fellow,” answered the soldier grumpily.

“And I am not a bad friend. You, too, are a good friend--one, I am sure, who would be glad to explain his comrade in the best light to one whose good opinion his comrade coveted.”

Tiretta did not answer for a moment. His eyebrows were a little up, his lips a little compressed. Presently he opened them.

“Let us speak without equivocation,” he said. “You wish me to go and act the part of Paolo to your Francesca.”

Joseph smiled.

“To speak what your heart believes of me.”

“I am to talk of the fairy prince, of his virtues, of his graces, of his capacity for romantic love and more lasting affection.”

“Say the best you can of me.”

“Would you not fear Paolo?”

“No, no, my friend--his duty, his loyalty, his insensibility; and much more than that.”

“I flatter myself, you mean. Well, at least she would not flatter me.”

“It would be your chance to prove yourself to her; to rectify false impressions. In these matters troubadours are privileged.”

“Let me understand you fully. You think she _may_ have formed a prejudice against you; you want that impression corrected. Are you to marry her, then?”

“It seems so.”

“And how should I be accredited?”

“Leave that to me. I will see that you are given the opportunity to approach her. The rest your heart will tell you.”

“We are to communicate?”

“And she and I, maybe, when you have paved the way. For friendship’s sake, Tiretta.”

“For none other, you may be sure. I do not like my task.”

“Put it into a song--into many songs. That will lighten it for you. I wish, for the occasion, I could sing myself. But, in spite of policy, I will woo my own way in this.”

He dismissed the subject in a little. Its temporary glamour evaporated. After all he had much, and of paramount importance, to think upon apart from it.