The Lure of the Mask, Harold MacGrath [best beach reads of all time .txt] 📗

retinue. In appearance he resembled many another clean-cut, clean-living American gentleman.

Giovanni sought his own room at the end of the hall, squatted on a low stool and solemnly began the business of blacking his master's boots. He was still as lean and tall as a Lombardy poplar, this handsome old Roman. His hair was white; there was now no black beard on his face, which was as brown and creased as Spanish levant; and some of the fullness was gone from his chest and arms; but for all that he carried his fifty-odd years lightly. He worked swiftly to-night, but his mind was far away from his task.

There was a pitiful story, commonplace enough. A daughter, a loose-living officer, a knife flung from a dark alley, and sudden flight to the south. Hillard had found him wandering through the streets of Naples, hiding from the carabinieri as best he could. Hillard contrived to smuggle him on the private yacht of a friend. He found a peasant who was reconsidering the advisability of digging sewers and laying railroad ties in the Eldorado of the West. A few pieces of silver, and the passport changed hands. With this Giovanni blandly lied his way into the United States. After due time he applied for citizenship, and through Hillard's influence it was accorded him. He solemnly voted when elections came round, and hoarded his wages, like the thrifty man he was. Some day he would return to Rome, or Naples, or Venice, or Florence, as the case might be; and then!

When the boots shone flawlessly, he carried them to Hillard's door and softly tiptoed back. He put his face against the cold window. He, too, had heard the Voice. How his heart hurt him with its wild hope! But only for a moment. It was not the voice he hungered for. The words were Italian, but he knew that the woman who sang them was not!


CHAPTER II

OBJECT, MATRIMONY


Winter fogs in New York are never quite so intolerable as their counterparts in London; and while their frequency is a matter of complaint, their duration is seldom of any length. So, by the morrow a strong wind from the west had winnowed the skies and cleared the sun. There was an exhilarating tingle of frost in the air and a visible rime on the windows. Hillard, having breakfasted lightly, was standing with his back to the grate in the cozy breakfast-room. He was in boots and breeches and otherwise warmly clad, and freshly shaven. He rocked on his heels and toes, and ran his palm over his blue-white chin in search of a possible slip of the razor.

Giovanni came in to announce that he had telephoned, and that the signore's brown mare would be at the park entrance precisely at half-after eight. Giovanni still marveled over this wonderful voice which came out of nowhere, but he was no longer afraid of it. The curiosity which is innate and child-like in all Latins soon overcame his dark superstitions. He was an ardent Catholic and believed that a few miracles should be left in the hands of God. The telephone had now become a kind of plaything, and Hillard often found him in front of it, patiently waiting for the bell to ring.

The facility with which Giovanni had mastered English amazed his teacher and master; but now he needed no more lessons, the two when alone together spoke Giovanni's tongue: Hillard, because he loved it, and Giovanni because the cook spoke it badly and the English butler not at all.

"You have made up your mind to go, then, amico?" said Hillard.

"Yes, signore."

"Well, I shall miss you. To whom shall I talk the tongue I love so well, when Giovanni is gone?" with a lightness which he did not feel. Hillard had grown very fond of the old Roman in these seven years.

"Whenever the signore goes to Italia, he shall find me. It needs but a word to bring me to him. The signore will pardon me, but he is like-like a son."

"Thanks, Giovanni. By the way, did you hear a woman singing in the street last night?"

"Yes. At first-" Giovanni hesitated.

"Ah, but that could not be, Giovanni; that could not be."

"No, it could not be. But she sang well!" the old servant ventured.

"So thought I. I even ran out into the street to find out who she was; but she vanished like the lady in the conjurer's trick. But it seemed to me that, while she sang in Italian, she herself was not wholly of that race."

"Buonissima!" Giovanni struck a noiseless brava with his hands. "Have I not always said that the signore's ears are as sharp as my own? No, the voice was very beautiful, but it was not truly Roman. It was more like they talk in Venice. And yet the sound of the voice decided me. The hills have always been calling to me; and I must answer."

"And the unforgetting carabinieri?"

"Oh, I must take my chance," with the air of a fatalist.

"What shall you do?"

"I have my two hands, signore. Besides, the signore has said it; I am rich." Giovanni permitted a smile to stir his thin lips. "Yes, I must go back. Your people have been good to me and have legally made me one of them, but my heart is never here. It is always so cold and every one moves so quickly. You can not lie down in the sun. Your police, bah! They beat you on the feet. You remember when I fell asleep on the steps of the cathedral? They thought I was drunk, and would have arrested me!"

"Everybody must keep moving here; it is the penalty of being rich."

"And I am lonesome for my kind. I have nothing in common with these herds of Sicilians and Neapolitans who pour into the streets from the wharves." Giovanni spoke scornfully.

"Yet in war time the Neapolitans sheltered your pope."

"Vanity! They wished to make an impression on the rest of the world. It is dull here, besides. There is no joy in the shops. I am lost in these great palaces. The festa is lacking. Nobody bargains; nobody sees the proprietor; you find your way to the streets alone. The butcher says that his meat is so-and-so, and you pay; the grocer marks his tins such-and-such, and you do not question; and the baker says that, and you pay, pay, pay! What? I need a collar; it is quindici-fifteen you say! I offer quattordici. I would give interest to the sale. But no! The collar goes back into the box. I pay quindici, or I go without. It is the same everywhere; very dull, dead, lifeless."

Hillard was moved to laughter. He very well understood the old man's lament. In Italy, if there is one thing more than another that pleases the native it is to make believe to himself that he has got the better of a bargain. A shrewd purchase enlivens the whole day; it is talked about, laughed over, and becomes the history of the day that Tomass', or Pietro, or Paoli, or whatever his name may be, has bested the merchant out of some twenty centesimi.

"And the cook and the butler," concluded Giovanna; "we do not get on well."

"It is because they are in mortal fear of you, you brigand! Well, my coat and cap."

Hillard presently left the house and hailed a Fifth Avenue omnibus. He looked with negative interest at the advertisements, at the people in the streets, at his fellow-travelers. One of these was hidden behind his morning paper. Personals. Hillard squirmed a little. The world never holds very much romance in the sober morning. What a stupid piece of folly! The idea of his sending that personal inquiry to the paper! To-morrow he would see it sandwiched in between samples of shop-girl romance, questionable intrigues, and divers search-warrants. Ye gods! "Will the blonde who smiled at gentleman in blue serge, elevated train, Tuesday, meet same in park? Object, matrimony." Hillard fidgeted. "Young man known as Adonis would adore stout elderly lady, independently situated. Object, matrimony." Pish! "Girlie. Can't keep appointment to-night. Willie." Tush! "A French Widow of eighteen, unencumbered," and so forth and so on. Rot, bally rot; and here he was on the way to join them! "Will the lady who sang from Madame Angot communicate with gentleman who leaned out of the window? J.H. Burgomaster Club." Positively asinine! The man opposite folded the paper and stuffed it into his pocket, and its disappearance relieved Hillard somewhat.

There was scarce one chance in a thousand of the mysterious singer's seeing the inquiry, not one in ten thousand of her answering it. And the folly of giving his club address! That would look very dignified in yonder agony column! And then he brightened. He could withdraw it; and he would do so the very first thing when he went down-town to the office. "Object, matrimony!" If the woman saw it she would only laugh. It was all a decent woman could do. And certainly the woman of the past night's adventure was of high degree, educated; and doubtless the spirit which had prompted the song was as inexplicable to her this morning as it had been to him last night. He had lost none of the desire to meet her, but reason made it plain to him that a meeting could not possibly be arranged through any personal column in the newspaper. He would cancel the thing.

He dropped from the omnibus at the park entrance, where he found his restive mare. He gave her a lump of sugar and climbed into the saddle. He directed the groom to return for the horse at ten o'clock, then headed for the bridle-path. It was heavy, but the air was so keen and bracing that neither the man nor the horse worried about the going. There were a dozen or so early riders besides himself, and in and out the winding path they passed and repassed, walking, trotting, cantering. Only one party attracted him: a riding master and a trio of brokers who were verging on embonpoint, and were desperate and looked it. They stood in a fair way of losing several pounds that morning. A good rider always smiles at the sight of a poor one, when a little retrospection should make him rather pitying. Hillard went on. The park was not lovely; the trees were barren, the grass yellow and sodden, and here and there were grimy cakes of unmelted snow.

"She is so innocent, so youthful!"

He found himself humming the refrain over and over. She had sung it with abandon, tenderness, lightness. For one glimpse of her face! He took the rise and dip which followed. Perhaps a hundred yards ahead a solitary woman cantered easily along. Hillard had not seen her before. He spurred forward, only faintly curious. She proved to be a total stranger. There was nothing familiar to his eye in her figure, which was charming. She rode well. As he drew nearer he saw that she wore a heavy grey veil. And this veil hid everything but the single flash of a pair of eyes the color of which defied him. Then he looked at her mount. Ha! there was only one rangy black with a white throat; from the Sandford stables, he was positive. But the Sandfords were at this moment in Cairo, so it signified nothing. There is always some one ready to exercise your horses, if they happen to be showy ones. He looked again at the rider; the flash of the