Part 61

“When I marry?” she exclaimed. “Well, if ever there was a thunderbolt from a clear sky!”

And she laughed.

“Yes-when you marry,” the Cardinal repeated, with conviction. “You are a young woman--you are twenty-eight years old. You will, marry. It is only right that you should marry. You have not the vocation for a religious. Therefore you must marry. But it will be a great loss to the house of Udeschini.”

“Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof,” said Beatrice, laughing again. “I haven't the remotest thought of marrying. I shall never marry.”

“Il ne faut jamais dire a la fontaine, je ne boirai pas de ton eau,” his Eminence cautioned her, whilst the lines of humour about his mouth emphasised themselves, and his grey eyes twinkled. “Other things equal, marriage is as much the proper state for the laity, as celibacy is the proper state for the clergy. You will marry. It would be selfish of us to oppose your marrying. You ought to marry. But it will be a great loss to the family--it will be a great personal loss to me. You are as dear to me as any of my blood. I am always forgetting that we are uncle and niece by courtesy only.”

“I shall never marry. But nothing that can happen to me can ever make the faintest difference in my feeling for you. I hope you know how much I love you?” She looked into his eyes, smiling her love. “You are only my uncle by courtesy? But you are more than an uncle--you have been like a father to me, ever since I left my convent.”

The Cardinal returned her smile.

“Carissima,” he murmured. Then, “It will be a matter of the utmost importance to me, however,” he went on, “that, when the time comes, you should marry a good man, a suitable man--a man who will love you, whom you will love--and, if possible, a man who will not altogether separate you from me, who will perhaps love me a little too. It would send me in sorrow to my grave, if you should marry a man who was not worthy of you.”

“I will guard against that danger by not marrying at all,” laughed Beatrice.

“No--you will marry, some day,” said the Cardinal. “And I wish you to remember that I shall not oppose your marrying--provided the man is a good man. Felipe will not like it--Guido will pull a long nose--but I, at least, will take your part, if I can feel that the man is good. Good men are rare, my dear; good husbands are rarer still. I can think, for instance, of no man in our Roman nobility, whom I should be content to see you marry. Therefore I hope you will not marry a Roman. You would be more likely to marry one of your own countrymen. That, of course, would double the loss to us, if it should take you away from Italy. But remember, if he is a man whom I can think worthy of you, you may count upon me as an ally.”

He resumed his walk, reopening his Breviary.

Beatrice resumed her needlework. But she found it difficult to fix her attention on it. Every now and then, she would leave her needle stuck across its seam, let the work drop to her lap, and, with eyes turned vaguely up the valley, fall, apparently, into a muse.

“I wonder why he said all that to me?” was the question that kept posing itself.

By and by the Cardinal closed his Breviary, and put it in his pocket. I suppose he had finished his office for the day. Then he came and sat down in one of the wicker chairs, under the awning. On the table, among the books and things, stood a carafe of water, some tumblers, a silver sugar-bowl, and a crystal dish full of fresh pomegranate seeds. It looked like a dish full of unset rubies. The Cardinal poured some water into a tumbler, added a lump of sugar and a spoonful of pomegranate seeds, stirred the mixture till it became rose-coloured, and drank it off in a series of little sips.

“What is the matter, Beatrice?” he asked, all at once.

Beatrice raised her eyes, perplexed.

“The matter--? Is anything the matter?”

“Yes,” said the Cardinal; “something is the matter. You are depressed, you are nervous, you are not yourself. I have noticed it for many days. Have you something on, your mind?”

“Nothing in the world,” Beatrice answered, with an appearance of great candour. “I had not noticed that I was nervous or depressed.”

“We are entering October,” said the Cardinal. “I must return to Rome. I have been absent too long already. I must return next week. But I should not like to go away with the feeling that you are unhappy.”

“If a thing were needed to make me unhappy, it would be the announcement of your intended departure,” Beatrice said, smiling. “But otherwise, I am no more unhappy than it is natural to be. Life, after all, is n't such a furiously gay business as to keep one perpetually singing and dancing--is it? But I am not especially unhappy.”

“H'm,” said the Cardinal. Then, in a minute, “You will come to Rome in November, I suppose?” he asked.

“Yes--towards the end of November, I think,” said Beatrice.

The Cardinal rose, and began to walk backwards and forwards again.

In a little while the sound of carriage-wheels could be heard, in the sweep, round the corner of the house.

The Cardinal looked at his watch.

“Here is the carriage,” he said. “I must go down and see that poor old woman.... Do you know,” he added, after a moment's hesitation, “I think it would be well if you were to go with me.”

A shadow came into Beatrice's eyes.