My Friend the Chauffeur
Juliet in another incarnation. Yes, I feel sure you were. And I was
Romeo."
"I'm sure you were not," I replied; but I could not help laughing at his
stagey manner, though I was more annoyed than ever now, and annoyed with
myself too. "I particularly wished to be alone here, or I wouldn't have
slipped away from Beechy and Sir Ralph, so--"
"And I particularly wished to be alone here with you, or I wouldn't have
followed when you _had_ slipped away from them," he broke in. "Oh, Miss
Destrey--my Madeleine, you must listen to me. There could be no place in
the world more appropriate to the tale of a man's love for a woman than
this, where a man and woman died for love of one another."
"I thought you called all this 'nonsense'?" I cut him short. "No,
Prince, neither here nor anywhere must you speak of love to me, for I
don't love you, and never could."
"I know that you mean to shut yourself away from the world," he
interrupted me again. "But you shall not. It would be sacrilege.
You--the most beautiful, the most womanly girl in the world--to--"
"No more, please!" I cried. "It doesn't matter what my future is to be,
for you will not be in it. I--"
"I must be in it. I adore you. I can't give you up. Haven't you seen
from the first how I loved you?"
"I _thought_ I saw you liked trying to flirt when no one was looking.
That sounds rather horrid, but--it's the truth."
"You misjudged me cruelly. Have you no human ambition? I could place you
among the highest in any land. With me, your beauty should shine as it
never could in your own country. Is it nothing to you that I can make
you a Princess?"
"Less than nothing," I answered, "though perhaps it would be pretty of
me to thank you for wanting to make me one. So I do thank you; and I'll
thank you still more if you will go now, and leave me to my thoughts."
"I cannot go till I have made you understand how I love you, how
indispensable you are to me," he persisted. And I grew really angry; for
he had no right to persecute me, when I had refused him.
"Very well, then, _I_ shall go," I said, and would have passed him, but
he seized my hand and held it fast.
It was this moment that Mr. Barrymore chose for paying his respects to
Juliet's tomb; and I blushed as I have never blushed in my life, I
think--blushed till the tears smarted in my eyes. I was afraid he would
believe that I'd been letting Prince Dalmar-Kalm make love to me. But
there was nothing to say, unless I were willing to have a scene, and
that would have been hateful. Nor was there anything to do except the
obvious thing, snatch my hand away; and that might seem to be only
because some one had come. But how I should have loved to box the
Prince's ears! I never dreamed that I had such a temper. I suppose,
though, there must be something of the fishwife in every
woman--something that comes boiling up to the surface once in a while,
and makes _noblesse oblige_ hard to remember.
The one relief to my feelings in this situation was given by my queer
little new pet--the wisp of a black doggie I've named Airole, after the
village where he grew. I'd brought him into the cloister in my arms
hidden under a cape, because he had conceived a suspicious dislike of
the cabman. Now he said all the things to the Prince that I wanted to
say, and more, and would have snapped, if the Prince had not retired his
hand in time.
The process of quieting Airole gave me the chance to make up my mind
what I should do next. If I went away, I couldn't prevent Prince
Dalmar-Kalm from going with me, and Mr. Barrymore would have a right to
imagine that I wished to continue the interrupted scene. If I stayed it
was open for him to fancy that I wanted to be with _him_; but between
two evils one chooses the less; besides, a nice thing about Mr.
Barrymore is that, notwithstanding his good looks and cleverness, he's
not conceited--not conceited enough, I sometimes think, for he lets
people misunderstand his position and often seems more amused than angry
at a snub.
Acting on my quick decision, I said, "Oh, I'm glad you've come. You know
so much about Verona. Please talk to me of this place--only don't say it
isn't authentic, for that would be a jarring note."
"I'm afraid I don't care enough whether things are authentic or not," he
answered, both of us ignoring the Prince. "You know, in my country,
legend and history are a good deal mixed, which makes for romance.
Besides, I'm inclined to believe in stories that have been handed down
from generation to generation--told by grandfathers to their
grandchildren, and so on through the centuries till they've reached us.
When they're investigated by the cold light of reason, at least they can
seldom be disproved."
I agreed, and the conversation went on, deliberately excluding the
Prince. Each minute I said to myself, "Surely he'll go." But he did not.
He stayed while Mr. Barrymore and I discussed the genius of Shakspere,
chiming in now and then as if nothing had happened, and remaining until
we were ready to go.
At the cab there was another crisis. I hadn't yet entirely realized the
Prince's stupendous capacity for what Beechy would put into one short,
sharp word "Cheek." But I fully appreciated it when he calmly manifested
his intention of getting into my cab, as if we had come together.
Something had to be done instantly, or it would be too late.
Leaning from my seat so that the Prince had to wait with his foot on the
step, I exclaimed, "Oh! Mr. Barrymore, won't you let me give you a lift?
Prince Dalmar-Kalm has his own cab, and I'm alone in this."
"Thanks very much, I shall be delighted," said the Chauffeulier.
Even the Prince's audacity wasn't equal to the situation created by
these tactics. He retired, hat in hand, looking so furious that I could
hardly help laughing. Mr. Barrymore got in beside me, and we drove off
leaving the Prince with nobody but his own cabman to vent his rage on.
I rather hoped, for a minute, that Mr. Barrymore would say something
which would give me the chance for a vague word or two of explanation;
but he didn't. He simply talked of indifferent things, telling me how
the work on the car was finished, and how he had had time after all to
wander among his favourite bits of Verona. And then, in a flash of
understanding, I saw how much more tactful and manly it was in him not
to mention the Prince.
XIX
A CHAPTER OF PALACES AND PRINCES
What a pity clocks don't realize the interesting work they do in the
making of history, as they go on ticking out moments which never before
have been and never will be again! It would be such a reward for their
patience; and I should like my watch to know how often I've thanked it
lately for the splendid moments it has given me.
Some of those I had in Verona (no thanks to the Prince!) have really
helped to develop my soul, and it used to need developing badly, poor
dear; I see that now, though I didn't then. I never thought much about
the development of souls, except that one must try hard to be good and
do one's duty. But now I begin dimly to see many things, as if I caught
glimpses of them, far away, and high up on some of the snowy
mountain-tops we pass.
Must one live through several incarnations, I wonder, for true
development? Are some people great-minded because they have gone through
many such phases, and are the wondrous geniuses of the world--such as
Shakspere--the most developed of all? Then the poor commonplace or
stupid people, who never have any real thoughts of their own, are they
the undeveloped souls who haven't had their chance yet? If they are, how
kind those who have gone further ought to be to them, and what generous
allowances they ought to make, instead of being impatient, and pleased
with themselves because they are cleverer.
I think I should like to send whole colonies of those poor "beginners"
to Italy to live for a while, because it might give them a step up for
their next phase. As for myself, I'm going further every day, almost as
fast, I hope, as the automobile goes.
"She," as the Chauffeulier affectionately calls her, went especially
fast and well the morning we swept out of Verona. There was an
entrancing smell of Italy in the air. There is no other way to describe
it--it is that and nothing else.
As long as Verona was still within sight, I kept looking back, just as
you drink something delicious down to the last drop, when you know there
can be no dregs. Only to see how the town lay at the foot of the
mountains of the north, was to understand its powers of defence, and its
importance to the dynasties and princes of the past. With Mr.
Barrymore's help, I could trace one line of fortification after another,
from the earliest Roman, through Charlemagne and the Scaligers, down to
the modern Austrian.
No wonder that Verona was the first halting-place for the tribes of
Germans, pouring down from their cold forests in the north to cross the
Alps and rejoice in the sunshine of Italy! For Verona's nearness to the
north and her striking difference to the north impressed me sharply, as
a black line of shadow is cut out by the sun. Up a gap in the dark
barrier of mountains I gazed where Mr. Barrymore pointed, towards the
great Brenner Pass, leading straight to Innsbruck through Tyrol. How
close the northern nations lay, yet in the warm Italian brightness how
far away they seemed.
But soon Verona disappeared, and we were speeding along a level road
with far-off purple peaks upon our left, and away in front some floating
blue shapes which it thrilled me to hear were actually the Euganean
Hills. The Chauffeulier set them to music by quoting from Shelley's
"Lines Written in Dejection in the Euganean Hills"--a sweet
old-fashioned title of other days, and words so beautiful that for a
moment I was depressed in sympathy--though I couldn't help feeling that
_I_ should be happy in the Euganean Hills. They called across the plain
with siren voices, asking me to come and explore their fastnesses of
blue and gold, but Aunt Kathryn couldn't understand why. "They're not
half so imposing as lots of mountains we've passed," she said. "And
anyway, I think the beauty of mountains is overestimated. What are they
to admire so much, anyhow, when you think of it, more than flat places?
They are only great lumps at best."
"Well," replied Sir Ralph, "if it comes to that, what's the sea but a
big wet thing?"
"And what are people but a kind of superior ant, and the grandest
palaces but big anthills?" Beechy chimed in. "I've often thought,
supposing there were--well, Things, between gods and men, living here
somewhere, invisible to us as we are to lots of little creatures, what
kind of an idea _would_ They get of us and our ways? They'd be always
spying on us, of course, and making scientific observations, as we do on
insects. I used to believe in Them, and be awfully afraid, when I was
younger, because I used to think all the accidents and bad things that
happened might be due to Their experiments. You see They'd be wondering
why we did certain things; why lots of us all run to one place--like
Venice, or any show city--instead of going to another nest of anthills;
or why we all crowded into one anthill (like a church or theatre) at a
particular time. So a theatre-fire would be when They'd touched the
anthill with one of their cigars, to make the ants run out. Or a volcano
would have an eruption because They'd poked the mountain with a great
pin to see what would happen. Or when we're cut or hurt in any way, it's
because They've marked us to know one from the other, as we run about. I
do hope They're not thinking about _us_ now, or They'll drop something
and smash the automobile."
"Oh, don't, Beechy! You make my blood run cold!" cried Aunt Kathryn. "Do