Theworld is just as cold and pitiless and just as full of pitfalls for theyoung and unwary in Mayfair as in Mile End. Hence, to fulfil my promiseto that man now silent in his grave, it was my duty to protect her fromthe thousand and one wiles of those who would endeavour to profit by sexand inexperience.
Her early privations, her hard life in youth while her father was absentat sea, and those weary months of tramping the turnpikes of England, allhad had their effect upon her. With her, love seemed to be scarcely apassion or a sentiment, but a dreamy enchantment, a reverie which afairy spell dissolved or riveted at pleasure. So exquisitely delicatewas her character, just as was her countenance, that it seemed as if atouch would profane it. Like a strain of sad, sweet music which comesfloating by on the wings of night and silence, and which we rather feelthan hear, like the exhalation of the violet dying even upon the senseit charms, like the snow-flake dissolved in air before it has caught astain of earth, like the light surf severed from the billow which abreath disperses--such was her nature, so full of that modesty, graceand tenderness without which a woman is no woman.
As she stood there before me, a frail, delicate figure in her plainblack gown, and her hand in mine, thanking me for the investigationwhich I was undertaking in her behalf, and wishing me _bon voyage_, Ishuddered to think of her thrown alone amid harsh and adverse destinies,and amid all the corruptions and sharks of society, perhaps withoutenergy to resist, or will to act, or strength to endure. Alone in sucha case, the end must inevitably be desolation.
I wished her farewell, turning from her with a feeling that, loving heras I admit I did, I was nevertheless unworthy of her. Yet surely I wasplaying a dangerous game!
I had entertained a strong and increasing affection for her ever sincethat winter's night down at Helpstone. Still, now that she waspossessor of vast wealth, I felt that the difference in our ages and thefact that I was a poor man were both barriers to our marriage. Indeed,she had never exerted any of the feminine wiles of flirtation towardsme; she had never once allowed me to think that I had captivated her.She had spoken the truth. She regarded me as an elder brother--that wasall.
That same night, as I paced the deck of the Channel steamer in the teethof a wintry gale, watching the revolving light of Calais harbour growingmore and more distinct, my thoughts were full of her. Love is theteacher, grief the tamer, and time the healer of the human heart. Whilethe engines throbbed, the wind howled and the dark seas swirled past, Ipaced up and down puzzling over the playing-card in my pocket andreflecting upon all that had occurred. The rich fancies of unbowedyouth, the visions of long-perished hopes, the shadows of unborn joys,the gay colourings of the dawn of existence--what ever my memory hadtreasured up, came before me in review, but lived no longer within myheart.
I recollected that truism of Rochefoucauld's: "Il est difficile dedefiner l'amour: ce qu'on en peut dire est que, dans l'ame, c'est unpassion de regner; dans les esprits, c'est une sympathie; et dans lecorps, ce n'est qu'une envie cachee et delicate de posseder ce que l'onaime, apres beaucoup de mysteres." Yes, I loved her with all my heart,with all my soul, but to me I recognised that it was not permitted. Myduty, the duty I had promised to fulfil to that dying man whoselife-story had been a secret romance, was to act as Mabel's protector,and not to become her lover and thus profit by her wealth. Blair hadleft his secret to me, in order, no doubt, to place me beyond thenecessity of fortune-hunting, and as it had been lost it was my duty tohim and to myself to spare no effort to recover it.
With these sentiments firmly established within my heart I entered the_wagon-lit_ at Calais, and started on the first stage of my journeyacross Europe from the Channel to the Mediterranean.
Three days later I was strolling up the Via Tornabuoni, in Florence,that thoroughfare of mediaeval palaces, banks, consulates and chemists'shops that had been so familiar to me each winter, until I had taken tohunting in England in preference to the sunshine of the Lung' Arno andthe Cascine. Indeed, some of my early years had been spent in Italy,and I had grown to love it, as every Englishman does. In that brightFebruary morning as I passed up the long, crooked street, filled by thenonchalant Florentines and the wealthy foreigners out for an airing, Ipassed many men and women of my acquaintance. Doney's and Giacosa's,the favourite lounges of the men, were agog with rich idlers sippingcocktails or that seductive _petit verre_ known in the Via Tornabuoni asa _piccolo_, the baskets of the flower-sellers gave a welcome touch ofcolour to the grim grey of the colossal Palace of the Strozzi, whilefrom the consulates the flags of various nations, most conspicuous ofall being that of the ever-popular "Major," reminded me that it was the_festa_ of Santa Margherita.
In the old days, when I used to live _en pension_ with a couple ofItalian artillery officers and a Dutch art-student in the top floor ofone of those great old palaces in the Via dei Banchi, the Via Tornabuoniused to be my morning walk, for there one meets everybody, the ladiesshopping or going to the libraries, and the men gossiping on the kerb--ahabit quickly acquired by every Englishman who takes up his abode inItaly.
It was astonishing, too, what a crowd of well-known faces I passed thatmorning--English peers and peeresses, Members of Parliament, financialmagnates, City sharks, manufacturers, and tourists of every grade and ofevery nation.
His Highness the Count of Turin, returning from drill, rode by laughingwith his aide-de-camp and saluting those he knew. The women mostly woretheir smartest toilettes with fur, because a cold wind came up from theArno, the scent of flowers was in the air, bright laughter and incessantchatter sounded everywhere, and the red-roofed old Lily City was alivewith gaiety. Perhaps no city in all the world is so full of charm norso full of contrasts as quaint old Florence, with her wonderfulcathedral, her antique bridge with rows of jewellers' shops upon it, hermagnificent churches, her ponderous palaces, and her dark, silent,mediaeval streets, little changed, some of them, since the days whenthey were trodden by Giotto and by Dante. Time has laid his handlightly indeed upon the City of Flowers, but whenever he has done so hehas altered it out of all recognition, and the garish modernity ofcertain streets and piazzas surely grates to-day upon those who, likemyself, knew the old city before the Piazza Vittorio--always the PiazzaVittorio, synonym of vandalism--had been constructed, and the oldGhetto, picturesque if unclean, was still in existence.
Two men, both of them Italian, stopped to salute me as I walked, and towish me _ben tomato_. One was an advocate whose wife was accredited oneof the prettiest women in that city where, strangely enough, the moststriking type of beauty is fair haired. The other was the CavaliereAlinari, secretary to the British Consul-General, or the "Major," aseverybody speaks of him.
I had only arrived in Florence two hours before, and, after a wash atthe _Savoy_, had gone forth with the object of cashing a cheque atFrench's, prior to commencing my inquiries.
Meeting Alinari, however, caused me to halt for a moment, and after hehad expressed pleasure at my return, I asked--
"Do you, by any chance, happen to know any one by the name ofMelandrini--Paolo Melandrini? His address is given me as Via SanCristofano, number eight."
He looked at me rather strangely with his sharp eyes, stroked his darkbeard a moment, and replied in English, with a slight accent--
"The address does not sound very inviting, Mr. Greenwood. I have notthe pleasure of knowing the gentleman, but the Via San Cristofano is oneof the poorest and worst streets in Florence, just behind Santa Crocefrom the Via Ghibellina. I should not advise you to enter that quarterat night. There are some very bad characters there."
"Well," I explained, "the fact is I have come down here expressly toascertain some facts concerning this person."
"Then don't do it yourself," was my friend's strong advice. "Employsome one who is a Florentine. If it is a case of confidentialinquiries, he will certainly be much more successful than you can everbe. The moment you set foot in that street it would be known in everytenement that an Inglese was asking questions. And," he added with amean
ing smile, "they resent questions being asked in the Via SanCristofano."
CHAPTER SEVEN.
THE MYSTERIOUS FOREIGNER.
I felt that his advice was good, and in further conversation over a_piccolo_ at Giacosa's he suggested that I should employ a very shrewdbut ugly little old man named Carlini, who sometimes made confidentialinquiries on behalf of the Consulate.
An hour later the old man called at the _Savoy_, a bent, shuffling,white-headed old fellow, shabbily dressed, with a grey soft felt rathergreasy hat stuck jauntily on the side of his head--a typical Florentineof the people. They called him "Babbo Carlini" in the markets, Iafterwards learned, and cooks and servant-girls were fond of playingpranks upon him. Believed by every one to be a little childish, hefostered the idea because it gave him greater facilities in his secretinquiries, for