The White Sister | Page 5

and moral person, and she would be very rich. What
more could any woman ask? Evidently nothing, and Prince
Chiaromonte therefore continued to negotiate the marriage in the
old-fashioned manner, without the least intention of speaking about it
to Angela till everything was altogether settled between the family
lawyers, and the wedding could take place in six weeks. It was not the
business of young people to fathom the intentions of their all-wise
parents, and meanwhile Angela was free to go to parties with her aunt,
and her intended husband was at liberty to sleep as much as he liked.
The negotiations would probably occupy another two or three months,
for the family lawyers had disagreed as to the number of times that
Angela should be allowed to take the carriage out every day, and this

had to be stipulated in the marriage contract, besides the number of
dishes there were to be at luncheon and dinner and the question
whether, if Angela took coffee after her meals, it should be charged to
her husband, who took none, or against the income arising from her
dowry. The family lawyers were both very old men and understood
these difficult matters thoroughly, but neither would have felt that he
was doing his duty to his client if he had not quarrelled with the other
over each point. From week to week each reported progress to his
employer, and on the whole the two fathers felt that matters were going
on well, without any undue delay.
But the Fates frowned grimly on the marriage and on all things
connected with it, for on the very morning during which Filmore
Durand finished Angela's portrait, and before she had left his studio in
the Palazzo Borghese, something happened which not only put a stop to
the leisurely labours of the two lawyers, but which profoundly changed
Angela's existence, and was the cause of her having a story quite
different from that of a good many young girls who are in love with
one man but are urged by their parents to marry another. The interest of
this tale, if it has any, lies in no such simple conflict of forces as that,
and it is enough to know that while her father had been busy over her
marriage, Angela Chiaromonte had fallen in love with Giovanni Severi,
and had, indeed, as much as promised to marry him; and that a good
many people, including the Marchesa del Prato, already suspected this,
though they had not communicated their suspicions to the girl's father,
partly because he was not liked, and partly because he hardly ever
showed himself in the world. The situation is thus clearly explained, so
far as it was known to the persons concerned at the moment when the
Great Unforeseen flashed from its hiding-place and hurled itself into
their midst.
As Filmore Durand went with the Marchesa towards the entrance hall,
followed by the young people, he called his man to open the outer door,
but almost at the same moment he heard his voice at the telephone; the
servant was a Swiss who spoke German, English, and Italian, and had
followed the artist for many years. He was evidently answering an
inquiry about the Marchesa just as he heard her step.

'The lady is here,' he said. 'She is coming to the telephone herself.'
He looked round as the four approached, for the instrument was placed
on the right side of the large door that opened upon the landing.
'Some one for your ladyship,' he said in English, holding out the
receiver to the Marchesa.
She took it and put it to her ear, repeating the usual Italian formula.
'Ready--with whom am I speaking? Yes. I am the Marchesa del Prato,
she herself. What is it?'
There was a pause while she listened, and then Angela saw her face
change suddenly.
'Dead?' she shrieked into the telephone. 'Half-an-hour ago?'
She still held the receiver to her ear, but she was stretching out her left
hand as if she needed support. Durand took her by the arm and elbow,
prepared to hold her up if she showed signs of fainting. Angela was
already on her other side.
'Who is dead?' the girl asked quietly enough, but with evident anxiety.
'Your father,' answered the Marchesa, with such sudden and brutal
directness that Giovanni started forward, and Durand stared in surprise,
for he knew enough Italian to understand as much as that.
Angela made two steps backwards, slowly and mechanically, like a
blind man who has unexpectedly run against a wall; like the blind, too,
she held out her hands before her, as if to assure herself that she was
getting out of reach of the obstacle. Her face had turned white and her
eyes were half