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

Kitty for running away from us. That's got to be explained fully some day."

"He is coming this way again, Dan," Hillard observed quietly.

"Ah!"

They waited. Hillard changed his mind; he pushed back his hat and held up his chin. If the man with the scar saw him and spoke he would reply. The colonel, glancing at the pair casually, halted. At first he was not certain, but as he met the steady eyes of Hillard he no longer doubted. It was true. He turned and spoke to his brother officer. Merrihew's throat grew full, but not from fear. The man with the scar stepped over to the table and leaned with his hands upon it. There was a savage humor in his dark eyes.

"Did I not tell you that we should meet again?" he said to Hillard. "This is a pleasant moment." He stood back again.

"Are you speaking to me?" asked Hillard, not the least perturbed. He had not stirred in his chair, though every muscle in his body was alert and ready at a moment's call.

"Certainly I am speaking to you. You understand Italian sufficiently well. This is the fellow," speaking to his companion, at the same time drawing off his gloves, "this is the fellow I spoke to you about."

"I object to the word fellow," said Hillard, smiling grimly. "Besides, I do not know you."

"Ah, discreet!" sneered the man with the scar.

"Be careful, Enrico," warned the brother officer. "There are many about, and a scene is not wise. Ask the American to take a walk. You could arrange with more ease."

"Thank you," said Hillard, "but I am perfectly comfortable where I am. If this gentleman has anything to say, he must say it here and now."

"Colonel!" cried the subaltern, as his senior smoothed the gloves and placed them carefully in his left hand, closing his fingers over them.

"Oh, I am calm. But I have been dreaming of this moment. Now!" The colonel readdressed Hillard. "You meddled with an affair that night in which you had no concern," he began truculently.

"Are you quite sure?"

Merrihew eyed Hillard nervously. He did not understand the words, worse luck, but the tone conveyed volumes. It was crisp and angry. Hillard possessed a temper which was backed by considerable strength, and only on rare occasions did this temper slip from his control. Thoroughly angry, Hillard was not a happy man to antagonize.

"Yes, I am sure. And yet, as I think it over, as I recollect the woman," went on the colonel, with a smile which was evil and insinuating.... "Well, I shall not question you. The main thing is, you annoyed me. In Monte Carlo I was practically alone. Here the scene is different; it is Florence. Doubtless you will understand." He struck out with the gloves.

But they never touched Hillard's face. His hand, expectant of this very movement, caught the assailant's wrist, and, with a quick jerk, brought him half-way across the table. He bore down on the wrist so fiercely that the Italian cried faintly. Hillard, with his face but a span from the other's, spoke tensely, but in an undertone.

"Listen carefully to what I have to say, signore. I understand perfectly, but I shall fight no duel. It is an obsolete fashion, and proves nothing but mechanical skill. I do not know what kind of blackguard you are, but blackguard I know you to be. If you ever address me again I promise on the word of a gentleman to give you a whipping which will have a more lasting effect upon your future actions than a dozen sermons. If that will not serve, I shall appeal to the police."

"Poltroon!"

"As often as you please!" Hillard flung him off roughly.

A small but interested crowd had gathered by now, and Merrihew saw visions of Italian jails. Through the crowd the ever-present carabinieri shouldered their way.

"It is nothing," said the colonel, motioning them to stand back, which they did with a sign of respect. This sign gave Hillard some food for thought. His antagonist was evidently a personage of some importance.

"Figure of an American pig!"

Hillard laughed. "I might have broken your wrist, but did not. You are not grateful."

The carabinieri moved forward again.

"The affair is over," said Hillard amiably. "This officer has mistaken me for some one he knows."

The scar was livid on the Italian's cheek. He stood undecided for a space. His companion laid a restraining hand on his arm. He nodded, and the two made off. What might in former days have been a tragedy was nothing more than a farce. But it spoiled the night for Merrihew, and he was for going back to the hotel. Hillard agreed.

"At first I wanted you to give him a good stiff punch," said Merrihew, "but I am glad you didn't."

"We should have slept in the lockup over night if I had. The carabinieri would not have understood my excuses. If our friend is left-handed, he'll be inconvenienced for a day or two. I put some force into that grip. You see, Dan, the Italian still fights his duels. Dueling is not extinct in the army here. An officer who refuses to accept a challenge for a good or bad cause is practically hounded out of the service. It would have been a fine joke if I had been fool enough to accept his challenge. He would have put daylight through me at the first stroke."

"I don't know about that," replied Merrihew loyally. "You are the crack fencer in New York."

"But New York isn't Florence, my boy. I'll show you some fencing to-morrow. If my old fencing master, Foresti Paoli, is yet in Florence, I'll have him arrange some matches. New York affairs will look tame to you then."

"But what has he to do with your vanishing lady?"

"I should like to know."

"I wish I had thought to ask a waiter who the duffer is. Did you notice how respectful the carabinieri were?"

"It set me thinking. Oh, I've a premonition that we haven't seen the last of this distinguished gentleman. Perhaps we'll find out who he is sooner than we care to."

"When the time comes," said Merrihew with a laugh, "be sure you soak it to him, and an extra one for me."

Early on the morrow they rode out to the Cascine, formerly a dairy-farm, but now a splendid park. The bridle-paths are the finest in the world, not excepting those in the Bois de Bologne in Paris. They are not so long, perhaps, but they are infinitely more beautiful. Take, for instance, the long path under a tunnel of enormous trees, a bridle-path where ten men may ride abreast with room to spare, and nearly half a mile in length; there is nothing like it.

"I tell you what it is, Jack; Italy may put a tax on salt and sea-water, but always gives something in return; she puts up a picture-gallery or a museum, or a park like this. What do we get back in America? Niente!"

For two hours they romped through the park, running races, hurdling, and playing rough pranks upon each other, such as only expert riders dare attempt. They were both hardened by the long ride down to Florence, a pair of animals as healthy as their mounts. They had determined not to sell the horses till the last moment. A riding-master in the Via Lorenzo ii Magnifico agreed to board them against the time of sale.

In the three days in Florence they had been through the galleries and the museums; and Merrihew, to his great delight, began to find that he could tell a Botticelli from a Lippi at first glance. He was beginning to understand why people raved over this style or that. There was something so gentle, so peaceful in a Botticelli that he really preferred it to some of the famed colorists, always excepting Veronese, to whom he had given his first admiration.

For luncheon this day Hillard took him to Paoli's in the Via dei Tavolini-the way of the little tables. Here Merrihew saw a tavern such as he had often conjured up while reading his Dumas; sausages and hams and bacons and garlic and cheeses and dried vegetables hanging from the ceiling, abrupt passages, rough tables and common chairs and strange dishes; oil, oil, oil, even on the top of his coffee-cup, and magnums of red and white Chianti. Hillard informed him that this was the most famous Bohemian place in the city, the rendezvous of artists, sculptors, writers, physicians, and civil authorities. The military seldom patronized it, because it was not showy enough. Merrihew enjoyed the scene, with its jabber-jabber and its clatter-clatter. And he was still hungry when he left, but he would not admit it to Hillard, who adapted himself to the over-abundance of oil with all the zest of an expatriated Tuscan.

At three o'clock they went to the fencing academy of Foresti Paoli, near the post-office. Foresti was a fine example of the military Italian of former days. He was past sixty, but was as agile as any of his celebrated pupils. As Hillard had written him the night before, he was expected. He had been a pupil of Foresti's, and the veteran was glad to see him. Merrihew saw some interesting bouts, and at length Foresti prevailed upon Hillard to don the mask against an old pupil, a physician who had formerly been amateur champion of Italy. Hillard, having been in the saddle and the open air for two weeks, was in prime condition; and he gave the ex-champion a pretty handful. But constant practice told in the end, and Hillard was beaten. It was fine sport to Merrihew; the quick pad-pad of the feet on the mat, the short triumphant cries as the foil bent almost double, and the flash of the whites of their eyes behind the mask. Merrihew knew that he should love Florence all the rest of his days.

They were entering the Via Tornabuoni, toward the Havana cigar-store, when a young woman came out of the little millinery shop a few doors from the tobacconist's. Immediately Hillard stepped to one side of her and Merrihew to the other.

"You can not run away this time, Kitty Killigrew!" cried Merrihew joyously.

Kitty closed her eyes for a second, and the neat little bandbox slipped to the sidewalk.


CHAPTER XXI

AN INVITATION TO A BALL


In the Villa Ariadne the wonderful fountain by Donatello was encircled by a deep basin in which many generations of goldfish swam about. Only the old gardener knew the secret of how these fish lived through the chill Florentine winters. Yet, every spring, about the time when the tourists began to prowl round, the little goldfish were to be seen again, ready for bread-crumbs and bugs of suicidal tendencies. Forming a kind of triangle about the basin were three ancient marble benches, such as the amiable old Roman senators were wont to lounge upon during the heat of the afternoon, or such as Catullus reclined upon while reading his latest lyric to his latest affinity. At any rate, they were very old, earth-stained and time-stained and full of unutterable history, and with the eternal cold touch of stone which never wholly warms even under warmest sun. The kind of bench which Alma-Tadema usually fills with diaphanous maidens.

At this particular time a maiden, not at all diaphanous, but mentally and physically material, sat on one of these benches, her arms thrown out on either