Ralph capturing a supply of bread, and fruit, and roast chicken, they made off with their booty to the train, and the evening passed in merry chat and explanation of their plans. Evelyn, however, by no means lost the consciousness of her advance for the first time upon Rome; and when, after crossing the Tiber at midnight, and catching glimpses, on either side the railway, of ruins that heralded their vicinity to the goal of her hopes, she was keyed to high excitement.
Ralph laughed at her disappointment as the train ran slowly into a large, modern station lighted by electricity, and decorated with hangings of gold and crimson, a crimson carpet spread across the platform to one of the doors of exit. When they enquired of the _facchino_ who took their bags in charge, what great arrival was expected, the man answered with an indifference worthy of democratic New York: "It is for the Silver Wedding of their Majesties, Signor; but there are so many Kings and Emperors and Princes in Rome now, we have ceased to take account of them."
"We have struck Rome at a crowded season," said Ralph, "and I don't know that you are going to like it overmuch. I say, Eve, if Somebody doesn't come for another week or so, what a heaven-send you and your father will be to me for company!"
"That is the most cold-blooded way of making use of us to kill time with," said Eve; but she bestowed on him a well-pleased smile. To her, Ralph had been ever a chum,--a dear, good fellow, who was the best of company. His unexpected appearance here promised to add tenfold to her pleasure, while his hopes in the affair hinted at between them had been, for some time, familiar to her in detail.
"And all this while I have never told you," he went on, in his boyish manner, "that at Nice I fell in with that swell New York cousin of yours, Vance Townsend. Not half a bad chap, if he is rather close-mouthed. Shouldn't wonder if he's in Rome, now, like everybody else in this part of the world."
"Townsend?" said the Colonel, with animation. "Glad to hear there's a chance of seeing him. Just a year--isn't it, Eve?--since he visited us at the Hall. Well, there's no doubt we are in luck, if we meet Vance as well as you, Ralph."
"The funny part of it is," whispered the joyous Ralph to Evelyn, "some of the people we both knew in Nice put it into Townsend's head I was coming here to meet my _fiancee_. And you know, Eve, I am not engaged to her yet; her mother put us on probation for six months. The six months are out next week, though, and I don't think it would hurt Maud's mamma to hurry herself a little bit to get here, do you? How you will admire Maud's style, Evie! Her hair is dark as--" etc., etc., until Evelyn cut it short by jumping into the carriage drawn up in waiting for them.
Just now, she was not as well prepared to listen as usual. Certain feelings she had believed extinct proved themselves to have been merely dormant. Even the spectacle of Rome _en fete_, by night, its bands and fountains playing, its streets still filled with lively promenaders, did not wholly distract her from this sudden tumult of an emotion she was not prepared to define.
Constantly, during the crowded days that followed, while they drove hither and thither, attracted but provoked by the jumbling of ancient and modern in these haunts of history, she tried to persuade herself she was not ever on the alert to see somebody who did not appear. For, from among the many acquaintances and a few friends encountered in the streets of the sociable little city, Vance was persistently missing.
Ralph, however, whose sweetheart also kept her distance, proved his philosophy by devoting his days to the Carlyles; and thus, under a sky blue as the fabled Elysian fields of Virgil, the festal week went on.
Wherever their Majesties of Italy and Germany passed in public, they were greeted by thoroughfares black with people, windows and balconies blazing with flags and draperies, the clash of bands and the clank of soldiery.
The coachman engaged for the service of our friends would contrive, wherever bound, to take on the way some passing show of sovereigns; and, upon a certain fair day, for no reason avowed, he drove them into the tangle of vehicles and people always seen surrounding the doors of the Quirinal Palace whenever there was a chance to catch glimpses of royalties upon the move. There ensconced, the saucy, bright-eyed fellow stood up, pretended his inability to get out of the snarl, gesticulated, talked to his friends and threatened his enemies in the crowd, while visibly rejoicing in the opportunity to see all likely to occur in that coveted quarter.
"Look here, cabby, if you don't move out of this to the Baths of Caracalla in just two minutes and a half," began Ralph, at last, in emphatic English; but he had no reason to go on, as the driver, seeing the young man's face, gathered up the reins, and extricated himself with much dexterity from the crowd.
Neither of his passengers noticed that a gentleman, in a carriage just then crossing theirs, looked at them, leaned forward, gave orders to his coachman, and at once proceeded to follow on their tracks.
In the glorious ruin of the greatest of temples to athletic exercise, Evelyn drew a deep breath of delight. Nothing in Rome, not even the Colosseum, had so impressed her with the grandeur of bygone achievement in architecture as this wondrous pile, with its vast spaces, the gray walls breached by Time, out of which maidenhair grew and crows were flying--"crying to heaven for rain," as the guide poetically explained; the stately columns of red porphyry grouped around the beautiful mosaic floors; the lace-like traceries of carven stone; the niches and pedestals from which marvels of old sculpture had been removed; over all, the air that is gold and balm combined!
Evelyn leaned against a column abstractedly, while Ralph and her father walked about, discussing with their guide facts and statistics of the Thermae. They had indeed strolled quite out of her sight, when a shadow on the pavement beside her caused her to look up. If an answer to thought be no surprise, then was not Evelyn surprised; for the person confronting her was Vance Townsend.
"I have known that you were in Rome ever since the night you arrived,"
he said, without preamble other than coldly offering her his hand. "I happened to be at the station to meet an English friend, when you came out; and I saw you get into your carriage and drive away."
"Then you can hardly claim to have earned a welcome from us, now," she began to say, lightly, but found it impossible to go on, checked by the look upon his face.
"I make no pretences," he said, bitterly. "If you care to know that I have either kept you in view every day since, or else have gone for long rides into the country, where I saw nobody, it is quite true. I have done everything foolish, everything foreign to my principles and habits, to satisfy, or to get away from, the feeling the sight of you aroused in me. I wonder what you'd think, if I told you I've been wandering about pretty much ever since I parted with you, a year ago, trying to get you out of my head. Many's the letter I've written to you and destroyed. Twice I set out to see you, and once I got back into the neighborhood of your home. When I saw you in the crowd at the station here, I actually thought I was possessed--" He checked himself. "I beg your pardon. I have no right to say these things to you, I know."
"You? You?" she could only repeat, bewildered by the meaning in his tone and the expression of his eyes. "Is it possible that you--"
"That I fell in love with you that time when you were holding me to account for a thousand transgressions, committed or not committed?
Yes, it is quite possible. That need not prevent our remaining good friends, need it? I hope I've too much common sense to ask you to indulge in a discussion of these points, now; during the past week, I've been engaged continually, and I trust with some success, in disposing of the last remnant of hope I may have cherished that some day things might work around to give me at least a chance."
"You make me very unhappy," she exclaimed.
"That is far from my wish," he said, more gently. "Just at present you ought to be walking on roses. There! Your father and Corbin are coming back this way. I want to ask you to help me to excuse myself in your good father's sight, if I seem unsociable."
"One word," she said, the blood flaming into her cheeks. "It is due you to know that long ago, soon after you left us, I received a letter from Katherine Crawford,--a letter that made me understand many things I had judged harshly in your conduct."
"Mrs. Crawford has been always kind to me," he answered. "And no one rejoices more than I in her present happiness."
"Yes, she is happy,--perfectly so,--and her life is full of the duties that best suit her. She says it was all planned out for her by Providence, and kept in reserve until she was fit for it."
"So runs the world away!" he exclaimed, with a whimsical gesture.
After that, the others came, and there was much talk of the subjects naturally presenting themselves. When they moved out of the enclosure to go to the carriage, Vance walked with the Colonel, following Evelyn and Ralph.
"You will dine with us at our hotel this evening?" said the older man, at parting.
"I am sorry that I am engaged," Vance answered, with appropriate courtesy, "and that to-morrow I am off for Sicily. Sometime, later on in your wanderings, I shall hope to run upon you again. This is the worst of pleasant meetings in travel, is it not?"
When they were seated in the victoria, he shook Evelyn's hand last.
The day was finally at hand that was to bring Ralph's sweetheart--with her incidental father, mother, two younger sisters, and a governess--to the quarters engaged for them at Rome. In the young man's enthusiasm, he did not forget to wonder what cloud had passed over his Cousin Evelyn's enjoyment of the place, the sights, the season. He even consulted the Colonel as to whether Eve might not be unduly affected by the crowded condition of the town, and proposed for them to change to a quieter spot. And Eve's father, who had had his own anxieties on this point, prevailed upon her to give up the engagements she had made with apparent zest, and resort to Naples and Sorrento.
To Naples, accordingly, they went, the faithful Ralph accompanying them, at the cost of a night-journey on his return to Rome for the day that was to see his happiness in flower. He drove with them to their hotel, through the interminable streets, lined with palaces and thronged with paupers, and saw them ensconced in pleasant quarters facing Vesuvius, whose feather of smoke pointed to good weather. They dined together in a vast _salle-a-manger_, where, in a gallery, was conducted during their repast a noisy and mirth-provoking concert of fiddlers, mandolins, and guitars,--the performers singing, shouting, dancing, as they played. There was an hour before his train left, in which, while the Colonel smoked upon the balcony of their sitting-room, Eve walked out upon one of the quays with her cousin; and this hour Ralph determined to improve.
In the last day or two, trifles had shown this astute young man that the depression of his cousin (for whom he cherished no grudge because, a year or two before, he had been wild to call her wife, and she would not hear of it) had been coincident with the meeting in Rome with Townsend. That very morning, he had found at his bankers', had read and put into his pocket, a letter written by Vance on arriving at Taormina, which had thrown upon the subject a new and surprising light. Just how to convey his discoveries to Evelyn, the most proud and sensitive of creatures about her sacred feelings, he had not yet decided.
They talked of the bay, of the mountains, of Vesuvius. Calmed and enchanted by the hour and scene, Eve wore her gentlest aspect, and Ralph felt emboldened to begin.
"This is as it should be," he said, with an air of generalizing. "You will go to Sorrento and Amalfi and Capri, and your roses will come back. I shall not forget you, Evie dear, because I am getting what I most want in life. You have always been to me a thing apart, and I've told Maud so, over and over again. By and by, I shall bring her to the Hall, and let her see you at your best, as its mistress. For you are not quite the same over here, Evie, as in Virginia air."
"Perhaps I am growing old," she said, smiling. "But never mind me. We shall miss you, Ralph, and it will require the greatest heroism to do without you. After this journey, nobody need tell me that 'three is trumpery.' We know better, do we not?"
"Why not send for your other cousin to take my place?" said Ralph, seeing his opportunity. "He is at Taormina, and would come, undoubtedly. I had a letter from him this morning, by the way. The most characteristic letter,--just like the man."
No answer. Ralph felt as he were treading a bridge of glass.
"To explain it, I should have to go back to the evening of that meeting in the Baths of Caracalla. He came to me at the hotel, and after a friendly chat, just as he was leaving, took occasion to say some uncommonly nice things about my relations with (as I thought) _Maud_; so I thanked him, and gushed a little about her, maybe,--in my circumstances, a fellow's excusable,--and off he went, I never suspecting that he all the time thought I was going to marry _you_."
Here Ralph was rewarded by a genuine start and a blush, but still Eve did not speak.
"A day later," Ralph went on, determined now to do or die, "something I recalled of our conversation made me realize the mistake he was under, and I wrote him a letter explaining it. Such a time as I had to find his whereabouts! His banker had no instructions to forward anything, and I won't tell you all the ups and downs of trying to get at him. Finally, in despair, I sent the letter, on the chance, to Taormina, and from there he answered me."
At this point, in revenge for her indifference, the diplomatist remained, in his turn, silent, until Eve, who could bear it no longer, turned upon him her beautiful young face, glowing in the evening light with an eager joy. "And--and?" she exclaimed, impetuously.
"He is a good sort--Townsend," went on Ralph, reflectively. "I've an idea, Evie, that if you and he could have managed to hit it off, you would have suited each other capitally. He would be the kind likely to settle down into a country gentleman, too; and you would never be happy in town. He has brains and a heart, in addition to his good looks and manners, and a restrained force of character that would be an excellent balance for this little impulsive lady, whose only fault is that she jumps at conclusions instead of working to them."
"You are perfectly right about that, Ralph," she said, laughing away a strong desire to cry. "I am learning wisdom, however, with rapidly advancing years. And you do only justice to my Cousin Vance, in your estimate of him. No doubt," here she swallowed a nervous catch in her voice, "if he told the truth in his letter, he congratulated you upon being allied to some one other than the young person who made his visit to Virginia last year a very hard test of patience, to say no more."
She stopped, and tried to turn away her head. But Ralph, looking her gently in the face, read there what gave him courage to launch the last arrow in his quiver.
"Whatever he said, I saw through it, Evie dear. And I--I could not wait to write an answer. I telegraphed my advice to come to Naples as fast as steam can carry him."
Shortly after her conversation upon the quay with Ralph (who, returning to Rome, had been duly translated into anticipated bliss), Eve and her father took advantage of a perfect Sunday for the excursion up Mount Vesuvius.