Amaldi

“ Amaldi went on:
"It had to come. I meant to tell you. I hoped that I would be strong enough ... but I'm not. It's beyond me.... I can't endure it—this being near you ... knowing you are free ... loving you ... loving you ... having only your friendship. No man could endure it ... no real man...."
He broke off. The next instant he said, "Forgive me. It seems brutal to speak so ... so bluntly—but at least there must be truth between us."
Sophy said in a choked voice:
"If you think all the suffering is yours ... you ... you are mistaken, Amaldi." ”

“ Sophy imagined that he was pleading for the life of some one dear to him—a little child maybe. She just touched Amaldi's arm, and they went out again.
"I'm afraid it jarred on you—my going in there," she said softly, looking up into his face in the gloom of the narrow street. "But the places where the poor worship always draw me—they seem so real—I can't explain—but they move me—deeply."
"I understand," said Amaldi. "It is so with me, too."
"But I thought——"
She broke off.
"The faith of the simple-hearted is always moving," he said. "It isn't the faith of the people I question. ”

“ At that moment, so strong is the fleshly man in even the most highly evolved being, he could have wished that she had loved a monster for his soul, rather than this stripling for his beauty. The power of vivid visualisation is one of a Latin's chief tortures when unrequited love mocks him. Amaldi could see the beauty of Sophy and Loring in each other's arms as plainly as though they had stood enlaced before him. ”

“ Then Sophy forced herself to speak.
"You are very great, Amaldi," she said uncertainly, her hand still over her eyes. "You ... you should give all your life to music."
He answered in a voice as strange as his look had been just now:
"All my life is not mine to give to music."
She could not think of any fitting response to this. Silence fell again. She broke it nervously by asking him to play more for her, "something not quite so despairing." She smiled as she said this, but Amaldi thought: "She knows now that I know." ”

“ Amaldi ..." she murmured. She caught his hand in both her own. "Oh, forgive me...." she said; "dear, dear Amaldi, forgive me!"
He bent and kissed the hands that clasped his.
"There is nothing to forgive," he answered.
It seemed to Sophy afterwards, when she came more to her usual self out there on the glee of blue waters, far from Le Vigne, that they two had been like actors moving through some pantomime, during those last moments. In silence they had walked together to the darsena; in silence he had assisted her into the launch; in silence she had sat watching Luigi start the engine. ”

“ She loved the creaking of the saddle, and the massive satin of his shoulders as each step sent the great joint in rotary motion, making a shining ripple along the sleek hide. She felt all lifted up high above the normal griefs and trials of life. As she galloped to and fro, she thought of Amaldi, and recalled her presentiment of something important about to happen to her last evening. Had it happened? Was her meeting with Amaldi an important thing? Perhaps his friendship was to prove vital. He, too, had known unhappiness—of [Pg 22] that she was certain. ”

“ She sent word to Amaldi by the messenger who brought his note that she would be ready to go with him next day at noon.
He did not tell her of what Barti had said, and she did not ask him until they were alone in the garden of Villa Rosalia.
When he told her about the possible alternative of Hungary, she gave a cry of pain. [Pg 549]
"I can't bear it.... I can't bear it that you should make such sacrifices!..." she stammered.
"When a man loves as I love you, there aren't any sacrifices," said Amaldi. ”

“ It was the fan of white peacock feathers that Amaldi had once admired. She thought of him suddenly as she took it in her hand. How would he have looked had he seen that dance?— She reddened. Why did such thoughts come to one? Life was quite difficult enough without these unbidden, scathing fancies. She tried to put on a natural, easy expression. As is always the case, this gave her face a strained look—the look of one "sitting" for a photograph.
On his side, Loring's had an expression that Sophy was only too familiar with—but until now, she had never seen it on his face. ”

“ I know nothing in literature more touching than the way that passion and grammar struggle for mastery on every one of his wonderful pages!"
Amaldi listened with his quiet smile. He himself was not in a talkative mood that night. Besides, he was one of those men who, while seeming outwardly unconscious of what is not directly in contact with them, notice everything that takes place, and he had caught those dark looks cast by Cecil Chesney at Sophy and himself. Now he was glad to see that she was becoming diverted and roused from her listlessness by the talk of Oswald Tyne and his friend. ”

“ Perhaps she was so late because she had decided suddenly to be married to the Marchese. Perhaps she would come back with him and say: "Bobby, this is your new father." The mere idea had filled him with a blackness of resentment and jealousy. Not until Sophy had replied that Amaldi was already married had this feeling subsided, though his joy in having his mother again with him, safe and sound, all his own for the time being, had made him put it aside for the first few moments. But boyhood is terribly reserved in some things. ”

“ It was so long—so unbelievably long—since she had talked pleasantly with a man who was interested in the things that she found interesting. And they would sit often, over the tea-table on the sea-lawn, before the others came in from driving or riding, exchanging ideas on philosophy and religion and poetry and art. She asked Amaldi about his everyday life. He replied smiling that he had become as ardent an agriculturist as Cavour had once been. Sophy did not know about this phase in the great statesman's career. ”

“ I see real danger for you there, Marco—unless you are on your guard every moment of the time you are with her. A woman feels such things intuitively—and intuition is a very sure force, no matter what sceptics may say of it. I want you to open your 'mind's eye' wide, my dear boy, and look this possibility squarely in the face. Will you?"
Amaldi sat perfectly still. The only sign that he was moved in any way was the cigarette which went out between his fingers, and which he put to his lips now and then as if unaware that it was out. ”

“ He had not once glanced towards Sophy since he and her husband began their talk; but he saw, without looking at her, the tall figure in its white serge gown, bending over the masses of Michaelmas daisies that she had brought in from a walk, and was arranging in one of the old apothecary jars from Intra.
It hurt Amaldi to look at Chesney as it hurts some people to look on blood—gave him just that faint, gone feeling. The very fact that he was so magnificent a man to look at hurt him that much more. ”

“ I was told you were in Milan. It—it is from—my husband.... Wait!" she cried almost imperiously, as she saw the recoil of his whole figure. "You must listen—you must understand. He ... my husband ... has been very ill. This ... this letter is an apology, Marchese—an apology to you."
Amaldi bowed formally, and took the letter. His face was inscrutable. He started to put the envelope unopened into his pocket.
Sophy, flushing deeply, murmured:
"Won't you even read it?"
Amaldi bowed again.
"There is no need," he said. ”

“ And in Sophy's mind was the consciousness of what [Pg 27] Olive Arundel had told her, only the day before, about the tragedy of Amaldi's life. It seemed that when he was only twenty-three he had made a mariage de convenance to please his father. He had married his cousin, Clelia Castelli. Two years afterwards she had been unfaithful to him. Amaldi had fought with her lover. Then husband and wife had separated. There is no divorce in Italy. ”

“ For Amaldi because he loved her; for Sophy because she loved Italy. They were also very hungry, and it is odd how it increases sympathy for two young and hungry people to eat together. Sophy felt that she had known Amaldi a long time when they rose from the little iron table on the terrace of Isola Pescatori.
They went for a stroll through the crooked streets. As they passed the Village Church—Sophy hesitated, then entered. He followed and they stood side by side, glancing about them. Three peasant women and a man were kneeling on the dark benches. ”

“ Sophy's heart was empty of the coin of love—but it brimmed with pity—the heavy, leaden currency of pity.
The only real pleasure that she had in these days was from Amaldi's letters. The first one had been sent from the steamer in which he had sailed for Italy a few days after she had left Newport. It was rather short, rather shy. "You must forbear with my English, please," he had said. "I find it much more hard to write than in speaking." ”

“ Sophy seated herself, slipped off his quaint hat, and ran her hand over the short dark red curls. It seemed to Amaldi that the white hand quivered with ecstasy over the child's head like a white moth over a flower. The boy was not beautiful, but he had his mother's eyes, though he did not look like his mother. [Pg 29]
"This is my little man ... this is Bobby," said Sophy, smiling from the boy to Amaldi, and sliding the child from her knee upon his feet.
"You really mustn't mind if he isn't friendly—he doesn't seem to like many people—and none, just at first." ”

“ And Sophy danced for the first time in several weeks.
As soon as Amaldi saw her, with that tense, bright fever of beauty upon her, he knew that she was at some crisis. Something of this look she had had that night in London when he first met her. What was it? What had brought this strange, "fatal" look to her? Love and apprehension strung him to the utmost pitch. For he had seen agony under her bright cloak of exaltation. He feared now that he must have been mistaken. That her love for Loring still survived.... ”

“ Mrs. Van Raalt was chattering again. "Just think what an odd thing Marco's been doing in America!... He's been all over the West studying the system of agriculture. Isn't that the funniest way for an Italian to spend his time in America?"
"But you've been in America before, haven't you?" said Sophy mechanically.
She was thinking what an air of race Amaldi had, and how quiet and strong he looked standing there against the whirling, parti-coloured background of the ball. Somehow she did not remember in him this powerful look of manhood. Then she realised—he was more a man. ”

“ Sophy said thoughtfully. Then she turned to him again.
"You are so much more serious about it than the other Italians I've known, who were anti-clerical. They seemed just to shrug their shoulders over it—took it half laughingly."
"A man shouldn't take it with a shrug or half laughingly that the women of his country are under the thumb of a hierarchy," said Amaldi with some vehemence. [Pg 206] "There is a great hour coming for women, all over the world—yet a true Italian can't wish this for his country-women, as long as their fuller power would be just another weapon in the hands of priests." ”

“ He flung himself into all sorts of agricultural and civic reforms and enterprises. Political life, as an end in itself, did not appeal to him, but he thought with Cavour in regard to the "need which every worthy man feels of making himself useful to the society of which he is a part."
Then had come the news of Sophy's marriage to Loring. Amaldi had had another bitter recrudescence of feeling over that. ”

“ Tea was served indoors instead of on the lawn. As usual Belinda and Loring came in from a long ride together.
Belinda still kept up an intermittent coquetry with Amaldi, though he did not meet her with the complaisance of those first days. Italians particularly object to being used as cat's-paws, even by a pretty woman. And in this instance Amaldi's natural aversion from serving such a purpose was increased by his resentment on behalf of Sophy. ”

“ The through tickets that Lady Wychcote had bought to Paris might be only a blind. She must be very certain when she acted to act in the surest way. A favourite saying of Judge Macon's came into her mind. "Be sure you're right—then go ahead." Besides, Amaldi might be at the Rio San Vio by now. He would be sure to advise her in the sanest, most clear-sighted way. He was the very man to stand firm in a crisis, not to lose his head. Then, with a hot recoil of shame, she thought of what she must tell him. She had not yet taken in what all this might also mean to her and Amaldi. ”

“ She says that she has added all the Italian superstitions to the American ones."
"Is your mother an American?" said Sophy, surprised and pleased at this idea. If Amaldi's mother was an American, that would account in a great measure, she thought, for her feeling towards him—that odd feeling of having known him before. ”

“ What makes me bitter is that an Italian should not be able to free himself from a worthless woman [Pg 548] in his own country. Yes, Barti, that makes me bitter, I confess."
They spoke together a few moments longer. When Amaldi left, it had been decided that Barti was to leave for Buda-Pesth that night.
LI
On the same afternoon, Amaldi sent Sophy a note, saying that he had some important things that he would like to talk over with her, and asking if she would not go with him again by gondola up the Brenta to see his mother. ”