_ CHAPTER XVI. THE APPLE OF DISCORD
"It is all very petty, my child," said the padre. "Life is made up of bigger things; the little ones should be ignored."
To which Nora replied: "To a woman, the little things are everything; they are the daily routine, the expected, the necessary things. What you call the big things in life are accidents. And, oh! I have pride." She folded her arms across her heaving bosom; for the padre's directness this morning had stirred her deeply.
"Wilfulness is called pride by some; and stubbornness. But you know, as well as I do, that yours is resentment, anger, indignation. Yes, you have pride, but it has not been brought into this affair. Pride is that within which prevents us from doing mean or sordid acts; and you could not do one or the other if you tried. The sentiment in you which should be developed...."
"Is mercy?"
"No; justice, the patience to weigh the right or wrong of a thing."
"Padre, I have eyes, eyes; I _saw_."
He twirled the middle button of his cassock. "The eyes see and the ears hear, but these are only witnesses, laying the matter before the court of the last resort, which is the mind. It is there we sift the evidence."
"He had the insufferable insolence to order Herr Rosen to leave," going around the barrier of his well-ordered logic.
"Ah! Now, how could he send away Herr Rosen if that gentleman had really preferred to stay?"
Nora looked confused.
"Shall I tell you? I suspected; so I questioned him last night. Had I been in his place, I should have chastised Herr Rosen instead of bidding him be gone. It was he."
Nora, sat down.
"Positively. The men who guarded you were two actors from one of the theaters. He did not come to Versailles because he was being watched. He was found and sent home the night before your release."
"I am sorry. But it was so like _him_."
The padre spread his hands. "What a way women have of modifying either good or bad impulses! It would have been fine of you to have stopped when you said you were sorry."
"Padre, one would believe that you had taken up his defense!"
"If I had I should have to leave it after to-day. I return to Rome to-morrow and shall not see you again before you go to America. I have bidden good-by to all save you. My child, my last admonition is, be patient; observe; guard against that impulse born in your blood to move hastily, to form opinions without solid foundations. Be happy while you are young, for old age is happy only in that reflected happiness of recollection. Write to me, here. I return in November. _Benedicite?_" smiling.
Nora bowed her head and he put a hand upon it.
* * * * *
"And listen to this," began Harrigan, turning over a page. "'It is considered bad form to call the butler to your side when you are a guest. Catch his eye. He will understand that something is wanted.' How's that?"
"That's the way to live." Courtlandt grinned, and tilted back his chair until it rested against the oak.
The morning was clear and mild. Fresh snow lay upon the mountain tops; later it would disappear. The fountain tinkled, and swallows darted hither and thither under the sparkling spray. The gardeners below in the vegetable patch were singing. By the door of the villa sat two old ladies, breakfasting in the sunshine. There was a hint of lavender in the lazy drifting air. A dozen yards away sat Abbott, two or three brushes between his teeth and one in his hand. A little behind was Celeste, sewing posies upon one of those squares of linen toward which all women in their idle moments are inclined, and which, on finishing, they immediately stow away in the bottom of some trunk against the day when they have a home of their own, or marry, or find some one ignorant enough to accept it as a gift.
"'And when in doubt,'" continued Harrigan, "'watch how other persons use their forks.' Can you beat it? And say, honest, Molly bought that for me to read and study. And I never piped the subtitle until this morning. 'Advice to young ladies upon going into society.' Huh?" Harrigan slapped his knee with the book and roared out his keen enjoyment. Somehow he seemed to be more at ease with this young fellow than with any other man he had met in years. "But for the love of Mike, don't say anything to Molly," fearfully. "Oh, she means the best in the world," contritely. "I'm always embarrassing her; shoe-strings that don't match, a busted stud in my shirt-front, and there isn't a pair of white-kids made that'll stay whole more than five minutes on these paws. I suppose it's because I don't think. After all, I'm only a retired pug." The old fellow's eyes sparkled suspiciously. "The best two women in all the world, and I don't want them to be ashamed of me."
"Why, Mr. Harrigan," said Courtlandt, letting his chair fall into place so that he could lay a hand affectionately upon the other's knee, "neither of them would be worth their salt if they ever felt ashamed of you. What do you care what strangers think or say? You know. You've seen life. You've stepped off the stage and carried with you the recollection of decent living, of playing square, of doing the best you could. The worst scoundrels I ever met never made any mistake with their forks. Perhaps you don't know it, but my father became rich because he could judge a man's worth almost at sight. And he kept this fortune and added to it because he chose half a dozen friends and refused to enlarge the list. If you became his friend, he had good reason for making you such."
"Well, we did have some good times together," Harrigan admitted, with a glow in his heart. "And I guess after all that I'll go to the ball with Molly. I don't mind teas like we had at the colonel's, but dinners and balls I have drawn the line at. I'll take the plunge to-night. There's always some place for a chap to smoke."
"At the Villa Rosa? I'll be there myself; and any time you are in doubt, don't be afraid to question me."
"You're in class A," heartily. "But there's one thing that worries me,--Nora. She's gone up so high, and she's such a wonderful girl, that all the men in Christendom are hiking after her. And some of 'em.... Well, Molly says it isn't good form to wallop a man over here. Why, she went on her lonesome to India and Japan, with nobody but her maid; and never put us hep until she landed in Bombay. The men out that way aren't the best. East of Suez, you know. And that chap yesterday, Herr Rosen. Did you see the way he hiked by me when I let him in? He took me to be the round number before one. And he didn't speak a dozen words to any but Nora. Not that I mind that; but it was something in the way he did it that scratched me the wrong way. The man who thinks he's going to get Nora by walking over me, has got a guess coming. Of course, it's meat and drink to Molly to have sons of grand dukes and kings trailing around. She says it gives tone."
"Isn't she afraid sometimes?"
"Afraid? I should say not! There's only three things that Molly's afraid of these days: a spool of thread, a needle, and a button."
Courtlandt laughed frankly. "I really don't think you need worry about Herr Rosen. He has gone, and he will not come back."
"Say! I'll bet a dollar it was you who shoo'd him off."
"Yes. But it was undoubtedly an impertinence on my part, and I'd rather you would not disclose my officiousness to Miss Harrigan."
"Piffle! If you knew him you had a perfect right to pass him back his ticket. Who was he?"
Courtlandt poked at the gravel with his cane.
"One of the big guns?"
Courtlandt nodded.
"So big that he couldn't have married my girl even if he loved her?"
"Yes. As big as that."
Harrigan riffled the leaves of his book. "What do you say to going down to the hotel and having a game of _bazzica_, as they call billiards here?"
"Nothing would please me better," said Courtlandt, relieved that Harrigan did not press him for further revelations.
"Nora is studying a new opera, and Molly-O is ragging the village dressmaker. It's only half after ten, and we can whack 'em around until noon. I warn you, I'm something of a shark."
"I'll lay you the cigars that I beat you."
"You're on!"
Harrigan put the book in his pocket, and the two of them made for the upper path, not, however, without waving a friendly adieu to Celeste, who was watching them with much curiosity.
For a moment Nora became visible in the window. Her expression did not signify that the sight of the men together pleased her. On the contrary, her eyes burned and her brow was ruffled by several wrinkles which threatened to become permanent if the condition of affairs continued to remain as it was. To her the calm placidity of the man was nothing less than monumental impudence. How she hated him; how bitterly, how intensely she hated him! She withdrew from the window without having been seen.
"Did you ever see two finer specimens of man?" Celeste asked of Abbott.
"What? Who?" mumbled Abbott, whose forehead was puckered with impatience. "Oh, those two? They _are_ well set up. But what the deuce _is_ the matter with this foreground?" taking the brushes from his teeth. "I've been hammering away at it for a week, and it does not get there yet."
Celeste rose and laid aside her work. She stood behind him and studied the picture through half-closed critical eyes. "You have painted it over too many times." Then she looked down at the shapely head. Ah, the longing to put her hands upon it, to run her fingers through the tousled hair, to touch it with her lips! But no! "Perhaps you are tired; perhaps you have worked too hard. Why not put aside your brushes for a week?"
"I've a good mind to chuck it into the lake. I simply can't paint any more." He flung down the brushes. "I'm a fool, Celeste, a fool. I'm crying for the moon, that's what the matter is. What's the use of beating about the bush? You know as well as I do that it's Nora."
Her heart contracted, and for a little while she could not see him clearly.
"But what earthly chance have I?" he went on, innocently but ruthlessly. "No one can help loving Nora."
"No," in a small voice.
"It's all rot, this talk about affinities. There's always some poor devil left outside. But who can help loving Nora?" he repeated.
"Who indeed!"
"And there's not the least chance in the world for me."
"You never can tell until you put it to the test."
"Do you think I have a chance? Is it possible that Nora may care a little for me?" He turned his head toward her eagerly.
"Who knows?" She wanted him to have it over with, to learn the truth that to Nora Harrigan he would never be more than an amiable comrade. He would then have none to turn to but her. What mattered it if her own heart ached so she might soothe the hurt in his? She laid a hand upon his shoulder, so lightly that he was only dimly conscious of the contact.
"It's a rummy old world. Here I've gone alone all these years...."
"Twenty-six!" smiling.
"Well, that's a long time. Never bothered my head about a woman. Selfish, perhaps. Had a good time, came and went as I pleased. And then I met Nora."
"Yes."
"If only she'd been stand-offish, like these other singers, why, I'd have been all right to-day. But she's such a brick! She's such a good fellow! She treats us all alike; sings when we ask her to; always ready for a romp. Think of her making us all take the _Kneip_-cure the other night! And we marched around the fountain singing 'Mary had a little lamb.' Barefooted in the grass! When a man marries he doesn't want a wife half so much as a good comrade; somebody to slap him on the back in the morning to hearten him up for the day's work; and to cuddle him up when he comes home tired, or disappointed, or unsuccessful. No matter what mood he's in. Is my English getting away from you?"
"No; I understand all you say." Her hand rested a trifle heavier upon his shoulder, that was all.
"Nora would be that kind of a wife. 'Honor, anger, valor, fire,' as Stevenson says. Hang the picture; what am I going to do with it?"
"'Honor, anger, valor, fire,'" Celeste repeated slowly. "Yes, that is Nora." A bitter little smile moved her lips as she recalled the happenings of the last two days. But no; he must find out for himself; he must meet the hurt from Nora, not from her. "How long, Abbott, have you known your friend Mr. Courtlandt?"
"Boys together," playing a light tattoo with his mahl-stick.
"How old is he?"
"About thirty-two or three."
"He is very rich?"
"Oceans of money; throws it away, but not fast enough to get rid of it."
"He is what you say in English ... wild?"
"Well," with mock gravity, "I shouldn't like to be the tiger that crossed his path. Wild; that's the word for it."
"You are laughing. Ah, I know! I should say dissipated."
"Courtlandt? Come, now, Celeste; does he look dissipated?"
"No-o."
"He drinks when he chooses, he flirts with a pretty woman when he chooses, he smokes the finest tobacco there is when he chooses; and he gives them all up when he chooses. He is like the seasons; he comes and goes, and nobody can change his habits."
"He has had no affair?"
"Why, Courtlandt hasn't any heart. It's a mechanical device to keep his blood in circulation; that's all. I am the most intimate friend he has, and yet I know no more than you how he lives and where he goes."
She let her hand fall from his shoulder. She was glad that he did not know.
"But look!" she cried in warning.
Abbott looked.
A woman was coming serenely down the path from the wooded promontory, a woman undeniably handsome in a cedar-tinted linen dress, exquisitely fashioned, with a touch of vivid scarlet on her hat and a most tantalizing flash of scarlet ankle. It was Flora Desimone, fresh from her morning bath and a substantial breakfast. The errand that had brought her from Aix-les-Bains was confessedly a merciful one. But she possessed the dramatist's instinct to prolong a situation. Thus, to make her act of mercy seem infinitely larger than it was, she was determined first to cast the Apple of Discord into this charming corner of Eden. The Apple of Discord, as every man knows, is the only thing a woman can throw with any accuracy.
The artist snatched up his brushes, and ruined the painting forthwith, for all time. The foreground was, in his opinion, beyond redemption; so, with a savage humor, he rapidly limned in a score of impossible trees, turned midday into sunset, with a riot of colors which would have made the Chinese New-year in Canton a drab and sober event in comparison. He hated Flora Desimone, as all Nora's adherents most properly did, but with a hatred wholly reflective and adapted to Nora's moods.
"You have spoiled it!" cried Celeste. She had watched the picture grow, and to see it ruthlessly destroyed this way hurt her. "How could you!"
"Worst I ever did." He began to change the whole effect, chuckling audibly as he worked. Sunset divided honors with moonlight. It was no longer incongruous; it was ridiculous. He leaned back and laughed. "I'm going to send it to L'Asino, and call it an afterthought."
"Give it to me."
"What?"
"Yes."
"Nonsense! I'm going to touch a match to it. I'll give you that picture with the lavender in bloom."
"I want this."
"But you can not hang it."
"I want it."
"Well!" The more he learned about women the farther out of mental reach they seemed to go. Why on earth did she want this execrable daub? "You may have it; but all the same, I'm going to call an oculist and have him examine your eyes."
"Why, it is the Signorina Fournier!"
In preparing studiously to ignore Flora Desimone's presence they had forgotten all about her.
"Good morning, Signora," said Celeste in Italian.
"And the Signore Abbott, the painter, also!" The Calabrian raised what she considered her most deadly weapon, her lorgnette.
Celeste had her fancy-work instantly in her two hands; Abbott's were occupied; Flora's hands were likewise engaged; thus, the insipid mockery of hand-shaking was nicely and excusably avoided.
"What is it?" asked Flora, squinting.
"It is a new style of the impressionist which I began this morning," soberly.
"It looks very natural," observed Flora.
"Natural!" Abbott dropped his mahl-stick.
"It is Vesuv', is it not, on a cloudy day?"
This was too much for Abbott's gravity, and he laughed.
"It was not necessary to spoil a good picture ... on my account," said Flora, closing the lorgnette with a snap. Her great dark eyes were dreamy and contemplative like a cat's, and, as every one knows, a cat's eye is the most observing of all eyes. It is quite in the order of things, since a cat's attitude toward the world is by need and experience wholly defensive.
"The Signora is wrong. I did not spoil it on her account. It was past helping yesterday. But I shall, however, rechristen it Vesuvius, since it represents an eruption of temper."
Flora tapped the handle of her parasol with the lorgnette. It was distinctly a sign of approval. These Americans were never slow-witted. She swung the parasol to and fro, slowly, like a pendulum.
"It is too bad," she said, her glance roving over the white walls of the villa.
"It was irrevocably lost," Abbott declared.
"No, no; I do not mean the picture. I am thinking of La Toscana. Her voice was really superb; and to lose it entirely...!" She waved a sympathetic hand.
Abbott was about to rise up in vigorous protest. But fate itself chose to rebuke Flora. From the window came--"_Sai cos' ebbe cuore!_"--sung as only Nora could sing it.
The ferrule of Flora Desimone's parasol bit deeply into the clover-turf. _