第130章 Fiesole (6)

"Ring once for hot water, twice for the chamber maid, three times for the waiter."Merely to touch that ivory knob, and then by the lightest pressure of the finger tips a whole world of love and happiness and rest might open for her, and life would be changed forever.

Again and again she was on the point of yielding, but each time she resisted, and each resistance made her stronger.At length, with a fearful effort, she turned her face away and buried it in the pillow, clinging with all her might to the ironwork of the bed.

For at least an hour the most frightful hour of her life she did not dare to stir.At last when her hands were stiff and sore with that rigid grasping, when it seemed as if her heart had been wrenched out of her and had left nothing but an aching void, she sat up and tore both Brian's note and her reply into a thousand pieces; then, in a weary, lifeless way, made her preparations for the night.

But sleep was impossible.The struggle was over forever, but the pain was but just begun, and she was still a young girl with the best part of her life stretching out before her.She did not toss about restlessly, but lay very still, just enduring her misery, while all the every-day sounds came to her from without laughter in the next room from two talkative American girls, doors opening and shutting, boots thrown down, electric bells rung, presently her father's step and voice.

"Has Miss Raeburn been up long?"

"Sairtenlee, sair, yes," replied the English-speaking waiter."The signorina sleeps, doubtless."Then came a pause, and in another minute her father's door was closed and locked.

Noisy parties of men shouting out some chorus sung at one of the theatres passed along the Lung' Arno, and twanging mandolins wandered up and down in the moonlight.The sound of that harshest and most jarring of all musical instruments was every after hateful to her.She could not hear one played without a shudder.

Slowly and wearily the night wore on.Sometimes she stole to the window, and looked out on the sleeping city, on the peaceful Arno which was bathed in silvery moonlight, and on the old, irregular houses, thinking what struggles and agonies this place had witnessed in past times, and realizing what an infinitesimal bit of the world's sufferings she was called to bear.Sometimes she lighted a candle and read, sometimes prayed, but for the most part just lay still, silently enduring, learning, though she did not think it, the true meaning of pain.

Somewhat later than usual she joined her father the next morning in the coffee room.

"Brian tells me he is off today," was Raeburn's greeting."It seems that he must see that patient at Genoa again, and he wants to get a clear fortnight in Switzerland.""Is it nor rather early for Switzerland?""I should have thought so, but he knows more about it than I do.

He has written to try to persuade your friend, Mr.Farrant, to join him in the Whitsuntide recess.""Oh, I am glad of that," said Erica, greatly relieved.

Directly after breakfast she went out with her father, going first of all to French's bank, where Raeburn had to change a circular note.

"It is upstairs," he said as they reached the house."Don't you trouble to come up; you'll have stairs enough presently at the Uffizzi.""Very well," she replied, "I will wait for you here."She stood in the doorway looking out thoughtfully at the busy Tornabuoni and its gay shops; but in a minute a step she knew sounded on the staircase, and the color rushed to her cheeks.

"I have just said goodbye to your father," said Brian."I am leaving Florence this morning.You must forgive me for having written last night.I ought not to have done it, and I understood your silence."He spoke calmly, in the repressed voice of a man who holds "passion in a leash." Erica was thankful to have the last sight of him thus calm and strong and self-restrained.It was a nobler side of love than that which had inspired his letter nobler because freer from thought of self.

"I am so glad you will have Donovan," she said."Goodbye."He took her hand in his, pressed it, and turned away without a word.