A prey to this growing melancholy, the young woman took her seat at the dinner table, laden with the costly flowers that delight the ostentatious Americans. Incomparable orchids spread over the table a carpet of the softest hues. Other orchids were wreathed about the candles and the electric chandelier suspended from the varnished ceiling; and amid this prodigality of fantastic corollas, gleamed a set of goldware of the time of Louis XIV.—the historical personage who was second only to Napoleon in the estimation of this Ohio democrat, who evinced, on this point, as on so many others, one of the most astonishing inconsistencies of his compatriots. And the bright tones of the wainscoting, the precision of the service, the delicacy of the food and wine, the brilliant toilets of the women, made this a setting for the consummation of refinement, with the sea visible through the open portholes, still motionless, and now touched by the rays of the crescent moon. Marsh had ordered the boat's speed to be slackened, so that the vibration of the screw was scarcely noticeable in the dining-room. The hour was really so exquisite, that the guests gradually yielded to the charm, the master of the boat first of all. He had placed Madame de Carlsberg in front of him, between Chésy and Hautefeuille, in order to have Madame de Chésy on his left, and in his tones and looks, as he talked to her, there was an amused and tender affection, a protecting indulgence, and an inexpressible depth of reverie. Resolved to save her from the danger which Chésy's confidences had suddenly revealed, it was as though he were going to do something more for the other, for the dead one whose image was sleeping in the rear room. He laughed at the follies of Yvonne, delicious in her pink dress, a little excited by the dry champagne whose golden foam sparkled in the glass,—a gold the color of her hair,—and still more excited by the sense of pleasing—the most dangerous and the only intoxication that women thoroughly enjoy. Miss Marsh, all in blue, seated between her and Chésy, listened to his discourse upon hunting, the one subject on which this gentleman was well informed, with the profound attention of an American girl who is gathering new information. Andryana Bonnacorsi was silent, but cheered by the genial surroundings, her tender blue eyes, the color of the turquoise in her magnificent white corsage, smiled musingly. She forgot the dangerous character of her brother, and the future infidelity of her fiancé, to think of nothing but the caressing eyes, the voluptuous lips, and the alluring grace of the young man whose wife she would be in a few hours. Nor could the Baroness Ely resist the contagion that floated in this atmosphere. Once more the loved one was near her and all her own. In his youthful eyes she could see such respect and love, timidity and desire. He spoke to her in words that all could hear, but with a trembling in his voice which she alone could understand. She began by replying to him, then she also grew silent. A great wave of passion rose within her, drowning all other thoughts. Her fears of the future, her remorse for the past—all was forgotten in the presence of Pierre, whom she could see with his heart beating, his breast agitated, alive and quivering beside her. How often he was thus to see her in memory, and pardon the fearful suffering she had caused him for the sake of her beauty at that moment! Ah! divine, divine beauty! Her eyes were drowned in languorous ecstasy. Her open lips breathed in the air as though half dying. The admirable curve of her neck rose with such grace above her low-cut dress of black,—a black that gave a richer gleam to the whiteness of her flower-soft skin; and in the simple folds of her hair, crowning her noble head, burned a single stone, a ruby, red and warm as a drop of blood.
How often he was to remember her thus, and as she appeared to him when later she leaned on the railing of the deck and watched the water that murmured, dashed, and sighed in the darkness, and the sky and the silent innumerable stars; and then looked at him and said: "I love you. Ah! how I love you." They had exchanged no promises. And yet, as surely as the sea and sky were there around them he knew that the hour had come, and that this night, this sky and sea, were the mystic and solemn witnesses of their secret betrothal! Nothing was audible in the calm night but the peaceful and monotonous respiration of the moving boat and the rhythmic splash of the sea—the caressing sea, their accomplice, who enchanted and rocked them in its gentle waves—while the tempest waited.
CHAPTER VI
IL MATRIMONIO SEGRETO
When the first pale rays of dawn broke upon the glass of the porthole, Pierre rose and went on deck. Dickie Marsh was there already, regarding the sky and the sea with the attentive scrutiny of an old sailor.
"For a Frenchman," he said to the young man, "you surprise me. I have seen a good many of your countrymen upon the Jenny. And yet you are the first that I have seen, so far, who rises at the most delicious hour of the day on sea.—Just breathe the breeze that comes from the open. You could work for ten hours without feeling tired, after taking a supply of such oxygen into your lungs.—The sky makes me a little uneasy," he added. "We have gone too far out of our course. We cannot reach Genoa before eight o'clock and the Jenny may receive a good tossing before that time.—I never had any sympathy for those yachtsmen who invite their friends to enjoy the hospitality of a stateroom in company with a slop-pail!—We could have gone from Cannes to Genoa in four hours, but I thought it better to let you sleep away from the tumult of the port.—The barometer was very high! I have never seen it descend so quickly."
The dome of the heavens, so clear all the preceding day and night, had indeed, little by little, been obscured by big, gray, rock-like clouds. Others were spread along the line of the horizon like changing lines fleeing from each other. Pale rays of sunlight struggled to pierce this curtain of gray vapor. The sea was still all around them, but no longer motionless and glossy. The water was leadlike in hue, opaque, heavy, menacing. The breeze freshened rapidly, and soon a strong gust of wind swept over the sullen sheet of the water. It caused a trembling to run along the surface, as though it shuddered. Then thousands of ripples showed themselves, becoming larger and larger, until they swelled into countless short, choppy waves, curling over and tossing their white crests in the air.
"Are you a good sailor?" Marsh asked Hautefeuille. "However, it does not matter. I was mistaken in my calculations. The Jenny will not get much tossing about, after all.—We're going before the wind and will soon be under the shelter of the coast. Look! There is the Porto-Fino lighthouse. As soon as we have rounded the cape, we shall be out of danger."
The sea, by this time, was completely covered with a scattered mass of bubbling foam through which the yacht ploughed her way easily without rolling much, although she listed alternately to the right and then to the left like a strong swimmer accommodating his stroke to the waves. Close to a ruined convent, some distance ahead, a rocky point projected, bearing a dazzlingly white lighthouse at its extremity. The promontory was covered, as with a fleece, with a thick growth of silvery olive trees, between which could be seen numerous painted villas, while its rocky base was a network of tiny creeks. This was Cape Porto-Fino, a place rendered famous by the captivity there of Francis I. after Pavia. The yacht rounded it so closely that Hautefeuille could hear the roar of the waves breaking upon the rocks. Beyond the promontory again stretched the sullen sheet of water with the long line of the Ligurian coast, which descends from Chiappa and Camogli as far as Genoa by way of Recco, Nervi, and Quinto. Height ascending after height could be seen, the hills forming the advance guard of the Apennines, their valleys planted with figs and chestnuts, their villages of brightly painted cottages, dotting the scene, and with, in the foreground, the narrow strip of sandy soil that serves as seashore. The landscape, at once savage and smiling, impressed the business man and the lover in different ways, for the former said with disdain:—
"They have not been able to make a double track railway along their coast! I suppose the task is too big for these people.—Why, my line from Marionville to Duluth has four tracks—and we had to make tunnels of a different sort from these!"