Marianne and the Rebels

do!'

A sudden swirl in the crowd dragged her from her melancholy thoughts. Down there, a few yards away, a man had jumped from a boat and was forging through the throng towards the Palazzo Dandolo. He was very tall, much taller than those he was thrusting out of his path. He cut through the crowd like an irresistible force, as easily as a ship breasting the waves, and Jolival, behind him, was having considerable difficulty keeping up. The man was broad-shouldered and blue-eyed, with a proud face and unruly black hair.

'Jason!' Marianne breathed, suddenly wild with joy. 'At last!'

In an instant, her heart had made its choice between fear and happiness. Everything but the glow of love had been swept away. Her whole being was irradiated.

As Jason, down below, vanished inside the palace, Marianne picked up her skirts with both hands and ran to the door. Speeding through the rooms like lightning, she flung herself down the stairs just as her lover was starting up them two at a time. With a shriek of joy that was almost a sob, she cast herself on his chest, laughing and crying at once.

He, too, cried out as he saw her. He roared out her name so loudly that the vaulted ceilings of the ancient palace rang again, making up for the many months of silence during which he had only been able to murmur it in his dreams. Then, his arms were round her, and he swung her off the ground, covering her with frantic kisses, devouring her face and neck like a starving man, regardless of the servants who, drawn by the noise, were hanging over the banisters to watch.

Jolival and Dal Niel stood, side by side, at the foot of the stairs and gazed upwards with approval.

'E meraviglioso! Que belle amore!' the Venetian sighed, clasping his hands.

'Yes,' agreed the Frenchman modestly. 'It's well enough.'

Marianne, her eyes closed, saw and heard none of this. She and Jason were alone together in a storm of passion, cut off as though by some strong enchantment from the world around them. They scarcely even noticed when their audience, good Italians for whom love is no light matter, was moved to express a connoisseur's appreciation of the scene. The applause rose to a climax when the privateer picked Marianne up bodily and, still without taking his lips from hers, bore her up the stairs. The door, kicked back by an impatient boot, slammed shut behind them to the cheers of the delighted onlookers.

'Will you do me the honour to drink a glass of grappa with me to the health of the lovers?' Dal Niel said, smiling broadly. 'Something tells me they will do quite well without you… and such happiness deserves a little celebration.'

'I should be delighted to drink with you. But, at the risk of disappointing you, I shall be obliged to interrupt the lovers' meeting before long, because we have important matters to decide.'

'Important matters? What matters can a pretty woman like that have to decide beyond the choice of her clothes?'

Jolival laughed.

'You'd be surprised, my friend, but her toilette plays only a very small part in the Princess's life. I spoke of decisions and here, I see, is one coming upon us now.'

Lieutenant Benielli, very smart in uniform, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword, had just marched into the hall. His entry, although somewhat less tumultuous than Jason's, nevertheless had the effect of bringing about the instant dispersal of the inquisitive servants.

He approached the two men and clicked his heels.

'The American vessel has returned,' he announced. 'I must see the Princess at once. I may say that it is of the utmost urgency. We have already wasted too much time.'

Jolival sighed. 'I see. You will have to excuse me, Signor Dal Niel, but I am afraid we must postpone the grappa. I shall have to take this impulsive military gentleman upstairs.'

'Peccato! What a pity!' was the understanding answer. 'Do not be in too great a hurry to disturb them. Leave them a moment longer. I will keep the lieutenant company.'

'A moment? Upon my soul, a moment to them could well mean hours! They have not seen each other for six months.'

However, Arcadius was mistaken. No sooner had Marianne allowed her love to overcome her fears than she was regretting it. She had not been able to resist the impulse which had made her fly into the arms of the man she loved, as soon as she set eyes on him, an impulse to which he had responded with equal passion. Too much so, perhaps. But even as he was carrying her upstairs two at a time and slamming the door behind them in his haste to be alone with her, Marianne was suffering a return of all the clearheadedness which had flown so deliciously to the winds a moment before.

She knew what would happen next: another moment and Jason, in an ecstasy of love, would cast her on to her bed; in five minutes, or even less, he would have undressed her and in a very short time after that, he would have made her his own, giving her no chance to stop the tender hurricane in which she was caught up.

Yet there was something inside her which refused, something she had not been aware of until now, and that something was the depth of her love for Jason. She loved him enough to crush down her own, fiercely urgent desire for him. In a lightning flash of understanding, she knew that she could not, must not be his while that doubt still hung over her unresolved, while her body was still horribly mortgaged to Damiani.

Of course, if some germ of life was beginning to grow inside her, it would be undeniably convenient, and even easy to throw the responsibility for fathering it on to her lover. Given a man of his passionate nature and so deeply in love, any goose could do it! But although Marianne might not be prepared to tell the truth about her six weeks' disappearance, she was even more determined not to make him her dupe – and in that worst way of all! No, until she was absolutely certain, she could not let him make love to her. On no account. It could lead them both into a morass of lies from which she would never escape. But, heavens, it was going to be difficult!

As he paused for a second in the middle of the room and stopped kissing her for long enough to get his bearing and find out the door of her bedchamber, she uncoiled herself smoothly from his arms and stood up.

'My God, Jason! You are quite mad! And I think I must be as mad as you.'

She walked across to a mirror and began putting up her hair which was falling down her back but he came after her at once, enveloping her once more in his warm embrace. Laughing, his mouth in her hair, he murmured:

'I sure hope so! Oh, Marianne, Marianne! For months I have dreamed of this moment… when I'd be alone with you again at last… Just the two of us, you and me… with nothing between us but our love. Don't you reckon we've deserved that much?'

His voice, so warm and yet with a sardonic undertone never far away, was roughened and he was putting her hair aside to kiss the nape of her neck. Marianne shut her eyes. Already she was in torment.

'We are not alone,' she murmured, disengaging herself once more. 'There is Jolival… and Agathe… and Gracchus – any one of them might come in at any moment. This house is practically public property! Didn't you hear them clapping on the stairs?'

'Who cares? Jolival, Agathe and Gracchus have all known for long enough how matters stood. They'll understand that we want to be together, now, this minute.'

'They will, yes – but they are not all. The people here are foreigners and I must respect—'

Abruptly he had had enough. In a voice sharpened perhaps by disappointment, he flashed back:

'Well, what? The name you bear? It's a good while since we heard much about that! And if Arcadius is to be believed, you'd be a fool to waste too much consideration on a husband capable of abducting you and keeping you prisoner! Marianne, what's come over you? You're playing propriety all of a sudden, aren't you?'

Marianne was spared the necessity of answering by the arrival of Jolival. Jason stood frowning, somewhat put out, it seemed, by this untimely interruption which appeared to support Marianne's previous arguments.

Taking in the scene at a glance, Jolival saw Marianne at the mirror pinning up her hair while Jason stood at a little distance with folded arms, looking broodingly from one to the other in evident displeasure. Arcadius's smile was a masterpiece of conciliation and fatherly tact.

'It's only me, my children, and, believe me, I hate to interrupt your first meeting. But Lieutenant Benielli is here and he insists on coming up at once.'

'That confounded Corsican again? What does he want?' Jason growled.

'I didn't stop to ask him, but it may be important.'

Marianne stepped quickly over to her love and, taking his head between her hands, stifled his protests with a