This painting Blanka had before her eyes when she lay down to sleep at night, and it was the first to greet her when she awoke in the morning. Nor was it simply that she was forced to see it: Sappho seemed able to make her presence known by other means than by addressing the sight alone. Mysterious sounds came at times from the lyre,—sometimes simple chords, and again snatches of love-songs which the princess could have played over afterward from memory, so plainly did she seem to hear them. Occasionally, too, the notes of a human voice were heard; and though the words were muffled and indistinct, as if coming from a distance, the air was easily followed. These weird melodies came to Blanka's ears nearly every evening, but she did not venture to tell any one about them. She tried to persuade herself it was all imagination on her part, and feared to relate her experience, lest she should incur suspicion of insanity and be consigned to a less desirable prison than the Cagliari palace.
One evening, as she was preparing to retire, and was standing for a moment before her mirror, the Sappho seemed to give vent to a ripple of laughter. The princess was so startled that she dropped the candle she held in her hand. Once more she heard that mysterious laugh, and then she beat a hasty retreat to her bed and buried herself in the pillows and blankets. But, peeping out at length and throwing one more glance at the picture, which was faintly illumined by her night-lamp, she heard still another repetition of the mysterious laughter, coming apparently from a great distance. Was this, too, an illusion, a dream, a trick of her imagination? If the painted Sappho was alive, why did she give these signs only at night, and not in the daytime as well?
November came, and with it rainy days, so that Blanka was constrained to suspend her drives to Monte Mario and remain in the house. Every evening she sat before her open fire with her eyes fixed on the glowing phœnix with which the back of the fireplace was adorned. It was the work of Finiguerra, the first of his craft to discard the chisel for the hammer. The many-hued feathers of the flaming bird were of steel, copper, brass, Corinthian bronze, silver, and gold. Especially resplendent was the bird's head, with its gleaming red circle around the brightly shining eye. This eye glowed and sparkled in the flickering light of the crackling wood fire until it seemed fairly endowed with life and vision.
One evening, as the princess was watching this glowing eye, it suddenly vanished from the bird's head and left a dark hole in its place. Then, as if not content with this marvellous demonstration, the phœnix next took flight bodily and disappeared, apparently up the chimney, with a rattling, rasping sound, as of the creaking of cogged wheels, leaving a wide opening where it had been. The coals which still glowed on the hearth presently died with a hissing noise, and only the soft light of the shaded lamp diffused itself through the room. Out of the mysterious depths of the fireplace stepped the white-clad form of a woman.
"I am the Marchioness Caldariva," announced the unbidden guest.
The suddenness and the mystery of it all, as well as the name that greeted her ears, might well have startled the Princess Blanka. The strange visitor was of tall and slender form, and suggested, in her closely fitting gown of soft material, a statue of one of the pagan goddesses. Her thick blond hair was carelessly gathered into a knot behind; her complexion was pale, her blue eyes were bright and vivacious, and her coral lips were parted in a coquettish smile. Every movement was fraught with grace and charm, every pose commanded admiration. She followed up her self-introduction with a laugh—a laugh that sounded familiar to her listener. It was the Sappho's tones that she heard. Blanka gazed in wonder at the mysterious apparition. She thought she must be dreaming, and that this was but another creation of her own fancy.
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the visitor, "an original way to pay a call, isn't it?—without warning, right through the back wall of your fireplace, and in négligé, too! But as you wouldn't visit me, I had to come to you, and this is the readiest communication between our apartments. You didn't know anything about it, did you? The back of your fireplace is a secret door. If you press on the green tile here at the left, the phœnix flies up the chimney, and then if you bear down hard on this one at the right, it returns to its place again. Do you see?"
As she spoke the white lady stepped on the tile last designated, and straightway the phœnix descended and filled the opening through which she had just made her entrance.
"On the other side," she continued, "is a piece of mechanism which will only work when a secret lock has been opened, and to effect this the bird's eye must first be pushed aside to make room for the key. Your ignorance of all this became apparent to me when I found both of the two keys in my room. One of them belongs to you, and I have brought it to give you. Without it you might be broken in upon most unpleasantly by some unwelcome intruder. But with the key in your possession, you can insert it in the lock whenever you wish to guard against any such intrusion."
With that the speaker handed over the key, and then went on: