The Net: A Novel | Page 5

What could be wrong with me now that you are here? No! All is quite right, but I have been accursed with lonesomeness. Something was lacking, It was you, caro mio. Now, however, I am the most contented of mortals. But you must be famished, so I will show you to your room at once. Francesca has provided a feast for us, I assure you."
"Give me a moment to look around. So this is the castello? Jove! It's ripping!"
Blake found himself in a great hall similar to many he had seen in his European wanderings, but ruder and older by far. He judged the castello to be of Norman build, but remodeled to suit the taste of the Savigni. To the right, through an open door, he saw a large room where a fat Sicilian woman was laying the table; to the left was a drawing-room lighted only by a fire of fagots in a huge, black fireplace, the furniture showing curiously distorted in the long shadows. Other rooms opened towards the rear, and he realized that the old place was very large. It was unkempt also, and showed the lack of a woman's hand.
"You exaggerate!" said Savigno. "After Paris the castello will seem very mean. We Siciliani do not live in grand style, and, besides, I have spent practically no time here, since my father (may the saints receive him) left me free to wander. The place has been closed; the old servants have gone; it is dilapidated."
"On the contrary, it's just the sort of place it should be--venerable and overflowing with romance. You must rule like a medieval baron. Why, you could sell this woodwork to some millionaire countryman of mine for enough to realize a fortune."
"Per Dio! If taxes are not reduced I shall be forced to some such expedient," the Count laughed. "It was my mother's home, it is my birthplace, so I love it--even though I neglect it. As you perceive, it is high time I took a wife. But enough! If you are lacking in appetite, I am not, and Francesca is an unbearable tyrant when her meals grow cold."
He led his friend up the wide stairs and left him to prepare for supper.
"And so this ends it all," said Blake, as the two young men lounged in the big, empty drawing-room later that evening. They had dined and gossiped as only friends of their age can gossip, had relived their adventures of the past three years, and still were loath to part, even for sleep.
"How so?" queried Savigno. "You speak of marriage as if it were dissolution."
"It might as well be, so far as the other fellow is concerned."
"Nonsense! I shall not change."
"Oh, yes, you will! Besides, I am returning to America."
"Even so, we are rich; we shall travel; we shall meet frequently. You will come to Sicily. Perhaps the Contessa and I may even go to America. Friendship such as ours laughs at the leagues."
But Blake was pessimistic. "Perhaps she won't like me."
Martel laughed at this.
"Impossible! She is a woman, she has eyes, she will see you as I see you. More than that, I have told her that she must love you."
"Then that does settle it! You have hung the crepe on our future intimacy, for good and all. She will instruct your cook to put a spider in my dumpling or to do away with me by some characteristic Sicilian method."
Martel seemed puzzled by the Americanism of this speech, but Norvin merely smiled and changed to Italian.
"Do you really love her?" he asked.
"Of course! Since I was a boy so high I have known we would marry. She adores me, she is young, she is beautiful, she is--rich!"
"In Heaven's name don't use that tone in speaking of her wealth. You make me doubt you."
"No, no!" The Count smiled. "It would be the same if she were a peasant girl. We shall be so happy--oh, there is no expressing how happy we intend being."
"I've no doubt. And that makes it quite certain to end our comradeship."
"You croak like a raven!" declared the Sicilian. "What has soured you?"
"Nothing. I am a wise young man, that's all. You see, happiness is all-sufficient; it needs nothing to complete itself. It is a wall beyond which the owner does not care to wander, so, when you are quite happy with the new Countess, you will forget your friends of unmarried days."
"Would you then have me unhappily married?"
"By no means. I am full of regrets at losing you, nothing more."
"It is plain, then, that you also must marry. Is there no admirable American lady?"
"Any quantity of them, but I don't care much for women except in an impersonal sort of way, or perhaps I don't attract them. I might enjoy falling in love if it were