V
The heavy door of the Casa Lesca swung in, admitting Lawrence to a damp stone-flagged room. At the farther end it opened on a little cortile, where gnarled rose-bushes were in bloom. A broken Venus, presiding over a dusty fountain, made the centre of the cortile, and there a strapping girl from the campagna was busy trimming the stalks of a bunch of roses. The signorina had not arrived; Lawrence lounged against the gunwale of a gondola, which lay on one side of the court.
A pretentious iron gate led from the cortile to the farm, where the running vines stretched from olive-stump to trellis, weaving a mat of undulating green. It was so quiet, here in the rear of the palace, that one could almost hear the hum of the air swimming over the broad vine leaves.
Lawrence, at first alert, then drowsy, reclined in the shade, and watched the girl. From time to time she threw him a soft word of Venetian. Then, gathering her roses, she shook them in his face and tripped up the stairs to the palace above.
He had made the appointment without intention, but he came to fulfil it in a tumult of energy.
She must choose and he arrange—for that future which troubled his mind. But the heated emptiness of the June afternoon soothed his will. He saw that whatever she bade, that he would do. Still here, while he was alone, before her presence came to rule, he plotted little things. When he was left with himself he wondered about it; no, he did not want her, did not want it! His life was over there, beyond her, and she must bend to that conception. People, women, anyone, this piece of beauty and sense, were merely episodic. The sum was made from all, and greater than all.
The door groaned, and he turned to meet her, shivering in the damp passage. She gathered a wrap about her shoulders.
"Caspar would not go," she explained, appealingly.
"Which one is to go?" the young man began. She sank down on a bench and turned her head wearily to the vineyard. Over the swaying tendrils of the vine, a dark line, a blue slab of salt water, made the horizon.
"Should I know?" her face said, mutely.
"He thinks you should," she spoke, calmly. "He has been talking two hours about you, your future, your brilliant performances——"
"That detained you!"
"He is plotting to make you a great man. You belong to the world, he said, and, the world would have you. They need you to plan and exhort, I believe."
"So you come to tell me—"
"Let us go out to the garden." She laid her hand reprovingly on his arm. "We can see the pictures later."
She took his arm and directed him down the arched walk between the vines, toward the purple sea.
"I did not realize that—that you were a little Ulysses. He warned me!"
"Indeed!"
"That you would love and worship at any wayside shrine; that the spirit of devotion was not in you."
"And you believed?"
She nodded.
"It seemed so. I have thought so. Once a few feet away and you are wondering!"
The young man was guiltily silent.
"And I am merely a wayside chapel, good for an idle prayer."
"Make it perpetual."
Her arm was heavy.
"Caspar wants you—away. He will try to arrange it. Perhaps you will yield, and I shall lose."
"You mean he will make them recall me."
She said nothing.
"You can end it now." He stopped and raised her arm. They stood for a moment, revolving the matter; a gardener came down the path. "You will get the message tonight," she said, gloomily. "Go! The message will say 'come,' and you will obey."
Lawrence turned.
"Shall we see the pictures?"
The peasant girl admitted them to the hall, and opened, here and there, a long shutter. The vast hall, in the form of a Latin cross, revealed a dusky line of frescoes.
"Veronese," she murmured. Lawrence turned to the open window that looked across the water to the piazza. Beneath, beside the quay, a green-painted Greek ship was unloading grain. Some panting, half-naked men were shovelling the oats.
"We might go," he said; "Caspar is probably waiting for his report. You can tell him that he has won."
Suddenly he felt her very near him.
"No, not that way!"
"You are good to—love," she added deliberatively, placing her hands lightly on his heart.
"You do not care enough; ah! that is sad, sad. Caspar, or denial, or God—nothing would stand if you cared, more than you care for the little people and things. See, I can take you now. I can say you are mine. I can make you love—as another may again. But love me, now, as if no other minute could ever follow."
She sighed the words.
"Here I am, to be loved. Let us settle nothing. Let us have this minute for a few kisses."
The hall filled with dusk. The girl came back again. Suddenly a bell began ringing.
"Caspar," she said. "Stay here; I will go."
"We will go together."
"No," she waved him back. "You will get the message. Caspar is right.
You are not for any woman for always."
"Go," he flung out, angrily.
The great doors of the hall had rattled to, leaving him alone half will-less. He started and then returned to the balcony over the fondamenta. In the half-light he could see her stepping into a waiting gondola, and certain words came floating up clearly as if said to him——
"To-morrow evening, the Contessa Montelli, at nine." But she seemed to be speaking to her companion. The gondola shot out into the broad canal.