William Dean Howells: 27 Novels in One Volume (Illustrated). William Dean Howells

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      "I can't go without saying good-by to Mr. Ferris, Florida," she said at last, "and it's no use asking me. He may have been wanting a little in politeness, but he's been so good all along; and we owe him too much not to make an effort to thank him before we go. We really must stop a moment at his house."

      Florida, who had regarded her mother's efforts to summon Ferris to them with passive coldness, turned a look of agony upon her. But in a moment she bade the gondolier stop at the consulate, and dropping her veil over her face, fell back in the shadow of the tenda-curtains.

      Mrs. Vervain sentimentalized their departure a little, but her daughter made no comment on the scene they were leaving.

      The gondolier rang at Ferris's door and returned with the answer that he was not at home.

      Mrs. Vervain gave way to despair. "Oh dear, oh dear! This is too bad! What shall we do?"

      "We'll lose the train, mother, if we loiter in this way," said Florida.

      "Well, wait. I must leave a message at least." "How could you be away," she wrote on her card, "when we called to say good-by? We've changed our plans and we're going to-day. I shall write you a nice scolding letter from Verona—we're going over the Brenner—for your behavior last night. Who will keep you straight when I'm gone? You've been very, very kind. Florida joins me in a thousand thanks, regrets, and good-byes."

      "There, I haven't said anything, after all," she fretted, with tears in her eyes.

      The gondolier carried the card again to the door, where Ferris's servant let down a basket by a string and fished it up.

      "If Don Ippolito shouldn't be in," said Mrs. Vervain, as the boat moved on again, "I don't know what I shall do with this money. It will be awkward beyond anything."

      The gondola slipped from the Canalazzo into the network of the smaller canals, where the dense shadows were as old as the palaces that cast them and stopped at the landing of a narrow quay. The gondolier dismounted and rang at Don Ippolito's door. There was no response; he rang again and again. At last from a window of the uppermost story the head of the priest himself peered out. The gondolier touched his hat and said, "It is the ladies who ask for you, Don Ippolito."

      It was a minute before the door opened, and the priest, bare-headed and blinking in the strong light, came with a stupefied air across the quay to the landing-steps.

      "Well, Don Ippolito!" cried Mrs. Vervain, rising and giving him her hand, which she first waved at the trunks and bags piled up in the vacant space in the front of the boat, "what do you think of this? We are really going, immediately; we can change our minds too; and I don't think it would have been too much," she added with a friendly smile, "if we had gone without saying good-by to you. What in the world does it all mean, your giving up that grand project of yours so suddenly?"

      She sat down again, that she might talk more at her ease, and seemed thoroughly happy to have Don Ippolito before her again.

      "It finally appeared best, madama," he said quietly, after a quick, keen glance at Florida, who did not lift her veil.

      "Well, perhaps you're partly right. But I can't help thinking that you with your talent would have succeeded in America. Inventors do get on there, in the most surprising way. There's the Screw Company of Providence. It's such a simple thing; and now the shares are worth eight hundred. Are you well to-day, Don Ippolito?"

      "Quite well, madama."

      "I thought you looked rather pale. But I believe you're always a little pale. You mustn't work too hard. We shall miss you a great deal, Don Ippolito."

      "Thanks, madama."

      "Yes, we shall be quite lost without you. And I wanted to say this to you, Don Ippolito, that if ever you change your mind again, and conclude to come to America, you must write to me, and let me help you just as I had intended to do."

      The priest shivered, as if cold, and gave another look at Florida's veiled face.

      "You are too good," he said.

      "Yes, I really think I am," replied Mrs. Vervain, playfully. "Considering that you were going to let me leave Venice without even trying to say good-by to me, I think I'm very good indeed."

      Mrs. Vervain's mood became overcast, and her eyes filled with tears: "I hope you're sorry to have us going, Don Ippolito, for you know how very highly I prize your acquaintance. It was rather cruel of you, I think."

      She seemed not to remember that he could not have known of their change of plan. Don Ippolito looked imploringly into her face, and made a touching gesture of deprecation, but did not speak.

      "I'm really afraid you're not well, and I think it's too bad of us to be going," resumed Mrs. Vervain; "but it can't be helped now: we are all packed, don't you see. But I want to ask one favor of you, Don Ippolito; and that is," said Mrs. Vervain, covertly taking a little rouleau from her pocket, "that you'll leave these inventions of yours for a while, and give yourself a vacation. You need rest of mind. Go into the country, somewhere, do. That's what's preying upon you. But we must really be off, now. Shake hands with Florida—I'm going to be the last to part with you," she said, with a tearful smile.

      Don Ippolito and Florida extended their hands. Neither spoke, and as she sank back upon the seat from which she had half risen, she drew more closely the folds of the veil which she had not lifted from her face.

      Mrs. Vervain gave a little sob as Don Ippolito took her hand and kissed it; and she had some difficulty in leaving with him the rouleau, which she tried artfully to press into his palm. "Good-by, good-by," she said, "don't drop it," and attempted to close his fingers over it.

      But he let it lie carelessly in his open hand, as the gondola moved off, and there it still lay as he stood watching the boat slip under a bridge at the next corner, and disappear. While he stood there gazing at the empty arch, a man of a wild and savage aspect approached. It was said that this man's brain had been turned by the death of his brother, who was betrayed to the Austrians after the revolution of '48, by his wife's confessor. He advanced with swift strides, and at the moment he reached Don Ippolito's side he suddenly turned his face upon him and cursed him through his clenched teeth: "Dog of a priest!"

      Don Ippolito, as if his whole race had renounced him in the maniac's words, uttered a desolate cry, and hiding his face in his hands, tottered into his house.

      The rouleau had dropped from his palm; it rolled down the shelving marble of the quay, and slipped into the water.

      The young beggar who had held Mrs. Vervain's gondola to the shore while she talked, looked up and down the deserted quay, and at the doors and windows. Then he began to take off his clothes for a bath.

XVII

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      Ferris returned at nightfall to his house, where he had not been since daybreak, and flung himself exhausted upon the bed. His face was burnt red with the sun, and his eyes were bloodshot. He fell into a doze and dreamed that he was still at Malamocco, whither he had gone that morning in a sort of craze, with some fishermen, who were to cast their nets there; then he was rowing back to Venice across the lagoon, that seemed СКАЧАТЬ