§ ii
She went with him the next afternoon, to the house near Prospect Park. The door was opened by a man servant in an elaborate livery.
“My idea of a flunkey, whatever that is!” Bertie murmured.
They were ushered into a drawing-room, an immense room, furnished with an out-of-date sort of magnificence; it gave Claudine a sudden insight into the pathos of the household.
“Look around you!” said Bertie. “You will see a pastry-cook’s dream. But you won’t have long to observe; Giulia would prefer death to keeping my mother waiting.”
He was right; she entered almost at once, and came up to Claudine with a most polite, a supplicating air, held out her hand, raised to her face a pair of sorrowful and beautiful eyes. They sat down to talk but it was too much of a task even for Claudine’s experience. She was as affable and impersonal as it was possible to be, she was really well-disposed toward this pretty little thing. But she could evoke from her nothing but a humble sort of politeness. It was evident that she adored Bertie, and that his mother was to her a person of superhuman augustness. She was well-bred, she had pretty manners and a sweet little voice; she was dressed very nicely in a dark blue crêpe de chine, which was simple, but excessively expensive. And she herself had an innocent and spiritual charm, like a little strayed angel. She was small and fragile, and she hadn’t the least hint of a womanly figure—a child’s body, with flat wrists and a tiny neck. Her dark, pallid face was broad at the brows and very narrow at the chin, which made her childish mouth look larger; she had a wonderful profile, a nose straight with the forehead, a short, full upper lip, a minute and heart-breaking perfection. But it was not her beauty which captured Claudine, it was the transparent sweetness and fidelity of the little soul. She was stupid, she was pliable, she was a baby, but she had a heart to appreciate Bertie, and a charm to hold him.
Tea was brought in by two men servants on a tea-waggon, and the signorina dispensed it with deftness. There were cakes and cakes and cakes, cheese straws, rolls, all sorts of sandwiches, and when these had been sampled, the servants returned with ices in the form of lilies lying on leaves of green almond paste.
Bertie didn’t say much, but from time to time Claudine caught him looking at his Giulia with half a smile, a look tender and a trifle amused. He wasn’t going to take her too seriously, or expect too much of her. It was, in short, one of those loves which cause a mother very little pain; she knows she is not supplanted, not diminished. Singular that two of her children should “marry beneath them”!
She took leave of her future daughter-in-law with a kiss, and the man servant in the hall opened the door for them.
“It’s pouring!” said Bertie. “Go in again, Mammy, and I’ll send a few flunkies for a taxi.”
“I’d rather not. We’ll find one.”
“You mustn’t get wet, especially with that cold. I can’t allow it!”
But she was briskly descending the steps, and he had to hurry after her.
“How obstinate you are, Mammy! If you won’t think of your health, have some regard for your pretty little hat!”
She shook her head, laughing. She was so happy with this son, with his affectionate, half effeminate ways, his open admiration. She had with him a gay and coquettish little air no one else ever saw.
“Come along! We’ll be sure to pick up a cab in a minute, Bertie! Look at the streams of them going by!”
But all the cabs were full. It was quite fifteen minutes before they stopped an empty one, and by that time Claudine was chilled to the bone, and shivering in her wet shoes and dripping skirts.
“I’m sorry, Bertie!” she said. “I was very stupid!”
He looked at her in silence, and when she was home and safely in bed, he telephoned for the doctor.