I heard her call Miss Edith, the governess.
When I was alone my eyes turned involuntarily towards the small desk littered with letters, cards, and books. I approached, and my eyes ran for an instant over the papers, as if they sought to discover—what? The proof, perhaps? I dismissed this base and stupid suspicion. I looked at a book covered with an antique cloth, with a small dagger stuck between the leaves. She had not yet finished reading it, and had cut only about half of it. It was the latest novel by Filippo Arborio, The Secret. I read on the frontispiece an autographic dedication by the author:
TO YOU,
JULIANA HERMIL, TURRIS EBURNEA,
I offer this unworthy homage.
F. ARBORIO.
All Saints' Day, '85.
So Juliana knew the novelist? And what did Juliana think of him? I conjured up the writer's fine and seductive face as I had seen it several times in public. There was certainly much in him that must please Juliana. According to current gossip, he pleased women. His romances, full of a complicated psychology, at times very subtle, often false, disturbed sentimental souls, fired restless imaginations, taught with supreme grace contempt of common life. An Agony, The True Catholic, Angelica Doni, Giorgio Aliora, The Secret, suggested an intense vision of life, as if life were a vast conflagration of innumerable ardent figures. Each of his characters fought for his chimera, in a hopeless duel against reality.
Had not this extraordinary artist, who in his books appeared to be, so to speak, like a distilled quintessence of pure spirit, also exerted his fascination on me? Had I not said of his Giorgio Aliora that it was a fraternal work? Had I not found in certain of his literary creations strange resemblances with my inner being? And suppose the strange affinity that there is between us facilitated his work of seduction, perhaps already undertaken? Suppose Juliana was yielding to him, precisely because she had recognized in him some one of those attractions by which, previously, I had made myself adored by her? I thought with a new fright.
She reëntered the room. On seeing me with the book in my hand, she said, with an embarrassed smile, and blushing slightly:
"What are you looking at?"
"Do you know Filippo Arborio?" I asked her immediately, but without any change in my voice, in the most calm and natural voice that I could command.