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The Eternal City, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 4. David Rossi - Chapter 6 |
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_ PART FOUR. DAVID ROSSI CHAPTER VI Two letters were awaiting David Rossi in his rooms at home. One was a circular from the President of the Chamber of Deputies summoning Parliament for the day after to-morrow to elect officials and reply to the speech of the King. The other was from Roma, and the address was in a large, hurried hand. David Rossi broke the seal with nervous fingers.
"But I am losing faith in my unknown sister that is to be, in spite of all my pleading. You say she is beautiful--that's well enough, but it comes by nature. You say she is sweet, and true, and charming--and I am willing to take it all on trust. But when you say she is noble-hearted I respectfully refuse to believe it. If she were that, you would be sure that she would know that friendship is the surest part of love, and to be the friend of a great man is to be a help to him, and not an impediment. "My gracious! What does she think you are? A _cavaliere servente_ to dance attendance on her ladyship day and night? Give me the woman who wants her husband to be a man, with a man's work to do, a man's burdens to bear, and a man's triumphs to win. "Yet perhaps I am too hard on my unknown sister that is to be, or ought to be, and it is only your own distrust that wrongs her. If she is the daughter of one brave man and really loves another, she knows her place and her duty. It is to be ready to follow her husband wherever he must go, to share his fate whatever it may be, and to live his life, because it is now her own. "And since I am in the way of pleading for her again, let me tell you how simple you are to suppose that because you have never disclosed your secret she may never have guessed it. Goodness me! To think that men who can make women love them to madness itself can be so ignorant as not to know that a woman can always tell if a man loves her, and even fix the very day, and hour, and minute when he looked into her eyes and loved her first. "And if my unknown sister that ought to be knows that you love her, be sure that she loves you in return. Then trust her. Take the counsel of a woman and go to her. Remember, that if you are suffering by this separation, perhaps she is suffering too, and if she is worthy of the love and friendship of a better man than you are, or ever hope to be (which, without disparaging her ladyship, I respectfully refuse to believe), let her at least have the refusal of one or both of them. "Good-night! I go to the Chamber of Deputies again the day after to-morrow, being so immersed in public matters (and public men) that I can think of nothing else at present. Happily my bust is out of hand, and the caster (not B. this time) is hard at work on it. "You won't hear anything about the M---- doings, yet I assure you they are a most serious matter. Unless I am much mistaken there is an effort on foot to connect you with my father, which is surely sufficiently alarming. M---- is returning to Rome, and I hear rumours of an intention to bring pressure on some one _here_ in the hope of leading to identification. Think of it, I beg, I pray! Your friend, |
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