First, he took her to the rock of the tablet, "Remember eternal at my heart." It was early, and fashionable folk were still lingering over their luncheons at the restaurants, therefore the two had the long road, in curve after curve of dusty whiteness, all to themselves, as if hour and place were both their own.
"It was here we first spoke to each other," Vanno said, "here where another man of Italy who loved a girl of your country had the great moment of his life to remember. Something made me speak to you at this spot. Perhaps where love has been—everlasting love—it leaves an influence always, something stronger and more eternal and far more subtle than words carved in a tablet of marble or stone. Who can tell about such things in life, things that are in life yet beyond and behind it, where we can catch only whispers of a message and a mystery? Perhaps it was the influence of that other love which made me speak in spite of myself—for I hadn't meant to speak. I wanted to tell you here, dearest one, cara, carissima, how I love you—how my love for you is 'eternal at my heart' and my soul—all there is of me."
He took both her hands, and when his eyes had said again to her eyes what his lips had just spoken, they both looked up at the words on the marble tablet.
"If those two who loved each other return in spirit sometimes together," Vanno said, "I think they must have been here the day when we first met at this spot, and that they are here again now. If they see us they know why we have come, and they are glad and pleased with us, like two lovers who 'make a match' between dear friends."
"It is a beautiful thought of yours," Mary answered; "and it seems so real that I can almost see those lovers. But remember the story—how they were parted forever on this earth. Do you know, I feel almost—just a tiny bit—superstitious. I mean about our coming here especially to make a vow of eternal love to each other. What if we, too, should be parted?"
"Darling, nothing can part us," Vanno assured her, "because love has made our hearts one, now and forever. You and I have belonged to each other since time began, through hundreds of earth-lives perhaps, and thousands of vicissitudes: always finding one another again. A little while ago, a cloud came between us, and it seemed as if we might be swept away from one another; but it passed, and we found each other and ourselves, in the light, far above cloudline. That's why I say, nothing can part us now, not even death. And as for this tablet of two parted lovers, it wasn't put up to commemorate their sorrows, but their happiness; and so it can bring us only happiness."
"Look!" Mary exclaimed, standing back a little from the mule path which descended there, and pressing closer under the rock of the tablet. Winding down the path came a little procession, a few peasants bareheaded, dressed in black, clean and piteous in their neatness. The women were silently crying, tears wet on their brown cheeks, their eyes red. The men, two who were old and two who were young, carried a very small, roughly made bier, on which was a tiny coffin almost covered with flowers, and wild, scented herbs of the mountains. Their thick boots clattered on the cobblestones, but they made no other sound, and none raised their eyes as they went by. It was as if the lovers were invisible to them, as though they were of a different order of being which the sad eyes were not fitted to see.
As the procession defiled upon the main road, at the foot of the mule path it paused a moment. Though the mourners did not see him, Vanno took off his hat and stood with it held rather high above his head, in his right hand, as is the custom with all Latin men for the passing of a funeral. The driver of a landau that climbed the hill, and a chauffeur driving an automobile down toward the lower Corniche, paid the same reverence to the little coffin, giving right of way to the procession before moving on. The funeral turned in the direction of Roquebrune, and Mary and Vanno guessed that it was going to the church there, and the curé. But in the landau which had waited was a pretty young bride and a tall-hatted bridegroom, with bridesmaid and "best man." They were evidently beginning the honeymoon, which would consist of a long drive in wedding finery and flowers, then a dinner, and perhaps the grand finale of a dance. At sight of the funeral coming out from the mule path and passing directly in front of their horses, the bride let fall her huge bouquet, and regardless of tulle veil and fluffy laces, cast herself into her husband's arms, hiding her face on his shoulder.
"Quel mauvais signe!" muttered the driver, as he put on his much paraffined silk hat, settled his wedding boutonnière in its place, and drove on at a trot.
Mary looked up at Vanno without speaking, but her eyes, saddened by the sorrow of others, asked a question.