The stage scenery was set for romance, but from the moment the curtain rose the play had persisted in being farce. However, farce or romance, it was all one to him so long as he could play leading-man; what he objected to was the minor part. The fact was clear that sash and earrings could never compete with uniform and sword and the Italian language. His mind was made up; he would withdraw tonight before he was found out, and leave Valedolmo tomorrow morning by the early boat. Miss Constance Wilder should never have the satisfaction of knowing the truth.
He was engaged in framing a dignified speech to Mr. Wilder--thanking him for his generosity, but declining to accept a reward for what had been merely a matter of duty--when his reflections were cut short by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. They were by no means noiseless footsteps; there were good strong nails all over the bottom of Constance's shoes. The next moment she appeared in the doorway. Her eyes were centered on the view; she looked entirely over Tony. It was not until he rose to his feet that she realized his presence with a start.
"Dear me, is that you, Tony? You frightened me! Don't get up; I know you must be tired." This with a sweetly solicitous smile.
Tony smiled too and resumed his seat; it was the first time since morning that she had condescended to consider his feelings. She sauntered over to the opposite side and stood with her back to him examining the view. Tony turned his back and affected to be engaged with the view in the other direction; he too could play at indifference.
Constance finished with her view first, and crossing over, she seated herself in the deep embrasure of a window close beside Tony's parapet. He rose again at her approach, but there was no eagerness in the motion; it was merely the necessary deference of a donkey-driver toward his employer.
"Oh, sit down," she insisted, "I want to talk to you."
[Illustration: "She seated herself in the deep embrasure of a window close beside Tony's parapet"]
He opened his eyes with a show of surprise; his hurt feelings insisted that all the advances should be on her part. Constance seemed in no hurry to begin; she removed her hat, pushed back her hair, and sat playing with the bunch of edelweiss which was stuck in among the roses--flattening the petals, rearranging the flowers with careful fingers; a touch, it seemed to Tony's suddenly clamoring senses, that was almost a caress. Then she looked up quickly and caught his gaze. She leaned forward with a laugh.
"Tony," she said, "do you spik any language besides Angleesh?"
He triumphantly concealed all sign of emotion.
"
Si
, signorina, I spik my own language."
"Would you mind my asking what that language is?"
He indulged in a moment's deliberation. Italian was clearly out of the question, and French she doubtless knew better than he--he deplored this polyglot education girls were receiving nowadays.
He had it! He would be Hungarian. His sole fellow guest in the hotel at Verona the week before had been a Hungarian nobleman, who had informed him that the Magyar language was one of the most difficult on the face of the globe. There was at least little likelihood that she was acquainted with that.
"My own language, signorina, is Magyar."
"Magyar?" She was clearly taken by surprise.
"
Si
, signorina, I am Hungarian; I was born in Budapest." He met her wide-opened eyes with a look of innocent candor.
"Really!" She beamed upon him delightedly; he was playing up even better than she had hoped. "But if you are Hungarian, what are you doing here in Italy, and how does it happen that your name is Antonio?"
"My movver was Italian. She name me Antonio after ze blessed Saint Anthony of Padua. If you lose anysing, signorina, and you say a prayer to Saint Anthony every day for nine days, on ze morning of ze tenth you will find it again."
"That is very interesting," she said politely. "How do you come to know English so well, Tony?"
"We go live in Amerik' when I li'l boy."
"And you never learned Italian? I should think your mother would have taught it to you."
He imitated Beppo's gesture.
"A word here, a word there. We spik Magyar at home."
"Talk a little Magyar, Tony. I should like to hear it."
"What shall I say, signorina?"
"Oh, say anything you please."
He affected to hesitate while he rehearsed the scraps of language at his command. Latin--French--German--none of them any good--but, thank goodness, he had elected Anglo-Saxon in college; and thank goodness again the professor had made them learn passages by heart. He glanced up with an air of flattered diffidence and rendered, in a conversational inflection, an excerpt from the Anglo-Saxon Bible.
"
Ealle gesceafta, heofonas and englas, sunnan and monan, steorran and eorthan, hè gesceop and geworhte on six dagum.
"
"It is a very beautiful language. Say some more."
He replied with glib promptness, with a passage from Beowulf.
"
Hie dygel lond warigeath, wulfhleothu, windige naessas.
"
"What does that mean?"
Tony looked embarrassed.
"I don't believe you know!"
"It means--
scusi
, signorina, I no like to say."
"You don't know."
"It means--you make me say, signorina,--'I sink you ver' beautiful like ze angels in Paradise.'"
"Indeed! A donkey-driver, Tony, should not say anything like that."
"But it is true."
"The more reason you should not say it."
"You asked me, signorina; I could not tell you a lie."
The signorina smiled slightly and looked away at the view; Tony seized the opportunity to look sidewise at her. She turned back and caught him; he dropped his eyes humbly to the floor.
"Does Beppo speak Magyar?" she inquired.
"Beppo?" There was wonder in his tone at the turn her questions were taking. "I sink not, signorina."
"That must be very inconvenient. Why don't you teach it to him?"
"
Si
, signorina." He was plainly nonplussed.
"Yes, he says that you are his father and I should think--"
"His father?" Tony appeared momentarily startled; then he laughed. "He did not mean his real father; he mean--how you say--his god-father. I give to him his name when he get christened."
"Oh, I see!"
Her next question was also a surprise.
"Tony," she inquired with startling suddenness, "why do you wear earrings?"
He reddened slightly.
"Because--because--der's a girl I like ver' moch, signorina; she sink earrings look nice. I wear zem for her."
"Oh!--But why do you fasten them on with thread?"
"Because I no wear zem always. In Italia, yes; in Amerik' no. When I marry dis girl and go back home, zen I do as I please, now I haf to do as she please."
"H'm--" said Constance, ruminatingly. "Where does this girl live, Tony?"
"In Valedolmo, signorina."
"What does she look like?"
"She look like--" His eyes searched the landscape and came back to her face. "Oh, ver' beautiful, signorina. She have hair brown and gold, and eyes--yes, eyes! Zay are sometimes black, signorina, and sometimes gray. Her laugh, it sounds like the song of a nightingale." He clasped his hands and rolled his eyes in a fine imitation of Gustavo. "She is beautiful, signorina, beautiful as ze angels in Paradise!"
"There seem to be a good many people beautiful as the angels in Paradise."
"She is most beautiful of all."
"What is her name?"
"Costantina." He said it softly, his eyes on her face.
"Ah," Constance rose and turned away with a shrug. Her manner suggested that he had gone too far.
"She wash clothes at ze Hotel du Lac," he called after her.
Constance paused and glanced over her shoulder with a laugh.
"Tony," she said, "the quality which I admire most in a donkey-driver, besides truthfulness and picturesqueness, is imagination."
CHAPTER VII
On the homeward journey Tony again trudged behind while the officers held their post at Constance's side. But Tony's spirits were still singing from the little encounter on the castle platform, and in spite of the animated Italian which floated back, he was determined to look at the sunny side of the adventure. It was Mr. Wilder who unconsciously supplied him with a second opportunity for conversation. He and the Englishman, being deep in a discussion involving statistics of the Italian army budget, called on the two officers to set them straight. Tony, at their order, took his place beside the saddle; Constance was not to be abandoned again to Fidilini's caprice. Miss Hazel and the Englishwoman were ambling on ahead in as matter-of-fact a fashion as if that were their usual mode of travel. Their donkeys were of a sedater turn of mind than Fidilini--a fact for which Tony offered thanks.
They were by this time well over the worst part of the mountain and the brief Italian twilight was already fading. Tony, with a sharp eye on the path ahead and a ready hand for the bridle, was attending strictly to the duties of a well-trained donkey-man. It was Constance again who opened the conversation.
"Ah, Tony?"
"
Si
, signorina?"
"Did you ever read any Angleesh books--or do you do most of your reading in Magyar?"
"I haf read one, two, Angleesh books."
"Did you ever read--er--'The Lightning Conductor' for example?"
"No, signorina; I haf never read heem."
"I think it would interest you. It's about a man who pretends he's a chauffeur in order to--to-- There are any number of books with the same motive; 'She Stoops to Conquer,' 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' 'Lalla Rookh,' 'Monsieur Beaucaire'--Oh, dozens of them! It's an old plot; it doesn't require the slightest originality to think of it."
"
Si
, signorina? Sank you." Tony's tone was exactly like Gustavo's when he has failed to get the point, but feels that a comment is necessary.
Constance laughed and allowed a silence to follow, while Tony redirected his attention to Fidilini's movements. His "Yip! Yip!" was an exact imitation, though in a deeper guttural, of Beppo's cries before them. It would have taken a close observer to suspect that he had not been bred to the calling.
"You have not always been a donkey-driver?" she inquired after an interval of amused scrutiny.
"Not always, signorina."
"What did you do in New York?"
"I play hand-organ, signorina."
Tony removed his hand from the bridle and ground "Yankee Doodle" from an imaginary instrument.
"I make musica, signorina, wif--wif--how you say, monk, monka? His name Vittorio Emanuele. Ver' nice monk--simpatica affezionata."
"You've never been an actor?"
"An actor? No, signorina."
"You should try it; I fancy you might have some talent in that direction."
"
Si
, signorina. Sank you."
She let the conversation drop, and Tony, after an interval of silence, fell to humming Santa Lucia in a very presentable baritone. The tune, Constance noted, was true enough, but the words were far astray.
"That's a very pretty song, Tony, but you don't appear to know it."
"I no understand Italian, signorina. I just learn ze tune because Costantina like it."
"You do everything that Costantina wishes?"
"Everysing! But if you could see her you would not wonder. She has hair brown and gold, and her eyes, signorina, are sometimes gray and sometimes black, and her laugh sounds like--"
"Oh, yes, I know; you told me all that before."
"When she goes out to work in ze morning, signorina, wif the sunlight shining on her hair, and a smile on her lips, and a basket of clothes on her head--Ah,
zen
she is beautiful!"
"When are you going to be married?"
"I do not know, signorina. I have not asked her yet."
"Then how do you know she wishes to marry you?"
"I do not know; I just hope."
He rolled his eyes toward the moon which was rising above the mountains on the other side of the lake, and with a deep sigh he fell back into Santa Lucia.
Constance leaned forward and scanned his face.
"Tony! Tell me your name." There was an undertone of meaning, a note of persuasion in her voice.
"Antonio, signorina."
She shook her head with a show of impatience.
"Your real name--your last name."
"Yamhankeesh."
"Oh!" she laughed. "Antonio Yamhankeesh doesn't seem to me a very musical combination; I don't think I ever heard anything like it before."
"It suits me, signorina." His tone carried a suggestion of wounded dignity. "Yamhankeesh has a ver' beautiful meaning in my language--'He who dares not, wins not'."
"And that is your motto?"
"
Si
, signorina."
"A very dangerous motto, Tony; it will some day get you into trouble."
They had reached the base of the mountain and their path now broadened into the semblance of a road which wound through the fields, between fragrant hedgerows, under towering chestnut trees. All about them was the fragrance of the dewy, flower-scented summer night, the flash of fireflies, the chirp of crickets, occasionally the note of a nightingale. Before them out of a cluster of cypresses, rose the square graceful outline of the village campanile.
Constance looked about with a pleased, contented sigh.
"Isn't Italy beautiful, Tony?"
"Yes, signorina, but I like America better."
"We have no cypresses and ruins and nightingales in America, Tony. We have a moon sometimes, but not that moon."
They passed from the moonlight into the shade of some overhanging chestnut trees. Fidilini stumbled suddenly over a break in the path and Tony pulled him up sharply. His hand on the bridle rested for an instant over hers.
"Italy is beautiful--to make love in," he whispered.
She drew her hand away abruptly, and they passed out into the moonlight again. Ahead of them where the road branched into the highway, the others were waiting for Constance to catch up, the two officers looking back with an eager air of expectation. Tony glanced ahead and added with a quick frown.