A Lady of Rome

by F. Marion Crawford

She went home feeling as if she were in a painful dream, from which she must awake before long. In the afternoon, when Agostino was out with Leone and the little house was quiet, she went to the telephone and asked for the number of the Palazzo Boccapaduli. She got it, and was answered by a man-servant. She inquired when Castiglione would be at home, but was told that he was not staying in the house. It was the only address she knew, so she asked where he lived. The servant did not know, but would go and find out, if she would hold the communication.

A few moments later the voice that spoke to her was Oderisio’s, and he asked with whom he was speaking, and on being told, at once inquired if it was she who wanted Castiglione’s address. Yes, it was she; did he know it? Yes, he did; and he gave it. Had Castiglione a telephone? No, but he might be at the officers’ club; did she wish the number of that? No, she did not care for it. Thank you, and good-bye.

At first she was a little annoyed that young Boccapaduli should know she wanted Castiglione’s address. But presently, as she went back to the sitting-room, it struck her that it was just as well. Oderisio would understand that she was not seeing Baldassare often, since she did not know his address after he had been in Rome nearly a month.

She wrote him a short note, which anybody might have read, begging him to come and see her on the following Thursday after half-past two. She addressed it and stamped it, she put on her hat without calling her maid, and she went out to post it in the letter-box at the corner of the railway station.

She was sure of herself, she thought, and she believed she had earned the right to receive Castiglione once again, because she was bravely resolved never to see him alone after she returned to her husband’s house. That resolution had formed itself at the instant when she had told Leone that Montalto was coming back, and she had not wavered in it since, in spite of what she had felt when he had brought her the fallen parasol in the Villa. The greatest and most enduring resolutions in life are rarely made after mature consideration, still less at those times of spiritual exaltation which are too often self-suggested, and sought for the sake of a half-sensuous, half-mysterious agitation of the nerves that is far from healthy. People who are not morbid and are in great trouble generally see the right course rather suddenly and unexpectedly; if they are good they follow it, if they are bad they do not, but if they attempt a careful and subtle examination of conscience they often come to grief. It is hopeless to analyse processes in which conscience and mind are involved together until we can find a constant coefficient for humanity’s ever-varying strength and weakness.

During more than a month Maria had acted and thought under the domination of one idea; she had need of strength, but she had not felt the want of advice or help. She knew better than the harsh old Capuchin, better even than Monsignor Saracinesca, what she must do, and as for help, no living man or woman could have given her any, unless it were Castiglione himself. She had accepted what was laid upon her, and when she went at early morning to kneel at the altar rail in the small oratory, she prayed for strength and for nothing else.

So far it had come to her and had borne her through more than any one who knew her could have guessed; and when she sent for Castiglione, to see him once more and for the last time, she was far from thinking that she did so from any weakness. It seemed only just, for no man could have acted more honourably and courageously than he, and he had a right to know from her own lips what she meant to do.

He came, knowing what was before him, and meaning to do what he could to spare her all pain and useless emotion. More and more often now he called her a saint in his thoughts, and his love for her was sometimes very like veneration.

She had taken care that Leone should not be in the house that afternoon, not because she had any thought of concealing Castiglione’s visit from the child, but out of consideration for the man himself. She knew only too well what he felt when he saw the boy’s blue eyes and his short and thick brown hair.

He came in civilian’s dress, lest his brilliant uniform should attract attention from a distance as he entered the house where she lived. His hand met hers quietly and the two lovers looked into each other’s earnest eyes. By a common impulse they sat down in the places they had generally taken when they had met in the same room before, on opposite sides of the empty fireplace.