Ever since that Wednesday morning she had been constantly rushing about. At Palazza Madama they smiled at a certain much respected colleague with white hair and a red face, who received daily visits in the sala dei telegrammi from a lady, both handsome and fashionable. From the Senate Jeanne would rush to the Grand Hôtel to give Carlino his medicine; from the Grand Hôtel she would hasten to Via Arenula to give or receive news, or to Via Tre Pile to see the Senator’s doctor, who was attending Piero. Errands in the daytime, and tears at night! Tears of anguish for him who was being wasted by a hidden incurable disease, and again consumed by fever after four-and-twenty hours of perfect freedom from it. Other tears also, other bitter tears for the accusations which had been spread among Piero’s friends and disciples, and which not all of them had rejected. Noemi told her these things. The accusations concerning the presumed love affairs of Piero at Jenne were not credited, but on the other hand there were many who believed he had secret relations with a married woman in Rome, with whose name, however, no one was acquainted. It was not believed that these relations were of the guilty nature implied by the slanderers. The most faithful—and they were few in number, did not even credit the existence of an ideal bond. Once when Noemi was relating to Jeanne certain defections, certain acts of coldness, she suddenly burst into tears. Jeanne shuddered and frowned; but presently she saw in her friend’s eyes a look so full of despair, of supplication, that, passing from angry jealousy to an impulse of unheard of affection, she opened her arms to her, and clasped her to her heart. This had happened on the Friday evening the last of the three days by the end of which Maironi was to leave Rome. Towards noon on Saturday Jeanne received a note from Signora Albacina. The wife of the Under-Secretary of State was expecting Jeanne at her own home at two o’clock. It was in consequence of this invitation that Jeanne drove away shortly before two, regardless of Carlino’s protests.
As soon as the carriage had started Jeanne raised her veil and took the note from her muff, bending her lovely pale face over it, gazing at it, but not reading it or studying the sense, clear and simple enough, of the words it contained. She was wondering what Signora Albacina could have to tell her; imagining all sorts of impossible things. Had they decided to leave Maironi alone? Or had the police discovered his dwelling-place and were they about to arrest him?
“It will surely be the worst!” Jeanne said to herself. “Ah, Dio!”
And, forgetting herself for a moment, she raised her muff to her face, and pressed it to her forehead. Ah, perhaps not! Perhaps not! Raising her head quickly she looked out to see if any one had noticed her. The carriage was moving rapidly, silently, on its rubber tires. She returned to her conjectures, losing herself in them to such an extent that she did not notice that the carriage had stopped until the footman opened the door.
Signora Albacina met her on the stairs, ready to go out. Jeanne must come with her at once. At once? And where were they to go? Yes, at once, at once, and in Jeanne’s carriage, because Signora Albacina could not have her own at the present moment. She herself gave the address to the coachman, an address with which Jeanne was not familiar. She would explain on the way. The carriage started off once more.
Ah! Signora Albacina had forgotten her visiting-cards! She stopped the carriage, but, looking at her watch, saw they would lose too much time. Drive on! Jeanne was trembling with impatience. Well? Well? Where were they going? Ecco! They were going to see Cardinal——! Jeanne shuddered. To see Cardinal——? This Cardinal had the reputation of being one of the fiercest non-concessionists. Signora Albacina really must see him, and a quarter of an hour later she might not find him. Ah, what a complicated affair! She could not explain everything in a few words. The object of the visit was, of course, still that for which Donna Rosetta Albacina had laboured for three days, her ostensible reason for so doing being the interest she took in the ideas and the person of the Saint of Jenne; her real reason being the pleasure she took in managing an intrigue, without scruples of conscience. She had taken a fancy to Jeanne at Vena di Fonte Alta, but knew nothing of her past. She suspected her of being in love with the Saint, but believed hers to be a mystic love, born on hearing him speak in the “Catacombs” of Via della Vite. She was convinced that Jeanne had had a hand in his disappearance from Villa Mayda, that she knew his hiding-place, and did not wish to disclose it, having promised secrecy to his friends. But Jeanne had little confidence in the lady, who seemed to her frivolous, and who was—this she could not forget—the wife of a powerful enemy, and she had repeatedly assured her that she did not know. Jeanne’s want of confidence offended her a little because really she, Donna Rosetta, wife of an Excellency, was risking much; but after all her vanity was staked on this game, in which the winnings were the permanent freedom of the Saint of Jenne in Rome, and she was determined to go on with it.
A truly complicated affair then! In the meantime, up to Friday night the police had not discovered the Saint’s place of refuge. Ah, yes! they believed he was in Rome. Here Donna Rosetta paused, hoping Jeanne would speak. Not a word. She admitted, continuing her discourse, that her husband might have some suspicion of the intrigue which she was concealing from him, that, perhaps, he was not perfectly sincere with her. This, however, was not likely. When her husband was not speaking quite sincerely to her, she, Donna Rosetta, could feel it in the air. As to that, she understood the others also. Donna Rosetta was for once mistaken concerning her husband. Ever since Wednesday night they had known at Palazzo Braschi where Maironi was, but he would not tell her so, for the Under-Secretary of State had still less confidence in his wife than Jeanne herself.
But the most important news came from the Vatican. The Pope had been informed of what had taken place in Via della Marmorata, and His Holiness was much irritated against the Government, for they had given him to understand that the Government had lent itself, in this matter, to the hatred of the Freemasons against a man esteemed by the Pope himself. There was disunion among those about the Pope. The more fanatical of the non-concessionists, opponents of the Cardinal Secretary of State, warmly supported the nomination to the archepiscopal see of Turin, so displeasing to the Quirinal, and disapproved of the secret intrigues with the Italian Government. According to their leader, who was the very eminent personage Donna Rosetta now proposed calling upon, other measures should be adopted to liberate the Holy Father from the pestiferous influence of a rationalist varnished over with mysticism. These things Donna Rosetta had learned from the Abbé Marinier, who smiled knowingly about them in her salon. It was inconceivable how many poisonous accusations were being sown broadcast with the greatest cunning by the non-concessionists all united against this poor devil of a mystical rationalist, at whom the Abbé smiled no less than at his enemies!
There was news also from the Ministry of the Interior. What news? Donna Rosetta was about to answer when the carriage stopped before a large convent, The Cardinal lived here. Donna Rosetta alighted alone. Jeanne’s presence was not necessary at this interview; indeed, it would be inopportune. It would be necessary somewhere else. Jeanne waited in the carriage, distressed at not having as yet discovered the object of this visit, in spite of Donna Rosetta’s flow of words. Five minutes, ten minutes, passed. Jeanne drew herself up out of the corner where she had leaned, absorbed in her thoughts. She watched the entrance to the convent to see if Donna Rosetta were not coming. Rare wayfarers, passing slowly along the quiet street, looked into the carriage. It seemed to Jeanne almost an offence that there were people who could be so calm. Ah, God! The doctor had promised to send her a bulletin to the Grand Hôtel at seven o’clock. It was not yet three. More than four hours to wait. And what would the bulletin say? She bit her lips, stifling a sob in her throat. Ah! here is Donna Rosetta at last. The footman opens the door, she gives him an order:
“Palazzo Braschi!” As she enters the carriage she casts a little book at her feet, and, instead of speaking, rubs her lips vehemently with her perfumed handkerchief. Finally she says, with a shudder, that she was obliged to kiss the Cardinal’s hand, and that it was anything but clean. But at any rate the visit was successful. Ah, if her husband only knew! She had played a really horrible part. The Cardinal was the very one who had once met Giovanni Selva in the library of Santa Scolastica at Subiaco, and had assailed him, telling him he was a profaner of the sacred walls, and promising him that he would most certainly go to hell, or even further down! Donna Rosetta had fanned his fire, in order to break up the secret accord between the Vatican and Palazzo Braschi. She had told him that the religious haute of Turin much desired the man chosen by the Vatican, and obnoxious to the Quirinal. The wily Cardinal—whom she had once met in the salon of a French prelate—had at first answered only, with that accent of his, neither French nor Italian: