"For the present I am de trop" he wrote, "but I will see you before you go away. All happiness to Aurora and her chosen husband."
Impossibility is a wonderful extinguisher of desire; and what suffering was left to him was not so much a sickness as the languor of convalescence. He saw Aurora but seldom, and always at a distance; but he knew that Venetian society was rejoicing over the engagement, and that the duke was a devoted lover.
Once, in passing by, he glanced involuntarily at the windows, and saw a group inside, the sight of which gave him a momentary pang. D'Rubiera seemed to be placing something on Aurora's head, and Mrs. Lindsay clapped her hands.
The duke was, in fact, trying a coronet on his future wife. He had sent for the family jewels, and was to have them reset, and Mrs. Lindsay clapped her hands at seeing the diamonds on Aurora's hair.
D'Rubiera was an impatient and peremptory wooer, and he won the day. They were to be married in June; and the Lindsays would stay in Venice a month longer to witness the ceremony.
Fra Antonio came from Sassovivo and joined their hands in Saint Mark's, gold and rank smoothing away all obstacles. Then they went to England for the boy, and came back in time for a week at Bellmar. After Bellmar, they went to Sassovivo, unannounced, to break open the walled-up gate and carry jubilee into the castle, the duke said.
In fact, they spent a whole day long in the castle, tranquilly watching from its windows the visitors who went to the villa in vain to ossequiare the master and his new duchess. It was the last time that they would enter the castle as master and mistress; for the Signora Paula and Martina were coming to live there,—forever, if they pleased.
The Signora Paula had found herself de trop in her brother's house. The Count Clemente had offered himself to the younger of his two first lodgers, the girl of fifty, and been beamingly accepted; and, though months must elapse before all the necessary preparations could be made for their marriage, the Sposa was now mistress of the house. She smiled as before, but she had her way. The sacred dirt of centuries was being cleaned out, and immemorial grime was growing pale before the soap and sand of a civilization to which the Signora Paula was a stranger. Where duchesses had swept their silks in uncomplaining tranquillity, the smiling Americana walked on tiptoe with her skirts upheld, and pointed out her orders to the wondering scrubbers with the toe of her slipper, both hands being employed.
In all these innovations every care was taken that the count should not be disturbed. But he had his cross, and an unexpected one. When it became time to talk of settlements, and it had to be owned that the gentleman had nothing to settle on his wife but the shadow of a coronet, of which she would have to buy the substance if she ever wore it, the lady announced blandly that she would pay all their living-expenses and give her husband five hundred dollars a year spending-money if he would pay the rent to the duke,—this arrangement to hold as long as they should live together.
"But we shall always live together," said the count, with a contortion meant for a smile.