heart with all the love and worship she might have given to the infant Savior himself, rested the weight of centuries of tradition, of a great name and vast estates and of fabulous riches…
A bitter, resentful voice muttered deep in her heart: 'It is Damiani's child! The monstrous issue of an evil man whose life was all wickedness.' And it was answered in Donna Lavinia's calm, grave tones: 'He is the prince! The last of the Sant'Annas, and nothing and no one can ever alter that now!' And it was the calm certainty of love and loyalty which carried the day, just as when light and darkness meet, the light always prevails.
Standing in a pool of sunlight that poured into the room, Donna Lavinia held up an antique flask which she had taken from a small box and it shone with a gleam of dull gold. She turned a tiny drop from it onto a fine linen cloth and passed it over the baby's lips.
'This wheaten flour comes from your lands, my lord. It is the bread that nourishes all those who are your own, servants and peasants. They make it grow for you, but you must watch all your life that it does not fail them.'
She repeated the action with almost the same words, pouring out from another, similar flask the very lifeblood of the Tuscan soil: a wine, dark, red and thick as the vital fluid itself.
When it was done, the old woman turned again to the bed where Marianne sat watching, fascinated in spite of herself, the stages of this curious little ceremony which had the grave simplicity of a religious rite.
'My lady,' she said earnestly, 'the priest will be here in a moment from the church of St. Mary Draperis to baptize the young prince. What name is it Your Highness's wish that he shall be given?'
Taken unawares, Marianne felt herself flushing. Why must Donna Lavinia force her into a maternal role she did not want? Surely the old lady must know that the birth was simply part of a bargain between her master and the woman she persisted in regarding as her mistress, a bargain that was only the prelude to a final separation. Or was she trying to ignore it? Probably that was it, because she was making no attempt to bring the child to his mother. Yet some answer had to be given.
'I don't know,' Marianne said faintly. 'I don't think it is for me to decide… Have you no suggestion to make?'
'Yes, indeed! If it is agreeable to Your Highness, Prince Corrado would wish the child to be called by the family name of Sebastiano. But it is usual for him to bear that of his maternal grandfather also.'
'But surely Don Sebastiano was Prince Corrado's grandfather, not his father?'
'That is so. But he preferred that the name Ugolino should not be used again. Will you tell me your father's name, my lady?'
Marianne felt as if the jaws of a trap were closing around her. Donna Lavinia knew what she was doing. She was deliberately seeking to bind the child's mother, willy-nilly, to the family she was endeavoring to leave. Marianne had never felt so weak and exhausted. She was tired out. Why did they have to bother her with the baby? Why couldn't they leave her alone even now and let her rest? She had a sudden vision of the portrait that reigned over her salon in Paris. Surely the proud and splendid Marquis d'Asselnat, whose title of nobility went back to the Crusades, in whatever warrior heaven he was now, would be angry to see his name given to a child of the steward Damiani? But even as the thought crossed her mind, she heard herself answering in a dreamlike voice that did not seem to belong to her, as though driven to the capitulation, as it seemed to her, by some power stronger than herself.
'His name was Pierre… Pierre-Armand…'
Her whole subconscious being was in rebellion against what she felt to be her own weakness, but although she tried to fight it the vast weariness overcame her. Her eyelids were like lead and her brain was sinking into a fog. She had fallen into a deep sleep even before Rebecca had finished her ministrations.
Donna Lavinia stood for a moment looking at the slender form, so thin and frail now that it seemed lost in the great bed. There were tears in her eyes. Was it possible for so much strength of will to endure in one so young and so exhausted? Even after all that she had been through, she still retained sufficient presence of mind to reject the child, refusing to allow herself to succumb to the powerful maternal instinct.
The old woman glanced down pitifully at the tiny face nestling with closed eyes in its lace cap, from which a single saucy lock of black hair peeped.
'If she would only look at you, my little prince… just once. Then she could never bear to send you away. But come along then. Let's go and see him… He'll love you with all the love he has to give. He will love you for two.'
Leaving Rebecca, aided by a waiting woman to finish doing what was needful for the young mother and set the room to rights, she wrapped the baby in a shawl of soft white wool and tiptoed from the bedchamber. She was halfway through the boudoir when Jolival burst in with Jason hard on his heels.
'The baby!' cried the vicomte. 'He has arrived? We've only just heard… Oh, God! You've got him there?'
Poor Jolival was beside himself with excitement. The anguish of the past hours had given way all at once to such a joy as he would never have believed possible. He wanted to laugh and sing, to dance and drink and do a thousand foolish things. Like the prince himself, he had thrust the facts of the baby's conception behind him, and in his love for Marianne he saw the baby only as her son, the son of one who was like a daughter to him. Suddenly he was discovering the marvelous thrill of being a grandfather.
Donna Lavinia parted the shawl with a careful finger to show them the little red face sleeping peacefully, the tiny fists clutching fast to the new life that had just been given to him. Jolival felt the tears prick at his eyelids.
'Oh, my God, he is so like her! Or rather, so like his grandfather.'
He had gazed too often at the portrait of the Marquis d'Asselnat not to be struck instantly by the resemblance, even though the child was not yet two hours old. By a merciful dispensation of Providence, the baby had no trait of his real father. The imprint of his mother was too strong to leave room for any other influence, and Jolival thought that it was as well that the little boy should be much more an Asselnat than a Sant'Anna. Nor did he think that Prince Corrado would be at all displeased by the resemblance.
'He's a beautiful boy!' Jason exclaimed, with a warmth in his smile that found its way straight to the housekeeper's reluctant heart. 'The most beautiful I ever saw, that I will swear. What does his mother say?'
'She could not help but think him beautiful, could she?' Arcadius said quickly, with a note of pleading in his voice.
Donna Lavinia clasped the baby tighter to her breast and looked at the American with the tears welling up again in her stricken eyes.
'Alas, sir, she would not even look at the poor little angel. She told me to take him away with as much loathing as if he were a monster.'
There was a brief silence. The two men looked at one another but it was Jolival's eyes that fell.
'I was afraid of that,' he said huskily. 'Ever since she first knew she was with child, Marianne has fiercely rejected the idea of the baby.'
Jason said nothing. He stood lost in thought, a crease between his brows and another at the corner of his mouth. But when Donna Lavinia, after wrapping the baby again, made as if to go on her way, he checked her.
'Where are you taking the child?'
She hesitated, bowing her head in an effort to hide the color that had flooded into her face.
'I thought—that is, it will be proper to show him to the master of the house.'
It may have been the unnatural stiffness in her voice, but Jolival was suddenly aware of an undercurrent he could not define. Neither of the actors in the little scene had stirred but Donna Lavinia seemed to be held rooted to the spot under Jason's searching glance, and her breath was coming in little short, quick gasps, like an animal scenting danger.
Then the American drew back a step to let her pass, bowing politely from the waist.
'Of course,' he said gravely. 'You are perfectly right, Donna Lavinia. It is a delicate attention that does you as much credit as the child.'
When Marianne awakened from the beneficent sleep that had engulfed body and mind, the curtains in her room were drawn and the lamps were shedding a warm golden radiance, for it was already evening. The tiled stove was purring like a big cat and Donna Lavinia was coming toward the bed carrying a tray with something steaming on it. It might have been some slight sound which had woken her, or hunger stimulated by the savory smell of supper, because she felt no wish to leave the quiet haven of sleep. The longing for it still pervaded every fiber of her body.
She opened her eyes all the same and stretched luxuriously like a contented cat, with the sheer physical
