 | XIII. A foregone conclusion |  |
13. XIII.
The ladies were sitting on the terrace when Don
Ippolito came next morning to say that he could
not read with Miss Vervain that day nor for several
days after, alleging in excuse some priestly duties
proper to the time. Mrs. Vervain began to lament
that she had not been able to go to the procession
of the day before. “I meant to have kept a sharp
lookout for you; Florida saw you, and so did Mr.
Ferris. But it is n't at all the same thing, you
know. Florida has no faculty for describing; and
now I shall probably go away from Venice without
seeing you in your real character once.”
Don Ippolito suffered this and more in meek
silence. He waited his opportunity with unfailing
politeness, and then with gentle punctilio took his
leave.
“Well, come again as soon as your duties will
let you, Don Ippolito,” cried Mrs. Vervain. “We
shall miss you dreadfully, and I begrudge every one
of your readings that Florida loses.”
The priest passed, with the sliding step which his
impeding drapery imposed, down the garden walk,
and was half-way to the gate, when Florida, who
had stood watching him, said to her mother, “I
the steps and swiftly glided in pursuit.
“Don Ippolito!” she called.
He already had his hand upon the gate, but he
turned, and rapidly went back to meet her.
She stood in the walk where she had stopped
when her voice arrested him, breathing quickly.
Their eyes met; a painful shadow overcast the face
of the young girl, who seemed to be trying in vain
to speak.
Mrs. Vervain put on her glasses and peered
down at the two with good-natured curiosity.
“Well, madamigella,” said the priest at last,
“what do you command me?” He gave a faint,
patient sigh.
The tears came into her eyes. “Oh,” she began
vehemently, “I wish there was some one who
had the right to speak to you!”
“No one,” answered Don Ippolito, “has so much
the right as you.”
“I saw you yesterday,” she began again, “and I
thought of what you had told me, Don Ippolito.”
“Yes, I thought of it, too,” answered the priest;
“I have thought of it ever since.”
“But have n't you thought of any hope for yourself?
Must you still go on as before? How can
you go back now to those things, and pretend to
think them holy, and all the time have no heart or
faith in them? It 's terrible!”
“What would you, madamigella?” demanded
my trade, you know. You might say to
the prisoner,” he added bitterly, “`It is terrible to
see you chained here.' Yes, it is terrible. Oh, I
don't reject your compassion! But what can I
do?”
“Sit down with me here,” said Florida in her
blunt, child-like way, and sank upon the stone seat
beside the walk. She clasped her hands together
in her lap with some strong, bashful emotion, while
Don Ippolito, obeying her command, waited for her
to speak. Her voice was scarcely more than a
hoarse whisper when she began.
“I don't know how to begin what I want to say.
I am not fit to advise any one. I am so young, and
so very ignorant of the world.”
“I too know little of the world,” said the priest,
as much to himself as to her.
“It may be all wrong, all wrong. Besides,” she
said abruptly, “how do I know that you are a good
man, Don Ippolito? How do I know that you 've
been telling me the truth? It may be all a kind
of trap” —
He looked blankly at her.
“This is in Venice; and you may be leading me
on to things to say you that will make trouble for
my mother and me. You may be a spy” —
“Oh no, no, no!” cried the priest, springing to
his feet with a kind of moan, and a shudder, “God
forbid!” He swiftly touched her hand with the
of inexpressible humility. “Madamigella, I swear
to you by everything you believe good that I would
rather die than be false to you in a single breath
or thought.”
“Oh, I know it, I know it,” she murmured. “I
don't see how I could say such a cruel thing.”
“Not cruel; no, madamigella, not cruel,” softly
pleaded Don Ippolito.
“But — but is there no escape for you?”
They looked steadfastly at each other for a moment,
and then Don Ippolito spoke.
“Yes,” he said very gravely, “there is one way
of escape. I have often thought of it, and once I
thought I had taken the first step towards it; but
it is beset with many great obstacles, and to be a
priest makes one timid and insecure.”
He lapsed into his musing melancholy with the
last words; but she would not suffer him to lose
whatever heart he had begun to speak with.
“That 's nothing,” she said, “you must think
again of that way of escape, and never turn from it
till you have tried it. Only take the first step and
you can go on. Friends will rise up everywhere,
and make it easy for you. Come,” she implored
him fervently, “you must promise.”
He bent his dreamy eyes upon her.
“If I should take this only way of escape, and
it seemed desperate to all others, would you still be
my friend?”
“I should be your friend if the whole world
turned against you.”
“Would you be my friend,” he asked eagerly in
lower tones, and with signs of an inward struggle,
“if this way of escape were for me to be no longer
a priest?”
“Oh yes, yes! Why not?” cried the girl; and
her face glowed with heroic sympathy and defiance.
It is from this heaven-born ignorance in women
of the insuperable difficulties of doing right that
men take fire and accomplish the sublime impossibilities.
Our sense of details, our fatal habits of
reasoning paralyze us; we need the impulse of the
pure ideal which we can get only from them.
These two were alike children as regarded the
world, but he had a man's dark prevision of the
means, and she a heavenly scorn of everything but
the end to be achieved.
He drew a long breath. “Then it does not
seem terrible to you?”
“Terrible? No! I don't see how you can rest
till it is done!”
“Is it true, then, that you urge me to this step,
which indeed I have so long desired to take?”
“Yes, it is true! Listen, Don Ippolito: it is
the very thing that I hoped you would do, but I
wanted you to speak of it first. You must have
all the honor of it, and I am glad you thought of it
before. You will never regret it!”
She smiled radiantly upon him, and he kindled
darkened again. “But it will cost much,” he
murmured.
“No matter,” cried Florida. “Such a man as
you ought to leave the priesthood at any risk or
hazard. You should cease to be a priest, if it cost
you kindred, friends, good fame, country, everything!”
She blushed with irrelevant consciousness.
“Why need you be downhearted? With
your genius once free, you can make country and
fame and friends everywhere. Leave Venice!
There are other places. Think how inventors succeed
in America” —
“In America!” exclaimed the priest. “Ah,
how long I have desired to be there!”
“You must go. You will soon be famous and
honored there, and you shall not be a stranger,
even at the first. Do you know that we are going
home very soon? Yes, my mother and I have
been talking of it to-day. We are both homesick,
and you see that she is not well. You shall come
to us there, and make our house your home till you
have formed some plans of your own. Everything
will be easy. God is good,” she said in a breaking
voice, “and you may be sure he will befriend you.”
“Some one,” answered Don Ippolito, with tears
in his eyes, “has already been very good to me. I
thought it was you, but I will call it God!”
“Hush! You must n't say such things. But
you must go, now. Take time to think, but not
too much time. Only, — be true to yourself.”
They rose, and she laid her hand on his arm
with an instinctive gesture of appeal. He stood bewildered.
Then, “Thanks, madamigella, thanks!”
he said, and caught her fragrant hand to his lips.
He loosed it and lifted both his arms by a blind
impulse in which he arrested himself with a burning
blush, and turned away. He did not take leave
of her with his wonted formalities, but hurried abruptly
toward the gate.
A panic seemed to seize her as she saw him open
it. She ran after him. “Don Ippolito, Don Ippolito,”
she said, coming up to him; and stammered
and faltered. “I don't know; I am frightened.
You must do nothing from me; I cannot let you;
I 'm not fit to advise you. It must be wholly
from your own conscience. Oh no, don't look so!
I will be your friend, whatever happens. But if
what you think of doing has seemed so terrible to
you, perhaps it is more terrible than I can understand.
If it is the only way, it is right. But is
there no other? What I mean is, have you no one
to talk all this over with? I mean, can't you speak
of it to — to Mr. Ferris? He is so true and honest
and just.”
“I was going to him,” said Don Ippolito, with a
dim trouble in his face.
“Oh, I am so glad of that! Remember, I don't
take anything back. No matter what happens, I
will be your friend. But he will tell you just what
to do.”
Don Ippolito bowed and opened the gate.
Florida went back to her mother, who asked her,
“What in the world have you and Don Ippolito been
talking about so earnestly? What makes you so
pale and out of breath?”
“I have been wanting to tell you, mother,” said
Florida. She drew her chair in front of the elder
lady, and sat down.
| XIII. A foregone conclusion | |