On Christmas Eve (Old Style) Regina and Antonio went to the Princess's reception. They were accompanied by a little blonde lady, modestly attired in black. It was Gabrie, the Master's daughter, who had realised her dream of finishing her studies in Rome at the Scuola di Magistero. For two months, courageously and quietly, she had lived on study and privation in a garret of Via San Lorenzo, in the family of a strolling musician, who had once been an organist near her home. The Venutellis had offered her hospitality, but she had refused it, contenting herself with visiting at their house and allowing them occasionally to take her to the theatre. To-night, chiefly out of curiosity, she had condescended to go with them to Madame Makuline's. She wanted to see a rich lady close, that she might excite the envy of her puffed-up young friend at Sabbioneta.

Innocently, or sarcastically (Regina had not yet made out if Gabrie were innocent or malicious), she said—

"I've been sending her picture cards of the fox hunt, the meet, the motors, the smart people. That young woman has no ideas beyond all that." (She said that young woman in accents of profound contempt.)

"Nor have many others," muttered Antonio.

He was stepping a little in advance of the ladies, and seemed lost in thought, very erect and fashionable, however, in his dark, smooth overcoat.

"Do you mean that for me?" said Gabrie, after a pause. Then, without waiting for a reply, almost as if penitent, she added, "Dear me, Signor Antonio, aren't you crushed by that coat? The history professor has one like it, and the girls say whenever he goes out he has to come home and lie down—he's so worn out by it."

"Indeed!" said Antonio, absently.

They arrived at the Villa. The night was warm and still; the blue splendour of the moon eclipsed the lamps. The street was empty. Regina remembered the first night she had come to this house, and she sighed and smiled. She did not know why she sighed nor why she smiled, but she rapidly recalled how unhappy she had been then, while now she was so extremely happy, with a husband who loved her so much and worked for her so hard, with her pretty baby, her home, her heart-felt peace and assured prosperity; and yet——And yet? Oh, nothing! A mere cloud, the shadow of a cloud, passing over the depths of her soul!

The great doors opened. The servant did not smile, but his pale, impassive face lighted up amiably at sight of the new-comers.

"Are there many people?" asked Antonio, as the servant took Regina's cloak.

"A few," replied the big youth, in a bass voice.

Regina looked at Gabrie, who, after a rapid glance at the wolves in the porch, was covertly scrutinising the servant. He carried the wraps into an adjacent room, and Antonio familiarly opened the door to the right.

"Wait one moment," said Regina, who was smoothing her hair. It was beautifully arranged. She was rosy, and a little plumper than she had been a year or two ago. Her light dress with its neck garniture of foamy white was becoming. She looked young and almost a beauty. Indeed, she thought so herself, and entered the Princess's drawing-room quite satisfied.

"How's the little one?" asked Madame.

"Quite well, thank you. May I introduce my friend?"

Gabrie bowed to the hostess, who scarcely noticed her. Then she sat down in the corner of a sofa and stayed there the whole evening, shy, quiet and silent.

The usual old ladies and old gentlemen filled the rooms, which, as usual, were overheated.

The only person at all young was a lady dressed childishly in blue, with big blue eyes and long, downcast golden lashes. She sat near the hostess, in a circle of two old ladies and three old men, amongst whom was he of the pink-china bald head.

Madame was silent, listening to a German traveller who was giving an account of his recent tour in India. Fatter than ever, paler, more dowdy in her clumsy black velvet gown, the Princess looked like one of the many old women of remoter ages whose ugliness has been immortalised by the painters of their day. Her eyes alone seemed alive in her swollen, corpse-like face.

The lady in blue asked the German if he had read Loti's article on India (without the English) in the Revue des Deux Mondes.

"Oh, he exaggerates, as usual. To read Loti, you'd suppose the burial in the Ganges a poem. On the contrary, it's a great——"

"——a great saletÉ," said Marianna, sitting near Gabrie, and whispering so as not to be overheard by Madame, who often reproved her for her coarse language.

Gabrie, who had understood from her Sabbioneta friend that great ladies never said ugly words, stared at Marianna, then dropped her eyes and remained quiet in her corner.

"Whatever Loti says is false," continued the German. "I once heard Madame Ciansahma, a Japanese authoress, say that when she wanted a laugh she read a book of Loti's."

"And don't we laugh when Madame Ciansahma takes us off, and tries to look like an European?" asked the lady in blue.

"How can she know what Madame Ciansahma looks like?" whispered Marianna, leaning forward.

Regina also leaned forward and indicated the blue lady.

"She's blind, isn't she?"

"Stone blind. For that matter," added Marianna, "the blind sometimes see more than those with eyes."

Gabrie, mute and stiff, wedged in between the two young ladies, looked and listened. Every one was talking except herself—her small, colourless self in her little black frock. The blind lady, moving and talking as if she could see perfectly, became the special object of her attention.

The Princess was talking. Antonio also, very handsome but preternaturally grave, was talking to an elderly young lady who had stuck a golden fringe on top of her scanty red hair. Scraps of phrases, laughter, isolated words in the midst of the general hubbub, reached the corner where sat Regina, Gabrie and Marianna.

"Do you know that lady's history?" asked Marianna. "Blind as she is, she tried to murder her husband, who was the cause of her calamity."

"How was that?"

"I'll tell you afterwards. Now I must talk to those people over there."

She moved off with a great rustling of her petticoats. But suddenly she stopped and said, looking back to Regina—

"I met your baby out with that demon of a nurse. I put the woman in a fury telling her we were going to have an earthquake."

"I know," said Regina laughing; "you frightened her to death."

"Frightened her? Won't that poison the baby? But it's quite true about the earthquake. I read it in print."

"Really? What fun!" said Gabrie.

Marianna seemed to see her for the first time.

"Is this a relation of yours?" she asked Regina.

"More or less," said Regina.

"I observe a likeness. But bless me! I'm forgetting my duties."

She started again, but again turned back.

"Oh! I've been wanting to tell you something, Signora. Come with me. How grand you are to-night! It must be because——"

"What do you want to tell me?"

"Come with me," said Marianna, taking her hand.

"Gabrie, you come too," said Regina.

Gabrie rose, but, bethinking her that Marianna probably wished to speak to her friend alone, she begged to be allowed to remain where she was.

"You won't be lonely?"

"No, no. I like this corner. Go."

Regina went, but soon came back and took Gabrie to the supper-room. The table was laden with plate, and the company stood round it eating and drinking. Marianna, seated at the Samovar, was pouring tea into Japanese cups, delicate and transparent as flowers. Antonio was carrying them to the guests. He gave one to Gabrie, who smiled at him quietly.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" asked Antonio.

"Yes, very much. Only I can't understand all they say. Even Regina talks French. She speaks very well."

Antonio looked at his wife, so fair, delicate, graceful. She drew nearer and said—

"What are you staring at me for?"

"Am I not allowed to look at my wife? Why are you pale? You were quite rosy when we came. What's the matter?"

"The matter? Nothing. Am I pale, Gabrie?"

"A little. But it's very becoming," said Gabrie, tasting the tea.

"Thank you, dear!"

"You're much the prettiest here. Isn't she, Signor Antonio?"

"The prettiest and the best dressed."

"You're overwhelming me, you two," said Regina; "you're a pair of flatterers, that's what you are!"

"She's grown fatter, hasn't she," said Antonio to Gabrie. "Do you remember how thin she was? By Jove, she was a fright!"

"Thank you, my dear!" said Regina.

"No, she wasn't a fright. She was thin, certainly. But when she came home last year she was thin then. And quite green, she was! And always in a bad humour! She was afraid you had run away from her, Signor Antonio, and was always watching for the postman——"

"Who told you that?" asked Regina, astonished.

"I saw it. But the moment Signor Antonio arrived——"

"Upon my word, if you fail as a novelist it won't be for want of observation, my dear!"

They were standing all together at a short distance from their hostess. The latter suddenly turned and came towards them. In her small be-gemmed hands she held a plate and a silver fork. She was eating slowly, munching at a slice of tart, and she had smeared her mouth with chocolate. Never had she looked more hideous.

"Is your friend from Viadana?" she asked Antonio, pointing to Gabrie with her fork.

"From the country—from my home!" cried Regina, looking affectionately at the girl.

It seemed to her that Gabrie's little face wore a look of ineffable disgust.

The days and the months rolled on.

A morning came when Regina woke to see a thread of gold coming through the closed shutters and falling on the blue wall across the corner of her room. It was the sun beating on the window. Spring had come, and Regina felt a profound gladness. Time had run on, and she had not noticed it, so happy she thought herself. Sometimes she felt quite afraid of her happiness, and even this morning, after her quick joy at sight of the sunshine, she looked at the sleeping Antonio and thought—

"Suppose he were to die! Any one of us, I, or he, or baby, might die at any moment! This great light which shines in my soul might be put out in one instant."

She raised herself on her elbow and surveyed her husband. His fine head, motionless on the pillow, illuminated by the gold ray from the window, had the severe beauty of a statue. Blue veins showed on his closed eyelids. His whole aspect was of suavity and gentleness.

Last night he had come home late, later than usual, even though most nights he was late. Regina was not jealous. He worked hard all day. Every hour was absorbed by feverish activity. Only in the evening could he amuse himself, walk, do what he liked. His wife knew this and asked for no account of these hours. Besides, did he not always tell her where he had been? There were days in which husband and wife hardly saw each other, except in the morning when they first woke; and sometimes, if he woke late, Antonio had to jump out of bed, dress in a hurry, bolt his breakfast, and run to the office.

For all that, perhaps because of that, their life went on smooth and tranquil as a limpid and quiet stream. Nurse (always relating how she had lived with a pair who used to beat each other even in bed—"and when I wanted to make peace between them I took a stick too!") used to say—

"We can't go on like this, Mistress! Do quarrel with Master a little, or you'll see we shall get some bad luck."

"I defy the prophecy!" said Regina.

"Well, I hope I'll get through bringing up the little angel first! See what a beauty she is! See!"

Antonio woke, and before opening his eyes felt that Regina was looking at him, and he smiled.

"It must be very late!" he exclaimed, seeing the ray of sunshine.

"No; it's the sun which is earlier. It's a quarter to eight. Shall I ring for baby?"

"Wait one minute! Give me a kiss! We hardly ever see each other!"

He took her in his arms and kissed her, hugging her like a child. She kissed his smooth brow, his hair, and, feeling him all her own, so loving, so young, so handsome, so trusting, her heart throbbed with a tenderness that was almost pain. Thus for several minutes they remained embraced, in the silence, in the luminous penumbra of the warm, blue room.

Outside the street was becoming animated; but the noises vibrated softly, as if blended in the deep serenity of the air.

"I feel as if we were lying in a wood," said Antonio. "I'm still half asleep, and I'd like to sleep on like this to the end of time."

"It's the spring!" said Regina. "I also see the wood, and through the wood the river, and, oh, so many flowers!"

"Are you going to the Pincio to-day?"

"No; I'm going to see Gabrie. She has been three days in bed, poor child."

Antonio made no remark. He did not require his wife to account for her time, just as she did not demand it of him.

Regina wanted to go and see her mother in June, and he asked, suddenly, "When is the exam.?"

"What exam.? Gabrie's? July, I think."

"Then you aren't going back together, as she said the other day?"

"No."

They were silent. So much time had passed, so many things had changed—Regina had left home twice, and twice she had come back—that the caprice of her first going away now seemed a mere childishness, far off, obscured by subsequent events. Still, every time they spoke of parting, even if, as to-day, it were at one of the sweetest and most intimate moments of their life, they felt embarrassed, separated, torn asunder by some extraneous force. But this did not last. To-day spring was beating at the window. It was the time not of clouds, but of sun. Young, at ease, in love with each other, Regina and Antonio forgot the winter with the birds, and with them sung their hymn of joy.

He called her his little queen, and squandered on her a thousand extravagant pet names. She admired him—meaning it, too—and told him he was the most beautiful husband in the whole world. From the wall the sun's eye watched them, pleased and peaceful.

Regina went with the nurse and baby to the station gardens, then set off to visit Gabrie. She was taking her a book, a bunch of violets, and a packet of biscuits; and she walked along lightly and briskly, imagining herself engaged in a work of charity. She glanced at the station clock and saw it was ten. Not a leaf fluttered, and the motionless air was perfumed by narcissus and young grass. In the distance the mountains were the colour of flax-blossom, and scarce visible, as if seen through the transparence of water. A bird-seller stepped just in front of Regina, and so intense, so insistent was the joy of spring, that even the little half-fledged sparrows, the redbreasts stained with blood, the canaries yellow as daffodils, twittered with delight in the two swinging cages carried by the melancholy man. Regina thought of buying a baby sparrow for Caterina; but what would Caterina make of it? She would choke it without even amusement. No; Regina would not accustom her little one to senseless pleasures and cruel caprices.

"But," she reflected, "if I buy the bird I shall give one moment of pleasure to this sorrowful seller, who probably hasn't taken a penny to-day. Yet why should I suppose the man sorrowful? He may be quite happy. We are always imagining the griefs of others, and probably they don't exist. Once I thought everybody was unhappy; now—now—I see I was wrong."

Spring penetrated even into the big house where Gabrie lived. Regina had always seen the stairs damp, greasy and muddy; but to-day they were quite dry, the landings washed; an open door revealed a passage with polished floor. From the first storey, which represented the luxury of a book-keeper, to the fourth, inhabited by the ex-organist, the inhabitants had cleaned up the house to receive the Easter warmth—enemy of that great enemy of the poor, winter. Regina had an undefined feeling of pensive pleasure as she heard her green silk petticoat rustling up the silence of the stairs. She was not consciously thinking of her silk petticoat, nor of the comfort of her life, the short, well-lighted stair of her own dwelling, her two drawing-rooms, her Savings-bank book, her subscription to the Costanzi; but the certainty of all these possessions illumined her heart, and made her a little sentimental. She felt herself a person of consequence, sun-warmed like Easter, violets in her hand, bringing the breath of spring up that stair of poverty, of workers, students, failures. She would have liked to leave a violet on the threshold of every Apartment. She remembered an anÆmic young student whom she had once seen coming out of N. 8, his lips blue, his eyes pale as faded hyacinths, buttoned up in a threadbare though clean overcoat; and she wished she might meet him to-day to greet him and make him understand that she loved the poor, whom once she had despised.

But the young man did not come out, and she climbed on till she had reached a door where a card, fixed with four wafers, informed the visitor that this Apartment had the good fortune to shelter.

It was not impressive to Regina, as she had seen it already. She had visited Gabrie several times. In the first instance the Master had written praying her to "scrutinise whether the environment were dangerous or doubtful, as all the houses in the San Lorenzo quarter were reputed to be."

Signora Colorni opened the door, a little woman with a black cap and blue spectacles. She did not immediately recognise the visitor, and hesitated childishly about allowing her to enter. Regina made her smell the violets, and said, in the Mantuan dialect—

"Don't you know me? How is Gabrie?"

The little woman, whom typhus fever had left bald, dumb, and nearly blind, smiled gently. Her little face was the face of a child who has put on Grandmother's cap and spectacles for fun. Regina walked on into the Apartment, crossed the passage, which was very clean and in which was a great smell of cooking, went into the little parlour, the half-shut window of which was veiled by a curtain of yellowish muslin. Through the open door she saw that Gabrie's room, in process of arranging by Signora Colorni, was empty.

She turned. The dumb woman smiled, and waved her hand to the window.

"What? Out? But she wrote to me she was ill in bed!"

The little woman shook her head, coughed, and touched her forehead to signify that Gabrie had certainly been ill. Then she smiled again, pointed to the window, took a chair, for they had come into the little room, and placed it before Regina.

"Will she soon be back? Where is she gone?"

The woman took an envelope from Gabrie's table and held it to the wall.

"Gone to post a letter, is that it? Well, I'll wait a few minutes, as I am tired. And how's Signor Ennio?"

Again the woman smiled, made the gesture of violin-playing, then opened her arms very wide, perhaps to intimate that he had gone a long way, and that his instrument was speaking tenderly and humbly to some German bride and bridegroom in that hour of sun, in the poetry of some suburban inn, lively with chickens and pink with peach-blossom.

Regina sat down, and the little woman went away.

For some minutes profound silence reigned in the clean little Apartment, full of peace and the odour of baked meats. Gabrie's tiny room, with its pink-flowered yellow paper, its narrow white bed, its little table littered with books and copy-books, its window open on a sky of pearl-strewn azure, gave Regina the idea of a nest on the top of a poplar-tree. Yes! life was lovely even for the poor! Everything was relative. This strolling fiddler, who at night brought two, three, sometimes even five lire home to his little hard-working, dumb wife, and found his little home clean, a good piece of abbacchio (kid) in the oven, and a soft bed waiting for him, was happier than many a millionaire. And Gabrie, with her pluck and her dreams, who saw her life before her long but luminous, like that depth of sky behind her window—who could say how happy she must be! "Happiness is not in our surroundings, but in ourselves," thought Regina. "I declare I once thought myself wretched because I lived on a fifth floor in a house which was in quite a good quarter. Now I believe I could be happy even here—in this house of poor people, in the outskirts of the kingdom of the most miserable!"

Still Gabrie did not come in. So much the better, if it meant she was cured. Regina looked at her tiny clock; it was half-past ten. She could wait a little longer. She got up and walked to the window. On the right, on the left, overhead, that dazzling sky; down below the railway, the tall houses tanned by the sun; bits of green, the vague breathing of life and of spring, the immense palpitation of a distant steam engine. All, all was beautiful.

Still no Gabrie. Regina left the window and approached the table to set down the violets which she still held in her hand. Her silk petticoat made a great rustling in the silence of the tiny room.

Yes; everything was beautiful; not least that little table covered with foolscap and note-books which represented the dream, the essence, the finger-marks of a soul clear and deep as a mirror. Regina took up an open note-book.

She remembered the time when she, too, had thought of becoming an authoress. She had never succeeded in writing the first line of her first chapter. How far would Gabrie get? Further, it was to be hoped, than Arduina! Regina's thoughts wandered to her husband's relations. They had disappeared, or at least faded from her life, like personages in the opening chapters of a novel who find no opportunity of coming in again. Regina often sent nurse and baby to visit the grand-mother, and she listened to Antonio when he talked of his family. Herself, however, she hardly ever saw any of them, and though now she regarded them as neither more nor less agreeable than a thousand others, she could not resist a feeling of resentment whenever she found herself in their society.

But why should she think of them now when she was turning the leaves of Gabrie's note-book? She sought the sequence of ideas. This was it. Confusedly she was thinking that if Antonio, instead of taking her to his relations in that odious Apartment, choked up with lumber and horrible figures like an ugly and ill-painted picture, had brought her to a little, silent, sunny home as humble as even this of the ex-organist, she would not have suffered so acutely during her honeymoon.

She put down that note-book and picked up another. Her thoughts now changed their shape like clouds urged by the wind.

"No; I should probably have suffered more. I had to suffer, to pass through a crisis. I suppose all wives of any intelligence have to go through it. And now, now it's easy for me to think everything beautiful, because I am happy, because my life has become easy. Ah! What's this?

"A young lady of seventeen, of noble though fallen family, anÆmic, insincere, vain, envious, ambitious; knows how to conceal her faults under a cold sweetness which seems natural. She is always talking of the upper aristocracy. Some one told her she was like a Virgin of Botticelli's, and ever since she has assumed an air of ecstasy and sentiment. This does not prevent her from being ignobly enamoured of a sign-painter."

Regina recalled the enthusiasm with which the Master had read part of this extract to Signora Caterina. She saw again the big Louis XV room, flooded with the burning twilight, the clouds travelling like violet-grey birds over the greenish sky, over the greenish river.

"See what a spirit of observation! It's a character for a future story, Signora Caterina. My Gabrie picks up, picks up. She sees a character, observes it, sets it down. She is like a good housewife who keeps everything in case it may come in useful——"

The Master talked, and Regina pitied him. The Master read, and Regina recognised in the figure drawn with photographic minuteness the young lady from Sabbioneta.

Gabrie's note-book was almost filled with these little figures. Regina turned the leaves without scruple, and in the later pages she found characters of professors, students, that of Claretta (a flirt, hysterical, corrupt), whom Gabrie had met in Regina's drawing-room a few days before.

She was terrible, this future novelist; not a looking-glass, but a RÖntgen apparatus!

Regina, impelled by curiosity, continued to turn the leaves and to read, standing by the little table.

"A young wife, short-sighted, dark, all eyes and mouth, clever, rather original, a little enigmatical. Of noble but fallen family; imagines she doesn't value her blue blood, and, perhaps, does not think about it; but her blood is blue, and she feels it, and would like to be aristocratic. She is fond of luxury and of rich people. She is married to a poor man, but has succeeded in making him largely increase his income."

"Good gracious! This is myself!" thought Regina, amused but slightly offended. "She doesn't treat me very kindly, this girl! What does she mean by that last phrase?"

Suddenly she remembered that Gabrie had once told her certain stories she has got from her fellow-students.

"But it's a fire of calumny, that college of yours!" Regina had protested, and Gabrie had answered—

"A fire? It's a furnace!"

She read on—

"An authoress: tall, thin, yellow, with little, milky eyes, small mouth, black teeth, yellow hair, hooked nose. Moves pity by the mere sight of her. When she's with men she also tries to flirt."

"That's Arduina, slain in three lines," thought Regina.

Then she found Massimo, Marianna—("short, with malicious olive face, little black eyes, pretends always to speak the truth, but a sculptor would entitle her, 'Statuette in bronze representing Malignant Folly'"), the blind lady, other persons who frequented the Princess's receptions, to which Regina had taken Gabrie several times. At last—

"A foreigner: very rich, tall, and stout; very black hair (dyed), lips too thick, pale, almost livid. Eyes small and sharp; mysterious as those of a wicked cat. Never laughs. Impossible to guess her age. Deaf. Always talking of an uncle who knew Georges Sand. Type of the sensual woman. Has a young lover——"

And immediately after—

"Government clerk: private secretary to an old Princess. Young. Fair. Very handsome. Tall, athletic; long, fascinating eyes; good mouth; fresh complexion. Lively. Good-hearted. Deeply in love with his young wife. Nevertheless, he is the Princess's lover."