INTO THE FOG AGAIN
He sat there, waiting and listening. From the light and airy butterfly, the music changed to Farwell's Norwegian Song. Hillard saw the lonely sea, the lonely twilight, the lonely gull wheeling seaward, the lonely little cottage on the cliffs, and the white moon in the far east. And presently she spoke, still playing softly.
"My father was an American, my mother Italian. But I have lived in Europe nearly all my life. There! You have more of my history than I intended telling you." The music went dreamily.
"I knew it. Who but an American woman would have the courage to do what you are doing to-night? Who but one of mine own countrywomen would trust me so wholly and accept me so frankly for what I am, an American gentleman?"
"Softly!" she warned. "You will dig a pit for your vanity."
"No. I am an American gentleman, and I am proud of it; though this statement in your ears may have a school-boy ring."
"A nobility in this country? Impossible!"
"Not the kind you find in the Almanach de Gotha. I speak of the nobility of the heart and the mind." He was very much in earnest now.
"Indeed!" The music stopped, and she turned. She regarded his earnestness with favor.
"I have traveled much; I have found noblemen everywhere, in all climes, and also I have found beasts. Oh, I confess that my country is not wholly free from the beast. But the beast here is a beast; shunned, discredited, outcast. On the other side, if he be mentioned in the Almanach, they give him sashes and decorations. And they credit us with being money-mad! It is not true. It is proved every day in the foreign cables that our love for money is not one-tenth so strong as that which our continental cousins evince."
"But if you are not money-mad, why these great fortunes?" dubiously.
"At a certain age a fortune in this country doubles itself without any effort on the part of the owner. Few of us marry for money; and when we do, we at least have the manhood to keep the letter of our bargain. We do not beat the wife, nor impoverish her, nor thrust opera-singers into the house she shares with us."
"And when you marry?"
"Well, it is generally the woman we love. Dowries are not considered. There is no social law which forbids a dowerless girl to marry a dowerless man," laughing. "But over there it is always and eternally a business contract simply. You know that."
"Yes, a business contract," listlessly.
"And yet these foreigners call us a business nation! Well, we are, outside our homes. But in the home we are husbands and fathers; most of us live cleanly and honestly; we make our homes our havens and our heavens. But of course there is always the beast. But they talk of nobility on the other side. That is it; they talk, talk. Italy, France, Germany! Why, I had rather be the son of an English farmer than a prince on the continent. And I had rather be what I am than the greatest nobleman in England."
"Go on, go on! I like it. What do you call it—jingo?"
"Call it what you will. Look at the men we produce. Three or four hundred years ago Europe gave us great poets, great artists, great soldiers, great churchmen, and great rascals. I admire a great rascal, when he is a Napoleon, a Talleyrand, a Machiavelli; but a petty one! We have no art, no music, no antiquity; but we have a race of gentlemen. The old country is not breeding them nowadays."
"No, she simply prints new editions of the Almanach. Continue; I am becoming illumined."
"If I am boring you?"
"No. I have the greatest admiration for the American gentleman. My father was one. But I have met Americans who are not so loyal as you are, who see no good in their native land."
"I said we have beasts; I forgot to mention the cads. I am perfectly frank. Italy is the most beautiful country in the world; France is incomparable; Germany possesses a rugged beauty which I envy for my country's sake. Every square foot of it is cultivated; nowhere the squalidity one sees among the farm-houses of this country. Think of the histories, the romance, the art, the music! America has little history; and, saving the wildernesses, it is not beautiful; but it is generous and bountiful and healthy mentally. Europe is a story-world, and I should like nothing better than to read it to the end of my days."
"Signora, dinner is served!" The little maid stood between the sliding doors which gave entrance to the dining-room.
Signora! thought Hillard. He certainly would look at her hands again.
"After you, Mr. Hillard," she said.
He bowed and passed on before her. But not till he had passed did he understand the manoeuver. To follow her would have been nothing less than the temptation to pluck at the strings of her mask. Would he have touched it? He could not say, the temptation not having been his.
That dinner! Was he in New York? Was it not Bagdad, the bottle and the genii? Had he ever, even in his most romantic dreams, expected to turn a page so charming, so enchanting, or so dangerous to his peace of mind? A game of magical hide-and-seek? To see, yet to be blindfolded! Here, across the small table, within arm's length, was a woman such as, had he been a painter, he must have painted; a poet, he must have celebrated in silken verse. Three-and-thirty? No, he was only a lad this night. All his illusions had come back again. At a word from this mysterious woman, he would have started out on any fool's errand, to any fool's land.
And she? A whim, a fantastic, unaccountable whim; the whim of a woman seeking forgetfulness, not counting the cost nor caring; simply a whim. She had brought him here to crush him for his impertinence; and that purpose was no longer in her mind. Was she sorry? Did he cause her some uneasiness, some regret and sadness? It was too late. There could be no Prince Charming in her world. He had tarried too long by the way. Not that there was the least sentiment in her heart regarding him; but his presence, his freshness, his frank honesty, these caused her to resort to comparisons. It was too late indeed.
On the little table was a Tuscany brass lamp of three wicks, fed by olive oil. It was sufficient to light the table, but the rest of the room was sunk in darkness. He half understood that there was a definite purpose in this semi-illumination: she had no wish that he should by chance recognize anything familiar in this house. Dimly he could see the stein-rack and the plate-shelf running around the walls. Sometimes, as the light flickered, a stein or a plate stood out boldly, as if to challenge his memory.
He watched her hands. The fingers were free from rings. Was she single or married? The maid had called her signora; but that might have been a disguise, like the mask and the patches of court-plaster.
"May I ask you one question?"
"No," promptly. There was something in his eyes that made her grow wary of a sudden.
"Then I shan't ask it. I shall not ask you if you are married."
"And I shall not say one way or the other."
She smiled and he laughed quietly. He had put the question and she had answered it.
Neither of them ate much of this elaborate dinner. A game like this might easily dull the sharpest appetite. He studied her head, the curves of her throat, the little gestures, the way her shoulders seemed to narrow when she shrugged; and all these pictures he stored away for future need. He would meet her again; a touch of prescience told him this. When, where, did not matter.
A running conversation; a fencing match with words and phrases. Time after time she touched him; but with all his skill he could not break through her guard. Once or twice he thrust in a manner which was not in accord with the rules.
"And that interesting dissertation on the American gentleman?" she said icily, putting aside each thrust with a parry of this kind.
"That's the trouble with posing as a moralist; one must live up to the precepts. Would you believe me if I told you that, at the age of three-and-thirty, I am still heart-whole?"
She parried: "I trust you will not spoil that excellent record by making love to me." She reached for the matches, touched off one, watched it burn for a moment, extinguished it, and then deliberately drew a line across the center of the table-cloth.
