VI.—WE ARRIVE IN THE LAND OF LOVE AND SONG
HERE we are in Rome on the tenth day of our journey at three in the afternoon! Jiminy Christmas! How I felt the need of language! I had given my leisure on the train to the careful study of a conversation-book, but the conversation I acquired was not extensive enough to satisfy every need of a man born in northern New England. It was too polite. There were a number of men who quarreled over us and our baggage in the station at Rome, and I had to do all my swearing with the aid of a dictionary. I found it too slow to be of any use. We were rescued soon by Mrs. Norris and her footman, who took us to the Grand Hotel. Gwendolyn met us in the hall of their apartment, and I delivered Forbes's message.
“You may kiss me!” she exclaimed, joyously.
“I do it for him,” I said.
“Then do it again,” said she.
That's the kind of a girl she was—up and a-coming!—and that's the kind of a man I am—obliging to the point of generosity at the proper moment.
The reputation of the Norrises gave us standing, and we were soon marching in step and sowing our francs in a rattling shower with the great caravan of American blood-hunters.
Norris himself was in better health than I had hoped to find him, and three days later he drove me to Tivoli in his motor-car.
As we were leaving the hotel the porter said to Norris:
“An American gentleman called to see you about an hour ago. He was very urgent, and I told him that I thought you had gone to Tivoli.”
“Not gone, but going,” said Norris. “There's a grain of truth in what you said, but I suppose you meant well.”
He handed the porter a coin and added:
“You must never be able to guess where I am.”
In the course of our long ride across the Campagna I made my report and he made his. I told the whole story of Muggs and how at length the man had given me a good, full excuse for my play-spell.
“I suppose that he will be after us again here,” said Norris.
“Don't worry,” I answered; “you'll find me a capable watch-dog. It will only be necessary for me to bark at him once or twice.”
“You're an angel of mercy,” said my friend. “I couldn't bear the sight of him now. It isn't the money involved; it's his devilish smoothness and the twitch of the bull-ring and the peril I am in of losing my temper and of doing something to—to be regretted.”
“Let me be secretary of your interior also,” I proposed, and added: “I can get mad enough for both of us, and I have a growing stock of cuss words.”
My assurance seemed to set Norris at rest, and I called for his report.
“Mine is a longer story,” he began. “First we went to Saint Moritz—beautiful place, six thousand feet up in the mountains—and it agreed with me. We found two kinds of Americans there—the idle rich who came to play with the titled poor and the homeless. Everywhere in Europe one finds homeless people from our country—a wandering, pathetic tribe of well-to-do gipsies. Among the idle rich are maidens with great prospects and planning mamas, and rich widows looking for live noblemen with the money of dead grocers, rum merchants, and contractors. They're all searching for 'blood,' as they call it.
“'I can't marry an American,' one of them said to me; 'I want a man of blood. These men are of ancient families that have made history, and they know how to make love, too.'
“Impoverished dukes, marquises, princes, barons, counts, from the purlieus of aristocratic Europe, throng about them. These noblemen are professional marryers, and all for sale. The bob-sled and the toboggan are implements of their craft, symbols of the rapid pace. Unfortunately, they are often the meeting-place of youthful innocence and utter depravity, of glowing health and incurable disease. Maidens and marquises, barons and widows, counts and young married women, traveling alone, sit dovetailed on bob-sleds and toboggans, and, locked in a complex embrace, this tangle of youth and beauty, this interwoven mass of good and evil, rushes down the slippery way. In the swift, curving flight, by sheer hugging, they overcome the tug of centrifugal force. It is a long hug and a strong hug. Thus, courtship is largely a matter of sliding.
“Then there are the dances. I do not need to describe them. At Saint Moritz they go to the limit. Fifteen years ago when Chuck Connors and his friends practised these dances in a Bowery dive respectable citizens turned away with disgust. Since then the idle rich who explore the underworld have begun to imitate its dances, which were intended to suggest the morals of the dog-kennel and the farmyard and which have achieved some success in that direction. Unfortunately, the idle rich are well advertised. If they were to wear rings in their noses the practice would soon become fashionable.
“Well, you see, it was no place for my girl. I sent her away with Mrs. Mushtop to Rome, but not until a young Italian count had got himself in love with my money.”
“Count Carola?” I asked.
“Count Carola!” said he. “How did you know?”
“Saw it in the paper.”
“The paper!” he exclaimed. “God save us from the papers as well as from war, pestilence, and sudden death.”
“Is the count really shot in the heart?” I ventured to ask.
“Oh, he likes her as any man likes a pretty, bright-eyed girl,” Norris went on, “but it was a part of my money that he wanted most. I had kept her out of that crowd, and the young man hadn't met her. He had only stood about and stared at us, and had finally asked for an introduction to me, which I refused, greatly to my wife's annoyance. The young man followed them to Rome, but I didn't know that he had done so until I got there. They went around seeing things, and everywhere they went the count was sure to go. Followed them like a dog, day in and day out. Isn't that making it a business? His eyes were on them in every room of every art-gallery. One day, when they stood with some friends near the music-stand in the Pincio Gardens, the count approached Mrs. Mushtop. You know Mrs. Mushtop; she is a good woman, but a European at heart and a worshiper of titles. I didn't suppose that she was such a romantic old saphead of a woman. This is what happened: the count took off his hat and greeted her with great politeness. She was a little flattered. My daughter turned away.
“'I suspect, myself, that you are the young lady's chaperon,' said he.
“'Yes, sir.'
“'I am in love with the beautiful, charming young lady. It is so joyful for me to look at her. I am most unhappy unless I am near her. I have the honor to hand you my card; I wish you to make the inquiry about my family and my character. Then I hope that you will permission me to speak to her.'
“Think of Mrs. Mushtop standing there and letting him go on to that extent.
“She said, 'It would do no good, for I believe that she is engaged.'
“'That will make not any difference,' he insisted, with true Italian simplicity; I will take my chances.'
“She foolishly kept his card, but had the good sense to turn away and leave him.
“Mrs. Norris went on to Rome for a few days while I stayed at Saint Moritz with my physician, mother, and secretary. You know women better than I do, probably. Most of them like that Romeo business; that swearing by the sun, moon, and stars—those cosmic, cross-universe measurements of love. I don't know as I blame them, for, after all, a woman's happiness is so dependent on the love of a husband.
“Well, those women got their heads together, and my wife thought that, on the whole, she liked the looks of the count. He was rather slim and dusky, but he had big, dark eyes and red cheeks and perfect teeth and a fine bearing. So they drove to Florence, where he lived, and investigated his pedigree and character. It was a very old family, which had played an important part in the campaigns of Mazzini and Cavour, but its estate had been confiscated after the first failure of the great Lombard chief, and its fortunes were now at a low ebb. One of the count's brothers is the head waiter in a hotel at Naples. He had sense enough to go to work, but the count is a confirmed gentleman who rests on hopes and visions. He reminds me of a house standing in the air with no visible means of support.
“However, the investigation was satisfactory to my wife, and she invited the young man to dinner at her hotel. The ladies were all captivated by his charm, and there's no denying that the young fellow has pretty manners. It's great to see him garnish a cup of tea or a plate of spaghetti with conversation. His talk is pastry and bonbons.
“When I came on I found them going about with him and having a fine time. Under his leadership my wife had visited sundry furniture and antique shops and invested some five thousand dollars, on which, I presume, the count received commissions sufficient to keep him in spending-money for a while. I didn't like the count, and told them so. He's too effeminate for me—hasn't the frank, upstanding, full-breasted, rugged, ready-for-anything look of our American boys. But I didn't interfere; I kept my hands off, for long ago I promised to let my wife have her way about the girl. That reminds me we have invited young Forbes to come over and spend a month with us.”
“Likely young fellow,” I said.
“None better,” said he; “if he had sense enough to ask Gwen to marry him I'd be glad of it. I have refused to encourage the affair with the count, but we find it hard to saw him off. We drove to Florence the other day, and he followed us there and back again. He's a comer, I can tell you; we can see him coming wherever we are. I swear a little about it now and then, and Gwen says, 'Well, father, you don't own the road.' And Mrs. Norris will say: 'Poor fellow! Isn't it pitiful? I'm so sorry for him!'
“His devotion to business is simply amazing—works early and late, and don't mind going hungry. In all my life I never saw anything like it.”
We had arrived at Tivoli, and as he ceased speaking we drew up at Hadrian's Villa and entered the ruins with a crowd of American tourists. An energetic lady dogged the steps of the swift-moving guide with a volley of questions which began with, “Was it before or after Christ?” By and by she said: “I wouldn't like to have been Mrs. Hadrian. Think of covering all these floors with carpets and keeping them clean!”
I left Norris sitting on a broken column and went on with the crowd for a few minutes. I kept close to the energetic lady, being interested in her talk. Suddenly she began to hop up and down on one leg and gasp for breath. I never saw a lady hopping on one leg before, and it alarmed me. The battalion of sightseers moved on; they seemed to be unaware of her distress—or was it simply a lack of time? I stopped to see what I could do for her.
“Oh, my lord! My heavens!” she shouted, as she looked at me, with both hands on her lifted thigh. “I've got a cramp in my leg! I've got a cramp in my leg!”
I supported the lady and spoke a comforting word or two. She closed her eyes and rested her head on my arm, and presently put down her leg and looked brighter.
“There, it's all right now,” said she, with a shake of her skirt. “Thanks! Do you come from Michigan?”
“No.”
“Where do you hail from?”
“Pointview, Connecticut.”
“I'm from Flint, Michigan, and I'm just tuckered out. They keep me going night and day. I'm making a collection of old knockers. Do you suppose there are any shops where they keep 'em here?”
“Don't know. I'm just a pilgrim and a stranger and am not posted in the knocker trade,” I answered.
The crowd had turned a corner; and with a swift good-by she ran after it, fearful, I suppose, of losing some detail in the domestic life of Hadrian.
So on one leg, as it were, she enters and swiftly crosses the stage. It's a way Providence has of preparing us for the future. To this moment's detention I was indebted for an adventure of importance, for as she left me I saw Muggs, the sleek, pestiferous Muggs, coming out of the old baths on his way to the gate. He must have been the man who had called to see Norris that morning. He turned pale with astonishment and nodded.
“Well, Muggs, here you are,” I said.
He handled himself in a remarkable fashion, for he was as cool as a cucumber when he answered:
“I used to resemble a lot of men, and some pretty decent fellows used to resemble me, but as soon as they saw me they quit it—got out from under, you know. Even my photographs have quit resembling me.”
“Well, you have changed a little, but my hat and overcoat look just about as they did,” I laughed. .
“If I didn't know it was impossible I would say that your name was Potter,” said he.
“And if I knew it was impossible I would swear that your name was Muggs,” I answered.
“Forget it,” said he; “in the name of God, forget it. I'm trying to live honest, and I'm going to let you and your friends alone if you'll let me alone. Now, that's a fair bargain.”
I hesitated, wondering at his sensitiveness.
“You owe us quite a balance, but I'm inclined to call it a bargain,” I said. “Only be kind to that hat and coat; they are old friends of mine. I don't care so much about the two hundred dollars.”
“Thanks,” he answered with a laugh, and went on: “I've given you proper credit on the books. You'll hear from me as soon as I am on my feet.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
He answered: “Ever since I was a kid I've wanted to see the Colosseum where men fought with lions.”
“I am sure that you would enjoy a look at Hadrian's Walk,” I said, pointing to the tourists who had halted there as I turned away.
So we parted, and with a sense of good luck I hurried to Norris.
“I've got a crick in my back,” I said. “Let's get out of here.”
We proceeded to our motor-car at the entrance.
“This ruin is the most infamous relic in the world,” said Norris, as we got into our car; “it stands for the grandeur of pagan hoggishness. Think of a man who wanted all the treasures and poets and musicians and beauties in the world for the exclusive enjoyment of himself and friends. Millions of men gave their lives for the creation of this sublime swine-yard. Hadrian's Villa, and others like it, broke the back of the empire. I tell you, the world has changed, and chiefly in its sense of responsibility for riches. Here in Italy you still find the old feudal, hog theory of riches, which is a thing of the past in America and which is passing in England. We have a liking for service. I tell you, Potter, my daughter ought to marry an American who is strong in the modem impulses, and go on with my work.”
VII.—IN WHICH I TEACH THE DIFFICULT ART OF BEING AN AMERICAN IN ITALY
NORRIS had overtaxed himself in this ride to Tivoli and spent the next day in his bed.
“My conversation often has this effect,” I said, as I sat by his bedside. “Forty miles of it is too much without a sedative. You need the assistance of the rest of the family. Let Gwendolyn and her mother take a turn at listening.”
“That's exactly what I propose. I want you to look after them,” he said. “They need me now if they ever did, and I'm a broken reed. Be a friend to them, if you can.”
I liked Norris, for he was bigger than his fortune, and you can't say that of every millionaire. Not many suspect how a lawyer's heart can warm to a noble client. I would have gone through fire and water for him.
“If they can stand it I can,” was my answer. “A good many people have tried my friendship and chucked it overboard. It's like swinging an ax, and not for women. One has to have regular rest and good natural vitality to stand my friendship.”
“They have just stood a medical examination,” he went on. “I want you and Mrs. Potter to see Rome with Gwendolyn and her mother and give them your view of things. Be their guide and teacher. I hope you may succeed in building up their Americanism, but if you conclude to turn them into Italians I shall be content.”
“There are many things I can't do, but you couldn't find a more willing professor of Americanism,” I declared.
So it happened that Betsey and I went with Gwendolyn and her mother for a drive.
I am not much inclined to the phrases of romance. Being a lawyer, I hew to the line. But I have come to a minute when my imagination pulls at the rein as if it wanted to run away. I remember that an old colonial lawyer refers in one of his complaints to “a most comely and winsome mayd who with ribbands and slashed sleeves and snug garments and stockings well knit and displayed and sundry glances of her eye did wickedly and unlawfully work upon this man until he forgot his duty to his God, his state, and his family,” and it is on record that this “winsome mayd” was condemned to sit in the bilboes.
The tall, graceful, blue-eyed, blond-haired girl, opposite whom I sat in the motor-car that day, was both comely and winsome. She innocently “worked upon” the opposite sex until one member of it got to work upon me, and I'm not the kind that goes around looking for trouble. Even when it looks for me it often fails to find me.
I am a man rather firmly set in my way and well advanced upon it, but I have to acknowledge that Gwendolyn's face kept reminding me of the best days of my boyhood, when life itself was like a rose just opened, and the smile of Betsey was morning sunlight. Backed by great wealth, its effect upon the marryers of Italy can be imagined.
Gwendolyn had survived the three deadly perils of girlhood—cake, candy, and the soda-fountain. A pony and saddle and good air to breathe helped her to win the fight until she went to school in Munich, where a wise matron and the spirit of the school induced her to climb mountains and eat meat and vegetables and other articles in the diet of the sane. Now she was a strong, red-cheeked, full-blooded young lady of twenty. In spite of the stanch Americanism of Norris, Gwendolyn and her mother were full of European spirit. They liked democracy, but they loved the pomp and splendor of courts, and the sound of titles, and the glitter of swords and uniforms. As we got into the car we observed numbers of young men staring at us, and I spoke of it, and Gwendolyn said to me:
“I think that the young men in America are better-looking, but they are so cold! All the girls tell me that these boys can beat them making love, and I believe it.”
“But most of our boys have work to do,” I said. “With them love-making is only a side issue, and it often comes at the end of a long, hard day. These Italians seem to have nothing else to do but make love.”
“I don't see, for my part, why men who have plenty of money should have to work,” said Mrs. Norris. “What's the use of having money if it doesn't give you leisure for enjoyment?”
“But leisure is like dynamite—you have to be careful with it,” I said. “For most of us it's the only danger. All deviltry begins in leisure and ends in work, if at all. Being naturally sinful, I don't fool with it much. Of course you women are moral giants, and you don't need to be so scared of it.”
“You have to joke about everything,” said Mrs. Norris. “Sometimes I think that I understand you and suddenly you begin joking, and then I lose confidence in all you have said.”
“I mean all I say and then some more,” I declared. “I assume that you are moral giants or that you do a lot of work secretly. No man could keep his footing in the slippery path of unending leisure. In Europe leisure is the aim of all, and where it most abounds morality is a joke. Here blood and leisure are the timber of which all ladies and gentlemen are made. In America we know that it's rotten timber. We have discovered three great commandments. They are written not only on tablets of stone, but everywhere. If they were printed across the sky they couldn't be any plainer. You know them as well as I do.” The three ladies turned serious eyes upon me and shook their heads.
Then I shot my bolt at them:
“They are:
“1. Get busy.
“2. Keep busy.
“3. See that it pays, which means that you are to play as well as work.”
Mrs. Norris smiled and nimbly stepped out of my way and bravely answered, like a real rococo aristocrat:
“I fear that you are prejudiced. I should be proud to have my daughter marry into one of these old families, not hastily, of course, but after we have found the right man. There are splendid men in some of them, and your best Italian is a most devoted husband. He worships his wife.”
“And if you're looking for a worshiper you couldn't find a place where the arts of worship have been so highly developed,” I answered. “But no American girl should be looking for a worshiper unless she's under the impression that she created the world, and even then a doctor would do her more good. Of course Gwendolyn would prefer a man, and what's the matter with one of your own countrymen—Forbes, for instance?”
“I couldn't pass his examination—too difficult!” said Gwendolyn, with a laugh. “I think that he is looking for a world-beater—a girl who could win the first prize in a golf tournament or a beauty show or a competition in mathematics. What chance have I? He thinks that he has got to be a rich man before he gets married. What chance has he?” Clearly she wanted me to know that she liked him and resented his apparent indifference. I suppose that he had not fallen down before her, as other boys had done, and she could not quite make him out. Probably that's why she preferred him.
“He has wonderful self-possession,” I said.
“Yes, he'll never let go of himself. All the girls say that about him. He's a wise youngster.”
“If he were in my place I don't believe he could hold out through the day,” I declared.
“She does look well, doesn't she?” said Mrs. Norris, as she proudly surveyed her daughter. “Italy agrees with her, and she loves it and the people.”
“So do I,” was my answer. “The Italian people, who are doing the work of Italy, are admirable. Out in the vineyards you will find young men who are even good enough for Gwendolyn. It's these idle horse-traders that I object to—these fellows who are trying to swap a case of spavined respectability for a fortune.”
“Oh, you're a mountain of prejudice!” Mrs. Norris exclaimed. “Now, there's the Princess Carrero. She was an American girl, and she is the happiest, proudest woman in Italy. Her husband is one of the finest gentlemen I ever met.”
“He's a dear!” Gwendolyn echoed.
“For my part I think that international marriages are a fine thing,” Mrs. Norris went on. “They are drawing the races together into one brotherhood.”
“But such a brotherhood will be hard on our sisterhood,” I objected. “A wife here is the chief hired girl. Often if she doesn't mind she gets licked, and if she's an American she must always pay the bills.”
We had come to the great church of St. Paul, beyond the ancient walls of the city. There we left our car and passed through a crowd of insistent beggars to enter its door. We shivered in our wraps under the great, golden ceiling high above our heads. Its towering columns and pilasters looked like sculptured ice. It was all so cold!
“It doesn't seem right,” I said to Mrs. Norris, “that one should get a chill in the house of God.”
“Keep cool ought to be good advice for Christians,” said Betsey.
“But coldness and hospitality are bad companions,” I insisted. “Chilling grandeur a people might reasonably expect from their king; but is it the thing for a prodigal returning to his father's house?”
“But isn't it beautiful?”
Mrs. Norris wished me to agree, and I shocked her by saying:
“Beautiful, but too much like kings' palaces. The Golden House of Nero was just this kind of thing, and it's on record that Jesus Christ had no taste for show and glitter. I believe He called it vanity.” Mrs. Norris wore a look of surprise. The old horse called Honesty took the bit in his teeth then and fairly ran away with me.
“The whole difference between Europe and America is in this building,” I said. “We no longer believe in kings or kings' palaces in heaven or upon earth. With most of us God has ceased to be an emperor rejoicing in pomp and splendor and adulation. We find that He likes better to dwell in a cabin and a humble heart. We do not believe that he cares for the title of king. We do not believe that there are any titles in heaven.”
At this point I observed a look of astonishment in the face of Mrs. Norris, so I suddenly closed the tap of my thoughts.
Was it my philosophy? No, it was Muggs who lifted his hat (or rather my hat) as he passed us with the sentimental Mrs. Mullet clinging to his arm.
“Don't notice him,” Mrs. Norris whispered to her daughter, as both turned away. “It's that odious Wilton who used to come and see father.”
I wondered how it was going to be possible for me to rescue Mrs. Mullet under the circumstances of our covenant of non-interference. We turned and left this splendid memorial to the great apostle Paul.
Count Carola was waiting for us at the step of the car, and kissed the hands of Mrs. Norris and Gwendolyn, and assisted them to their seats. I was presented to him, and am forced to say that I didn't like the cut of his jib. Still, I'm very particular about jibs, especially the jib of a new boat.
“Poor dear boy!” Mrs. Norris exclaimed, as we drove away. “There's a lover for you!”
“He grows handsomer every day,” said Gwendolyn, in a low, lyrical tone.
“It's his suffering,” Mrs. Norris half moaned.
“Do you really think so?” the young lady sympathized.
“Hold on, Juliet!” said I. “If I were you I'd shoo him off the balcony. He's a perfect lily of a man, but he won't do—too generous, too devoted! We have men like him in America. There their titles are never mentioned in the best society, and their persons are often cruelly injured. For a badge of rank they have adopted a kind of liver-pad which they wear often over one eye or the other. Of course on Broadway they haven't the romantic environment of Italy, and are subject to all kinds of violence.”
Mrs. Norris flashed a glance of surprise at me.
“You are a cruel iconoclast,” said she. “He belongs to one of the best families in Italy.”
“And if I were you I'd let him continue to belong to it; at least, I wouldn't want to buy him. He acts like a book-agent or a seller of lightning-rods, or a train-boy with his chocolates and chewing-gum. He won't take 'No' for an answer. He keeps tossing his wares into your laps and seems to say: 'For God's sake, think of my starving family and make me some kind of an offer.' Do you think that compares in dignity with the self-possession of Richard?”
The ladies exchanged glances. Gwendolyn laughed and blushed. Mrs. Norris smiled. I went on:
“He defaces the landscape like the portraits of the late Mr. Mennen in America. He shows up everywhere as an advertisement for his own charms.”
“That's his legend.”
“It's just a little ridiculous, isn't it?” said the girl.
“Oh, the poor boy is in love!” Mrs. Norris pleaded, in a begging, purring tone which said, plainly enough, “Of course you are right, but every boy is a fool when he is in love, isn't he?”
“So is Richard in love,” I boldly declared for him, “but he isn't on the bargain-counter; he isn't damaged, shop-worn, or out of date; he hasn't been marked down.”
Two pairs of eyes stared at mine with a prying gaze.
Gwendolyn leaned forward and grasped my hand.
“Who in the world is he in love with?” she asked, eagerly. “Tell me at once.”
“Himself!” Mrs. Norris exclaimed, before I could answer.
“No; with Gwendolyn,” I ventured.
Both seemed to relax suddenly, and their backs touched the upholstery.
“I haven't a doubt of it,” was my firm assertion.
The fair maid leaned toward me again.
“You misguided man!” she exclaimed. “Why do you think that?”
“For many reasons and—one,”
“What is the one?” Gwendolyn asked.
“That is my last shot, and I am not going to throw it away. It's worth something, and if you get it you'll have to pay for it.”
“You cruel wretch!” she said, with a stinging slap on my hand. “What then are your many reasons?”
“They are all in this phrase, 'sundry glances of the eye.'”
“How disappointing you are!”
“And what a spoiled child you are!” I retorted. “Ever since you began to walk you have had about everything that you asked for. The magic lamp of Aladdin was in your hands. You had only to wish and to have. Of course you don't think that you can keep on doing that. You'll soon see that the best things come hard; they have to be earned, and I guess Dick Forbes is one of them. He doesn't seem to be looking for money; what he wants is a real woman. He can love, and with great tenderness and endurance. He's a long-distance lover. His love will keep right along with you to the last. He doesn't go around singing about it with a guitar; he doesn't burst the dam of his affection to inundate an heiress and swear that all the contents of the infinite skies are in his little flood. That kind of thing doesn't go down any longer; it's out of date. With us it's gone the way of the wig and the crown and the knight and the noisome intrigue and the tallow dip and the brush harrow. We know it's mostly mush, twaddle, and mendacity. Here in Europe you will still find the brush harrow, the tallow dip, and the tallow lover, but not in our land. If you get Richard Forbes you'll have to go into training and try to satisfy his ideals, but it will be worth while.”
The ladies changed color a little and sat with looks of thoughtful embarrassment, as if they had on their hands a white elephant whose playfulness had both amused and alarmed them. Twice Betsey and Gwendolyn had broken into laughter, but Mrs. Norris only smiled and looked surprised.
“Perhaps you could tell me what his ideals are,” said Gwendolyn.
Our arrival at the Borghese galleries saved me. We immediately entered them and resumed the study of art. Nothing there interested me so much as the busts of the old emperors. What a lot of human shoats they must have been! Idleness and overeating had created the imperial type of human architecture—eyes set in fat, massive jowls, great necks that seemed to rise to the tops of their heads. With them the title business began to thrive. It was nothing more or less than a license to prey on other people. No wonder that every other man's life was in danger while they lived.
What modesty was theirs! When a man became emperor he caused a statue of himself to be made as father of all the gods. It was probably not so large as he felt, but as large as the rocks would allow—only some fifteen feet high. It was the beginning of the bust and the portrait craze.
We passed from the hall of shoats to the picture-galleries.
I have read of what Beaudelaire calls “the beauty disease,” and there is no place where the young may be more sure of getting it than in these Old-World art-galleries. Gwendolyn and her mother had a mild attack of this disease, “this lust of the art faculties which eats up the moral like a cancer.” The monstrous excesses of the idle rich are symptoms of its progress. In Europe the church, the aristocracy, and the art students have caught the fever of it.
“How lovely! How tender!” said Gwendolyn, as we stood before the Danaë of Correggio.
“How lovely! How tenderloin!” I echoed, by way of an antitoxin.
Here was a fifteenth-century ideal of female attractiveness radiating an utterly morbid sensuality. The picture reeked and groaned with passion.
Young men and women from towns and villages in our land who sat industriously copying the works of old masters were turning money newly made in Zanesville, Keokuk, Cedar Rapids, and like places into weird imitations of Correggio, Titian, and Botticelli. Well, I expect that they were having a good time, but I would rather see them copying the tints and forms of nature near their own doors than worshiping the kings of art, which is another form of the title craze.
Here we met again the elderly lady with the beautiful feet who had crossed on our steamer—Mrs. Fraley from Terre Haute. She presented Betsey and me to Miss Muriel Fraley, her grandniece, a good-looking miss of about twenty-three, who was copying the Danaë. Mrs. Fraley had found new and delightful astonishments in Italy, the chief of which was this Europeanized niece. She drew me aside and whispered:
“She is a lovely child! Just notice the aristocratic pose of her head.”
I allowed that I could see it, for I had to, and ran my mental hand into the grab-bag for something to say and pulled out:
“I like that blond hair—of—hers.”
I observed, as the girl looked up, that her cheeks were just a bit too red and that her eyes had been slightly emphasized. They did not need it, either, for they were capital eyes to start with.
“And she is as good as she is beautiful,” the old lady went on, in a low tone of strict confidence. “And, you know, since she came here a real count has made love to her.”
“A count!” I exclaimed.
There was a touch of awe in her tone as she said, “Belongs to one of the oldest families in Italy!”
I cleared my throat and thought of death and funerals and comic supplements and such mournful things for safety.
“I want you to meet him at dinner,” the good soul went on. “Where are you stopping?”
“At the Grand Hotel.”
“We are near there, at the Pension Pirroni. You and Mrs. Potter must dine with us.”
I gradually separated myself from Mrs. Fraley and hastened to join my friends. I found them with startled looks in a group of the ancient marble gods and others who lived before the invention of trousers.
“If I were to assume the license of Hercules and stand up here on a pedestal, what do you suppose they'd do to me?” I whispered to Betsey.
“You're no work of art!” said she.
“No, I'm a man, and better than any imitation of a man, for when a lady came into the room I should jump down and hide in some sarcophagus.”
I left them with the poetic cattle of Olympus and went on and asked them to look for me at the door. I lingered awhile with the lovely figures of Canova and Bernini, and was glad at last to get out of the chilly atmosphere of the gallery.
I found the count at the door. He approached me and said, in broken English:
“The ladies, I suppose, they are yet inside now.”
I saw my chance and took advantage of it.
“Why do you follow them?”
“Because I have the hope for good devil-op-ments.”
His “devil-op-ments” amused me, and I could not help laughing.
“Ah, Signore, I have very much troubley in my harrit,” he added.
“And you will have trouble in other parts of your system if you do not go away,” I said. “If you follow these ladies again I shall ask the police to protect us. If they cannot keep you away I shall injure you in some manner, or hire a boy to do it.”
“What! You cannot achieve it!” he answered, in some heat. “You have given me the insults. I shall implore my friend to call on you.”
“Send him along,” I said, as he hurried away.
The ladies came out presently, and I observed that Gwendolyn and her mother seemed to miss the count.
“He's discouraged, poor thing!” said Mrs. Norris, as we drove away.
VIII.—I AGREE TO FIGHT A DUEL AND NAME A WEAPON WITH WHICH EUROPEAN GENTLEMEN ARE UNFAMILIAR
THE count's friend called to see me that evening, as I expected. He was a very good-looking young fellow who had more humor and better English than the count. He was a Frenchman of the name of Vincent Aristide de Langueville. Betsey had gone to the opera with Mrs. Norris and Gwendolyn. I was alone.
“For my friend, the Count Carola, I have the honor to ask you to name the day and the weapons,” he said, with politeness, before he had sat down.
Now I was in for it. After all, I thought for traveling with an heiress in this country one needs a suit of armor.
“I'm a born fighter,” I said, “but almost always my weapons have been words. They are the only weapons with which I am thoroughly familiar. I propose that we have a talking-match. Put us, say, ten paces apart and light the fuse and get back out of the way while we explode. We'll load the guns with Italian, if he prefers it, and I'll give him the first shot. After ten minutes you can carry him off the field. He'll be severely wounded, but it won't hurt him any.”
Vincent Aristide de Langueville laughed a little and said:
“But, my dear sir, this is not one joke. We desire the satisfaction.”
“And I will guarantee it,” was my answer.
“But, sir, we must have the fight until the blood comes.”
“Ah, you are looking for blood also,” I said. “Well, I have thought of another weapon which once upon a time I could handle with some skill. Let's have a duel with pitchforks.”
“Pitchforks! What is it?” he asked. “I do not understand.”
“It's a favorite weapon in New England. My great-grandfather fought the Indians and the British with it, and it was one of the weapons with which I fought against poverty when I was a boy. It's a great blood-letter. I used to kill coons and hedgehogs with the pitchfork.”
“Please tell me what it is. What is it?” he pleaded.
With my pencil I drew a picture of it and said: “This handle is about five feet in length and very strong. These three prongs are of steel and curved a little and long enough to go through the abdomen of the most prosperous mayor in France.”
“My God! It is the devil's weapon!” he exclaimed.
“You may report to him that the American pitchfork is the 'devil-op-ment' of our interview, and I shall name the day and hour as soon as I can get hold of the weapon.”
“I shall tell my friend, and, please, may I take the picture with me?” said Vincent.
“Certainly, and you may say to him that I shall cable for the forks to-night, and that as soon as they arrive I shall appoint the day and hour.”
He gave me his card.
“You live here in Rome?” I asked.
“I do.”
“Do you work for a living?”
“I am a sculptor.”
“I have often thought that I should like to see a sculptor. Sit down till I get you framed and hung in my portrait-gallery.”
“I must go,” said he. “Perhaps you will do me the honor to call.”
I agreed to do so, just to show that I entertained no grudge, and with that he left me.
Before going to bed that night I cabled to my secretary as follows:
“Ship to me immediately four well-made American pitchforks, three tines each.”
I said nothing to Betsey of the proposed duel, but broke the news that I had met a great sculptor, and she wanted to see his studio, and next day we called there. Mrs. Mullet was sitting for a bust, in her dinner gown. Before we had had time to recognize the lady the artist had introduced her as the Madame Mullette, from Sioux City.
“Isn't this an adorable place?” she asked in that lyrical tone which one hears so often in the Italian capital. She pointed at busts of several Americans standing on pedestals and awaiting delivery.
“Look at the whiskers embalmed in marble!” Betsey exclaimed, as she gazed at one of the busts. It had that familiar chin tuft of the Zimmermann hay-seed and a dish collar and string tie. The face wore the brave, defiant, me-against-the-world look that I had observed in the statue of Titus, made after he had turned Palestine into a slaughter-house.
“Why, that is our old friend from Prairie du Chien who came over on the Toltec,” I said. “You remember the man who is studying the history of the world, all about the life of the world, especially the life of the ancients?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Betsey.
“He is one lumber king, and one very rich man,” the artist remarked.
“You are spending some time here in Rome,” I said to Mrs. Mullet.
“Oh, I am devoted to the Eternal City!” she exclaimed, and how she loved the sound of that musty old phrase “Eternal City”! She added, “I have been here four times, and I love every inch of it.”
The sculptor resumed his work with a new sitter, while Mrs. Mullet went with us from end to end of the great studio and whispered at the first opportunity:
“De Langueville is a wonderful man; he is a baron in his own country. If you want a bust he will let you pay for it in instalments. Five hundred dollars down and the remainder within three years.”
The hectic flush of art for Heaven's sake was in her face.
“A bust is a good thing,” I said. “I have often dreamed of having one. There are times when I feel as if I couldn't live without it. If I had a bust where I could look at it every day I suppose it would take some of the conceit out of me. When I had stood it as long as possible I could tie a rope around its neck and use it for an anchor on my rowboat.”
“Perhaps it would scare the fish,” said Betsey.
“In that case I could use it to hold down the pork in the brine of the family barrel,” I suggested.
“Oh, I think that you would sculp beautifully,” said Mrs. Mullet, in a tone of encouragement, as she looked at my head. Then, by way of changing the subject, she added, “I believe that Colonel Wilton is a friend of yours.”
“Colonel Wilton!” I said, puzzling over the name with its new title. Even the American gentlemen enjoy titles.
“Don't you remember meeting us in Saint Paul's? And didn't you trade hats and coats with him in New York?”
“No, he traded with me,” I said. “I know him like a book.”
“Is he not a friend of yours?”
“It would be truer to say that I am a friend of his.”
I was on dangerous ground and thinking hard through all this.
“But he knows Mr. Norris very well. I believe they are great friends.”
“You may believe it, but I don't,” I answered, rather gravely.
I had to decide what to do, and quickly. I had not forgotten my promise to let Muggs alone, and it was of course the safer thing to do—just to let him alone. But he had gone too far in expecting me to furnish him a character.
Mrs. Mullet began to change color, and that led me to ask:
“Is Wilton a friend of yours?”
“We are engaged,” said she.
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed.
I had heard that Mrs. Mullet had money, and she was good game for the neat Mr. Wilton. Now I could see his reason for letting us alone in Italy, where he was four thousand miles from danger. I saw, too, that I must take a course which would inevitably expose us to more trouble, for I could not permit this simple woman to be wronged.
“Don't give him the source of your information,” I said. “I want to speak kindly, and so I shall only say that he's a fugitive from justice. The name Wilton is assumed.”
Mrs. Mullet fell into a chair and seemed to find it hard work to breathe. Betsey put her smelling-salts under the lady's nose. She quickly regained her self-possession and rose and said, in a trembling voice:
“Thank you! I am going home.”
She left, and again we paid our compliments to the artist, who politely left his work to speak with us. He asked me for information regarding certain Americans who owed him for busts. An actress had had herself put, life-size and nude, into white marble, and after making her first payment was maintaining a discreet silence in some part of the world unknown to the artist.
“How coy!” Betsey exclaimed as she looked at the marble figure.
A Brooklyn woman and her two daughters had sat for busts and then had weakened on the general proposition and abandoned the country when they were half finished. I made haste to depart for fear that he might wish to engage me as collector for his bust factory.
Just beyond the door we met a young man who had come over on the boat with us, and stopped for a word with him. I was telling him that I was going to see the Pantheon that afternoon, when Muggs greeted me.
“It's a wonderful ruin,” he remarked with a smile.
I made no answer, and he entered the studio, probably to meet Mrs. Mullet. He would get his dismissal soon. Then what?