Chapter II
The Romance of Gino
The old stone palace in which Margaret Garrison had made her winter home stood on a slight eminence that lifted it above and away from a squalid region of uncleanly, crowded, and incredibly noisy streets. It stood aloof from these things, withdrawn from them as much by significance as by space. From the surrounding flood of turbid life a short avenue wound upwards under large trees, past a gray stone parapet, a crumbling statue, a simple fountain in which water splashed unceasingly, to the portone under which passed the carriages and automobiles that carried fashionable life to and from the strangers who occupied the piano nobile on the first floor. In these early winter days leaves, yellow and brown, were falling into the fountain and on the parapet of gray and ancient stone. The sunlight shone briefly over the high damp walls of inclosing houses, and whether the spot was occupied by the carriages and footmen of modern pleasure-seekers, or whether it was empty and silent, the old palace and its approach kept their atmosphere in-violate. People could remove nothing from its mood of grave and quiet reverie; silence could add nothing to its dignity and sadness.
To the bright-haired American girl who came and went daily under its trees, the spot had a penetrating charm. Sometimes it quieted her. Sometimes it would make her more joyous for pure esthetic delight in having a background of such ancient stateliness to her happy, eager days.
Her aunt did not share the girl’s enthusiasm. “My blood is older and colder than yours,” she said; “I like these places to look at, but they seem chilly and dreary and altogether too historical to live in.”
“Do you really, really prefer your own white-painted and immaculate vestibule on the sunny side of the avenue?” asked Anne.
“I really, really do,” replied Mrs. Garrison, with decision.
It was a few days after Gino Curatulo’s visit, and they were on their way to an evening reception.
“I wonder if Curatulo will be there,” said Anne.
“Why did you talk to him so little when he called?” asked Margaret.
“I did not feel like talking, and was amused watching you make friends with the enemy, seeing you converse almost cordially with one whom I know you regard as a mere flâneur—a man of fashion.”
“It must be because he seems a link with the part of the world where Tom is,” said Margaret weakly. “I suppose,” she added, “that Curatulo is just what you say—a flâneur, a man of fashion. He certainly looks it.”
“He certainly looks it, and he probably is it,” said Anne. “He is probably also a few things besides. In the French Revolution, dandies showed that they could die like men.”
“I had rather they lived like men,” said Margaret dryly. “And I don’t call it living like a man to pass from one woman’s salon to another and spend the remaining hours strolling on the Corso.”
“It is an incredible life,” said Anne warmly. “It is a detestable one,” she added, as the limousine drove under a sombre stone entrance and stopped by a liveried porter who opened the door.
Mrs. Garrison was growing accustomed to Roman entrances, but this one was unusually stony, chilly, and vast. As she and her niece climbed up two huge flights of stairs she murmured resentfully that there was no sign of an elevator.
“You must learn to say ‘lift’ on this side of the water,” said Anne gayly, from several steps above. “Dear Aunt Margaret, do be amused. Do think it unique and picturesque and charming that we should be entering this unknown world, this frivolous world playing about among the ruins and palaces of such a splendid and terrible past. A French hat, a cup of tea, a flirtation, in the hall where a Borgia planned a murder! And you and I, Aunt Margaret, you and I, who have never had anything but our doctors and lawyers and brokers to play with,—hard-hearted men who were not disposed to be charmed with us, even supposing they had time for it,—finding ourselves in the company of diplomats of all nations, of ambassadors, of princes, of monsignores—all so willing, so eager to be charmed!”
“Take care how you charm them too much,” said her aunt.
In the apartment of the American hostess who was entertaining them there were too many servants by the door, and in the rooms a surplus of adornment. Priceless things from India, from Japan, from Egypt, were heaped upon one another, tacked to walls, ceilings, and furniture, and each year, as a guest remarked, “there appear some more.” The hostess herself was a noisy and cordial person, whose hospitality, if a little blatant, was actually warm-hearted and recognized as such. All Rome came to her sooner or later, “blacks” and “whites” alike being included within the orbit of her entertainments, where she was a predominating influence, moving her guests here and there as she chose, and introducing one to another in the American fashion, with a lack of discrimination that was becoming gradually tempered by her knowledge of a cosmopolitan world. A large part of the Roman aristocracy are, unlike the French and Austrian, friendly to strangers, and willing to be entertained by them; so they came in numbers to Mrs. Wallace’s house, where the diplomats went as a matter of course, and many Americans and English, distinguished or otherwise.
Anne looked about her with curiosity and delight upon a company assembled from many nations, full of color and possible adventure, and knew that her aunt’s success, which would also be her own, was assured by the letters she had brought and her occupancy of one of the most beautiful and best-known apartments in Rome. This evening the girl met the Japanese ambassador, a tiny, delicate figure, mirthful as a boy, and talked with a liberal monsignore, an effective and dignified figure in his purple and black robes, who had a powerful head, ardent eyes, and the manners of an admiring courtier. It was wonderful to find herself in such sur-roundings and able to move with ease among them, to find so many things to talk about, and such responsive ardor in the talking. Finally she was noticed and sent for by old Lady Fitz-Smith, a compliment the import of which she hardly appreciated.
“I want you to sit by me,” said the Dowager, drawing the girl to a sofa beside her. “I can tell you who everybody is, and you must try not to be bored.”
Anne found herself being analyzed by a pair of kind if hardily inquisitive eyes, set in a heavy-featured face that could never have possessed beauty of any kind. The wig of brown hair was very evidently a wig, and an ill-fitting one, while the dress and velvet cape were old-fashioned and badly worn; but there was that weight and dignity to the Dowager’s personality which can only come from a life-long and inherited consciousness of social supremacy.
“I want to talk to you because I am an old woman, and old women like sweet little girls, such as you look to be,” said Lady Fitz-Smith, putting up her lorgnette shamelessly while she examined the slender and sensitive face beside her.
The face was not entirely un-English, with its slightly high cheek-bones and excessive fairness of skin; but the eyes of the American girl did not fall under the Dowager’s scrutiny as those of her English cousins would have been likely to do. They even returned the gaze with one of almost equal curiosity, and finally with liking, for the commanding old face was also kind. Lady Fitz-Smith noted the same quality of unworldliness that had impressed Gino Curatulo when he called upon the two women, for Anne’s dress, though charming in color and texture, was not at all “smart,” and it was evident that she knew little of the subtle coquetry of European women.
The old woman smiled at her suddenly, and patted her hand. “You must tell me what you think of Rome,” she said in a strong, warm voice, and the English that is so much richer, so much more ornate and excitable than our own. “But first I want to know what you think of these rooms.”
Anne looked about her helplessly, and during the girl’s slight confused silence Lady Fitz-Smith nodded her head with approval.
“I quite agree with you,” she said. “Dear Mrs. Wallace! She has so much taste, and it is all bad. Why have they brought you to Rome, my dear? Not to marry a Roman, I hope.”
Anne flushed. “I shall never marry out of my own country,” she answered.
“Good girl!” said the Dowager, patting her hand again. “Two thirds of the Roman aristocracy have married Americans, which is so much the worse—for the Americans. But they have their titles, poor things, and that is what they wanted. Why are your country people so fond of titles—the very things your republic stands for repudiating? And you can’t deny that you are fond of them, my dear, when you consider the number of your girls who marry worn-out English and continental aristocrats.”
“Our best people do not marry your English and continental aristocrats,” answered Anne, with a spirit that pleased the old Englishwoman and made her laugh.
“Whatever kind of people they are, they are foolish ones,” she said. “ Mixed marriages are rarely happy, especially when the mixture is Anglo-Saxon and Latin. I married an Italian myself, I don’t know why, though I seem to remember thinking myself in love with him, and I had a little money. He was no worse than the rest of them; but when I found he had no intention of being true to me, nor ever had, I went home, and took my own name, though as a Catholic I could not divorce him. People said, ‘Now it is your turn’; but I did not want my turn. I was tired of men; though if one had come that I liked, nobody knows what might not have happened. Here is Gino Curatulo. He came in five minutes ago and has been pretending to talk to Madame Lilienkron while he looked at you. Do you know him? Yes? Good! But be a little careful. He is always about some woman or other, and sometimes the woman—Do you know his romance?”
“Has he one?” asked Anne, forgetting her amazement at Lady Fitz-Smith’s frankness in her interest concerning Curatulo.
“He fell madly in love with Maria Pavlowa soon after his return to Rome, and the poor thing was wild about him, as every one could see. Her husband was a brute, and we all sympathized with them—with the Pavlowa and Curatulo, I mean. She was radiantly lovely when he was in the same room with her; when he left it she was dull, like a place from which the light has been taken. Often she looked frightened, and it was thought her husband maltreated her. Some of Curatulo’s friends tried to get him off to Africa again, for they feared that he would kill the man or be killed by him. He was mad enough and young enough to do anything, and would certainly have run off with her if her father had not come down from Russia and carried her back with him. Curatulo disappeared for some time, and it was thought that he tried to follow her, and had been seen in disguise near her house at St. Petersburg. After a while he came back, and we supposed he would take up his exploring again, or his writing; but he did neither, and not long after the Pavlowa died. Since then he has done nothing, and his name has lately been connected with different women. The best of him died with the little Russian, and as he is quite poor, he is supposed to be looking for a fortune. Chi lo sa? There are some men who are born lovers, as others are born to paint pictures, or make money. Gino Curatulo may or may not be one of these, but in judging him it is well to remember that he is still young, and the same man who was willing to risk his life to run away with Maria Pavlowa. I tell you these things because he has been looking at you so persistently, and here he comes. Don’t think it is entirely to see you, my child, for I am a great favorite of his, as he is of mine. Is it not true, Curatulo? I was just telling Miss Warren that I am a great favorite of yours.”
“Indeed, yes,” he said with his pleasant laugh, as he kissed her hand.
“I said something else, too, but she must not repeat it lest she spoil you.”
“But I do not mind if he is spoiled,” protested Anne; “Lady Fitz-Smith says that you are also a favorite of hers.”
“It is true,” said the Dowager, nodding. “He is one of the few who take the trouble to be nice to an old woman.”
He kissed her hand again, and while he greeted Anne with some eagerness, Mrs. Wallace, followed by a few men, approached the group.
“Dear Lady Fitz-Smith knows that I love her more than anybody,” she said in her loud cordial voice, “but I cannot allow her to monopolize my new friend any longer;” and she presented two minor diplomats, whom Anne found amusing and amused in much the same way as the young men of her own country.
Curatulo sat by the Dowager and made no effort to join in the easy gayety of Anne’s conversation. Others came and went, and the groups shifted, but Anne knew that Curatulo never lost consciousness of her presence. Her sudden laugh would draw his eyes to her face, and now and then she felt him to be listening to her words as they reached him through the sound of other voices. The girl herself, while talking gayly and sweetly with the people about her, held in the background of her thoughts the story told by Lady Fitz-Smith, and she wondered how often the dark and dandified man, whose eyes so often sought her face, still remembered the dead woman whom he had risked so much to win, and if it was true that he had followed her in disguise to distant lands.
Curatulo profited by his first opportunity of speaking to Anne alone. “I have not had a word with you,” he said, “and this is not as I had planned. I am sorry.”
“I am glad that you are sorry,” answered the girl, in a tone lighter than his own; but she flushed slightly, for there had come a sudden look of wistfulness into the dark Italian eyes.
It was just then that Mrs. Garrison, pleasantly excited by success, came to take Anne home, and she had no more words with Curatulo.
On the drive back her aunt expressed surprise that he had not talked with her more. “I thought he would be one of the men we saw something of,” she said.
Anne laughed and turned her face away. Was it possible that Aunt Margaret had not seen? The girl was radiant and excited as a child on Christmas morning because of what she felt to be her new conquest, and of all the men she had met in Rome Gino Curatulo seemed to her the one most worth conquering, both by reason of the glamour lent to him by his desperate romance and of the intellectual distinction of his few writings.
“It is just as well for you not to see much of him,” continued her aunt. “They say he is quite dangerous as well as frivolous, and once he had a grande passion for a married woman, whom he tried to run away with, instead of running away from her, and trying to conquer his feeling as a good man would have done.”
Anne laughed again, for the words sounded curiously of home. Mrs. Garrison was not one who could change her atmosphere, or deviate from her mathematical standard of morality.
“Not try to conquer his feeling as a good man would have done.” Anne repeated the words to herself, conscious of their grotesqueness as applied to a man like Gino Curatulo. With her suppleness of perception she was already conscious of a schism between the human atmosphere into which she had plunged, and the one she had left behind her at home. By loving a woman a man seemed to have established the right to win her if he could, independently of laws of church and state. Feeling rather than ethics was the supreme standard, and the little girl with her Puritan ancestors stood before such a spectacle amazed and bewildered.
“I wonder,” she said aloud suddenly, “if it is true that some men are born to love women, and to do that better than they can do any other thing, just as some are born to paint pictures, or make money.”
“They would be poor sort of men,” answered Margaret.
“I wonder,” said the girl again.