Part 2. The Republic Of Man - Chapter 8

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_ PART TWO. THE REPUBLIC OF MAN
CHAPTER VIII

Being left alone, Roma looked around, and at a glance she took in everything--the thin carpet, the plain chintz, the prints, the incongruous furniture. She saw the photograph on the piano, still standing open, with a cylinder exposed, and in the interval of waiting she felt almost tempted to touch the spring. She saw herself, too, in the mirror above the mantel-piece, with her glossy black hair rolled up like a tower, from which one curly lock escaped on to her forehead, and with the ermine cloak on her shoulders over the white silk muslin which clung to her full figure.

Then she heard David Rossi's footsteps returning, and though she was now completely self-possessed she was conscious of a certain shiver of fear, such as an actress feels in her dressing-room at the tuning-up of the orchestra. Her back was to the door and she heard the whirl of her skirt as he entered, and then he was before her, and they were alone.

He was looking at her out of large, pensive eyes, and she saw him pass his hand over them and then bow and motion her to a seat, and go to the mantel-piece and lean on it. She was tingling all over, and a certain glow was going up to her face, but when she spoke she was mistress of herself, and her voice was soft and natural.

"I am doing a very unusual thing in coming to see you," she said, "but you have forced me to it, and I am quite helpless."

A faint sound came from him, and she was aware that he was leaning forward to see her face, so she dropped her eyes, partly to let him look at her, and partly to avoid meeting his gaze.

"I heard your speech in the piazza this morning. It would be useless to disguise the fact that some of its references were meant for me."

He did not speak, and she played with the glove in her lap, and continued in the same soft voice:

"If I were a man, I suppose I should challenge you. Being a woman, I can only come to you and tell you that you are wrong."

"Wrong?"

"Cruelly, terribly, shamefully wrong."

"You mean to tell me...."

He was stammering in a husky voice, and she said quite calmly:

"I mean to tell you that in substance and in fact what you implied was false."

There was a dry glitter in her eyes which she tried to subdue, for she knew that he was looking at her still.

"If ... if...."--his voice was thick and indistinct--"if you tell me that I have done you an injury...."

"You have--a terrible injury."

She could hear his breathing, but she dared not look up, lest he should see something in her face.

"Perhaps you think it strange," she said, "that I should ask you to accept my assurance only. But though you have done me a great wrong I believe you will accept it."

"If ... if you give me your solemn word of honour that what I said--what I implied--was false, that rumour and report have slandered you, that it is all a cruel and baseless calumny...."

She raised her head, looked him full in the face.

"I _do_ give it," she said.

"Then I believe you," he answered. "With all my heart and soul, I believe you."

She dropped her eyes again, and turning with her thumb an opal ring on her finger, she began to use the blandishments which had never failed with other men.

"I do not say that I am altogether without blame," she said. "I may have lived a thoughtless life amid scenes of poverty and sorrow. If so, perhaps it has been partly the fault of the men about me. When is a woman anything but what the men around have made her?"

She dropped her voice almost to a whisper, and added: "You are the first man who has not praised and flattered me."

"I was not thinking of you," he said. "I was thinking of another, and perhaps of the poor working women who, in a world of luxury, have to struggle and starve."

She looked up, and a half-smile crossed her face.

"I honour you for that," she said. "And perhaps if I had earlier met a man like you my life might have been different. I used to hope for such things long ago--that a man of high aims and noble purposes would come to meet me at the gate of life. Perhaps you have felt like that--that some woman, strong and true, would stand beside you for good or for ill, in your hour of danger and your hour of joy?"

Her voice was not quite steady--she hardly knew why.

"A dream! We all have our dreams," he said.

"A dream indeed! Men came--he was not among them. They pampered every wish, indulged every folly, loaded me with luxuries, but my dream was dispelled. I respected few of them, and reverenced none. They were my pastime, my playthings. And they have revenged themselves by saying in secret ... what you said in public this morning."

He was looking at her constantly with his wistful eyes, the eyes of a child, and through all the joy of her success she was conscious of a spasm of pain at the expression of his sad face and the sound of his tremulous voice.

"We men are much to blame," he said. "In the battle of man with man we deal out blows and think we are fighting fair, but we forget that behind our foe there is often a woman--a wife, a mother, a sister, a friend--and, God forgive us, we have struck her, too."

The half-smile that had gleamed on Roma's face was wiped out of it by these words, and an emotion she did not understand began to surge in her throat.

"You speak of poor women who struggle and starve," she said. "Would it surprise you to hear that _I_ know what it is to do that? Yes, and to be friendless and alone--quite, quite alone in a cruel and wicked city."

She had lost herself for a moment, and the dry glitter in her eyes had given way to a moistness and a solemn expression. But at the next instant she had regained her self-control, and went on speaking to avoid a painful silence.

"I have never spoken of this to any other man," she said. "I don't know why I should mention it to you--to you of all men."

She had risen to her feet, and he stepped up to her, and looking straight into her eyes he said:

"Have you ever seen me before?"

"Never," she answered.

"Sit down," he said. "I have something to say to you."

She sat down, and a peculiar expression, almost a crafty one, came into her face.

"You have told me a little of your life," he said. "Let me tell you something of mine."

She smiled again. These big children called men were almost to be pitied. She had expected a fight, but the man had thrown up the sponge from the outset, and now he was going to give himself into her hands. Only for that pathetic look in his eyes and that searching tone in his voice she could have found it in her heart to laugh.

She let her cape drop back from her shoulders, revealing her round bust and swanlike arms, and crossing one leg over the other she displayed the edge of a lace skirt and the point of a red slipper. Then she coughed a little behind a perfumed lace handkerchief and prepared to listen.

"You are the daughter of an ancient family," he said, "older than the house it lived in, and prouder than a line of kings. And whatever sorrows you may have seen, you knew what it was to have a mother who nursed you and a father who loved you, and a home that was your own. Can you realise what it is to have known neither father nor mother, to be homeless, nameless, and alone?"

She looked up--a deep furrow had crossed his brow, which she had not seen there before.

"Happy the child," he said, "though shame stands beside his cradle, who has one heart beating for him in a cruel world. That was not my case. I never knew my mother."

The mocking fire had died out of Roma's face, and she uncrossed her knees.

"My mother was the victim of a heartless man and a cruel law. She tied to her baby's wrist a paper on which she had written its father's name, placed it in the rota at the Foundling of Santo Spirito, and flung herself into the Tiber."

Roma drew the cape over her shoulders.

"She lies in an unnamed pauper's grave in the Campo Verano."

"_Your_ mother?"

"Yes. My earliest memory is of being put out to nurse at a farmstead in the Campagna. It was the time of revolution; the treasury of the Pope was not yet replaced by the treasury of the King, the nuns at Santo Spirito had no money with which to pay their pensions; and I was like a child forsaken by its own, a fledgling in a foreign nest."

"Oh!"

"Those were the days when scoundrels established abroad traded in the white slavery of poor Italian boys. They scoured the country, gathered them up, put them in railway trucks like cattle, and despatched them to foreign countries. My foster-parents parted with me for money, and I was sent to London."

Roma's bosom was heaving, and tears were gathering in her eyes.

"My next memory is of living in a large half-empty house in Soho--fifty foreign boys crowded together. The big ones were sent out into the streets with an organ, the little ones with a squirrel or a cage of white mice. We had a cup of tea and a piece of bread for breakfast, and were forbidden to return home until we had earned our supper. Then--then the winter days and nights in the cold northern climate, and the little southern boys with their organs and squirrels, shivering and starving in the darkness and the snow."

Roma's eyes were filling frankly, and she was allowing the tears to flow.

"Thank God, I have another memory," he continued. "It is of a good man, a saint among men, an Italian refugee, giving his life to the poor, especially to the poor of his own people."

Roma's labouring breath seemed to be arrested at that moment.

"On several occasions he brought their masters to justice in the English courts, until, finding they were watched, they gradually became less cruel. He opened his house to the poor little fellows, and they came for light and warmth between nine and ten at night, bringing their organs with them. He taught them to read, and on Sunday evenings he talked to them of the lives of the great men of their country. He is dead, but his spirit is alive--alive in the souls he made to live."

Roma's eyes were blinded with the tears that sprang to them, and her throat was choking, but she said:

"What was he?"

"A doctor."

"What was his name?"

David Rossi passed his hand over the furrow in his forehead, and answered:

"They called him Joseph Roselli."

Roma half rose from her seat, then sank back, and the lace handkerchief dropped from her hand.

"But I heard afterwards--long afterwards--that he was a Roman noble, one of the fearless few who had taken up poverty and exile and an unknown name for the sake of liberty and justice."

Roma's head had fallen into her bosom, which was heaving with an emotion she could not conceal.

"One day a letter came from Italy, telling him that a thousand men were waiting for him to lead them in an insurrection that was to dethrone an unrighteous king. It was the trick of a scoundrel who has since been paid the price of a hero's blood. I heard of this only lately--only to-night."

There was silence for a moment. David Rossi had put one arm over his eyes.

"Well?"

"He was enticed back from England to Italy; an English minister violated his correspondence with a friend, and communicated its contents to the Italian Government; he was betrayed into the hands of the police, and deported without trial."

"Was he never heard of again?"

"Once--only once--by the friend I speak about."

Roma felt dizzy, as if she were coming near to some deep places; but she could not stop--something compelled her to go on.

"Who was the friend?" she asked.

"One of his poor waifs--a boy who owed everything to him, and loved and revered him as a father--loves and reveres him still, and tries to follow in the path he trod."

"What--what was his name?"

"David Leone."

She looked at him for a moment without being able to speak. Then she said:

"What happened to him?"

"The Italian courts condemned him to death, and the English police drove him from England."

"Then he has never been able to return to his own country?"

"He has never been able to visit his mother's grave except by secret and at night, and as one who was perpetrating a crime."

"What became of him?"

"He went to America."

"Did he ever return?"

"Yes! Love of home in him, as in all homeless ones, was a consuming passion, and he came back to Italy."

"Where--where is he _now_?"

David Rossi stepped up to her, and said:

"In this room."

She rose:

"Then _you_ are David Leone!"

He raised one hand:

"_David Leone is dead!_"

There was silence for a moment. She could hear the thumping of her heart. Then she said in an almost inaudible whisper:

"I understand. David Leone is dead, but David Rossi is alive."

He did not speak, but his head was held up and his face was shining.

"Are you not afraid to tell me this?"

"No."

Her eyes glistened and her lips quivered.

"You insulted and humiliated me in public this morning, yet you think I will keep your secret?"

"I _know_ you will."

She felt a sensation of swelling in her throbbing heart, and with a slow and nervous gesture she held out her hand.

"May I ... may I shake hands with you?" she said.

There was a moment of hesitation, and then their hands seemed to leap at each other and clasp with a clasp of fire.

At the next instant he had lifted her hand to his lips and was kissing it again and again.

A sensation of triumphant joy flashed through her, and instantly died away. She wished to cry out, to confess, to say something, she knew not what. But _David Leone is dead_ rang in her ears, and at the same moment she remembered what the impulse had been which brought her to that house.

Then her eyes began to swim and her heart to fail, and she wanted to fly away without uttering another word. _She_ could not speak, _he_ could not speak; they stood together on a precipice where only by silence could they hold their heads.

"Let me go home," she said in a breaking voice, and with downcast head and trembling limbs she stepped to the door. _

Read next: Part 2. The Republic Of Man: Chapter 9

Read previous: Part 2. The Republic Of Man: Chapter 7

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