In fact, politeness has been the dominant note of her attitude to-day, a sober restraint of manner such as she would adopt when rather tired towards an ordinary acquaintance. Has she reconciled herself to the inevitable and taken this Empire frolic as a graceful method of showing it? I should like to believe so, but the course is scarcely consistent with that motor of illogic which she is pleased to call her temperament. I am puzzled.
Her smile as we parted sent a chill through me, being the smile of a mask instead of a woman’s face; and it was not the face of Judith. I don’t anticipate much merriment tomorrow evening.
At Carlotta’s suggestion, I have sent a line to Pasquale to ask him to join us. His gay wit will lend to the entertainment a specious air of revelry which Carlotta will take as genuine.
I have often thought lately of the hopeless passion of Alfonso the Magnanimous of Naples, as set forth by Pope Pius II in his Commentaries; for I am beginning to take a morbid interest in the unhappy love affairs of other men and to institute comparisons. If they have lived through the torment, why should not I? But Alfonso sighed for Lucrezia d’Alagna, a beautiful chaste statue of ice who loved him; whereas I crave the warm-blooded thing that is mine for the taking, but no more loves me than she loves the policeman who salutes her on his beat. I cannot take her. Something stronger than my passion opposes an adamantine barrier. I love her with my soul as well as with my body, and my soul cries out for the soul that the Almighty forgot when endowing her with entity.
This evening a letter from the Editor of The Quarterly Review. It would give him great pleasure if I would contribute a Renaissance article, taking as my text a German, a Russian, and an English attempt to whitewash the Borgia family. Six months ago the compliment would have filled me with gratification. To-day what to me are the whitewashed Borgias or the solemn denizens of the Athenaeum reading-room who will slumber over my account of the blameless poisonings of this amiable family? They are vanity and vexation of a spirit already sore at ease.
As I write the door creaks. I look up. Behold Carlotta in hastily slipped on dressing-gown, open in front, her hair streaming loose to her waist, her bare feet flashing pink beneath her night-dress.
“Oh, Seer Marcous, darling, I am so frightened!”
She ran forward and caught the lappels of my coat as I rose from my chair.
“What is the matter?”
“There is a mouse in my bed.”