Edith Wharton: Complete Works. Edith Wharton

statues, seemed rather some pictured fabric of Claude’s or Bibbiena’s than an actual building of brick and marble. The turn of a corner carried him from this spectacle into the solitude of a by-street where his own tread was the only sound. He walked on carelessly; but suddenly he heard what seemed an echo of his step. He stopped and faced about. No one was in sight but a blind beggar crouching at the side-door of the Corpus Christi. Odo walked on, listening, and again he heard the step, and again turned to find himself alone. He tried to fancy that his ear had tricked him; but he knew too much of the subtle methods of Italian espionage not to feel a secret uneasiness. His better judgment warned him back; but the desire to spend a pleasant hour prevailed. He took a turn through the neighboring streets, in the hope of diverting suspicion, and ten minutes later was at the Professor’s gate.

      It opened at once, and to his amazement Fulvia stood before him. She had thrown a black mantle over her head, and her face looked pale and vivid in the fading light. Surprise for a moment silenced Odo and before he could speak the girl, without pausing to close the gate, had drawn him toward her and flung her arms about his neck. In the first disorder of his senses he was conscious only of seeking her lips; but an instant later he knew it was no kiss of love that met his own, and he felt her tremble violently in his arms. He saw in a flash that he was on unknown ground; but his one thought was that Fulvia was in trouble and looked to him for aid. He gently freed himself from her hold and tried to shape a soothing question; but she caught his arm and, laying a hand over his mouth, drew him across the garden and into the house. The lower floor stood dark and empty. He followed Fulvia up the stairs and into the library, which was also empty. The shutters stood wide, admitting the evening freshness, and a drowsy scent of jasmine from the garden.

      Odo could not control a thrill of strange anticipation as he found himself alone in this silent room with the girl whose heart had so lately beat against his own. She had sunk into a chair, with her face hidden, and for a moment or two he stood before her without speaking. Then he knelt at her side and took her hands with a murmur of endearment.

      At his touch she started up. “And it was I,” she cried, “who persuaded my father that he might trust you!” And she sank back sobbing.

      Odo rose and moved away, waiting for her overwrought emotion to subside. At length he gently asked, “Do you wish me to leave you?”

      She raised her head. “No,” she said firmly, though her lip still trembled; “you must first hear an explanation of my conduct; though it is scarce possible,” she added, flushing to the brow, “that you have not already guessed the purpose of this lamentable comedy.”

      “I guess nothing,” he replied, “save that perhaps I may in some way serve you.”

      “Serve me?” she cried, with a flash of anger through her tears. “It is a late hour to speak of service, after what you have brought on this house!”

      Odo turned pale. “Here indeed, Madam,” said he, “are words that need an explanation.”

      “Oh,” she broke forth, “and you shall have it; though I think to any other it must be writ large upon my countenance.” She rose and paced the floor impetuously. “Is it possible,” she began again, “you do not yet perceive the sense of that execrable scene? Or do you think, by feigning ignorance, to prolong my humiliation? Oh,” she said, pausing before him, her breast in a tumult, her eyes alight, “it was I who persuaded my father of your discretion and prudence, it was through my influence that he opened himself to you so freely; and is this the return you make? Alas, why did you leave your fashionable friends and a world in which you are so fitted to shine, to bring unhappiness on an obscure household that never dreamed of courting your notice?”

      As she stood before him in her radiant anger, it went hard with Odo not to silence with a kiss a resentment that he guessed to be mainly directed against herself; but he controlled himself and said quietly: “Madam, I were a dolt not to perceive that I have had the misfortune to offend; but when or how, I swear to heaven I know not; and till you enlighten me I can neither excuse nor defend myself.”

      She turned pale, but instantly recovered her composure. “You are right,” she said; “I rave like a foolish girl; but indeed I scarce know if I am in my waking senses—” She paused, as if to check a fresh rush of emotion. “Oh, sir,” she cried, “can you not guess what has happened? You were warned, I believe, not to frequent this house too openly; but of late you have been an almost daily visitor, and you never come here but you are followed. My father’s doctrines have long been under suspicion, and to be accused of perverting a man of your rank must be his ruin. He was too proud to tell you this, and profiting to-day by his absence, and knowing that if you came the spies would be at your heels, I resolved to meet you at the gate, and welcome you in such a way that our enemies should be deceived as to the true cause of your visits.”

      Her voice wavered on the last words but she faced him proudly, and it was Odo whose gaze fell. Never perhaps had he been conscious of cutting a meaner figure; yet shame was so blent in him with admiration for the girl’s nobility and courage, that compunction was swept away in the impulse that flung him at her feet.

      “Ah,” he cried, “I have been blind indeed, and what you say abases me to earth. Yes, I was warned that my visits might compromise your father; nor had I any pretext for returning so often but my own selfish pleasure in his discourse; or so at least,” he added in a lower voice, “I chose to fancy—but when we met just now at the gate, if you acted a comedy, believe me, I did not; and if I have come day after day to this house, it is because, unknowingly, I came for you.”

      The words had escaped him unawares, and he was too sensible of their untimeliness not to be prepared for the gesture with which she cut him short.

      “Oh,” said she, in a tone of the liveliest reproach, “spare me this last affront if you wish me to think the harm you have already done was done unknowingly!”

      Odo rose to his feet, tingling under the rebuke. “If respect and admiration be an affront, Madam,” he said, “I cannot remain in your presence without offending, and nothing is left me but to withdraw; but before going I would at least ask if there is no way of repairing the harm that my over-assiduity has caused.”

      She flushed high at the question. “Why, that,” she said, “is in part, I trust, already accomplished; indeed,” she went on with an effort, “it was when I learned the authorities suspected you of coming here on a gallant adventure that I devised the idea of meeting you at the gate; and for the rest, sir, the best reparation you can make is one that will naturally suggest itself to a gentleman whose time must already be so fully engaged.” And with that she made him a deep reverence, and withdrew to the inner room.

      —————

V.

      When the Professor’s gate closed on Odo night was already falling and the oil-lamp at the end of the arched passage-way shed its weak circle of light on the pavement. This light, as Odo emerged, fell on a retreating figure which resembled that of the blind beggar he had seen crouching on the steps of the Corpus Domini. He ran forward, but the man hurried across the little square and disappeared in the darkness. Odo had not seen his face; but though his dress was tattered, and he leaned on a beggar’s staff, something about his broad rolling back recalled the well-filled outline of Cantapresto’s cassock.

      Sick at heart, Odo rambled on from one street to another, avoiding the more crowded quarters, and losing himself more than once in the districts near the river, where young gentlemen of his figure seldom showed themselves unattended. The populace, however, was all abroad, and he passed as unregarded as though his sombre thoughts had enveloped him in actual darkness.

      It was late when at length he turned again into the Piazza Castello, which was brightly lit and still thronged with pleasure-seekers. As he approached, the crowd divided to make way for three or four handsome travelling-carriages, preceded by linkmen and liveried out-riders and followed by a dozen mounted equerries. The people, evidently in the humor to greet every incident of the streets as part of a show prepared for their diversion, cheered lustily as the carriages dashed