Part 3 (1/2)
The Sicilian interrupted her. His face was marble white, but his eyes were afire.
”His father! Spare me the pedigree! I know it! Margharita, stand there, where the moonlight touches your face. Let me look at you. Is it you, a daughter of the Marionis, who can speak so calmly of bringing this disgrace upon our name? You, my little sister Margharita, the proud-spirited girl who used to share in my ambitions, and to whom our name was as dear as to myself?”
”Leonardo, spare me!”
”Spare you? Yes, when you have told me that this is some nightmare, some phantasm--a lie! Spare you! Yes, when you tell me that this presumptuous upstart has gone back to his upstart country.”
She dropped her hands from before her face, and stood before him, pale and desperate.
”Leonardo, I cannot give him up, I love him!”
”And do you owe me no love? Do you owe no duty to the grandeur of our race? _n.o.blesse oblige_, Margharita! We bear a great name, and with the honor which it brings, it brings also responsibilities. I do not believe that you can truly love this man; but if you do, your duty is still plain. You must crush your love as you would a poisonous weed under your feet. You must sacrifice yourself for the honor of our name.”
”Leonardo, you do not understand. I love him, and cannot give him up. My word is given; I cannot break it.”
He drew a step further away from her, and his voice became harder.
”You must choose, then, between him and me; between your honor and your unworthy lover. There is no other course. As my sister, you are the dearest thing on earth to me; as that man's wife, you will be an utter stranger. I will never willingly look upon your face, nor hear you speak. I will write your name out of my heart, and my curse shall follow you over the seas to your new home, and ring in your ears by day and by night. I will never forgive; I swear it!”
He ceased and bent forward, as though for her answer. She did not speak.
The deep silence was broken only by the far-off murmur of the sea, and the sound of faint sobbing from between her clasped hands. The sound of her distress softened him for a moment; he hesitated, and then spoke again more quietly.
”Margharita, ponder this over. Be brave, and remember that you are a Marioni. Till to-morrow, farewell!”
CHAPTER IV
”DOWN INTO h.e.l.l TO WIN THE LOVE HE SOUGHT”
It was two hours later, and the Marina was almost deserted. The streets and squares, too, of the southern city were silent and empty. It seemed as though all Palermo had gathered together in that sprawling, whitewashed building, called in courtesy a concert hall. Flashes of light from its many windows gleamed upon the pavements below, and from the upper one the heads of a solid phalanx of men and women, wedged in together, threw quaint shadows across the narrow street. The tradespeople, aristocracy, and visitors of the place had flocked together to the concert, frantically desirous of hearing the great singer who although so young, had been made welcome at every court in Europe. It was an honor to their island city that she should have visited it at all; much more that she should choose to sing there; and the quick Palermitans, fired with enthusiasm, rushed to welcome her. The heavy slumberous air was still vibrating with the shout which had greeted her first appearance, and the echoes from across the scarcely rippled surface of the bay were lingering among the rocky hills on the other side of the harbor.
The Sicilian heard it as he threaded his way toward the poorer part of the city, and a dull red glow burned for a moment in his sallow cheeks.
It maddened him that he, too, was not there to join in it, to feast his eyes upon her, and listen to the matchless music of her voice. Was she not more to him than to any of them? So long he had carried her image in his heart that a curious sense of possession had crept into all his thoughts of her. He was frantically jealous, heedless of the fact that he had no right to be. He would have felt toward the man on whom Adrienne Cartuccio had smiled, as toward a robber. She was his, and his only she should be. Years of faithful homage and unabated longing had made her so. His was a narrow but a strong nature, and the desire of her had become the mainspring of his life. His she should surely be! No other man had the right to lift his eyes to her. As he hurried through those silent streets, he forgot her many kindly but firm repulses.
Jesuitical in his love, any means by which he might win her seemed fair and honorable. And to-night, though he was stooping to treachery to possess himself of this long coveted jewel, he felt no shame; only his heart beat strong and fast with pa.s.sionate hope. The moment had come at length for him to play his last card, and at the very prospect of success heaven itself seemed open before his eyes.
He had been threading his way swiftly, and with the air of one well acquainted with the neighborhood, through a network of narrow streets and courts, filthy and poverty stricken. At last he came to a sudden pause before a flight of steps leading down to the door of a small wine shop, which was little more than a cellar.
From the street one could see into the bar, and the Sicilian paused for a moment, and peered downward. Behind the counter, a stout, swarthy-looking native woman was exchanging coa.r.s.e badinage with a man in a loose jersey and baggy trousers. There seemed to be no one else in the place, save another man who sat in the darkest corner, with his head buried upon his arms.
The Sicilian only hesitated for a moment. Then he pulled his soft hat lower over his eyes, and lighting a cigarette, to dispel as far as possible the rank stale odor of the place, stepped down and entered the wine shop.
Evidently he was not known there. The woman stared curiously at him as she pa.s.sed the gla.s.s of curacao for which he asked, and the man scowled.
He took no notice of either, but, with his gla.s.s in his hand, made his way across the sawdust-covered floor to the most remote of the small tables.
A few feet only from him was the man who slept, or who seemed to sleep, and all around quaint shadows of the tall buildings outside stealing in through the open window almost shut the two men off from the rest of the wine shop where the gas jets hung. The Sicilian smoked on in silence; his neighbor commenced to move. Presently the woman and her admirer resumed their talk, with their heads a little closer together and their voices lowered. They were absorbed in themselves and their coa.r.s.e flirtation. The man sipped more liquor, and the woman filled his gla.s.s with no sparing hand. The strong brandy ran through his veins quicker and quicker. He tried to embrace the woman, and failed, owing to the barrier between them. He tried again, and this time partially succeeded.
Then he tried to clamber over the counter, but missed his footing and fell in a heap on the floor, where he lay, to all appearance, too drunk to get up--helpless and stupefied.
The woman peered over at him with a sneer on her face. Then she arranged the bottles in their places, and called out a noisy greeting to the Sicilian who was smoking silently among the shadows with only the red tip of his cigarette visible in the darkness. He made no reply. She yawned, and looked downward at the drunken man once more. There was no sign of life in his coa.r.s.e face. He was wrapped deep in a drunken sleep, and he still had money in his pockets. Ah, well! It should be hers when these two strangers had gone.