“Nerves. You need a tonic and probably a change of air and scene. There is nothing the matter?”
She shook her head. Camille was kind, but he could not help her. He could not make the earth open and swallow Tor di Rocca, and sometimes she felt that nothing less than that would satisfy her, and that such a summary ending would contribute greatly to her peace of mind.
She had not seen the Prince for two days and she was beginning to hope that he had gone away, but she was not yet able to feel free of him. Rosina had come home with her every night from Varini’s. Once he had followed them, and twice he had come up the stairs and knocked at the door. There had been hours when she had been safe from him, but she had not known them, and the strain, the constant pricking fear of him, was telling upon her. Every day youth and strength and hope seemed to be slipping away and leaving her less able to do and to endure. She dared not look forward, as Camille did, to the end of life. He would die in his bed, full of years and honour, a great artist, a master, the president of many societies, but she—
Sometimes, as she stood facing the semi-circle of men at Varini’s, and listened to the busy scratching of charcoal on paper, to Bembi’s heavy breathing, and to the ticking of the clock, she wondered if she had done wrong in taking this way of bread earning. Certainly there could be no turning back. The step, once taken, was irrevocable. If artists employed her she would go on, but she could get no other work if this failed. If this failed there must be another struggle between flesh and spirit, and this time it would be decisive—one or other must prevail. Though she dreaded it she knew it was inevitable.
Meanwhile Camille stood in need of her ministrations. He had arranged to show his work on the fifteenth of April, and now he seemed to regard that date as thrice accursed. Often when she came in the morning she would find him prowling restlessly to and fro, or sitting with his head in his hands staring gloomily at the parquet flooring and sighing like a furnace.
“I hate having to invite people who do not know anything, who cannot tell an etching from an oil,” he said irritably. “I cannot suffer their ridiculous comments gladly. I would rather have six teeth pulled out than hear my Aholibah called pretty. Pretty!”
“They cannot say anything wrong about the picture of me,” she said. “It is splendid. M’sieur le Directeur says so, and I am sure it is. And your Venice sketches look so well on the screen.”
“You must be there,” he moaned. “If you are not there I shall burst into tears and run away.” Then he laughed. “I am always like this. You should see me in Paris on the eve of the opening of the Salon. A pitiable wreck! I had no angel to console me there.”
He kissed her hands with unusual fervour.
The girl had not really meant to come at first, but she yielded to his persuasions. “I will look after the food and drink then,” she said, and she spent herself on the decoration of the tea-table. They went to Aragno’s together in the morning to get cakes and bonbons.