"I never said he was," said Nino.
"Oh!" gasped Nancy, "you did!"
"I said nothing of the kind," declared Nino. "Your father was a good and noble man."
"You know I was not talking of my father," said Nancy.
"No more was I," said Nino.
Nancy turned to Della Rocca, who was preluding carelessly with smooth fingers and all his smiles alight.
"Nino always cavils and confuses until one does not know what one is talking about!"
Della Rocca nodded. "That is just what his celebrated friend, Nunziata Villari, said about him when I saw her in Naples. By the way, Nino,"—he ran up a quick scale of fourths and let them fall in a minor arpeggio like tumbling water—"they say La Villari tried to commit suicide last month. Locked herself up with a brazier of coke, like a love-sick grisette. Did you hear about it?"
"No," said Nino, "I did not." Then he looked long, mildly, fixedly at Della Rocca, who after a moment got up and said good-bye.
When he had left, Nancy said to Nino: "Who is La Villari? And why did she try to kill herself? La Villari! I thought that was an actress who had died a hundred years ago."
Nino took her hand. "You don't know anything, Nancy," he said. "You don't even know that you are a vulture and a shark."
Nancy laughed. "Yes, but who is La Villari?"
"She is someone you have devoured," said Nino.
And, remembering the brazier of coke, he left for Naples by the next train; for, though he had a nose of putty, he had a heart of gold.
XIV
During the long, dreary journey in an empty carriage of the slow train Nino fought his battles and chastened his soul. He set his conscience on the empty seat before him and looked it in the face. The desires of his heart sat near him, and took his part. His conscience had a dirty face that irritated him; his desires were fair as lilies and had high treble voices that spoke loud. His conscience said nothing, only sat there showing its dirty face and irritating him.
By the time Bologna was reached the lilies had it all their own way. After all he was young—well, comparatively young; thirty-one is young for a man—and he had his life before him, while Nunziata—well, she had lived her life. And she had had eight years of his: the eight best years, for after all at thirty-one a man is not young—well, not so young. His conscience was staring at him, so he changed argument. Nunziata did not really love him any more, she had told him so a hundred times during the last two years; it was a burden, a chain of misery to them both. She had herself begged him to leave her after one of those well-remembered, never-ending scenes that were always occurring since she had finally abandoned the theatre for his sake.
She had said: "Go! I implore you to go! I cannot live like this any longer! For my sake, go!" So it was really in order to please her that he had gone.
The face of his conscience opposite him was looking dirtier than ever. But the treble voices of his desires rang shrilclass="underline" "He must not forget his duties to himself and to others. He had a duty to his father, who longed to have him near him, settled happily and normally; he had a duty to Valeria, who–" Here he quickly changed argument again. "He had a duty to Nancy, to little, innocent, wonderful Nancy, who understood nothing of the world; she must be saved from designing knaves, from struggling littérateurs and poets who would like to marry her and use her vogue in order to scramble up to a reputation, from the professional beau jeune homme like Aldo, who would break her heart.... It really was his duty–" The train slowed, shivered, and stopped. He was glad to get out, and rush to a hurried supper in the buffet, because the ugly face opposite him was more than he could stand.
All through the night in the slow train to Rome he fought his battles and chastened his soul, and the little ugly face said not a word, but looked at him.
When day dawned he had broken the lilies, and they lay, whiter than before, at his feet. And the face of his conscience was clean. When Rome was reached, where he had three hours to wait for the Naples express, he hurried into the telegraph-office and sent a message to Nunziata:
"Arriving this evening at nine. Forgive. Yours for ever, Nino."
Then, just as he was getting into the hotel omnibus, he learned that a special excursion train was leaving for Naples at once. He could arrive four hours sooner. He hastened back into the station, caught the train, and was already approaching Naples when La Villari received his telegram.
La Villari had just begun her luncheon, and the spaghetti al burro e formaggio lay in a goodly heap of pale gold on her plate. She had just put her fork into them and begun to turn it round and round, when Teresa came in excitedly.
"A telegram, Illustrissima," she said.
La Villari opened the telegram. "Misericordia!" she said. "He is coming back."
Teresa cleaned her hands on her apron. What? The Signorino? He was returning?
"Yes, to-night. At nine o'clock," sighed La Villari.
Well, let the Illustrissima not allow the spaghetti to get cold. And Teresa sighed also, as she left the room and hustled the telegraph-boy off without giving him a tip.
They had been so happy without the Signorino. They had had such quiet, comfortable meals. The Illustrissima had had no nerves, no convulsions, but a good appetite and a pleasant temper. Now it would all begin again: the excitements, the tempers of the Illustrissima; the dinner left to get cold while the Illustrissima and the Signorino quarrelled; the rushings out of the Signorino; the tears of the Illustrissima; the telephone messages; the visitors and relations to argue with and console the Illustrissima; then the returnings of the Signorino; and supper for everybody in the middle of the night. It was not a life.
Teresa brought in the auburn cutlet a la Milanese. There! already it was beginning. The Illustrissima had not eaten the spaghetti!
"Do not bother me with the spaghetti," said the Illustrissima, who already had the nerves. "Let us think about this evening."
"Yes," said Teresa. "Shall we have vol-au-vent that His Excellency likes?"
"Oh, do not bother me with vol-au-vent!" cried the Illustrissima. "Do you not understand that he must not find us like this?"
"Vossignoria will put on the blue crêpe-de-chine gown," said Teresa; "and I will order the coiffeuse for six o'clock."
Yes, yes; but that was not sufficient. Nino must not find her sitting there waiting for him, as if she had no one in the world but him.
"Go away, Teresa, go away! I must think," she said. And Teresa went to her kitchen grumbling.
La Villari's views of life and her manner of dealing with situations were according to Sardou, Dumas, or D'Annunzio. Nino must either find her supine in a darkened room, with etiolated cheeks and blue shadows under her spent eyes; or then, after his arrival, she must enter, coming from some brilliant banquet, rose-crowned and laughing. She sees him! She vacillates. Her jewelled hand clutches at her heart. "Nino!"—and he is at her feet.... Then he makes her a scene of jealousy. Where has she been? With whom? Where was she when his telegram arrived? Who sends her all these flowers? Pah! He throws them out of the window—and all is as it should be.
As it happened, there were no flowers in the room. So La Villari rang the bell and told Teresa to order fifty francs worth of white roses and tuberoses from the florist, to be brought as soon as possible, and the hair-dresser for six o'clock, and the brougham for seven.
"And, Teresa!…"
Teresa turned back with a dreary face.
"Remember that it was you who opened the telegram. I was out. I am always out. With many people, you understand."
Yes, Teresa understood. And with callous back and shuffling shoes she went away to order the flowers, and the brougham, and the hair-dresser.
La Villari unpinned her hair, put the greater part of it neatly on the dressing-table in readiness for the coiffeuse, rubbed a little lanoline round her eyes, and settled herself with Matilde Serao's "Indomani" to one more peaceful afternoon.