Harold MacGrath

“ Romance! She was no longer a girl; she was a woman of five and twenty; and what should a woman know of romance? Ah, there had been a time when all the world was romance, romance; when the night breeze had whispered it under her casement-window, when the lattice-climbing roses had breathed it, when the moon and the stars had spelled it. Romance! She hated the word not less than she hated the Italian language, the Italian people, the country itself. She spurned the letter with her foot and fed the newspaper to the fire. She would let Bettina answer the letter. ”

“ The rim of the early moon shouldered above the frowning death-mask of Napoleon, the huge salmon-tinted mountain on the far side of the Lecco. In the villages the day-sounds had given way to the more peaceful voices of the night. They could hear the occasional light laughter of the gardeners on the second terrace; the bark of a dog in the hills; from the house of the silk-weaver came the tinkle of a guitar. In the houses on the hill opposite and in the villages below the first lights of evening began to glimmer, now here, now there, like fireflies become stationary. ”

“ Down the hill they went, as if a thousand devils were after them.
"By George!" gasped Merrihew, clutching his seat; "the fool will break our necks!"
"They are always like this," laughed Hillard. "Slowly, slowly!" he called.
Tomass' grinned and cracked his whip. He did not understand the word slowly in his own tongue or in any other; at least, not till he reached the shops. It was business to go slowly there. A dozen times, on the Via Roma, Merrihew yelled that they would lose a wheel. But Tomass' knew the game. A man on foot could not have eluded collisions more skilfully. ”

“ There were private yachts, Adriatic liners, all brilliant with illumination, and hundreds of gondolas, bobbing, bobbing, like captive leviathans, bunched round the gaily-lanterned barges of the serenaders. There was only one flaw to this perfect dream: the shrill whistle of the ferry-boats. They had no place here, and their presence was an affront.
"How I hate them!" said La Signorina. "The American influence! Some day they will be filling up the canals and running trams over them. What is beauty and silence if there be profit in ugliness and noise?"
"La Signorina—" began Kitty. ”

“ Am I in prosaic New York? Have you not, by some carpet-magic, transported me to old Europe? If a dozen conspirators came in in cowls to render me the oath, I should not be at all surprised."
"There is no magic; only a mask."
"And there is no way of seeing behind that?"
"None, absolutely none. I am told that you are a gentleman; so I am confident that you will not stoop to use force."
"Only the force of eloquence, if ever I may lay claim to that again."
"You are beginning well. For I tell you, Mr. Hillard, I shall expect but the most brilliant wit from you to-night. ”

“ He was an idle young man, after a fashion; that was because he had not been waked up. But under his jest and under his laughter she was sure that there was courage and purpose and high emprise. Take care! she thought. Take care! Might not this little dream carry her too far out to sea?... To have met a man like this one in time! How gracefully, how boyishly, he had kissed her hand! More than this, there had been an artless admiration in his upturned eyes, an expression which a gentleman of the Old World would have lacked. Why had she sent him that mask? ”

“ At each intersection Pompeo called right or left musically. Sometimes the moon would find its way through the brick and marble cañon, or the bright ferrule of another gondola flashed and disappeared into the gloom. Under bridges they passed, they glided by little restaurants where the Venetians, in olden days, talked liberty for themselves and death to the Austrians, and at length they came out upon the Grand Canal where the Rialto curves its ancient blocks of marble and stalactites gleam ghostly overhead.
"There, this is better."
"It is always better when you are with me," said Kitty. ”

“ Italy was the last resort; and the business of giving Merrihew a personally conducted tour would occupy his mind. Always he was asking: Who was she? What mystery veiled her? Whither had she gone? We never can conjure up a complete likeness. Sometimes it is the eyes, again the mouth and chin, or the turn of the throat; there is never any ensemble of features and adornments. And as for Hillard, he really had nothing definite to recall, unless it was the striking color of her hair or the mellow smoothness of her voice. ”

“ Soon the train began to lift into the mountains, the beautiful Apennines, and Merrihew counted so many tunnels he concluded that this was where the inventor of the cinematograph got his idea. Just as some magnificent valley began to unfold, with a roar the train dashed into a dank, sooty tunnel. One could neither read nor enjoy the scenery; nothing to do but sit tight and wait, let the window down when they passed a tunnel, lift it when they entered one. By the time they arrived in Genoa, late at night, both compared favorably with the coalers in the harbor of Naples. ”

“ Often a guide will point out some little palace and dramatically whisper that this will be the villa of a famous ballerina, or Spanish dancer, or opera singer, or some duchess whose husband never had any duchy. And seldom these villas are more than a stone's throw from the villas of the princes and grand dukes and kings. Nobility and royalty are fond of jovial company. ”

“ On the very western limit of Villefranche, on the winding white road which rises out of Nice, a road so frequently passed over by automobiles that a haze of dust always hangs over it, is a modest little villa, so modest that a ballerina would scorn it and a duchess ignore it. It is, in truth, a pensione, where only those who come well recommended are accepted as guests. ”

“ But here was old Pietro standing close by. It was all real. At odd whiles he had a vision of Kitty in her simple white dress, of Merrihew's flushed face, of Hillard's frowning pallor, of La Signorina wholly in black, a rare necklace round her white throat, a star of emeralds in her hair, her face calm and serene. Where would they all be on the morrow?
"Pietro, she is more than beautiful!" sighed O'Mally.
"But wait," said Pietro. He alone among the men knew the cause of Worth's disappearance. "Trouble." ”

“ In the restaurant there was no one but a lonely Russian countess, who had spent part of the year at the villa for more than a decade. He doffed his hat as he passed through the room and gained the picturesque terrace. Afar he saw a table spread under the great oak. A woman sat by it. She was gazing down the winding terraces toward the Lecco. It was still daylight, and he would have known that head of hair among the ten thousand houris of heaven. Softly, softly! he murmured to his heart, now become insurgent. ”

“ So they walked round to the entrance to the gaming halls, where the lights, the gowns, the jewels, the sparkling eyes, the natural beauty and the beauty of enamel, the vague perfumes, the low murmur of voices, the soft rustle of silks, the music of ringing gold, all combine to produce a picture and ensemble as beautiful as a mirage and as false. Nothing is real in Monte Carlo but the little pieces of gold and the passion to win them. ”

“ From one barge to another the gondolas drifted, finally clustering round the middle barge of the Troupe San Marco, which offered the best voices. Between songs a man of acrobatic accomplishments would jump nimbly from the prow of one gondola to another, stepping lightly here, balancing neatly there, and always with the upturned tambourine extended for silver and copper largess.
Merrihew sat in the bottom of the gondola, while Hillard lay sprawled across the cushions on the seat. The prima donna was singing the jewel-song from Faust, and not badly. ”

“ It was more like they talk in Venice. And yet the sound of the voice decided me. The hills have always been calling to me; and I must answer."
"And the unforgetting carabinieri?"
"Oh, I must take my chance," with the air of a fatalist.
"What shall you do?"
"I have my two hands, signore. Besides, the signore has said it; I am rich." Giovanni permitted a smile to stir his thin lips. "Yes, I must go back. Your people have been good to me and have legally made me one of them, but my heart is never here. It is always so cold and every one moves so quickly. You can not lie down in the sun. ”

“ How few who plunge into this maelstrom of chance ever rise again! The lure of gold, there is nothing stronger save death. Fool and rogue, saint and sinner, here they meet and mingle and change. To those who give Monte Carlo but a trifling glance, toss a coin or two on the tables, and leave by the morrow's train, it has no real significance; it is simply one of the sights of Europe. ”

“ Sorrento, that jewel of the ruddy clifts! There was fog outside his window, and yet how easy it was to picture the turquoise bay of Naples shimmering in the morning light! There was Naples itself, like a string of its own pink coral, lying crescent-wise on the distant strand; there were the snowcaps fading on the far horizon; the bronzed fishermen and their wives, a sheer two hundred feet below him, pulling in their glistening nets; the amethyst isles of Capri and Ischia eternally hanging midway between the blue of the sky and the blue of the sea ”

“ Giovanni scorned to hide his tears. Ah, these Americans! Who could match them for impulsive generosity? "I will pay it back," he said.
"No, I give it to you, Giovanni. It will ease my conscience of the sin of gambling."
"Both of you will live to a good old age," said Giovanni prophetically. "Good men are needed in the world, and God doesn't take all of them young."
"And the man?" Hillard could not refrain from putting this question.
Giovanni looked down. "The signore told me never to speak of that again." ”

“ Hillard; I am just fooling. You are too sensible a man to fall in love with a shadow, a mask. Your fancy has been trapped, that is all. One does not fall in love that way."
"You ought to know," with a sidelong glance at Sandford.
As her glance followed his, hers grew warm and kindly. Sandford, by chance meeting the look, smiled back across the room. This little by-play filled Hillard with a sense of envy and loneliness. At three-and-thirty a bachelor realizes that there is something else in life besides business and travel. ”

“ As the carabinieri were about to lay hands upon La Signorina, a loud voice from the hall stopped them.
"One moment!" An officer in riding breeches and dusty boots entered and approached the dramatic group. Hillard and Merrihew recognized him instantly. It was the man with the scar. "What is the trouble?"
"This woman," explained one of the carabinieri, saluting respectfully, "is posing as your wife, Highness. We are here to arrest her."
"Do not touch her!" said the prince. "She has the most perfect right in the world to do what she has done. She is the Principessa di Monte Bianca, my wife!" ”

“ I couldn't drag you from Raphael's Madonna of the Chair. She is as beautiful as that."
"Imagination is a wonderful thing," was Merrihew's solitary comment.
"Mine has not been unduly worked in this instance," Hillard declared with emphasis. "Beauty in women has always been to me something in the abstract, but it is so no longer. There is one thing which I wish to impress upon you, Dan. She is not an adventuress. She has made no effort to trap me. On the contrary, she has done all she could to keep out of my way."
"It's a curious business; the dinner, the mask, the veil, the mystery. ”

“ There is no man worth the exchange."
Kitty was not wholly sure of this, so she made no response.
"What a beautiful palace!" she cried presently, pointing to a house in darkness, not far from the house of Petrarch. It was only the interior of the house that was in darkness. The moon poured broadly upon it. The leaning gondola-posts stood like sleeping sentinels, and the tide murmured over the marble steps.
Pompeo, seeing Kitty's gesture and not understanding her words, swung the gondola diagonally across the canal.
"No, no, Pompeo!" La Signorina spoke in Italian. ”

“ We can not avoid what is to be."
He was pale, but not paler than she.
"I offer you nothing, Mr. Hillard, nothing; no promise, no hope, nothing. A few days longer, and we shall separate finally."
She was about to rise and ask him to excuse her and retire, when Merrihew and Kitty came into view. There was nothing now to do but wait. She sought ease from the tenseness of the moment in sorting the roses. Hillard stirred the cold dregs in his tea-cup. Cold dregs, indeed! The light of the world was gone out. ”

“ Light-o'-loves, gay and careless; hideous old crones, who watched the unwary and stole the unwary's bets; old women in black, who figured and figured imaginary winnings and never risked anything but their nerves. And there were beautiful women, beautifully gowned, beautifully gemmed, some of them good, some of them indifferent, and some of them bad. Invariably Hillard found himself speculating on the history of this woman or that; the more gems, the more history. Here the half-world of Europe finds its kingdom and rules it madly. ”