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Then he picked up his bag again slowly, and went out, his heart torn with anguish, with his mind in a whirl, assailed all at once by a thousand anxious thoughts. What was to be done? Where was he to go? From Rosario to Cordova was a day's journey, by rail. He had only a few lire left. After deducting what he should be obliged to spend that day, he would have next to nothing left.
But then "the most eminent one" had as good as promised her that the desires of the Turin haute should be satisfied. "Ce sera lui, ce sera lui!" Finally he had said to her: "Comment donc, madame, avez-vous épousé un francmaçon? Un des pires, aussi! Un des pires! Faites lui lire cela!" And he had given her a little book on the doctrines of hell and the inevitable damnation of Freemasons.
I also gave him many lire, and prophesied for him a Cardinal's hat, if he remained very good and never forgot me. At Naples we stopped three days: most of my friends are, as you know, in prison, but I met some of nice memory. We came to Rome on Holy Thursday.
Father Paolo made Signor Matrosa pay me thirty-three hundred lire as my wages for the many years I had worked for him, and I gave a thousand of it to the manager's daughter, to whom, in a way, I owed my return to my natural self. The rest I gave to Father Paolo for the use of his church. "Luckily, in my belt that Captain Vando had appropriated was my passport.
They were buzzing, buzzing angrily, displeased with the full-fed larvæ in the boxes, because these last were altogether too social, talked too loud and too continuously, drowning the softer passages of the overture. Those dull-coloured insects had expended store of hard-earned lire upon the queer seats they occupied, mounted as upon iron stilts.
I repeated the gist of this to my man Weems was his name, by the way, of New, Oxford, so he said and told him he could get the thing for about twelve lire, if he cared about it. And, to cut the yarn short, he did buy it for twelve-fifty, and left the shop feeling that he had been swindled out of at least half a crown. "What's your purchase about?" I asked when we were in the street again.
Totally ruined, somewhat deeply in debt even, the Prince nevertheless continued to promenade the Corso, like the handsome, smiling, popular man he was, when he accidentally met his death through falling from his horse; and four months later his widow, the ever beautiful Flavia who had managed to save a modern villa and a personal income of forty thousand lire* from the disaster was remarried to a man of magnificent presence, her junior by some ten years.
As she was earning eighty lire a month and spending nothing for herself, she sent home a handsome sum every three months, with which her husband, who was a man of honor, gradually paid off their most urgent debts, and thus regained his good reputation.
But she was happier still when, after a series of games, Maurice pushed back his chair and said: "I've had enough. Salvatore, you are like Gaspare, you have the devil's luck. Together you can't be beaten. But now you play against each other and let's see who wins. I'll put down twenty-five lire. Play till one of you's won every soldo of it. Play all night if you like."
Piero, who was all smiles and complaisance, as well he might be with a lady who scattered lire as freely as Kitty did, turned the boat at once for that channel "Del Orfano" where the bones of the vanquished dead lie deep amid the ooze. They passed San Giorgio, and were soon among the piles and sand-banks of the lagoon. Kitty sat in a dream which blotted the sunshine from the water.
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