IX
The human heart can play no more difficult rôle 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 Hôtel 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.”