The Heart of Rome | Page 7

There was confusion in the Princess Conti's bedroom, the amazing
confusion which boils up about an utterly careless woman of the great
world, if she be accidentally left without a maid for twenty-four hours.
It seemed as if everything the Princess possessed in the way of clothes,
necessary and unnecessary, had been torn from wardrobes and chests of
drawers by a cyclone and scattered in every direction, till there was not
space to move or sit down in a room which was thirty feet square.
Princess Conti was a very stout woman of about the same age as her
visitor, but not resembling her in the least. She had been beautiful, and
still kept the dazzling complexion and magnificent eyes for which she
had been famous. It was her boast that she slept eight hours every night,
without waking, whatever happened, and she always advised
everybody to do the same, with an airy indifference to possibilities
which would have done credit to a doctor.
She was dressed, or rather wrapped, in a magnificent purple velvet
dressing-gown, trimmed with sable, and tied round her ample waist
with a silver cord; her rather scanty grey hair stood out about her head
like a cloud in a high wind; and her plump hands were encased in a pair
of old white gloves, which looked oddly out of place. She was standing
in the middle of the room, and she smiled calmly as the Baroness

entered. On a beautiful inlaid table beside her stood a battered brass
tray with an almost shapeless little brass coffee-pot, a common
earthenware cup, chipped at the edges, and three pieces of
doubtful-looking sugar in a tiny saucer, also of brass. The whole had
evidently been brought from a small cafe near by, which had long been
frequented by the servants from the palace.
Judging from her smile, the Princess seemed to think total ruin rather
an amusing incident. She had always complained that the Romans were
very dull; for she was not a Roman herself, but came of a very great old
Polish family, the members of which had been distinguished for divers
forms of amiable eccentricity during a couple of centuries.
She looked at the Baroness, and smiled pleasantly, showing her still
perfect teeth.
"I always said that this would happen," she observed. "I always told my
poor husband so."
As the Prince had been dead ten years, the Baroness thought that he
might not be wholly responsible for the ruin of his estate, but she
discreetly avoided the suggestion. She began to make a little apology
for her visit.
"But I am delighted to see you!" cried the Princess. "You can help me
to pack. You know I have not a single maid, not a woman in the house,
nor a man either. Those ridiculous servants fled last night as if we had
the plague!"
"So you are going out of town?" enquired the Baroness, laying down
her parasol.
"Of course. Clementina has decided to be a nun, and is going to the
convent this morning. So sensible of her, poor dear! It is true that she
has made up her mind to do it three or four times before now, but the
circumstances were different, and I hope this will be final. She will be
much happier."

The Princess stirred the muddy coffee in the chipped earthenware cup,
and then sipped it thoughtfully, sipped it again, and made a face.
"You see my breakfast," she said, and then laughed, as if the shabby
brass tray were a part of the train of amusing circumstances. "The
porter's wife went and got it at some dirty little cafe," she added.
"How dreadful!" exclaimed the Baroness, with more real sympathy in
her voice than she had yet shown.
"I assure you," the Princess answered serenely, "that I am glad to have
any coffee at all. I always told poor dear Paolo that it would come to
this."
She swallowed the rest of the coffee with a grimace. and set down the
cup. Then, with the most natural gesture in the world, she pushed the
tray a little way across the inlaid table, towards the Baroness, as she
would have pushed it towards her maid, and as if she wished the thing
taken away. She did it merely from force of habit, no doubt.
Baroness Volterra understood well enough, and for a moment she
affected not to see. The Princess had the blood of Polish kings in her
veins, mingled with that of several mediatized princes, but that was no
reason why she should treat a friend like a servant; especially as the
friend's husband practically owned the palace and its contents, and had
lent the money with which the high and mighty lady and her son had
finally ruined themselves.