Chapter IV: Book I: Master of Fate (4)

Cerini was mildly indulgent at her lack of understanding. "My daughter," he said, kindly, "some one has written that it is no kindness to a spider, no matter how gentle the touch, to aid it in the spinning of its web. Any one can work at translating, truly--almost any one can write a book--but few can accomplish what your husband and Miss Thayer are doing now. The book they are engaged upon in itself is the least of value. They do not themselves realize, as I do, that it is the influence of this work upon their own characters which is making it a success. They were humanists before they knew the meaning of the word. They come into the highest expression of themselves here in this atmosphere. You were born for other things, my daughter--perhaps far more important things--but not for this."

"You cannot understand, father," Helen replied, desperately. "I am his wife, and it is my place, rather than that of any other woman, to share with him any development which affects his life as deeply as you say this does. It must be so."

"Forgive me if I offend you, but this is not a matter which you or I can settle. It is perhaps natural that I cannot understand your viewpoint. The nature of my life and work gives me little knowledge of women; but this is not a question of sex--it is the kinship of intellects. You are his wife, and, as you say, it is your privilege to share with your husband any development, but it must be along a path which you are able to tread. I mean this in no unkind way, my daughter. I doubt not that you, perhaps, in all other ways, are quite capable of doing so, but this one single portion of his life it is quite impossible that you should share."

Helen had no response. Her heart told her that all Cerini said was literally true. She felt herself to be absolutely unfitted to understand or to supplement that particular expression of her husband's character. But the matter-of-fact suggestion of the librarian that Inez should fulfil to him that which she, his wife, lacked, almost paralyzed her power to think or speak. Cerini seemed instinctively to read what was passing through her mind.

"You think me unreal, my daughter--you think me impractical. I may be both. Here, within these old walls, I am not limited by the world's conventions, so perhaps I disregard them more than is right. Those whom I love signify nothing to me as to their personal appearance or their families or their personalities except in so far as these attributes may be expressions of themselves. Life to me would not be worth the living if in debating whether or not I ought to do a certain thing I was obliged to consider also what the world would think or what some other person might think. Let me ask you a question: Was your motive in coming here this morning the result of a desire to put yourself in touch with the spirit of your husband's work, or was it to separate these two persons in the labor they have undertaken?"

Cerini's question brought Helen to herself.

"If you are really free from the world's conventions," she responded, quickly, "you will understand my answer. My husband is everything to me that a wife could ask, and his happiness is the highest object my life contains. Miss Thayer is the dearest friend I have, and my affection for her is second only to the love I bear my husband. While this side of his nature was not unknown to me, until we came to Florence--even until to-day--I have never fully appreciated its intensity. Yet when I feel that to a certain extent, at least, his welfare depends upon a gratification of this expression, is it unnatural that I, his wife, should wish to be the one person to experience that development with him?"

"You did not feel this strong desire when you first came to Florence?"

"I did not understand it."

"Would your present comprehension have come at all if his companion had been a man rather than a woman?"

Helen flushed. "You are not so free from the world's conventions as you think."

"But you do not answer the question," the old man pursued, relentlessly.

"You think, then, that my desire is prompted by jealousy? Let us speak frankly," continued Helen as Cerini held up his hand deprecatingly. "The distinction in my own mind may be a fine one and difficult for another to comprehend, but I can say truly that no jealous thought has entered into any of my considerations. I could not love my husband and be jealous of him at the same time. On the other hand, it is probably quite true that were his companion a man I should not have recognized so strongly the importance of joining him in this particular work."

Cerini rose quietly, and took from the bookcase near his desk a copy of a modern classic.

"The author has expressed an idea here which I think explains your position exactly." He turned the pages quickly. "See here," he said, drawing closer to Helen and pointing to a paragraph marked with a double score in the margin. "'No man objects to the admiration his wife receives from his friends; it is the woman herself who makes the trouble.' Now I suppose the reverse of that proposition is equally true."

Helen smiled. "You mean that the reason I am not jealous of my husband in this instance is because he has given me no occasion?"

"Exactly."

"That is perfectly true."

"But you fear that it may not always be true?"

Helen was no match for the old man in argument, yet she struggled to meet him.

"Perhaps," she said; "there is always that danger. Why not avoid it by making this other companionship unnecessary?"

"But suppose you yourself are not temperamentally fitted to gratify this particular craving in your husband's life?" Cerini watched the effect of his words upon his companion. She was silent for several moments before she raised her eyes to his.

"I know that you are right," she answered, simply. "I have felt it always, but my husband has insisted that in my case it was lack of application rather than of temperament. I came here to-day to try the experiment, and you have shown me that my own judgment is correct."

"It is correct," agreed Cerini, delighted by Helen's unexpected acquiescence. "It was your husband's heart rather than his head which led him astray in his advice. You have just shown me your intelligence by coming so promptly to this conclusion; now you are going to manifest your devotion to him by leaving him undisturbed in this work which he has undertaken. It can only last during a limited period at best. It is the expression of but one side of his nature. Before many weeks have passed you and he will be returning to your great country into a complexity of conditions where this experience will become only a memory. These conditions will call to the surface the expression of his other characteristics into which you can fully enter. By not interfering with this character-building now going on, you, his wife, will later reap rich returns."

A tap sounded on the door of the study.

"There is your husband now," said Cerini, taking Helen's hand. "Tell me that you forgive me for my frankness."

Helen pressed his hand silently as he turned from her to admit Armstrong.

"Here you are!" cried Jack, as he entered with Inez. "We became so engrossed that I am ashamed to say I completely forgot our new convert."

"Your forgetfulness has given me the opportunity to become well acquainted with your charming wife," replied Cerini. "Is your work completed for the day?"

"Yes, but we shall be at it again to-morrow. You will come with us of course?" he asked, turning to his wife.

"I am not quite sure, Jack," Helen replied. "Monsignor Cerini has suggested to me another way in which I can help you, which may prove to be equally important."

She turned to Inez with an unflinching smile. "Our friend has been explaining to me the nature of what you and Jack are doing together. You must certainly plan to stay on for a while longer. I am sure Jack could never finish it without you."

IX

The human heart can play no more difficult role than to keep on with its every-day monotonous pulsations, so far as the world sees, when in reality every throb is a measured duration of infinite pain. Ten days had passed since De Peyster had so unconsciously been the cause of completely changing the even tenor of Helen's existence, and during this time she had drifted helplessly in the deep waters of uncertainty. What was the wise thing to do? Helen knew Inez too well to deceive herself into thinking that what was said to Ferdinand had been simply an expedient to accomplish his dismissal, and her observations since then had confirmed her early convictions. Inez was in love with Jack. Jack was obviously fond of her companionship. Their work in the library had brought them constantly together, and at home an increasing proportion of the time had been devoted to a consideration and discussion of the various topics which had developed and into which Helen did not enter. Yet there was nothing in all this which was not perfectly natural; in fact, it was, as Helen said to herself, wholly the outcome of what she had originally suggested.

Helen's convictions regarding Inez were confirmed, not by what her friend did, but rather by the efforts she made to avoid doing certain things. Never for an instant did Helen question Inez' loyalty to her, and she could scarcely refrain from entering into the tremendous struggle in which she saw her engaged. Each woman's heart was passing through fire, and Helen felt a new and strange bond of sympathy between her friend and herself because of their mutual suffering. But the struggle must continue. Helen must come to some decision wiser than any which had yet suggested itself to her before disclosing to any one, and to Inez least of all, that she possessed any knowledge of the situation.

Fortunately, at this crisis, the automobile became the controlling excitement. During the intervening days Jack had resisted the temptation, devoting himself assiduously to his self-appointed task, and satisfying himself with short excursions after his labors at the library were over. Now he could resist no longer. The book was assuming definite proportions, and, as he explained to himself and the others, the work would be all the better for a little holiday. So it was that the Armstrongs, with Miss Thayer and Uncle Peabody, made runs to Siena, Padua, and to all the smaller towns less frequented by visitors and consequently of greater interest. Miss Thayer forgot in the excitement the experience she was passing through; Uncle Peabody forgot Luigi Cornaro and the Japanese; Armstrong, for the time being, appeared indifferent to the hitherto compelling interests at the library; and Helen, at intervals, forgot her suffering and the heavy burden which lay upon her heart in her feeling of helplessness. New sensations, in this twentieth century, are rare, and the automobile is to be credited with supplying many. The exhilaration, the abandon, which comes with the utter annihilation of time and space, forces even those affairs of life which previously had been thought important to become miserably commonplace. The danger itself is not the least of the fascination.

"I would rather be killed once a week in an automobile," asserted Uncle Peabody while the fever was on him, "than die the one ordinary death allotted to man."

With the temporary cessation of the library work, there had been no occasion for separate interests. This, Helen felt, was most fortunate, as it gave her ample opportunity to arrive at her conclusions. It was all her own fault, she repeated to herself over and over again. Had she made an earlier effort to enter into Jack's interests, even though it had proved her inability, matters need never have arrived at so serious a pass. Now she was convinced that it was too late to become a part of them; she had done an irreparable injury to Inez, whom she loved as a sister, and had taken chances on disrupting her own and her husband's domestic happiness.

"As Jack said, I have found a cloud in the cloudless sky," she thought.--"And poor Inez!"

Thus the burden resolved itself into two parts--solicitude for Inez and how best to undo the harm Helen felt she had wrought. Her first attempt had proved a failure, and she could not see the next step. While the motoring fever lasted there was nothing to do but to plan; for the excitement was infectious, and one trip followed another in rapid succession. Household regularity became conspicuous by its absence. Meals were served at all hours and were rushed through with reckless haste, entirely upsetting Uncle Peabody's theories.

"You treat your stomach like a trunk," he protested to Armstrong one morning, "and you throw the food into it just about the way an average man does his packing."

"But you finish your breakfast just as soon as any of us," was the retort.

"Yes, but if you observe carefully you will note that I actually eat about one-quarter as much as you do in the same given time. And what I have eaten will satisfy me about four times as long, because I have thoroughly masticated it and assimilated all the nourishing portions of the food. When I think of the gymnastic performances your poor stomach must go through in order to tear into shreds the chunks of food you have bolted down I admit my sympathy is fully aroused."

"Sympathy is always grateful," Armstrong replied, unconvinced, "but every moment we lose discussing nutrition is a moment taken off the finest trip we have tried yet. The car is in splendid condition, the weather is ideal, and Pisa awaits us at the other end of our excursion."

"So it is to be Pisa, is it?" Uncle Peabody arose. "Do you know, Jack, I like you for the way you plan these charming rides, and that almost makes up for your lack of judgment in some other directions. An ordinary man would spend at least the day before in studying maps, asking advice, and in making plans generally. You, on the contrary, wait until breakfast is over, throw down your napkin, and then with a proper show of impatience say, 'Why do you keep me waiting? The car is ready to take us to the moon.' All this fits in exactly with my principles: it is the unexpected which always brings satisfaction."

"Uncle's praise is distinctly a man's approval," Helen protested. "From a woman's standpoint Jack's methods represent the acme of tyranny. No inquiries as to where we prefer to be spirited, no suggestions that our opinions are worth consulting, no suspicion that we are other than clay in the potter's hands; simply, 'The machine is ready. Please hurry.' Yes, we are coming," Helen hurriedly added, seeing Jack's impatience over the bantering, "we are coming!"

Giuseppe, Annetta, and the cook were avowed enemies of the motor-car, not only because of the effect it had produced upon the household arrangements, but also because of the intrusion of the French chauffeur which it had forced upon them. They would die rather than show the slightest interest in it, yet on one pretext or another they never allowed the machine to start out without regarding it with secret admiration and respect. Giuseppe, on this particular morning, was gathering roses on the terrace, Annetta was closing a shutter on the veranda, while the cook's red face peered around the corner of the villa. Giuseppe crossed himself as the engine started up, then jumped and fell squarely into his rose-basket as the chauffeur maliciously pressed the bulb, and the machine moved majestically past him, out of the court-yard, and into the narrow road.

"I don't blame these people for resenting the invasion of motor-cars and other evidences of modern progress," said Inez as they reached the level; "it is all so out of keeping with everything around them and with everything they have been brought up to regard as right and proper."

"But 'these people' represent only one portion of the Italians, Miss Thayer," replied Uncle Peabody. "Italian civic life contains two great contrasting factors--one practical, the other ideal. Each in its way is proud of the past; the first thinks more of the present and the future, while the second, opposed on principle to innovations, only accepts, and then under protest, those which come from Italian sources. This car we are riding in is of French manufacture. Were it Italian, you would find that it would have been greeted with smiles instead of scowls just now. And yet I like their patriotism."

"But it does seem a sacrilege for the wonderful old towers and walls here in Florence to be torn down to make room for prosaic twentieth-century trolley-cars," Helen added.

"And Mr. Armstrong says there is talk of a board road being built for automobiles between Mestre and Venice. What will dear old Italy be when 'modern civilization' has finished with her?" Inez asked.

"From present tendencies," remarked Uncle Peabody, gravely, "I expect to live to see the day when the Venetian gondola will be propelled by gasolene; when the Leaning Tower of Pisa will either be straightened by some enterprising American engineer or made to lean a bit more, so that automobiles may make the ascent, even as the Colosseum at Rome is already turned over to Buffalo Bill or some other descendant of Barnum's circus for regular performances, including the pink lemonade and the peanuts."

"Don't!" Inez cried. "It would be far better to go to the other extreme, which Mr. Armstrong would like to see."

The road was level and smooth, now that the rough streets of the city lay behind them, and there was nothing to think of until after reaching Empoli. Armstrong had been running the machine, and he turned his head just in time to hear Inez' last remark.

"I can imagine what the conversation is, even though I have not heard much of it," he said, "and I am sure that I agree with Miss Thayer. How about getting back to our work at the library to-morrow?" he added.

Inez flushed at the suddenness of the question, and Helen caught her breath. The time for her decision, then, was near at hand.

"I am as eager as you are to resume it," replied Inez, her face lighting with pleasure.

"Then it is all arranged," Armstrong said, decisively. "Helen and Uncle Peabody may have the machine to-morrow, and we will start in again where we left off."

The Arno winds around and about in a hundred curves between Florence and Pisa, leaving the road for some little distance at times, but ever coming back to it in flirtatious manner. The fields stretch away between the river and the road in undulating green. Small hamlets like San Romano, La Rotta, and Navacchio, and the more pretentious settlements of Signa, Empoli, and Pontedera give variety to the ride and add by their old-time strangeness to the beauties which Nature so bountifully supplies. But the climax comes at the end of the journey, after crossing the tracks at the very modern station and the bridge which spans the Arno. Over the roofs of the quaint twelfth-century houses rise the Cathedral and the Leaning Tower and the pillared dome of the Baptistry.

The motor-car was halted in front of the little doorway of the Hotel Nettuno, where the host appeared with all his affability, offering opportunities for removing the dust accumulated by the ride, and a choice _colazione_ to be ready as soon as might be desired. Helen was preoccupied during the preparations for luncheon, but Inez' excitement over her first visit to Pisa, and Armstrong's eagerness to watch the effect of the early impressions, saved her changed demeanor from attracting any attention.

"It is hard to realize that this is the city of Ugolino and the Tower of Hunger after this sumptuous repast," remarked Jack, lighting his cigarette with much satisfaction as coffee was being served.

"Probably the 'Nettuno' was not in existence at that time," suggested Uncle Peabody.

"Is this not where the wonderful echo is to be heard?" inquired Inez.

"Yes--at the Baptistry," Armstrong replied; "and you are sure to enjoy it--the sacristan makes up such a funny face when he intones."

"The echo at Montecatini, I understand, is taking a long vacation," observed Uncle Peabody.

"How so?" inquired Inez, innocently.

"The regular echo was ill, and the sacristan failed to coach the new boy properly. The visitor called, 'What is the hour?' and the echo came back, 'Four o'clock'!"

Jack and Inez led the way from the hotel, through the narrow walled streets and under the gateway to the Piazza del Duomo, where all the splendor of the marvellous group of buildings burst upon them. Helen pleaded fatigue and asked to be left in the Duomo while the others set out to climb the Leaning Tower and to inspect the Campo Santo; so Uncle Peabody insisted on staying with her. They sat down on one of the wooden benches beneath the lamp of Galileo, and Helen rested her head upon her hand. Uncle Peabody watched her curiously for a moment. Finally he took her hand quietly in his. Helen started.

"I would do it if I were you, Helen," he said, deliberately.

"Do what?" she asked, surprised into confusion.

"Just what you were thinking of doing when I interrupted you."

"Do you know what I was thinking, then?"

"No." Uncle Peabody spoke in a very matter-of-fact way. "But I am sure it is the right thing to do."

Helen looked at him steadily, uncertain of just how far he had surmised her secret thought. There was nothing in the calm, unruffled expression which gave her even an inkling as to whether her peculiar sensation was caused by his intuition or her own self-consciousness. Then her gaze relaxed, and she laughed half-heartedly.

"You have mislaid your divining-cap this time," Helen said at length. "If you had really read my mind your advice would have been quite different."

Uncle Peabody was undisturbed. "In that case you will exercise your woman's prerogative and change it within the next twenty-four hours. When that has taken place you will find that my advice fits it exactly."

"I wish I had your confidence, Uncle Peabody." Helen rose suddenly and held out her hand to her companion. "Come, let us go into the sunlight, where things look more cheerful."

Uncle Peabody watched the figure militant as Helen preceded him down the broad aisle, past the small altars, and out into the air. He recalled this same attitude when Helen had been a child, and he remembered the determination and the strength of will which went with it at that time. He had forgotten this characteristic in meeting his niece grown to womanhood and in the midst of such apparently congenial surroundings. Now he felt that he knew the occasion for its reappearance.

Inez and Jack soon joined them, and together they returned to the hotel. A few moments later the car was gliding back toward Florence again, in the refreshing cool of the afternoon, with changed color effects to give new impressions to the panorama of the morning. They were almost home when Armstrong turned suddenly to Helen:

"How absolutely stupid of me!" he said, abruptly. "I met Phil Emory on the Lung' Arno yesterday and asked him to take dinner with us to-night." Armstrong looked at his watch. "We shall be just about in time, anyhow, but I am sorry not to have told you about it."

X

When Helen Cartwright had accepted Phil Emory as escort for the Harvard Class Day festivities, on the occasion of his graduation, every one had considered the matter of their engagement as settled; that is to say, every one except Helen and Emory. This view of the matter did not occur to Helen, even as a remote possibility, and Phil Emory had absolute knowledge to the contrary, since Helen herself had answered his question very clearly, even though not satisfactorily, some months before this event took place. But she liked him immensely none the less, and saw no reason why she should not throw confetti at him from the circus-like seats of the Stadium, or eat strawberries and ices with him and her other friends at the various Class Day spreads. In fact, she saw every reason for doing so, inasmuch as she thoroughly enjoyed it; and Emory was proud enough to act as host under any conditions whatever.

After graduation Emory probably had as good a chance as any one until Jack Armstrong entered the field. The younger man had become more and more intense in his devotion, but when he found himself out-classed by the force of Armstrong's attack he accepted his defeat generously and philosophically. No one contributed more to the jollity of the wedding breakfast or extended heartier congratulations to the bride and bridegroom.

Emory's visit at the Villa Godilombra, when he first arrived in Italy, was one of the pleasantest experiences of his whole trip thus far. Never had he seen a more glorious spot, and never had he seen Helen so radiantly beautiful. He had remarked to Eustis more than once during their stay that an Italian background was the one thing needful to show off Helen's charms to the greatest perfection. When he returned to Florence, therefore, he determined to see her again, making his belated duty call the excuse; so the fortunate meeting with Armstrong and the invitation which resulted fitted in most agreeably with his plans.

The automobile passed Emory in his _vettura_ half-way up the hill. "Good-bye, old chap! Must hurry, as we have company coming for dinner!" cried Armstrong, gayly, as the machine glided past him, giving him only a vision of waving hands before he became enveloped in the cloud of dust. When he arrived at the villa he found Helen and Jack awaiting him as if they had been at home all the afternoon.

"This is a pleasant surprise, Phil," said Helen, cordially. "Until Jack told me you were in Florence I supposed you and Dick Eustis had at least reached London by this time."

"No," Emory replied, as they walked into the garden; "I only went as far north as Paris. Eustis continued on to London, and is there now, I expect, but I ran across Ferdy De Peyster in Paris. He had a frightfully sick turn, and I had to take care of him for a while."

"Ferdy was sick, you say?" Helen was eagerly interested. "You don't mean dangerously so?"

"No--not as things turned out; but I will admit I was a bit anxious about him for a time. He had been terribly cut up over something, and then caught a beastly cold on his lungs, and I thought he was in for a severe case of pneumonia. He was pretty sandy about it, and in a week he came around all right. I took him over to Aix, where I left him, and then I decided to sail home from Naples instead of Southampton."

"Did he tell you what the trouble was?" Helen was anxious to know how confidential De Peyster had been.

"Oh, an _affaire de coeur_ he said; but he did not tell me who the girl was. He spoke of his call on you and Miss Thayer, here, shortly after we departed, but the poor chap was not very communicative."

"Forgive me for deserting you, Emory," interrupted Armstrong as he approached them from the house, closely followed by Annetta bearing a tray. "This is one part of the dinner which I never leave to any one else. These Italians know a lot of things better than we do, but mixing cocktails is not one of their long suits."

"By Jove! that is a grateful reward to a dusty throat!" said Emory, replacing the glass on the tray.

"And now to dinner," announced Helen. "Annetta bids us enter."

Uncle Peabody and Miss Thayer joined them at the table.

"I must tell you, Mr. Cartwright," said Emory, after the greetings were over, "that what you said about eating when I was here before made quite an impression on me, and I have been trying your methods a little."

"Good for you!" cried Uncle Peabody.

"I really think I ought to make a confession," Emory continued. "I had heard about your work and all that, but I had an idea that you were more or less of a crank, and that your theories were the usual ones which go with a new fad. But when you talked about understanding and running properly one's own motive power it appealed to me as being sensible. Then your idea that the appetite is given one to tell him what the system needs sounded reasonable to me; and when you insisted that this same appetite had a right to be consulted as to when enough fuel was on board I woke up to a realization that I had not always been that respectful to myself."

Uncle Peabody smiled genially. "Have you found the experiment very disagreeable?"

"By no means," replied Emory, decidedly. "Of course, I started in on it more as a joke than anything else, but I have been surprised to find how much more I really enjoy my food. Why, there are flavors in a piece of bread which I never discovered until I chewed it all to pieces."

"That is on the same principle exactly that a tea-taster or a wine-taster discovers the real flavor of the particular variety he is testing. That is one thing which gave me my idea. He sips a little and then thoroughly mixes it with the saliva, and in that way tastes the delicate aroma which the glutton never knows either in drink or food."

"How does the system work with the elaborate Continental _table d'hote_, Mr. Emory?" queried Miss Thayer.

Uncle Peabody answered for him: "You became an object of suspicion to the head-waiter, and the _garcon_ thought you were criticising the food."

"Exactly," laughed Emory. "But, all joking aside, Mr. Cartwright, I have become a confirmed disciple. I never felt so well, and I am eating about half as much as I used to."

"This seems to be developing into an experience meeting," Armstrong remarked. "Why don't you write out a testimonial for the gentleman?"

"I would gladly do so, but from what I hear he stands in no need of any such document."

Emory turned to Uncle Peabody. "It is a case of being 'advertised by our grateful friends,' is it not, Mr. Cartwright?"

"How long will you be in Florence, Phil?" asked Helen. "Are you just passing through again, or is this where you make your visit to the City of Flowers?"

"I have no definite plans. My steamer doesn't sail for a month, and I am moving along as the wind blows me. Are the Sinclair girls still here?"

"No; they sailed for home last week."

"Why don't you stay in Florence for a while and help Helen exercise the automobile?" suggested Armstrong. "Miss Thayer and I are working every day at the library, and it will prevent her becoming lonesome."

Helen looked inquiringly at her husband. This suggestion from him, and to Phil Emory of all men! The times had indeed altered! She saw that Emory was observing her, and felt the necessity of relieving the tension.

"You must not put it on that score, Jack," she said, quietly. "I am not at all lonely, but I should be very glad to have Phil join us to-morrow. What do you say, Phil?"

"I should like nothing better. But tell me about this work, Armstrong. Are you really boning down to arduous labor on your honeymoon?"

"It is a bit out of the ordinary, is it not?" admitted Jack, uncertain whether or not Emory's question contained a reproach. "I would not dare do it with any one except Helen, but she understands the necessity. I don't know when I shall get another chance."

"Jack is accomplishing wonders in his work," explained Helen, anxious to have Emory feel her entire sympathy; "you must have him tell you about it. In the mean time, while he is improving himself mentally, Uncle Peabody and I are entering somewhat into the social frivolities of Florence. To-morrow we are going to a reception to be given to the Count of Turin and the Florentine Dante Society at the Villa Londi. Jack scorns these functions, but you will be quite in your element. We will take you with us."

"It is not that I 'scorn' these things, as you say, Helen," protested Armstrong. "You give any one an entirely wrong idea. They are all right enough in their own way, but I can get these at home. This chance at the library, however, is one in a lifetime, and I feel that I must improve it."

"Of course," replied Helen, "that is what I meant to say."

Emory glanced from one to the other quietly. "I shall be most happy to go if you are quite sure I won't interfere with the plans you have already made. You know I am not on speaking terms with Italian."

"You won't have to be," Uncle Peabody assured him. "These Italians speak English so well that you will be ashamed of your ignorance. You will have no difficulty in making yourself understood."

Helen was rebellious at heart that Jack should have suggested Emory to relieve her loneliness. It was enough that he was willing to be away from her so much without taking it for granted and referring to it in such a matter-of-fact way. Inez as well came in for her share of the resentment, her very silence during the discussion serving to aggravate Helen's discomfiture. Helen deliberately turned the conversation.

"I can't help thinking of poor Ferdy, Phil. Have you heard from him since you left him at Aix?"

"No, but I should have heard if all had not been going well."

"What is the matter with De Peyster?" asked Armstrong.

"Oh, you did not hear what Phil told me about him before dinner, Jack. He has been very ill, and Phil took him over to Aix for a cure."

It was the first time De Peyster's name had been mentioned since his abrupt departure, and Inez flushed deeply as she listened.

"What was the trouble, Emory?" asked Armstrong, innocently.

"He came pretty near having pneumonia," replied Emory. "He was hard hit with a girl somewhere over here, and was thrown down, I suspect. Then he grew careless and was a pretty sick chap when I ran across him in Paris."

Armstrong had no idea of the result of his question. He glanced hastily at Inez and gulped down half a glass of wine, nearly choking himself in the process.

"There you go!" exclaimed Uncle Peabody, quite understanding the situation and wishing to relieve the embarrassment. "You will drown yourself one of these fine days if you don't listen to my teachings and profit by Mr. Emory's example."

But Emory was quite unconscious of the delicate ground upon which he trod. The days and nights he had spent with De Peyster were still strongly impressed upon his mind.

"I thought you might know something about this, Helen," he continued, "for Ferdy mentioned your name and Miss Thayer's several times while he was delirious. I could not make out anything he said, he was so incoherent. Later, when he began to improve, I asked him about it, but he evidently did not care to talk. But how stupid I have been!" He broke off suddenly and turned to Miss Thayer. "Here I have been sitting beside you all this time and never once offered my congratulations!"

Inez drew back from the proffered hand. The color left her face as suddenly as it had come. "What do you mean?" she stammered.

"Why, De Peyster told me you were engaged," Emory said, quite taken aback. "Have I said something I ought not to? He said you told him so."

"Mr. De Peyster had no right to say that!" Inez cried, fiercely, almost breaking into tears.

Emory was most contrite. "Ten thousand pardons," he apologized. "You must forgive me, Miss Thayer. Ferdy never suggested that it was a secret at all--and now I have given the whole thing away!"

Emory wished himself half-way across the Atlantic.

"I am very much annoyed," replied Inez, still struggling to contain herself--"not with you, but with Mr. De Peyster."

"But she is not engaged," Armstrong insisted, with decision.

"I think Inez had better be left to settle that point herself, Jack," Helen interrupted, pointedly.

"Then why does she not settle it?"

"I will settle it." Inez sat up very straight in her chair, her tense features making her face look drawn in its ashy paleness.

"Jack has no right to force you into any such position, Inez," Helen protested, indignantly; "he is forgetting himself."

"De Peyster is responsible for the whole thing." Emory struggled to step in between the clash of arms. "I recall the very words. 'Phil, old chap,' he said, 'you remember Miss Thayer? She is engaged. She told me she had found some one whom she loved better than her life.' Can you blame me for making such a consummate ass of myself?"

Armstrong's intense interest had taken him too deeply into the affair for him to heed Helen's protests.

"You never said anything of the kind, did you, Miss Thayer?"

"I am not engaged," replied Inez, very firmly, "and I cannot understand why Mr. De Peyster should have put me in this uncomfortable position."

"Of course not," assented Armstrong, with evident satisfaction. "De Peyster is a fool. I will tell him so the next time I see him."

"I think we had better change the subject," said Helen, rising, her face flushed with indignation. "The methods of the Inquisition have no place at a modern dinner-table."

XI

Inez Thayer had congratulated herself upon her success in keeping her secret. Since her searching self-examination and the harrowing experience during De Peyster's brief visit she had spent many hours inwardly debating the proper steps to take in order to solve her problem. She was certain that no one knew the real state of affairs, and with this certainty the only danger lay in its effect upon herself. But she knew all too well that this danger was indeed a real one. Day by day her admiration for Armstrong increased, and with that admiration her affection waxed stronger and stronger. Those hours together at the library--when they were quite alone, when his face, in their joint absorption in their work, almost touched hers, when his hand rested unconsciously for a moment upon her own--were to her moments in the Elysian Fields, and she quaffed deeply of the intoxicating draught. What harm, she argued to herself, since her companion was oblivious to her hidden sentiments--what disloyalty to her friend, since the pain must all be hers? And the pain was hers already--why not revel in its ecstasy while it lasted?

With her conscience partially eased by her labored conclusions, Inez threw herself into a complete enjoyment of her work. Helen's attitude toward her had not in any way altered, and she was still apparently entirely agreeable to the arrangement. Her suggestion to join them in their labors was the only evidence which Inez had seen that perhaps her friend was becoming restless, even though not ready to raise any objections; but when Helen herself gave up the idea, after her single visit to the library, Inez was convinced that she had misunderstood her motive. Nothing remained, therefore, but to accept her previous argument that she was simply following the inexorable guidance of Fate, with herself the only possible victim. It was uncomfortable, it was wearing, but she could not, she repeated over and over again, remove herself from the exquisite suffering of her surroundings until she was absolutely obliged to do so.

The episode at the dinner-table completely shattered the structure she had built, and its sudden demolition stunned her. This she vaguely realized as she and Helen left the men at the table and walked to the veranda for their coffee. Their departure was in itself an evidence of new and strained conditions, as both Helen and Jack regarded the coffee-and-cigar period as the best part of every dinner and a part to be enjoyed together. Helen had not yet acquired the Continental cigarette habit, but, as she had once expressed it, "Men are so good-natured right after dinner, when they are stuffed, and so happy when they are making silly little clouds of smoke!"

Inez hesitatingly passed her arm around her friend's waist, and when Helen drew her closely to her she rested her head against her shoulder, relaxing like a tired child.

"Who would have expected this outcome of such a happy day?" Inez queried, sadly, as the two girls seated themselves upon the wicker divan.

"Jack was a brute!" exclaimed Helen, almost savagely.

"It is all my own fault, Helen; but I could not tell them so in there."

Helen appeared astonished. "How do you mean? Are you really engaged, after all?"

"No, no, Helen; but you see when Ferdy urged me so hard for an answer I had to tell him something."

Inez glanced up at Helen to see how she took her explanation.

"So you told him you were engaged?"

"Not exactly that, but--"

"That you loved some one better than your life?"

Inez shrank a little as she answered. "Something like that," she admitted.

"And it was not true?"

Inez laughed nervously. "What an absurd question, Helen! You know I have seen almost no one since I came here."

"Except Jack," said Helen, impulsively.

Inez sprang to her feet. "What do you mean, Helen? You don't accuse me of being in love with your husband, do you?"

Helen pulled her down beside her again. "Don't be tragic, dear," she said, quietly. "I admit that the suggestion is unkind, after the display Jack made of himself at the table. I am provoked with him myself."

"Helen,"--Inez spoke abruptly, after a moment's silence--"I think I ought to leave Florence."

"Don't be absurd, Inez. You are worked up over this miserable affair, but you will forget all about it in the morning--when you get back to your work at the library."

"No; this time I really mean what I say. I ought to have gone when my visit was up a fortnight ago; but you were so sweet in urging me to stay, and the work had developed with such increasing interest, that I have just stayed on and on."

"I am sorry if you regret having stayed, dear. It certainly seemed to be for the best."

"But see what it has brought on you, Helen."

"I am not proud of my husband's behavior, I admit; but you have even greater cause to feel annoyed than I."

Inez seemed to be drifting hopelessly in her attempt to find the right thing to say.

"I have felt that I ought to go for a long time."

"A long time?" Helen echoed. "Has Jack behaved as badly as this before?"

"Not that; it is the library work which makes me feel so."

"I don't wonder you are getting tired of it."

"Tired of it! Oh, Helen, I wish you could get as much joy out of anything as I do out of this work. Tired of it!" Inez laughed aloud at the absurdity of the suggestion. Then she grew serious again. "I know I ought to leave it, yet I cannot force myself to make the break."

"I don't think I understand," said Helen, quietly, watching intently the struggle through which the girl was passing.

"I know you don't, and I don't believe I could make any one understand it," replied Inez, helplessly.

"You talk about it in this mysterious way just as Jack does," continued Helen. "There must be some sort of spell about it, for you both are changed beings since your first visit to the library."

"Then you have noticed it?" Inez looked up anxiously.

"Of course I have noticed it," admitted Helen, frankly. "How could I help it when you yourself feel it so strongly?"

"Do you blame me for it?"

"Why should I blame you, Inez? Is there any reason why I should blame any one?"

"No, except that the work takes your husband away from you so much."

"But I can't hold you responsible for that, can I? It is the work which draws you both, is it not--not each the other?"

Inez moved uneasily and withdrew her hand from Helen's lap. "Of course it is the work," she answered, quietly; "but, frankly, would you not rather have it discontinued?"

"No," replied Helen, without hesitation; "but I sincerely wish Jack might be less completely absorbed by it. I have no intention of opposing it, and I am willing to sacrifice much for its success, yet I see no reason why it should so wholly deprive me of my husband."

"It has opened up an entirely new world for me." Inez seemed suddenly obsessed by a reminiscent thought. Her troubled expression changed into one of rapt ecstasy. Helen watched the transformation, deeply impressed by the strange new light which she saw in the girl's eyes. "I must be more impressionable than I supposed," she continued, "for it all seems so real. I can see Michelangelo's face as I read his letters; I can see his lips move, his expression change--I can even hear his voice. I have watched him fashion the great David out of the discarded marble; I have heard his discussions with Pope Julius and Pope Leo; I have witnessed his struggle with Leonardo at the Palazzo Vecchio. The events come so fast, and the letters give such minute information upon so many topics, that I actually feel myself in the midst of it all. I know Vittoria Colonna as well as Michelangelo ever did, and I know far better than he why she refused to marry him. All these great characters, and others, live and move and converse with us these mornings at the library." Inez paused to get her breath. She was talking very fast. "I know it sounds uncanny," she went on, "but there is something in the very atmosphere which makes me forget who or what I am. Cerini comes and stands beside us, rubbing his hands together and smiling, and yet we hardly notice him. He is a part of it all. What he says seems no more real than the conversations and the communions we have with the others who died centuries ago. I realize how inexplicable all this must sound to you, because I find myself absolutely unable to explain it to myself. It must be a spell, as you say, but I have no strength to break it."

"It must be something," Helen admitted, gravely, "to affect both you and Jack the same way. I wonder what it is?"

Inez paid no heed to the interrogation. "You should see your husband, Helen, when he is at his work. You don't really know him as you see him here."

Helen felt herself impressed even more strongly than she had been during her visit to the library. Inez spoke with the same intensity and conviction which at that time had overwhelmed her previously conceived plans.

"Cerini said the same thing--" she began.

"Cerini is right," Inez interrupted. "Your husband is a god among them all. He is not a mere student, searching for facts, but one of those great spirits themselves, looking into their lives and their characters with a power and an intimacy which only a contemporary and an equal could do. Cerini says that his book will be a masterpiece--that it will place him among the great _savants_ of his time. No such work has been produced in years; and you will be so proud of him, Helen--so proud that he belongs to you! Is it not worth the sacrifice?"

As her friend paused Helen bowed her head in silence. "So proud that he belongs to you," Inez had just said. Did he belong to her--had he ever belonged to her? The new light in Inez' eyes, the intensity of her words, both convinced and controlled her. What was she, even though his wife, to stand in the way of such a championship? What were the conventions of commonplace domestic life in the presence of this all-compelling genius? She felt her resentment against Jack become unimportant. With such absorption it was but natural that he should not act like other men.

The sound of voices in the hall brought both girls to themselves.

"Dare we come out?" asked Uncle Peabody, cautiously, pausing at the door. "These back-sliders are very repentant, and I will vouch for their good behavior."

"There is only one of us who requires forgiveness," added Armstrong, frankly, advancing to the divan. "I owe you both an apology; first of all to my wife, for not heeding her good advice, and then to my 'sister-worker,' as Cerini calls her, for adding to her discomfiture."

"If Inez will forgive you, I will cheerfully add my absolution," replied Helen, forcing a smile.

"I was really afraid that I was going to lose my right-hand man," continued Armstrong by way of explanation, "and my work must then have come to an abrupt conclusion."

"You give me altogether too much credit," replied Inez. "The work is already so much a part of yourself that you could not drop it if you lost a dozen 'sister-workers.'"

"It must never come to that, Jack," added Helen, seriously. "Inez will surely stay until the book is completed, and I shall do what little I can to help it to a glorious success."

"You are a sweet, sympathizing little wife." Armstrong placed his hand affectionately upon her shoulder. "Your interest in it will be all that I need to make it so."

Emory and Uncle Peabody instinctively glanced at each other, and for a moment their eyes met. It was but an instant, yet in that brief exchange each knew where the other stood.