Whosoever Shall Offend | Page 6

nearly the ideal of
which she had dreamt throughout long years of loving care that she was
comforted, and the shadow passed away from her sweet face. He had
answered that she could do nothing that was not right; she prayed that
his words might be near the truth, and in her heart she was willing to
believe that they were almost true. Had she not followed every good
impulse of her own good heart? Had she not tried to realize literally for
him the most beautiful possibilities of the Christian faith? That, at least,

was true, and she could tell herself so without any mistaken pride. How,
then, had she made any mistake? The boy had the face of a young saint.
"Are you ready, my dear?" she asked suddenly, as a far-off clock
struck.
"Yes, mother, quite ready."
"I am not," she answered with a little laugh. "And Folco is waiting, and
I hear the carriage driving up."
She slipped from Marcello's side and left the room quickly, for they
were going to drive down to the sea, to a little shooting-lodge that
belonged to them near Nettuno, a mere cottage among the trees by the
Roman shore, habitable only in April and May, and useful only then,
when the quail migrate along the coast and the malarious fever is not
yet to be feared. It was there that Marcello had first learned to handle a
gun, spending a week at a time there with his stepfather; and his mother
used to come down now and then for a day or two on a visit, sometimes
bringing her friend the Contessa dell' Armi. The latter had been very
unhappy in her youth, and had been left a widow with one beautiful girl
and a rather exiguous fortune. Some people thought that it was odd that
the Signora Corbario, who was a saint if ever there was one, should
have grown so fond of the Contessa, for the latter had seen stormy days
in years gone by; and of course the ill-disposed gossips made up their
minds that the Contessa was trying to catch Marcello for her daughter
Aurora, though the child was barely seventeen.
This was mere gossip, for she was quite incapable of any such scheme.
What the gossips did not know was something which would have
interested them much more, namely, that the Contessa was the only
person in Rome who distrusted Folco Corbario, and that she was in
constant fear lest she should turn out to be right, and lest her friend's
paradise should be suddenly changed into a purgatory. But she held her
tongue, and her quiet face never betrayed her thoughts. She only
watched, and noted from month to month certain small signs which
seemed to prove her right; and she should be ready, whenever the time
should come, by day or night, to help her friend, or comfort her, or

fight for her.
If Corbario guessed that the Contessa did not trust him, he never
showed it. He had found her installed as his wife's friend, and had
accepted her, treating her with much courtesy and a sort of vicarious
affection; but though he tried his best he could not succeed in reaching
anything like intimacy with her, and while she seemed to conceal
nothing, he felt that she was hiding her real self from him. Whether she
did so out of pride, or distrust, or jealousy, he could never be sure. He
was secretly irritated and humiliated by her power to oppose him and
keep him at a distance without ever seeming to do so; but, on the other
hand, he was very patient, very tenacious of his purpose, and very
skilful. He knew something of the Contessa's past, but he recognised in
her the nature that has known the world's worst side and has done with
it for ever, and is lifted above it, and he knew the immense influence
which the spectacle of a blameless life exercises upon the opinion of a
good woman who has not always been blameless herself. Whatever he
had been before he met his wife, whatever strange plans had been
maturing in his brain since he had married her, his life had seemed as
spotless from that day as the existence of the best man living. His wife
believed in him, and the Contessa did not; but even she must in time
accept the evidence of her senses. Then she, too, would trust him. Why
it was essential that she should, he alone knew, unless he was merely
piqued by her quiet reserve, as a child is when it cannot fix the
attention of a grown-up person.
The Contessa and her daughter were to be of the party that day, and the
carriage stopped where they