CHAPTER I.

‘It is too annoying!’ said Minna Hastings aloud, looking darkly towards the door which the _padrona_ had just closed behind her, more gently than usual, on taking her departure.

Minna tapped her foot on the floor and frowned, resting her chin on her hand as she leaned a little forward in her chair. Then she let her eyes wander round the large, pleasant room, into which the south sun was pouring warmly, and she frowned again. For a moment she felt a strong impulse to spring up, hasten after Madame Vincenzini, take her by her plump, good-natured shoulders and say, in firm, decided tones:

‘Signora, it will not do. It must not be. You must reconsider this most annoying decision. You must think, not of yourself, but of me.’

It was a most natural impulse. It is the one that comes to nearly all of us when people are going to act in such a manner as to cause us inconvenience.

But Minna, of course, conquered the impulse, sank back into her chair, and felt, with a sense of angry desolation, that her morning’s work was simply ruined.

She was an Englishwoman of eight-and-twenty; she was blessed with an independent, if modest, income, with decided artistic gifts, with a will of her own, and with a certain beauty which, if not always striking at the first moment, was there, and made itself felt by degrees--growing upon the beholder or the acquaintance, as certainly and as effectually as does some true and sure and noble work of art. She was tall, and graciously formed as to figure; her movements had a persuasive pliancy, yet there was power and strength in the nobly planned limbs; her arms, hands and wrists, in particular, were strong, flexible and beautifully formed. Sculpture was her art, or, perhaps more truly said, her despair. It is the sternest but most glorious of the arts. Now, in Minna’s appearance, at least, there was nothing stern. Yet had she a true conception of her art, and a true veneration for and appreciation of it.

Her face was by no means as strikingly beautiful as her figure. Her forehead was wide and large; the thick, wavy, rather coarse auburn hair sprang from it with a sort of wilfulness. The nose was by no means classical in shape or indentation, but it was refined. The fine thin nostrils were almost transparent, and expressed the extreme of sensibility and a quick, nervous temperament. The eyebrows were brown and the eyes dark gray, full of fire, full of dreaminess--artist’s eyes. The mouth was large and mobile, and expressed--what did it express? It could express any and every momentary emotion; on the other hand, it could shut up close and keep its secrets to itself did its owner so choose.

Minna at eight-and-twenty was nearly alone in the world. In Rome, in Florence, in many another city in which art is studied and in which the materials for that study abound, there are crowds of English women, American women, and even German women, working in their own studios or in those of their masters, and generally, of what age soever, unmarried. One usually knows this by a certain something in their aspect or manner--a something indefinable and indescribable. That something was not present in Minna Hastings, and, indeed, there was a plain gold ring, the only one she wore, on the third finger of the left hand--a ring which had been placed there nine years ago by Rupert Hastings, whom she had married, and who had been her husband for exactly eighteen months, having then died very suddenly of an inflammation of the lungs. Minna had always been a person who might have had many friends--indeed, there were many who were ready and wishful to be her friends. She had been, perhaps, less eager than they. In the time of her trouble, however, she had clung to one, a distant relative of her husband’s, a certain Mrs. Charrington, and with her she had, after the first horror of her loss had somewhat abated, travelled, seeking to forget enough to be able to take up something like an everyday life again, that being the consummation most devoutly sought after by most people whose lives and feelings have been crushed or shaken out of that everyday life into a higher, rarer atmosphere.

Nine months after her husband’s death, in the month of September, she had come with her friend to Rome. Mrs. Charrington lived there. Minna had never seen the place before. In a short time the mighty spell of the city of cities had begun its work, as was natural enough, on a girl of barely one-and-twenty--eager, steeped to her soul in the inborn love of art, and, despite the hard blows of Fate, filled to overflowing with the strength, the interest, and the boundless elasticity of youth. Her old love of modelling, in which she had been considered to have a very pretty trick, returned. She began to study in earnest, under a well-known modern sculptor, and from that hour her future seemed settled.

Mrs. Charrington arranged herself in her beloved apartment again with a mind at rest, and with the profound conviction that Minna was perfectly well able to get on without her. They saw each other often, but were perfectly independent of one another. Minna had never saddled herself with any kind of chaperon or companion. She had character and will, and was fond of much solitude. From that time she had lived on in Rome without let or hindrance. It had been practically her home. She had lived there in all seasons: hot and cold, summer and winter--while the hordes of the _Forestieri_ overran it, when it was empty of almost all save its native population, or those who knew it and loved it as well as if they had been born within its bounds. Here, in Rome, she had recovered her balance, her health of mind and body, after the great stroke which had smitten her down; here she had worked, she had hoped, and aspired; studied and despaired and hoped again; she felt herself an integral part of the place. For the last three years she had considered herself very happily situated as to dwelling, in her two or three pleasant rooms, in a quiet street in the purlieus of Piazza di Spagna, with Madame Vincenzini as _padrona_, and not a thought or a care as respected housekeeping to trouble her. Now and then, it is true, she had said to herself: ‘It is too good to last.’

This morning the prophecy had been fulfilled--the blow had fallen. Signora Vincenzini had come to tell her that she had at last decided to give up the cares of housekeeping and go to live with her daughter, who was married to a well-to-do draper at Milano.

The house and its business would be carried on by her son Edoardo and his wife Amelia, and the signora would find everything to go exactly as it always had done--her comfort being the main study in life of the younger Vincenzini, as it had been of their mother--_ecco!_

‘I am very sorry, Signora Vincenzini,’ was all, or nearly all, that Minna said.

‘And so am I, signora--sorry to break our connection, which has always been so pleasant and so smooth--no disputes, no disagreements. _Ma, che vuole?_’--with a shrug, expressive of everything that could be said upon the subject.

_Che vuole?_ indeed! Minna felt there was no reply to it. She let the _padrona_ go, without having in any way committed herself on the subject of her own future course, only in her mind was the very fixed resolution that she would not at any price remain as the tenant of the younger Vincenzini, who were marked examples of the deterioration of a good stock. The wife was a colourless creature, given to flopping about the house in a dressing-gown and curl-papers, and reading greasy-looking paper-backed novels. The only time when she was tidy was when she was dressed in florid splendour for the theatre, or for some other entertainment. Her mind was not too far removed from household things to make her above examining any box or drawer which might have been incautiously left unfastened. The husband was Minna’s peculiar detestation for many reasons, and she often wondered how the excellent Signora Vincenzini came to have such a child. The worthy pair were admirably adapted to cheat, rob, and neglect some innocent young Englishman, not up to their ways, or some _deputato_ from the country, who would need only bed and early cup of coffee in the house, and who would take his more serious _colazione_ and dinner at some restaurant in close vicinity to the Parliamentary building in Monte Citorio. Minna resolved at once that she would not be the woman to prevent them from securing such a prey.

Her chief object must be to get out of these rooms, and into others, before the dowager signora should have taken her departure. Minna was quite able to defend herself in any contest as to agreements and prices; she knew exactly when to threaten the extortioner with the _Questura_, and when gracefully to ignore the fact that she was being cheated; but she was not fond of a row simply for its own sake, and was morally convinced that she would have to encounter one should she remain a day in the house after the departure of the present _padrona_.

After giving an hour or more to vexed consideration of the subject, she at last rose, and with a heavy sigh went to her bedroom, put on her outdoor things, and went forth to take her usual walk to her studio. It was now late in November, and the rainy season had, more or less, set in; but up to a week or ten days before it had been what dwellers in less-favoured climes would call summer--high, hot summer. Minna thought of it every now and then with a sigh of regret, and a great longing for the skies and the atmosphere and the wonderful scintillating glory of the heat which she had revelled in. In such weather the great dark palaces are a joy; the marble halls are all one asks for; the sculptures are instinct with life; one expects them every moment to move and speak: but no, they remain there, keeping their secrets fast, till the cold of winter sets in and they are once more statues--marble statues, even to the most enthusiastic.

To-day sunshine and shower alternated. Minna noticed none of it as she walked more slowly than usual towards her studio. On her way thither she had occasion to walk along a certain street, and, happening to glance upwards as she did so, she found herself opposite the door of a well-known _pensione_ affected by some of the most highly respectable English and American visitors. A thought struck her:

‘I could at any rate take a room there till I have been able to look about me, and see what is best to be done.’

She climbed the stairs forthwith and rang the bell, resolved to settle the matter at once, so that on her return she could tell Signora Vincenzini in a firm and decided manner of her resolve.

Further disappointment awaited her. Mrs. Cartwright, the very comfortable, self-satisfied-looking matron who conducted the _pensione_, received her with calm and dignified indifference, an indifference born partly of the fact that her house was full, partly perhaps of the other fact that she knew Minna well by name and sight, and had heard her give utterance to views about _pensioni_ and boarding-houses which were far from complimentary to such establishments. At any rate, as soon as she heard what Mrs. Hastings wanted--a large good room with the sun--she smiled a lofty smile, folded her hands, and regretted, with every appearance of satisfaction, that it was quite out of her power to oblige her with anything of the kind. She had no such room free--no prospect of having such a room.

Minna wished her good-morning and went away with an outwardly unruffled mien. She was not going to give way to the fit of exasperated ill-humour which she felt was coming over her before that insolent creature--not she. Within she was full of vexation. Rome, as she knew, was ill-supplied with comfortable boarding-houses. She did not wish to go to a hotel. It was altogether very annoying.

‘I wish I had never gone in,’ she muttered to herself with much irritation. ‘No room for me indeed! The instant I saw her I felt what a mistake I had made. I don’t know how I came to forget for a moment that it would be impossible for me to live, even for a week, in a _pensione_ like that, filled with English and Americans “doing” Rome. Heavens! doesn’t one know what they are? Their one idea how to rush round it with the least possible expenditure of time and money--the day’s sightseeing a duty to be done; then the blessed relief of evening--the comfort of being able to forget the statues and the ruins and the churches, while they grumble at their ease over the badness of the dinner, and compare the prices of things at all the different places they have ever stayed at in their lives. Such memories they have for things of that kind, and for the pastry-cooks, and the jewellers and the milliners, and for the liveries of the Queen’s servants when she drives out, and for nothing else! Bah! I have had a lucky escape!’

So she told herself, looking anything but delighted with her good fortune. She walked now at a quicker pace, and with a heightened colour. It was an indubitable fact that Minna Hastings was not accustomed to be thwarted or contradicted, and that she did not take kindly to the experience. Presently arriving at the house in which her studio was situated, she walked in under the cavernous entrance, climbed the many stairs to the two rooms in which she was accustomed to work, or dream, or loiter away her time.

The first room was of moderate size and by no means luxuriously furnished. It contained, however, an easy-chair and an old comfortable sofa. There was a faded but well-tinted Oriental rug in front of the sofa and coming almost up to a perfectly hideous black stove--a stove which nevertheless was capable, as are not all Roman stoves, of giving out some heat when the wood was fairly burning in it. Minna threw off her hat, mantle and gloves, and then, opening the stove door, began with practised hand to put into it small faggots of twigs, a little torn paper, and some larger pieces of wood. Her beautiful strong hands moved quickly and lithely backwards and forwards, and up and down, in this process. Then she struck a match sharply, applied it at exactly the right spot, shut the door of the stove with a little bang, and rose from her knees, with still the same frown of vexation on her brow.

She stood still for a moment, a graceful, gracious figure, clad all in a soft golden brown, and looked absently at the door of the stove, till there came to her ear the welcome hollow sound which told her that the fire was ‘drawing,’ and in a few minutes would be brightly and safely blazing. Then she made a step or two forwards, pushed aside a _portière_ which hung across a doorway without a door, and stepped into the next room. It was her workroom, and was not distinguished by being different from other sculptors’ studios. It was bare, it was sunless, it was spacious, and quite devoid of any effort at adornment. The usual paraphernalia lay about here and there, and the usual casts, copies and gyps of different world-known works. There were one or two things which she had begun and not finished. There were one or two finished things--a bust, a fantastic figure or two: and these finished specimens betrayed a certain strength and rugged power which scarcely accorded with one’s first impression, at any rate, of their creator.

She glanced impatiently round, then advanced towards the middle of the room, where stood something of a larger size than any of her other efforts. It was not yet the marble--it was the clay model, enveloped in its wet cloth. She approached it, and laid a hand on the outermost cloth, lifting it, and then paused, before she had discovered to view the work concealed by that drapery.

‘No,’ she said to herself, ‘I will never work at you, nor even look at you while I am in an ill-humour, and that I assuredly am just now.’

She readjusted the cloth, turned her back upon the figure, and, without vouchsafing a glance towards any of the other things, went back into the first room.

The fire was burning bravely now. She heard its merry little roar, opened the stove door, and let a delicious red glow of light and warmth into the room, and over her own face, which still looked annoyed and disgusted. She wheeled the easy-chair up in front of the fire, took a book from the table, and composed herself, or tried to do so.

‘The idea of being such a fool about all this!’ she said to herself. ‘I am ashamed of myself. Let me forget it.’

Her book was a volume of Tacitus through which, with a small amount of schoolgirl Latin, and with the aid of a dictionary and a crib, she was plodding her way. Even to-day it succeeded after a time in drawing her mind away from its vexations. The time flew by; the fire diffused a pleasant warmth. Minna now and then roused enough to stretch out her hand to the wood-basket, and cast another log upon the flames, then returned to her book. She was at last aroused by a knock at the outer door.

‘Avanto!’ cried she, scarcely raising her eyes till someone wished her good-day. Then she looked up. A tall, fresh-complexioned and handsome young man, with something a little sarcastic in his smile, advanced into the room.

‘Oh, Hans!’ she said, with a slight smile. ‘Good-day to you.’ She spoke in German, and held out her hand. Hans Riemann was her cousin, the son of an English mother and a German father. He bent over her hand, touching it lightly with his lips, and saying:

‘If you are busy and I disturb you, say so, and I will at once go away.’

‘Not in the least, thank you. I am very glad to see you. By the way, it is some time since I did see you. Where have you been?’

‘Out beyond Olevano, for more than a week sketching,’ he replied carelessly. ‘It was glorious, Minna; I have found quite a decent inn out there--at least, you who have no nonsense about you would think it quite passable, I am sure. Let’s go out there, in spring some time, shall we? I can find scenery, and you models to any extent, and quite out of the common, too.’

‘With all my heart--in spring,’ she agreed, in a melancholy voice.

‘Why that sigh? You look much graver than usual, now I come to observe you,’ he said, with a suddenly aroused interest.

She broke into a short, vexed laugh.

‘I may well look grave--cross would be nearer the mark,’ she said. Then she told him what had happened.

‘I am desolated to hear such news,’ he assured her; ‘from purely selfish motives, if from no others. Are those delightful little evenings, then, over? No more talk, no more coffee, no more Chopin and Schumann and Raff? Gott! how painful!’

‘I hope only for a time to be inhospitable,’ said she with a smile. ‘But I will tell you the truth. Something that happened after that vexed me far more than even my _padrona’s_ perverse behaviour.’

Then she related the history of her fruitless application for board and lodging at Mrs. Cartwright’s. Hans laughed loud and long at the recital.

‘Ach, was!’ he cried. ‘It is a mercy that she refused you. The idea of you there! Why, they do not get enough to eat--so I am told--and are expected to dress for dinner and appear in the drawing-room in the evening, whether they wish it or not. Mrs. Cartwright is by way of holding a kind of _salon_. Yes, you may laugh--it is true. And there are people fools enough to like it, or to think they do, and to call it “very nice.” That is what all the English girls say,’ he added, looking gravely at Minna, as if he had been entirely free from any English taint. ‘I have heard them so often--before the Dying Gaul, the Apollo Belvedere, the Medusa Morente, the Apoxiomene, under the Dome of the Pantheon, and under that of St. Peter--the effect of the two being much the same--on the Appian Way, in front of the milliners’ windows--“very nice, oh, very nice!”’

‘Come, come, sir, and what of your German _Mädchen_? “Ach Gott, wie reizend! nein, wie entzückend schön! Das ist ja zu nett.” I can cap you at that game.’

They both laughed. Then he said suddenly:

‘Look here, Minna, why couldn’t you come and put up where I am staying? Temporarily, I mean, unless you like it so much that you decide to remain. I have often told you about it. It is central, it is cosmopolitan, it is not too dear; in fact, it ain’t dear at all. If it were, I should not be there, as you know, on the governor’s allowance. It is anything but aristocratic, that is true. It isn’t even _collet-montée_, though there’s nothing in the world that you need fight shy of--and it is fun, which is a great thing. Mrs. Cartwright’s isn’t. I can tell you that. I should be on the spot--your slave, as ever, and ready to tramp all over Rome with you till you have found what you want in the shape of an _appartamento_. Moreover, it is not full to overflowing. It seldom is, though there are several people there. There are some good rooms to let--they have good rooms there, if they have nothing else. Come and try it.’

‘Verily, you tempt me. It might be amusing. My rooms were so comfortable that it was impossible to think of them in connection with amusement. Let me see--what is it called?’

‘It is called Signora or Madame Dietrich--Casa Dietrich. She was married to a German first.’

‘First? How many more times has she been married since the first?’

‘Not one. She’s a widow, is Signora Dietrich--a widow given to spending more money than she has got. But that is a trifle. It is number seventeen, Piazza Bocca della Verità----’

‘Bocca della Verità--really Hans, I don’t want to live next door to Santa Maria in Cosmedin.’

‘It isn’t that one, of course. It has nothing to do with the old Bocca della Verità; but in some respects we who live there consider it rather a good name for it. Really and truly,’ he added earnestly, ‘it’s odd in many ways, undoubtedly. It is fundamentally Italian, but there’s nothing really wrong there, according to Italian notions--and you and I take the Romans as they are, I believe, and not as what English philistinism says everyone all over the world ought to be. And sometimes it is awfully amusing. Do come and try. If you didn’t like it you could go to a hotel the very next day, and I would take all the bother of it upon myself.’

She looked seriously reflective.

‘Of course I can’t possibly say anything till I have seen it for myself. But I will see it--yes, I will look at it.’

‘All right. Suppose you were to come and have lunch there to-day. That would give you some idea of it.’

‘With you, eh? Well, it might be a good plan. What time?’

‘In half an hour. It is close at hand. I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll run round now, and tell Giuseppe, and then come back here for you.’

‘Who is Giuseppe?’ she asked, as he made for the door.

He looked back at her, half laughing.

‘Giuseppe is--Giuseppe--well, I suppose one might call Giuseppe the manager,’ he replied, and was gone.

Minna put on her things during his absence, and was ready, when he returned, to accompany him.

‘I saw Giuseppe, and told him that a friend of mine was coming to lunch, who would afterwards wish to see their best rooms. He said, “Bene, bene! but don’t go to suppose that any rattle-pated student friend of yours is going to be put up in the best rooms of Casa Dietrich!” I did not explain. You will be explanation enough, as soon as he sees you.’

‘I really think you are a very reckless young man,’ said Minna, as she followed him out of the room and down the stairs.