Part 7 (1/2)
A gentleman attending the lady whispered to her. She bent her eyes on Mae, and met her glance with a smile, and Mae smiled rapturously back.
Mae had been looking for Bero all that afternoon. She felt sure he would be there, and very soon she saw him among a crowd of officers sauntering slowly down the Corso. He looked up at the window opposite. The veiled lady leaned slightly forward and bowed and waved her white hand. Bero bowed. So did the other officers.
Norman Mann and Eric excused themselves long enough to dash over to welcome their friends and then stayed on for a little chat. These young women were quite gorgeous in opera cloaks and tiny, nearly invisible, American flags tucked through their belts. They tossed confetti down on every one's heads, and shouted--a little over-enthusiastically, but one can pardon even gush if it is only genuine. That was the question in this case.
The horse race came; and Mae went fairly wild. When it was over, every body prepared to go home. King Pasquino had virtually abdicated in favor of the Dinner Kings. Mae unclasped her tightly strained hands, clambered down from a chair she had perched herself on, smiled a good-bye at the veiled lady, and came away. She rode home quietly with a big bouquet of exquisite blue violets in her hand. There was a rose on top and a fringe of maiden's hair at the edge, and the bouquet was flung from Bero's own hand up at the side window on the quiet Jesu e Maria, when everyone else but Mae was out on the Corso balcony.
”It is dreadful to grow old,” said Mae, breaking silence, as the carriage clattered over the stony streets.
”My dear,” expostulated Edith, ”you surely don't call yourself old. What do you mean?”
”I fancied I could take the Carnival as a child takes a big bonbon and just think with a smack of the lips, 'My! how good this is.' But here I am, wondering what my candy is made of all the time, and forgetting, except at odd moments, to enjoy myself for trying to separate false from true, and gold from gilt. Still, what is the use of this stuff now! I'll remember that horse race, for there I did forget myself and everything but motion. How I would like to be a horse!” And the volatile Mae seized the stems of her bouquet for whip and bridle and gave a little inelegant expressive click-click to her lips as if she were spurring that imaginary steed herself.
Norman smiled. ”We can't keep children for ever, even--”
”The silliest of us?”
”Even the freshest and blithest.”
”O, dear, that is like a moral to a Sunday-school book,” said Mae; ”don't be goody-goody to-night.”
”What bad thing shall I do to please your majesty, my lady Pasquino?”
”Waltz,” said Mae. So, after dinner, Edith and Eric sang, and Norman and Mae took to the poetry of motion as ducks take to water, and outdanced the singers.
”Thank you,” said Mae, smiling up at him. ”This has done me good.” She pushed the brown hair back from her forehead and drew some deep breaths and leaned back in her chair, still tapping her eager, half-tired foot against the floor, while Norman fanned her with his handkerchief.
This time Bero and the strange, veiled lady and Miss Hopkins and every other confusing thought floated off, and left them quite happy for--well--say for ten minutes.
And ten minutes consecutive enjoyment is worth waiting for, old and cynical people say.
The next morning brought back all her troubles, with variations and complications, on account of some more misunderstood words.
”I think,” said Mae, as she paused to blot the tenth page of a home letter, ”that likes and dislikes are very similar, don't you, Edith?”
Then, as Edith did not reply, she glanced up, and saw that her friend's chair was occupied by Norman Mann. He looked up also and smiled.
”I am not Edith, you see, but I am interested in your theory all the same. Only, as I am a man, I shall require you to show up your reasons.”
”Well, I find that people who affect me very intensely either way, I always feel intuitively acquainted with. I know what they will think and how they will act under given conditions, and I believe we are driven into friends.h.i.+p or strong dislikes more by the force of circ.u.mstances than by--”
”Elective affinities or any of that nonsense,” suggested Norman Mann.
”Yes,” said Mae, nodding her head, and repeating her original statement under another form, as a sort of conclusion and proof to the conversation. ”Yes, a natural acquaintance may develop into your best friend or your worst foe.” She started on page number eleven of her letter, dipping her pen deep into the ink-stand and giving such a particular flourish to her right arm, as to nearly upset the bouquet of flowers at her side. It was Bero's gift. Norman Mann put out his hand to save it. His fingers fell in among the soft flowers and touched something stiff. It felt like a little roll of paper. Indignantly and surprisedly he pulled it out. ”What is this?” he cried.
Mae sprang forward, her cheeks aflame. ”It is mine,” she said.
”Did you put it here?” asked Norman.
”No.”
”Then how do you know it is yours? Is not this a carnival bouquet, idly tossed from the street to the balcony?”