“It's a perfect house for her,” he said. “It suits her--like an appropriate garment; it almost seems to express her.”
And all the while, as he proceeded, her voice kept sounding in his ears; scraps of her conversation, phrases that she had spoken, kept coming back to him.
One end of the long, wide marble terrace had been arranged as a sort of out-of-door living-room. A white awning was stretched overhead; warm-hued rugs were laid on the pavement; there were wicker lounging-chairs, with bright cushions, and a little table, holding books and things.
The Duchessa rose from one of the lounging-chairs, and came forward, smiling, to meet him.
She gave him her hand--for the first time.
It was warm--electrically warm; and it was soft--womanly soft; and it was firm, alive--it spoke of a vitality, a temperament. Peter was sure, besides, that it would be sweet to smell; and he longed to bend over it, and press it with his lips. He might almost have done so, according to Italian etiquette. But, of course, he simply bowed over it, and let it go.
“Mi trova abbandonata,” she said, leading the way back to the terrace-end. There were notes of a peculiar richness in her voice, when she spoke Italian; and she dwelt languorously on the vowels, and rather slurred the consonants, lazily, in the manner Italian women have, whereby they give the quality of velvet to their tongue. She was not an Italian woman; Heaven be praised, she was English: so this was just pure gain to the sum-total of her graces. “My uncle and my niece have gone to the village. But I 'm expecting them to come home at any moment now--and you'll not have long, I hope, to wait for your snuff.”
She flashed a whimsical little smile into his eyes. Then she returned to her wicker chair, glancing an invitation at Peter to place himself in the one facing her. She leaned back, resting her head on a pink silk cushion.
Peter, no doubt, sent up a silent prayer that her uncle and her niece might be detained at the village for the rest of the afternoon. By her niece he took her to mean Emilia: he liked her for the kindly euphemism. “What hair she has!” he thought, admiring the loose brown masses, warm upon their background of pink silk.
“Oh, I'm inured to waiting,” he replied, with a retrospective mind for the interminable waits of that interminable day.
The Duchessa had taken a fan from the table, and was playing with it, opening and shutting it slowly, in her lap. Now she caught Peter's eyes examining it, and she gave it to him. (My own suspicion is that Peter's eyes had been occupied rather with the hands that held the fan, than with the fan itself--but that's a detail.)
“I picked it up the other day, in Rome,” she said. “Of course, it's an imitation of the French fans of the last century, but I thought it pretty.”
It was of white silk, that had been thinly stained a soft yellow, like the yellow of faded yellow rose-leaves. It was painted with innumerable plump little cupids, flying among pale clouds. The sticks were of mother-of=pearl. The end-sticks were elaborately incised, and in the incisions opals were set, big ones and small ones, smouldering with green and scarlet fires.
“Very pretty indeed,” said Peter, “and very curious. It's like a great butterfly's wing is n't it? But are n't you afraid of opals?”
“Afraid of opals?” she wondered. “Why should one be?”
“Unless your birthday happens to fall in October, they're reputed to bring bad luck,” he reminded her.
“My birthday happens to fall in June but I 'll never believe that such pretty things as opals can bring bad luck,” she laughed, taking the fan, which he returned to her, and stroking one of the bigger opals with her finger tip.
“Have you no superstitions?” he asked.
“I hope not--I don't think I have,” she answered. “We're not allowed to have superstitions, you know--nous autres Catholiques.”
“Oh?” he said, with surprise. “No, I did n't know.”
“Yes, they're a forbidden luxury. But you--? Are you superstitious? Would you be afraid of opals?”
“I doubt if I should have the courage to wear one. At all events, I don't regard superstitions in the light of a luxury. I should be glad to be rid of those I have. They're a horrible inconvenience. But I can't get it out of my head that the air is filled with a swarm of malignant little devils, who are always watching their chance to do us an ill turn. We don't in the least know the conditions under which they can bring it off; but it's legendary that if we wear opals, or sit thirteen at table, or start an enterprise on Friday, or what not, we somehow give them their opportunity. And one naturally wishes to be on the safe side.”
She looked at him with doubt, considering.
“You don't seriously believe all that?” she said.
“No, I don't seriously believe it. But one breathes it in with the air of one's nursery, and it sticks. I don't believe it, but I fear it just enough to be made uneasy. The evil eye, for instance. How can one spend any time in Italy, where everybody goes loaded with charms against it, and help having a sort of sneaking half-belief in the evil eye?”
She shook her head, laughing.
“I 've spent a good deal of time in Italy, but I have n't so much as a sneaking quarter-belief in it.”
“I envy you your strength of mind,” said he. “But surely, though superstition is a luxury forbidden to Catholics, there are plenty of good Catholics who indulge in it, all the same?”
“There are never plenty of good Catholics,” said sire. “You employ a much-abused expression. To profess the Catholic faith, to go to Mass on Sunday and abstain from meat on Friday, that is by no means sufficient to constitute a good Catholic. To be a good Catholic one would have to be a saint, nothing less--and not a mere formal saint, either, but a very real saint, a saint in thought and feeling, as well as in speech and action. Just in so far as one is superstitious, one is a bad Catholic. Oh, if the world were populated by good Catholics, it would be the Millennium come to pass.”
“It would be that, if it were populated by good Christians--wouldn't it?” asked Peter.
“The terms are interchangeable,” she answered sweetly, with a half-comical look of defiance.
“Mercy!” cried he. “Can't a Protestant be a good Christian too?”
“Yes,” she said, “because a Protestant can be a Catholic without knowing it.”
“Oh--?” he puzzled, frowning.
“It's quite simple,” she explained. “You can't be a Christian unless you're a Catholic. But if you believe as much of Christian truth as you've ever had a fair opportunity of learning, and if you try to live in accordance with Christian morals, you are a Catholic, you're a member of the Catholic Church, whether you know it or not. You can't be deprived of your birthright, you see.”
“That seems rather broad,” said Peter; “and one had always heard that Catholicism was nothing if not narrow.”
“How could it be Catholic if it were narrow?” asked she. “However, if a Protestant uses his intelligence, and is logical, he'll not remain an unconscious Catholic long. If he studies the matter, and is logical, he'll wish to unite himself to the Church in her visible body. Look at England. See how logic is multiplying converts year by year.”
“But it's the glory of Englishmen to be illogical,” said Peter, with a laugh. “Our capacity for not following premisses to their logical consequences is the principal source of our national greatness. So the bulk of the English are likely to resist conversion for centuries to come--are they not? And then, nowadays, one is so apt to be an indifferentist in matters of religion--and Catholicism is so exacting. One remains a Protestant from the love of ease.”
“And from the desire, on the part of a good many Englishmen at least, to sail in a boat of their own--not to get mixed up with a lot of foreign publicans and sinners--no?” she suggested.
“Oh, of course, we're insular and we're Pharisaical,” admitted Peter.
“And as for one's indifference,” she smiled, “that is most probably due to one's youth and inexperience. One can't come to close quarters with the realities of life--with sorrow, with great joy, with temptation, with sin or with heroic virtue, with death, with the birth of a new soul, with any of the awful, wonderful realities of life--and continue to be an indifferentist in matters of religion, do you think?”
“When one comes to close quarters with the awful, wonderful realities of life, one has religious moments,” he acknowledged. “But they're generally rather fugitive, are n't they?”
“One can cultivate them--one can encourage them,” she said. “If you would care to know a good Catholic,” she added, “my niece, my little ward, Emilia is one. She wants to become a Sister of Mercy, to spend her life nursing the poor.”
“Oh? Would n't that be rather a pity?” Peter said. “She's so extremely pretty. I don't know when I have seen prettier brown eyes than hers.”
“Well, in a few years, I expect we shall see those pretty brown eyes looking out from under a sister's coif. No, I don't think it will be a pity. Nuns and sisters, I think, are the happiest people in the world--and priests. Have you ever met any one who seemed happier than my uncle, for example?”