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VI

Bianca Acorari was sitting by herself in the room devoted to her own especial use, where she studied in the mornings with Mademoiselle Durand, and, indeed, spent most of her time. It was now the beginning of June—the moment in all the year, perhaps, when Rome is the most enjoyable; when the hotels are empty, and the foreigners have fled before the imaginary spectres of heat, malaria, and other evils to which those who remain in the city during the late spring and summer are popularly supposed to fall victims.

Entertainments, except those of an intimate character, being at an end, the American invasion has rolled northward. The gaunt English spinsters, severe of aspect, and with preposterous feet, who have spent the winter in the environs of the Piazza di Spagna with the double object of improving their minds and converting some of the "poor, ignorant Roman Catholics" to Protestantism, have gone northward too, to make merriment for the inhabitants of Perugia, or Sienna, of Venice, and a hundred other hunting-grounds. Only the German tourists remain, carrying with them the atmosphere of the bierhalle wherever they go, and generally behaving themselves as though Italy were a province of the fatherland. In the summer months Rome is her true self, and those who know her not then know her not at all.

To Bianca Acorari, however, all seasons of the year were much the same, excepting the three months or so that she passed in the villa near Velletri. To these months she looked forward with delight. The dull routine of her life in Rome was interrupted, and any variety was something in the nature of an excitement. It was pleasanter to be able to wander about the gardens and vineyards belonging to the villa than to drive about Rome in a closed carriage, waiting perhaps for an hour or more outside some convent or charitable institution while her step-mother was engaged in pious works. At the Villa Acorari, she could at all events walk about by herself, so long as she did not leave its grounds. But these grounds were tolerably extensive, and there were many quiet nooks whither Bianca was wont to resort and dream over what might be going on in that world around her, of which she supposed it must be the natural lot of princesses to know very little. The absence of perpetual supervision, the sense of being free to be alone out-of-doors if she chose to be so, was a luxury all the more enjoyable after eight months spent in Palazzo Acorari.

But within the last few weeks Bianca Acorari had become vaguely conscious of the presence of something fresh in her life, something as yet indefinable, but around which her thoughts, hitherto purely abstract, seemed to concentrate themselves. The world was no longer quite the unknown realm peopled with shadows that it had till recently appeared to her to be. It held individuals; individuals in whom she could take an interest, and who, if she was to believe what she was told, took an interest in her. That it was a forbidden interest—a thing to be talked about with bated breath, and that only to one discreet and sympathizing friend, did not by any means diminish its fascination.

It had spoken well for Mademoiselle Durand's capabilities of reading the characters of her pupils that she had at once realized that what Bianca Acorari lacked in her life was human sympathy. This the girl had never experienced; but, all the same, it was evident to any one who, like Mademoiselle Durand, had taken the trouble to study her nature, that she was unconsciously crying out for it. There was, indeed, not a person about her with whom she had anything in common. The princess, wrapped up in her religion and in her anxiety to keep her own soul in a proper state of polish, was an egoist, as people perpetually bent upon laying up for themselves treasure in heaven usually are. And Bianca practically had no other companion than her stepmother except servants, for the few people she occasionally saw at rare intervals did not enter in the smallest degree into her life.

Mademoiselle Durand had very soon discovered Bianca's desire to know the girl who lived in the apartment above her, and her annoyance that she had not been allowed to make any acquaintance with the Signorina Rossano. This very natural wish on her pupil's part to make friends with some one of her own sex, and more nearly approaching her own age than the people by whom she was surrounded, had afforded Mademoiselle Durand the very opening she required in order to commence her campaign in Silvio Rossano's interests. As she had anticipated, it had proved no difficult matter to sing the praises of the brother while apparently conversing with Bianca about the sister, and it must be confessed that she sang Silvio's praises in a manner by no means half-hearted. Nor did Mademoiselle Durand find that her efforts fell upon altogether unwilling ears. It was evident that in some way or another Bianca's curiosity had been already aroused, and that she was not altogether ignorant of the fact that the heretical professor's good-looking son regarded her with some interest.

Mademoiselle Durand, indeed, was somewhat surprised at the readiness displayed by her pupil to discuss not only Giacinta, but also Giacinta's brother, and she at first suspected that things were a little further advanced than Silvio had pretended to be the case.

She soon came to the conclusion, however, that this was not so, and that Bianca's curiosity was at present the only feeling which had been aroused in her.

Mademoiselle Durand was not particularly well-read in her Bible; but she did remember that curiosity in woman had, from the very beginning of things, been gratified by man, and also that the action of a third party had before now been necessary in order to bring the desired object within the reach of both. She was aware that the action of the third party had not been regarded as commendable; nevertheless, she quieted any qualms of conscience by the thought that, after all, circumstances in this case were somewhat different.

On this particular June afternoon Bianca Acorari was free to amuse herself in-doors as she chose until five o'clock, at which hour the princess had ordered the carriage, and Bianca would have to accompany her to visit an orphanage outside the Porta Pia. She was not at all sorry for those orphans. An orphan herself, she had always thought their life must be certainly more amusing than her own, and she had once ventured to hint as much, to the manifest annoyance of her step-mother, who had reproved her for want of charity.

The afternoon was warm, and Bianca, tired of reading, and still more tired of a certain piece of embroidery destined to serve as an altar-frontal for a convent-chapel, sat dreaming in the subdued light coming through closed persiennes. Through the open windows she could hear the distant noise of the traffic in the streets, the monotonous cry of Fragole! Fragole! of the hawkers of fresh strawberries from Nemi and the Alban Hills, and now and again the clock of some neighboring church striking the quarters of the hour.

In a little more than a fortnight, Bianca was saying to herself with satisfaction—when St. Peter's day was over, before which festival the princess would never dream of leaving Rome—she would be at the Villa Acorari, away from the dust and the glare of the city, passing those hot hours of the day in the deep, cool shade of the old ilex-trees, and listening to the murmur of the moss-grown fountains in the quiet grounds, half garden and half wilderness, that surrounded the house.

The view from the ilex avenue seemed to unfold itself before her—the vine-clad ridges melting away into the plain beneath, Cori, Norma, and Sermoneta just visible, perched on the distant mountain-sides away towards the south; and, rising out of the blue mist, with the sea flashing in the sunlight around it, Monte Circeo, the scene of so many mysterious legends both in the past and in the present. Far away over the Campagna the hot summer haze quivered over Rome. Bianca could see it all in her imagination as she sat with her hands clasped behind her tawny mass of curling hair; though, in reality, her eyes were fastened upon an indifferent painting of a Holy Family, in which St. Joseph appeared more conscious than usual of being de trop.

The three hours of studies with Mademoiselle Durand that morning had been frequently interrupted by conversation. Of late, indeed, this had often been the case. Bianca had been delighted when she learned that Mademoiselle Durand was intimate with the Rossano family, and the governess had not thought it necessary to explain that Silvio was the only member of it with whom she was on speaking terms.

The fact was that Silvio had been becoming impatient lately, and Mademoiselle Durand's task grew more difficult in consequence. To afford him any opportunity of meeting Bianca, or of interchanging even a single word with her, appeared to be impossible. The girl was too well guarded. Mademoiselle Durand had once suggested to her that she should take her some morning to the galleries in the Vatican which Bianca had never seen. The princess's permission had, of course, to be obtained, and Bianca broached the subject one day at breakfast. For a moment her step-mother had hesitated, and seemed disposed to allow her to accept Mademoiselle Durand's proposition. Unfortunately, however, Monsieur l'Abbé was present, and, true to her practice, the princess appealed to him as to whether there could be any objections.

Apparently there were objections, although the Abbé Roux did not specify them. But Bianca knew by his manner that he disapproved of the idea, and was not surprised, therefore, when the princess said it could not be—adding that she would herself take her through the Vatican some day.

It was but another instance, Bianca thought, of the priest's interference in her life, and she resented it accordingly. Latterly she had become much more friendly with Mademoiselle Durand, who had at first confined herself almost entirely to lessons during the hours she was at Palazzo Acorari.

Nevertheless, after it became evident that she would never be allowed to go out under her escort, Bianca thought it prudent not to let it be supposed that Mademoiselle Durand talked with her on any other subject but those she was engaged to talk about, lest she should be dismissed and a less agreeable woman take her place.

Whether it was that Mademoiselle Durand was urged to stronger efforts by Silvio Rossano's increasing impatience, or whether she considered the time arrived when she could safely venture to convey to her pupil that Giacinta Rossano's good-looking brother was madly in love with her, the fact remained on this particular morning that never before had she spoken so much or so openly of Silvio, and of the happiness that was in store for any girl sensible enough to marry him.

Bianca Acorari sat listening in silence for some time.

"He is certainly very handsome," she observed, presently—"and he looks good," she added, meditatively.

"Handsome!" ejaculated Mademoiselle Durand. "There is a statue in the Vatican—a Hermes, they call it— Well, never mind—of course he is handsome. And as to being good, a young man who is a good son and a good brother makes a good husband—if he gets the wife he wants. If not, it does not follow. I am sorry for that poor boy—truly sorry for him!" she added, with a sigh.

Bianca pushed away a French history book and became suddenly more interested.

"Why, mademoiselle?" she asked.

Mademoiselle Durand pursed up her lips.

"Because I fear that he will certainly be very unhappy. Enfin, he is very unhappy, so there is no more to be said."

"He did not look it when I saw him," observed Bianca, tranquilly.

Mademoiselle Durand glanced at her. Like Princess Montefiano, she was never quite sure how much might be concealed beneath Bianca's quiet manner. But, like most of her race, she was quick to seize a point in conversation and use it to advance her own argument.

"Of course he did not look it—when you saw him," she repeated, "or when he saw you," she added, significantly.

Bianca knitted her brows. "If he is unhappy," she said, "and I am very sorry he should be unhappy—I do not see how a person he does not know can make him less so."

"That," said Mademoiselle Durand, "all depends on who the person is. It is certainly very sad—poor young man!" and she sighed again.

"I suppose," Bianca said, thoughtfully, "that he is in love with somebody—somebody whom he cannot marry."

"Yes," returned Mademoiselle Durand, dryly, "he is in love with somebody. He could marry her, perhaps—"

"Then why doesn't he?" Bianca asked, practically.

Mademoiselle Durand was a little taken aback at the abruptness of the question.

"I will tell you," she replied, after hesitating for a moment or two. "He has no opportunity of seeing the girl, except sometimes as she is driving in her carriage, or well, in church. By-the-way, I believe he first saw her in a church, and fell in love with her. That was odd, was it not? But what is the use of seeing people if you can never speak to them?"

"He could speak to her parents," said Bianca, who apparently knew what was proper under such circumstances.

Mademoiselle Durand shrugged her shoulders.

"Scarcely," she said, "since they are in heaven. Besides, he would not be allowed to ask for this girl's hand in any case. She is like you, of noble birth; and, like you again, she is rich. Those about her, I dare say, are not very anxious that she should marry at all. It is possible."

Bianca Acorari did not speak for a few moments. At length she said, slowly: "I wonder what you would do, mademoiselle, if you knew somebody was in love with you, and you were not allowed to see or speak to that person?"

Mademoiselle Durand looked at her critically.

"It entirely depends," she replied.

"And upon what?"

"Upon what? Oh, upon something very simple. It would depend upon whether I were in love with him."

"I don't think it is at all simple," observed Bianca. "How would you know if you were in love with him or not?"

Mademoiselle Durand laughed outright. Then she became suddenly grave. "Well," she replied, after hesitating a moment, "I will tell you. If I thought I did not know—if I were not sure—I should say to myself: 'Marie, you are in love. Why? Because, if you are not, you would be sure of the fact—oh, quite sure!'"

"And supposing you were in love with him?" demanded Bianca. She looked beyond Mademoiselle Durand as she spoke.

"Ah—if I were, then—well, then I should leave the rest to him to manage. Between ourselves, I believe that to be what is troubling the poor young Rossano. He does not know if the girl he loves has any idea that he does so, and still less if she could ever return his love. It is very sad. If I were that girl, I should certainly find some means of letting him know that I cared for him—"

"But you say she cannot—that she would never be allowed—"

Mademoiselle Durand sang the first few bars of the habanera in "Carmen" to herself. "When two people are in love," she observed, "they do not always stop to think of what is allowed. But, if you please, Donna Bianca, we will go on with our history—I mean, our French history, not that of Monsieur Silvio Rossano," and Mademoiselle Durand suddenly reassumed her professional demeanor.

It was of this little interlude in her morning's studies that Bianca Acorari was meditating as she sat waiting for the hour when she would have to accompany her step-mother in her afternoon drive. She wished that Mademoiselle Durand would have been more communicative. It was certainly interesting to hear about Giacinta Rossano's brother. Silvio! Yes, it was a nice name, decidedly—and somehow, she thought, it suited its owner. It must be an odd sensation—that of being in love. Perhaps one always saw in the imagination the person one was in love with. One saw a well-built figure and a sun-tanned face with dark, curling hair clustering over a broad brow, and a pair of dark-blue eyes that looked—but, how they looked! as though asking a perpetual question.... How pleasant it would be there in the gardens of Villa Acorari!—so quiet and cool in the deep shade of the ilex-trees, with the sound of the water falling from the fountains. But it was a little dull to be alone—always alone. What a difference if she had had a brother, as Giacinta Rossano had. He would have wandered about with her sometimes, perhaps, in these gardens ... and he and she would have sat and talked together by the fountains where the water was always making a soft music of its own. What was the story she had heard the people tell of some heathen god of long ago who haunted the ilex grove? How still it was—and how the water murmured always ... and the eyes looked at her, always with that question in their blue depths—and the graceful head with its short, close curls bent towards her ... the god, of course—they said he often came—and how his sweet curved lips smiled at her as he stood in that chequered ray of sunlight slanting through the heavy foliage overhead....

And with a little sigh Bianca passed from dreaming into sleep; her face, with its crown of tawny gold hair, thrown into sharp relief by the red damask cushions of the chair on which she was sitting, and her lips parted in a slight smile.

VII

"Bianca is certainly a strange child," the Princess Montefiano was saying. "I confess I do not understand her; but then, I never did understand children."

Baron d'Antin looked at his sister, and then he smiled a little satirically.

"After all," he replied, "the fact is not surprising. You married too late in your life—or, shall we say, too late in your husband's life—but it does not matter! No, Bianca is decidedly not like other girls of her age, in certain ways. But I think, Jeanne, that you make a mistake in regarding her as a child. She seems to me to be a fairly well-developed young woman."

"Physically so, perhaps," returned the princess.

Her brother smiled again—not a very pleasant smile. Monsieur d'Antin was scarcely middle-aged, being a good many years younger than his sister. He was tall for a Belgian, and tolerably handsome, with well-cut, regular features, and iron-gray hair as yet fairly plentiful. But he was a man who looked as though he had "lived." His eyes had a worn, faded expression, which every now and then turned to a hard glitter when they became animated; and his small, well-shaped hands were apt to move restlessly, as though their owner's nerves were not always in the best of order.

"Physically?" he repeated. "Precisely, my dear Jeanne. Physically, your step-daughter is—well, no longer a child, we will suppose. Some young man will probably suppose the same thing one of these days; and he will presumably not wish to confine himself to suppositions," and Monsieur d'Antin blinked his eyes interrogatively at his sister.

During the last couple of years, Baron d'Antin had abandoned Brussels and Paris, where he had hitherto passed the greater part of his time, for Rome. He had certainly not chosen Rome as a place of residence on account of its worldly attractions, and its other claims to interest did not particularly appeal to him. As a matter of fact, Monsieur d'Antin found Rome exceedingly dull, as a city. It is, indeed, scarcely the capital that a man of pleasure would elect to live in. Now Monsieur d'Antin had certainly been a man of pleasure while his constitution and years had allowed him to be so, and he still liked amusing himself and being amused. Unfortunately, however, when necessity obliged him to pursue other pastimes with greater moderation, he had given way more and more to a passion for gambling, and he had left the larger portion of his patrimony in clubs, both in his own capital, in Paris, and in Nice. It was not unnatural, perhaps, that, on financial disaster overtaking him, he should have remembered his sister, the Princess of Montefiano, and have been seized with a desire to pass a season or two in Rome; and it had never, somehow or other, been quite convenient to return to Belgium or to Paris since.

He had come to Rome, he told his acquaintances, to economize; which, in plainer language, meant to say that he had come there to live upon his sister. The princess, indeed, was not unconscious of the fact; but her brother carried out his intention with such unfailing tact and consideration that she had no excuse for resenting it.

Monsieur d'Antin did not often invade the austere seclusion of Palazzo Acorari. It would, no doubt, have been more economical to breakfast and dine at his sister's table, when not bidden elsewhere, than to eat at a restaurant or club. But Monsieur d'Antin liked to be independent; and, moreover, the pious atmosphere of Palazzo Acorari did not at all appeal to him.

His sister bored him, and her entourage bored him still more. It was infinitely more convenient every now and then to borrow sums of money from her to meet current expenses, on the tacit understanding that such loans would never be repaid, than to take up his abode in Palazzo Acorari, as the princess had at first more than once suggested he should do.

Monsieur d'Antin was an egoist, pure and simple, but he could be a very agreeable egoist—so long as he was supplied with all he wanted. Fortunately, perhaps, for his popularity, his egoism was tempered by an almost imperturbable good-humor, which, as a rule, prevented it from ruffling the nerves of others.

There are some men, and a great many women, who invariably succeed in obtaining what they want out of daily life. Their needs are trifling, possibly, but then life is made up of trifles—if one chooses to live only for the present. But to be a really successful egoist, it is necessary at all events to acquire a reputation for good-humor.

Monsieur d'Antin had acquired this reputation in Rome, as he had acquired it elsewhere; and he was shrewd enough to make it one of his most useful possessions. Indeed, it was almost a pleasure to lose money to Monsieur d'Antin at cards, or to place at his disposal any convenience of which he might momentarily be in need, such was his invariable bonhomie in society. He had very soon made a place for himself in the Roman world, and in this it must be confessed that he had shown remarkable ingenuity. Had he arrived in the Eternal City possessed of ready money, it would have made no difference whether he was a Belgian gentleman or an English or American "bounder," for all Rome would have willingly allowed him to entertain it at the Grand Hotel or elsewhere, provided he got the right society women to "run him." But Baron d'Antin had arrived in Rome with no reputation at all, beyond that of being an elderly viveur who happened to be the brother of the Principessa di Montefiano. He had studied his ground, however, and it had not taken him long to come to the conclusion that an unofficial foreigner, to be a social success in modern Rome, must usually be either an adventurer or a snob, and that the two almost invariably went together. Being a gentleman in his own country, albeit in somewhat straitened circumstances, Monsieur d'Antin had at first been amazed at the apparent inability of the average Romans of society to distinguish between a foreigner, man or woman, who was well-bred and one who was not. Finally, he had come to the conclusion that good-breeding was not expected from the unofficial foreigner, nor, indeed, any other of the usual passports to society—but merely a supply of ready money and a proper appreciation of the condescension on the part of the Roman nobility in allowing it to be spent on their entertainment. This, however, was not a condition of affairs that suited Monsieur d'Antin's plans. He had come to Rome not to be lived upon by the society he found there, but to make that society useful to him. That he had done so was entirely due to his own social talents, and to his apparently amiable disposition. He had no need of the Palazzo Acorari, so far as his society and his food were concerned, for there were few evenings of the week during the winter and spring that he had not a dinner invitation; and if by any chance he had no engagement for that meal, there were various methods at his disposal of supplying the deficiency.

Altogether, Baron d'Antin had become persona grata in Roman society, and in his good-humored, careless way he had deliberately laid himself out to be so, even waiving his prejudices and suppressing a certain nervous irritation which the Anglo-Saxon race generally produced in him, sufficiently to dine with its Roman members in their rented palaces.

"My dear Jeanne," he would say to his sister, "you have no sense of humor—absolutely none at all. I dined the other night with some of my Anglo-Saxon friends—I should rather say that I passed some hours of the evening in eating and drinking with them. The wines were execrable—execrable!—and the man who poured them out told us their supposed dates. Some of them, I believe, had been purchased when Noah sold off his cellar after the subsidence of the flood—although, if I remember rightly, he liked his wine, and his—well, sacred history is more in your line than mine, Jeanne. In any case, it was very amusing—and when one looked at the fine old rooms—the mise en scène of the comedy, you know—it was more amusing still."

But Monsieur d'Antin was much too shrewd to laugh at any of the component parts of the society he had determined to exploit. Had he wanted nothing out of it, as he frequently told himself, he could have afforded to laugh a good deal; and, being possessed of a very keen sense of humor, he would probably have done so. As it was, however, he concealed his amusement, or, at the most, allowed himself to give it rein when calling upon his sister, who was unable to appreciate his sarcasms, living as she did, completely apart from the cosmopolitan society in which her brother preferred to move.

Monsieur d'Antin had been paying the princess one of his occasional visits, which he did at regular intervals. To say the truth, he did not by any means approve of the compatriot he as often as not would find sitting with his sister when he was announced. He was well aware that Jeanne was a very pious woman; and very pious women, especially those who had reached a certain age, liked to have a priest at their beck and call. This, Monsieur d'Antin considered, was very natural—pathetically natural, indeed. All the same, he wished that the Abbé Roux had been an Italian, and not a Belgian priest. When Monsieur d'Antin had first appeared upon the scene in Rome, he had instantly felt that the director of his sister's spiritual affairs was not over well pleased at his coming. Accustomed as he was to study those with whom he was likely at any time to be brought much into contact, Baron d'Antin had at once arrived at the conclusion that the abbé probably did not confine himself to the direction of Princess Montefiano's spiritual concerns only; otherwise the advent of her brother would have left him profoundly indifferent. A sudden instinct told Monsieur d'Antin that he and the priest must clash—and then he had reflected, not without some humor, that, after all, there might be such a thing as honor among thieves. He had done his best to conciliate the Abbé Roux whenever they had chanced to meet at Palazzo Acorari, but the priest had not responded in any way to his advances. Monsieur d'Antin knew that the late Prince Montefiano had left as much as the law allowed him to leave in his wife's hands, and that she was his daughter's sole guardian until the girl should marry or come of age. The princess, however, had never written to her brother concerning her affairs—neither had there been any particular reason why she should do so. Rome had absorbed her, and even for some years before her marriage she had practically become Roman in everything but in name. There are many, both women and men, whom Rome has absorbed in a similar way; nor can an explanation of her magnetic attraction always be found in religion or in art, since the irreligious and the inartistic are equally prone to fall under her spell. Rather, perhaps, is the secret of her power to be found in the mysterious sense of universal motherhood which clings around her name—in the knowledge, at once awe-inspiring and comforting, that there is no good and no evil, no joy and no sorrow which humanity can experience, unknown to her; and that however heavily the burden may bear upon our shoulders as we walk through her streets, multitudes more laden than we have trod those stones before us, and have found—rest.

It could hardly be supposed, however, that the burden borne by Princess Montefiano was of a nature requiring the psychological assistance of Rome to lighten it. So far as she was concerned—and in this she differed in no respect from many other pious people of both sexes—Rome merely suggested itself to her as a place offering peculiar facilities for the keeping of her soul in a satisfactory state of polish.

As he saw more of his sister in her home life, Monsieur d'Antin became convinced that the Abbé Roux, as he had at once suspected, by no means confined himself to directing her spiritual affairs. It was very evident that the Abbé managed Palazzo Acorari, and this was quite sufficient to account for his distant attitude towards a possible intruder. As a matter of fact, Monsieur d'Antin had no great desire to intrude. He intended to benefit by the accident of having a sister who was also a Roman princess with a comfortable dowry, and he had very quickly made up his mind not to attempt to interfere with the Abbé Roux so long as that ecclesiastic did not attempt to interfere with him.

During the last few months, Monsieur d'Antin had often found himself wondering what his sister's position would be should her step-daughter marry. In any case, scarcely four years would elapse before Donna Bianca Acorari must enter into absolute possession of the Montefiano estates, and yet it was evident that the princess regarded her as a mere child who could be kept in the background. It had not escaped his notice that it was clearly his sister's wish that Donna Bianca should not receive any more attention than would naturally be paid to a child. Nevertheless, when Monsieur d'Antin looked at the girl, he would say to himself that Jeanne was shutting her eyes to obvious facts, and that at some not very distant day they would probably be opened unexpectedly.

He had tried to make friends with Bianca, but the princess had markedly discouraged any such efforts; and latterly he had observed that his sister almost invariably sent her step-daughter out of the room if she happened to be in it when he was announced.

Bianca Acorari herself had shown no disinclination to be friendly with her newly arrived step-uncle. Anybody who was not the Abbé Roux was welcome in her eyes. When Monsieur d'Antin had first come to Rome, before he had realized the monotony of domestic life in Palazzo Acorari, he had been in the habit of coming there more frequently than was now the case, and had repeatedly dined with his sister Bianca, and occasionally the Abbé Roux, making a little partie carrée.

It had amused him to address no small part of his conversation to his step-niece during these little dinners, and Bianca had talked to him readily enough. She was pleased, possibly, at having the opportunity to show the Abbé Roux that she could talk, if there was anybody she cared to talk with. Perhaps Monsieur d'Antin, with his accustomed penetration, had already guessed that the relations between the girl and her step-mother's spiritual director were those of a species of armed neutrality, at all events upon Bianca's side. However this might be, he had affected not to perceive the obvious disapproval with which his sister regarded his endeavors always to draw Bianca into the conversation, nor the offended demeanor of the priest at being sometimes left out of it.

To say the truth, Monsieur d'Antin was by no means insensible to Bianca Acorari's physical attractions. He flattered himself that he had an eye for female beauty in its developing stages; and he had arrived at an age when such stages have a peculiar fascination for men of a certain temperament. Perhaps the observant eyes of the Abbé Roux detected more warmth in his lay compatriot's glance, as the latter laughed and talked with the girl, than altogether commended itself to his priestly sense of what was due to innocence. In any case it was certain that on the last two occasions on which Monsieur d'Antin had proposed himself to dinner at Palazzo Acorari, Bianca had presumably dined in her own apartment; for she did not appear, and when Monsieur d'Antin inquired after her, the princess had said dryly that her step-daughter was scarcely old enough to dine with grown-up people.

Monsieur d'Antin felt this banishment to be due to clerical suggestion; and so, it must be confessed, did Bianca herself. He was bound to admit, however—and he admitted it with decided complacency—that his sister was right in safeguarding her step-daughter from premature masculine admiration. He reflected, too, that in Italy—as, indeed, in Belgium, or other Catholic countries—uncles and nieces were permitted to marry under dispensations comparatively easy to obtain; and that in the case of a step-uncle, no consanguinity existed. The reflection had been a pleasant one to Monsieur d'Antin, and he looked upon the uneasiness he had apparently inspired in the mind of the Abbé Roux as a proof that he might still consider himself as dangerous to female peace of mind—whereby he showed himself to possess to the full that peculiar form of male vanity supposed to be inherent in the Gallic races.

VIII

"Yes," continued Monsieur d'Antin, as his sister gazed at him in a slightly bewildered manner, "Bianca has only got to be seen, and to see a few men who do not cover their legs with a cassock, and she will very soon find out, Jeanne, that she is no child."

"Really, Philippe!" expostulated Princess Montefiano.

"There is no necessity to be shocked," proceeded Monsieur d'Antin, tranquilly. "I know what I am talking about. There are certain temperaments—female temperaments—one has come across them, you know. Bien, your step-daughter is one of these, unless I am much mistaken. Mark my words, Jeanne, if you keep her as though she were going to be a nun, everything will go on quietly for a time, and then one fine day you will discover that she has had an affair with the footman. What would you have?" and Monsieur d'Antin shrugged his shoulders philosophically.

Princess Montefiano appeared thoroughly alarmed.

"Do you really think so?" she asked, hurriedly. "I have always looked upon Bianca as—well, as quite a child still in all these ways, you know. I wonder," she added, suddenly, looking at her brother, "what makes you think she is not."

"Ah," repeated Monsieur d'Antin, meditatively, "what makes me think she is not?"

His meditations seemed to afford him some pleasure, for he did not hurry himself to answer the question. "Well, really," he continued, at length, with a little chuckle, "I could hardly explain what it is that makes me think so, my dear Jeanne—not to you, at all events, for I do not at all suppose you would understand. But all the same, I think so—oh yes—I certainly think so!" and, rising from his chair, Monsieur d'Antin began to walk up and down the room, gently rubbing his hands together the while.

The princess looked perplexed. "After all, Philippe," she said, "Bianca is only just seventeen. Of course she is tall for her age, and, as you say—er—well developed. I suppose men only judge by what they see—"

"Precisely," interrupted Monsieur d'Antin; "it is the only way we have of forming an idea of—what we do not see."

"I have thought only of her mind—her nature," continued the princess. "I suppose," she added, "that is what you mean? I cannot say that I understand her. I find her silent—apathetic. She seems to me to interest herself in nothing."

"Probably because you do not provide her with sufficient material."

"I try to do my duty by her," returned the princess, a little stiffly. "A step-mother is always placed in a difficult position. Of course, Bianca being, as it were, like an only son, and everything going to her, does not make things easier."

Monsieur d'Antin looked at his sister curiously. She had very rarely spoken to him of family affairs, and he had very little idea how the Montefiano property was settled, beyond a natural conclusion that the old prince would have left the bulk of it to his only child and representative.

"But of course," he observed, "you are always well provided for—in the event of Bianca marrying, I mean—or, as she must do before very long, taking over the estates into her own hands?"

"There is my jointure, certainly," said the princess, "but it is not large. I do not understand business matters very well, but naturally, so long as Bianca is a minor and unmarried, I must be better off than I shall be afterwards. A great deal will depend upon Bianca's husband. That is what Monsieur l'Abbé always says to me—that we must not be in a hurry to marry Bianca. She must not marry a man who simply wants her titles and money to use them for his own purposes."

"Monsieur l'Abbé is perfectly right," said Baron d'Antin, with a dry little laugh.

The princess glanced at him. "You do not like him," she said.

Monsieur d'Antin hesitated for a moment. Then he laughed again, easily.

"Not like him?" he repeated. "But, my dear Jeanne, I like him very much. I am not fond of priests as a rule. They are not—well, not what I am accustomed to, you know. But your tame abbé, I should say that he was a most estimable person, and, no doubt, to a woman in your position, a most useful adviser."

The princess sighed. "Oh, most useful!" she exclaimed. "He is a good man of business, too," she continued. "I feel that he acts as a kind of intermediary between me, as Bianca's representative, and the agents and people. After all, Philippe, I am a foreigner, you know—though I scarcely feel myself to be one—and Bianca is not. So I am doubly glad of Monsieur l'Abbé's advice sometimes."

"But he is as much a foreigner as you are, Jeanne," remarked Monsieur d'Antin.

"Oh, but then he is a priest!" exclaimed the princess. "That makes such a difference. You see, he was brought up in Rome, and went through his studies here."

"An admirable training," said Monsieur d'Antin, suavely.

"Yes, admirable," assented the princess. "It gives such a grasp of, such an insight into, human nature. That is one of the strange things about Bianca, for instance," she added, suddenly.

"That she has an insight into human nature?" demanded Monsieur d'Antin. "If she has, Jeanne, it must be a miraculous gift, for she can have seen little enough of it."

"No, no! I mean that she cannot bear Monsieur l'Abbé. Would you believe it, Philippe, that notwithstanding all his kindness, that child positively refuses to go to confession to him? She refused years ago, and now I never mention the subject."

"Tiens!" observed Monsieur d'Antin.

"It is incredible," continued his sister, "but nevertheless it is true."

Monsieur d'Antin shrugged his shoulders.

"It appears," he said, enigmatically, "that your step-daughter also has studied in Rome."

The princess dropped her voice mysteriously.

"I believe," she said, "that the mother, my blessed husband's first wife, you know, was an odd woman—or child, rather—for she was little more. There was some story—she was in love with some other man who was not thought a good enough match for her, and her family obliged her to marry my poor husband. It was not a happy marriage."

"That," observed Monsieur d'Antin, "was no doubt his reason for marrying again. He was determined to find happiness."

"Ah, well!" Princess Montefiano replied, with a sigh—"he needed rest. His life had been a troubled one, and he needed rest."

Monsieur d'Antin smiled sympathetically. He had heard it remarked in Rome that the late Montefiano had indeed worn himself out at a comparatively early period in life.

"I do not wonder," he said, presently, "that you feel the responsibility of selecting a suitable husband for Bianca. All the same," he added, "I think you will be wise to contemplate the possibility of her not remaining a child indefinitely. If you do not, I should be inclined to regard the footmen as a perpetual source of anxiety."

"Philippe!" exclaimed the princess. "You are really perfectly scandalous! One does not allude to such things, even in jest. But I see what you mean, although I must say that I think you put it rather grossly. I will consult Monsieur l'Abbé about the advisability of gradually letting Bianca see a few more people. I don't want it to be supposed that I am keeping her from marrying when the proper time comes for her to do so; and my only object would be to find her a suitable husband. Of course, as Monsieur l'Abbé says her marriage must almost certainly alter my own circumstances, but one must not allow one's self to think of that."

"Ah," said Monsieur d'Antin, thoughtfully, "Monsieur l'Abbé says so, does he?"

"It is natural that he should look at the matter from all points of view," returned the princess.

"Perfectly natural—from all points of view," repeated Monsieur d'Antin; "and," he added to himself, "more particularly from his own, I imagine. Well," he continued, "I must leave you, Jeanne. I should consult Monsieur Roux, by all means. He looks as though he knew something about feminine development—your little abbé; and you tell me that he has studied in Rome. Au revoir, my dear Jeanne—à bientot! Ah, by-the-way, there is one little matter I had nearly forgotten. Could you without inconvenience—but absolutely without inconvenience—lend me a thousand francs or so? Two thousand would be more useful—I do not say no. In a few weeks my miserable rents must come in, and then we will settle our accounts—but, in the mean time, it would be a great convenience."

The princess looked uneasy. "I will try," she said; "but, to say the truth, it is not a very favorable moment—"

Monsieur d'Antin waved his hands.

"Not a word—not a word more, I beg of you, my dear Jeanne!" he exclaimed. "You will think the matter over; and if two thousand is not convenient, I must make one thousand suffice. In the mean time, di nuovo, as the Italians say," and he kissed his sister affectionately and hurried from the room.

As he walked from the Palazzo Acorari to his little apartment in the Ludovisi quarter of the city, Monsieur d'Antin was unusually preoccupied, and more than once he chuckled to himself. His sister Jeanne was certainly not gifted with a sense of humor, but he found himself wondering whether she was quite as incompetent to look after her own affairs as she wished him to believe. Experience taught him that while piety and humor seldom went together, piety and a shrewd eye to worldly advantage were by no means unfrequently to be found working very harmoniously side by side.

Somebody in Palazzo Acorari, Monsieur d'Antin felt convinced, had an interest in maintaining the status quo, so far as the existing constitution of the Montefiano establishment was concerned. Jeanne might be a bad woman of business, but, when all was said and done, at thirty-five or so, with no money—with nothing, in short, except a local reputation for holiness—she had succeeded in marrying a man who had been able to give her a very substantial position in the world, and who had had the tact to leave her a good many years in which to enjoy its full advantages without the incubus of his company.

But it was more likely that Jeanne allowed herself to be swayed by the counsels of the priest whom, according to her own account, she always consulted. It was conceivable, nay, it was even probable, that Monsieur l'Abbé Roux might desire that Donna Bianca Acorari should remain as much as possible secluded from the world for reasons of his own. So long as she remained unmarried, so long would she, no doubt, be content that the Montefiano properties should be managed more or less as they had been hitherto managed; and who could tell how much benefit the Abbé Roux might not, directly or indirectly, gain from the present system of management.

And Bianca Acorari? Monsieur d'Antin allowed his thoughts to dwell upon her dreamy face, with its eyes that seemed always to be looking into an unexplored distance, upon the curved mouth and firm, rounded throat, upon the graceful lines of the figure just melting into womanhood, and came to the conclusion that Jeanne and her abbé were a couple of fools. Why, the girl had something about her that stirred even his well-worn passions—and how would it not be with a younger man? She had some idea, too, of her own power, of her own charm, unless he was very much mistaken. It was a vague, undefined consciousness, perhaps, but none the less fascinating on that account. A child? Nonsense! A peach almost ripe for the plucking.