CHAPTER X.

After tea had been administered, and sundry indifferent matters discussed, Mrs. Charrington said, with a subtle change in her tone:

‘My dear, I congratulate you on the company in which I found you this morning!’

‘What was wrong with the company?’ asked Minna calmly, but determined to fight.

Mrs. Charrington shrugged her shoulders.

‘The girl is perfectly beautiful!’ she said, almost irrelevantly. ‘I don’t wonder that you like to take her portrait; but what was the other creature doing in your studio?’

‘Unfortunately “the girl,” as you call her, is engaged to the other creature; and he has claims upon her society.’

‘She’s Signora Dietrich’s daughter, isn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

‘And are you still staying at that place?’

‘I am. It’s too much trouble to move.’

‘Or, rather, you don’t wish to move. I am astonished at you, I must say. It is so unlike anything you have ever been accustomed to.’

‘But what do you know about it? When I told you I was there you said you had no idea who they were.’

‘I had not then. But since then I have found out all that is necessary.’

‘Very kind of you to take so much trouble. Was it on my account?’

‘Don’t be huffy. Do you suppose I had anything but kind intentions towards you? Yes, it was on your account. And also because--though I could not remember just at the moment--I had a glimmering idea that I had once heard something about those people. It is such a bore to have a half-caught fact wandering round in your head, and evading you every time you tried to grasp it, so I just made some investigations. La signora is not the most estimable character imaginable, I think?’

‘I should suppose not. I have nothing to do with her--practically.’

‘She comes of a very clerical family,’ pursued Mrs. Charrington composedly. ‘All the women of her family are bigoted devotees, and very shaky as to morals. The two so often go together. Then, there is a man about the place, isn’t there?’

‘Yes,’ replied Minna dryly.

‘Yes--exactly. Signor Oriole, or some such name. Oh yes, it is an old story, common enough here, and disreputable enough.’

‘He is not disreputable,’ said Minna stoutly. ‘I am certain of that--though why they are not married now, when there is no husband in the way, I really don’t know. It is very unfair to the girl.’

‘It is easy enough to know why they are not married. He is, or was, a gentleman. He had a name, and a bringing up. He comes of a good family. He gave up his estate and his time, his youth and his strength, to his country. Then he got entangled with this woman some time or other, when he was wounded, or ill, or something. In a way, he is weak. She is strong all round. He was quite under her fascination for several years--not many, but several. He gave up what few rags of position and consideration remained to him, in order to be near her. A miserable despicable situation for a man of any brains or cultivation to be in. Her husband had wretched health. Everyone knew he could not live. Oriole had every intention of marrying her, and then it would have been all right. But, not long before Dietrich’s death he discovered that she could be false to her lover as well as to her husband. In spite of having, as he gave out, cast away every shred of the condition of _gentil uomo_--outwardly, at any rate--there was still a remnant or two of prejudice left within. He could not swallow that pill. He would not marry her. He did not desert her. That was his mistake and his weakness. She could have got on perfectly well without him--such people can always get on, somehow, because they have no scruples and no feelings, only passions and greeds of different kinds. They say he is desperately fond of the child. I don’t know how that may be. He has paid dearly enough for his slip, years ago. His life has been simply ruined, neither more nor less.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Minna, as composedly as she could. She did not betray the force of the shock with which the news of the true state of things had struck her. It had not occurred to her to imagine it for herself, but now that she heard it thus philosophically set forth by an outsider, the truth of it came irresistibly to the front. That, certainly, accounted for everything. It made the situation more tragic, but to a certain extent it relieved her mind, because it vindicated Signor Oriole.

‘I heard at the same time some talk of an engagement between the child and a rich foreigner,’ continued Mrs. Charrington. ‘I did not quite believe it, but from what you say there appears to be some truth in it.’

‘It is only too true. He and the mother are agreed. The girl is helpless, Signor Oriole is helpless, of course. This creature is enormously rich, and has tempted Signora Dietrich with a bait which she cannot resist. He is to pay her debts and give her some money--set her free, in fact--and Fulvia is to be handed over to him. It is a horrible situation.’

‘You speak as if you had some personal concern in it,’ said Mrs. Charrington in her clear, incisive tones--cool, cutting, merciless. As those tones struck upon her ear, Minna felt how utterly illogical was her own position in the matter, how purely a thing not of reason, but of feeling, impulse, emotion. She realized that she had nothing to urge in her own defence if she should be attacked on the subject, and she clung all the more ardently to her attitude in the matter. It was another proof of the friendlessness, the forlornness, of poor Fulvia Dietrich that people should wonder why she, Minna Hastings, should concern herself with her affairs. Of course there was nothing to be gained by it but vexation and disappointment, and it is so foolish, so unspeakably foolish, to let one’s self encounter these things on behalf of one who can give nothing in return for the service--wild, quixotic, vain. She said nothing.

‘Don’t you think,’ continued Mrs. Charrington, in her most dulcet tones, ‘that on the whole you had better get out of it? It isn’t a nice sort of thing to be mixed up in.’

‘I am not “mixed up” in it. I have nothing to do with it. I am sorry for the poor man who has made such a mess of his life. I pity the girl beyond all expression. It is pollution for an innocent young creature to be in the presence, even, of that man who she is told is to be her husband. I confess I can’t sit still and see a helpless thing writhe in torture without even putting out a hand to try and help. It is little enough that I can do. By coming to my studio for an hour or two every day she has less time to spend with him and her mother. And, so long as she is not actually married to him, I keep cherishing a hope that perhaps something may happen to break it off--if you call that being mixed up with it.’

‘I do,’ was the decisive reply. ‘Of course when one sees helpless creatures being tortured, to use your flowery language, one must do something. I should do something myself. But that is just the point. Why see them? Why be anywhere near them? You have plenty of friends of your own standing, your own kind, and your own position. You have relations and connections. Why must you cast them all off, and go and busy yourself in the concerns of a disreputable Italian woman and her threadbare old simpleton of a former lover, and their child and the vulgar little upstart who wants to marry the child. “A passion in tatters” on the part of the two elderly persons--a stupid vulgar love-story on that of the younger ones. Do look at it in the proper light. What have you to do with such things--what do you want _dans cette galère_? You can’t do anything, as you say. Go away and leave them, and return to your natural place amongst your friends and in society. That is the only course for you to take.’

Minna shook her head.

‘I’m interested in it,’ she replied.

Mrs. Charrington began to look vexed.

‘I don’t think you understand what a mistake you are making.’

‘And I am very fond of the child,’ pursued Minna. ‘The more I see of her the more I love her. Poor thing! I can’t understand how any woman with a heart in her breast, seeing what is going on, could stand aside and leave her to her fate, without even a word of sympathy.’

‘Oh, when it comes to “a woman with a heart in her breast,” that is just the same as when philanthropists and charitable or religious maniacs tell you they “feel” something very strongly. They “feel” that Mrs. Brown or Mrs. Jones, and her crew of begging children, must not be allowed to go to the workhouse or prison, and----’

‘Really, Mary, your similes are flattering!’

‘There is too much truth in them. The plain fact of the matter is that you have got into a set of anything but respectable people, whose youthful follies and sins are coming home to roost, and bringing their children in their hands with them. You ought to have nothing whatever to do with them. You are letting yourself be carried away by your “feelings.” Oh, I could say many rude and true things on that subject. Some day or other you will bitterly repent it. When that day comes don’t say that I did not warn you.’

‘It may come, then,’ said Minna, with a heightened colour. ‘I am satisfied with what I am doing. I wish it were more; I should embrace it with eagerness. If I could get Fulvia Dietrich out of this horrible situation, at almost any cost to myself I would do it. I was not quite sure what I felt about it before, but your plain-spoken remarks have made my own mind quite clear to me. So don’t you think we have said enough about it?’

‘I see it is useless to say anything more to you,’ replied Mrs. Charrington, disguising her vexation at having thus overshot her mark, as she now plainly perceived she had done. ‘I have relieved my mind, at any rate, and discharged what I felt to be an imperative duty. It hasn’t been pleasant, and I am aware that it is the kind of thing one never gets any thanks for. I have no objection to talk about something else, as you have taken the bit between your teeth.’

They did not return to the subject. Mrs. Charrington exerted herself to play the amiable hostess, Minna was the complaisant guest; but she felt all the time that Mrs. Charrington was disapproving, deeply disapproving, and the intercourse was constrained and unsatisfactory.

When Minna went away, ‘Remember,’ said her friend, ‘I decline to call upon you at that house. I shall look you up at the studio now and then, but I don’t countenance Casa Dietrich.’

‘How pleasant it would be if we could crush out all pain and wrong and wickedness by simply saying we did not countenance them!’ was Minna’s retort, in a tone not devoid of bitterness. ‘Good-night,’ she added, and went out and down the stairs. She breathed a long sigh as she got into a little carriage, and gave the address of Casa Dietrich.

‘She will never understand and never approve,’ she said to herself. ‘And it will be the same with everyone I know. They will call me mad and a simpleton. Well, they will just have to call me so. What would it matter if Fulvia were happy? How I wish she was my daughter! I wish I had a daughter.’