"But we are old friends," he said, "and your approval will be grateful to me.You gave it me once before.Will you give it now?""I have not come as a friend this time," she answered stiffly."I am not likely, Signor Carella, to approve of anything you do.""Oh, Signorina!" He laughed, as if he found her piquant and amusing."Surely you approve of marriage?""Where there is love," said Miss Abbott, looking at him hard.His face had altered in the last year, but not for the worse, which was baffling.
"Where there is love," said he, politely echoing the English view.Then he smiled on her, expecting congratulations.
"Do I understand that you are proposing to marry again?"He nodded.
"I forbid you, then!"
He looked puzzled, but took it for some foreign banter, and laughed.
"I forbid you!" repeated Miss Abbott, and all the indignation of her sex and her nationality went thrilling through the words.
"But why?" He jumped up, frowning.His voice was squeaky and petulant, like that of a child who is suddenly forbidden a toy.
"You have ruined one woman; I forbid you to ruin another.It is not a year since Lilia died.You pretended to me the other day that you loved her.It is a lie.You wanted her money.Has this woman money too?""Why, yes!" he said irritably."A little.""And I suppose you will say that you love her.""I shall not say it.It will be untrue.
Now my poor wife--" He stopped, seeing that the comparison would involve him in difficulties.And indeed he had often found Lilia as agreeable as any one else.
Miss Abbott was furious at this final insult to her dead acquaintance.She was glad that after all she could be so angry with the boy.She glowed and throbbed; her tongue moved nimbly.
At the finish, if the real business of the day had been completed, she could have swept majestically from the house.But the baby still remained, asleep on a dirty rug.
Gino was thoughtful, and stood scratching his head.
He respected Miss Abbott.He wished that she would respect him.
"So you do not advise me?" he said dolefully."But why should it be a failure?"Miss Abbott tried to remember that he was really a child still--a child with the strength and the passions of a disreputable man."How can it succeed," she said solemnly, "where there is no love?""But she does love me! I forgot to tell you that.""Indeed."
"Passionately." He laid his hand upon his own heart.
"Then God help her!"
He stamped impatiently."Whatever I say displeases you, Signorina.God help you, for you are most unfair.You say that I ill-treated my dear wife.It is not so.I have never ill-treated any one.You complain that there is no love in this marriage.
I prove that there is, and you become still more angry.What do you want? Do you suppose she will not be contented? Glad enough she is to get me, and she will do her duty well.""Her duty!" cried Miss Abbott, with all the bitterness of which she was capable.
"Why, of course.She knows why I am marrying her.""To succeed where Lilia failed! To be your housekeeper, your slave, you--" The words she would like to have said were too violent for her.
"To look after the baby, certainly," said he.
"The baby--?" She had forgotten it.
"It is an English marriage," he said proudly.
"I do not care about the money.I am having her for my son.
Did you not understand that?"
"No," said Miss Abbott, utterly bewildered.
Then, for a moment, she saw light."It is not necessary, Signor Carella.
Since you are tired of the baby--"
Ever after she remembered it to her credit that she saw her mistake at once."I don't mean that," she added quickly.
"I know," was his courteous response."Ah, in a foreign language (and how perfectly you speak Italian) one is certain to make slips."She looked at his face.It was apparently innocent of satire.
"You meant that we could not always be together yet, he and I.You are right.What is to be done? I cannot afford a nurse, and Perfetta is too rough.When he was ill I dare not let her touch him.When he has to be washed, which happens now and then, who does it? I.I feed him, or settle what he shall have.
I sleep with him and comfort him when he is unhappy in the night.
No one talks, no one may sing to him but I.Do not be unfair this time;I like to do these things.But nevertheless (his voice became pathetic)they take up a great deal of time, and are not all suitable for a young man.""Not at all suitable," said Miss Abbott, and closed her eyes wearily.Each moment her difficulties were increasing.
She wished that she was not so tired, so open to contradictory impressions.
She longed for Harriet's burly obtuseness or for the soulless diplomacy of Mrs.Herriton.
"A little more wine?" asked Gino kindly.
"Oh, no, thank you! But marriage, Signor Carella, is a very serious step.Could you not manage more simply? Your relative, for example--""Empoli! I would as soon have him in England!""England, then--"
He laughed.
"He has a grandmother there, you know--Mrs.Theobald.""He has a grandmother here.No, he is troublesome, but I must have him with me.I will not even have my father and mother too.For they would separate us," he added.
"How?"
"They would separate our thoughts."
She was silent.This cruel, vicious fellow knew of strange refinements.The horrible truth, that wicked people are capable of love, stood naked before her, and her moral being was abashed.
It was her duty to rescue the baby, to save it from contagion, and she still meant to do her duty.But the comfortable sense of virtue left her.She was in the presence of something greater than right or wrong.
Forgetting that this was an interview, he had strolled back into the room, driven by the instinct she had aroused in him.
"Wake up!" he cried to his baby, as if it was some grown-up friend.
Then he lifted his foot and trod lightly on its stomach.
Miss Abbott cried, "Oh, take care!" She was unaccustomed to this method of awakening the young.
"He is not much longer than my boot, is he?
Can you believe that in time his own boots will be as large? And that he also--""But ought you to treat him like that?"
