“Then you would like a place like Zenith, that’s growing?”
“How can I tell? I’d certainly like the adventure of trying it.”
He felt that her hesitation was more promising than the enthusiasms of Fran. Suddenly a horde of Ercoles were trouping in, planning a swim, and no more that day, nor the next, did they speak of Fran, of Zenith, of themselves. But when they said good night, he kissed her hands, and her eyes dwelt upon him.
They were dining at Bertolini’s, high above Naples, looking out toward Capri, and he was talking of possible schemes: a two-story caravan with a canvas-sided collapsible upper floor, so that the caravan could pass under arches en route; a caravan that could turn into a house boat, carrying its own hull along, collapsed; a summer resort entirely for children whose parents were going abroad; a dozen fantastic, probably practical plans. She was amused by them, suggested improvements, and Sam was lustily content.
But after his second cognac the orchestra played selections from the Viennese operettas which Fran loved, and he remembered how happy he had been with Fran in Berlin, at first. It came to him that if Kurt failed to marry her, she would be a bewildered and lonely exile; and through the music, through the darkness beyond the music, he saw her fleeing, a desolate wraith; and while Edith gossiped most amiably, Sam’s heart was heavy with pity for the frightened and bewildered child Fran, who once had laughed so eagerly with him.
But, back at the Villa Ercole, he stood with Edith on the terrace and across the whispering darkness of the bay, he saw the cone of Vesuvius with a thin line of fire.
“Don’t worry it too much!” said Edith suddenly, and he was grateful that she understood his cloudy thoughts without making him wrap them in cloudier words.
XXXV
For days they drifted in perfect calm, and he was proud that the enervating thought of Fran was gone from him.
All one morning they explored the ridge above Posilipo, found fragments of a Roman emperor’s villa and the carp-pond in which he used to drown his slaves as the best fish-food, and discovered the mausoleum which, history asserts, was the tomb of Virgil, or of someone else. They straggled home, up the long street which was a wilderness of children and carts, and sank down sighing in the cool drawing-room.
“Collatzione, Teresa,” he ordered, then: “Curious, Edith, but this house that you’ve rented, and that belongs to an Italian I never saw till the other day, is the first that I ever felt was really mine. I actually dare give an order!”
“But I’m sure your Fran never meant to be a domestic dictator. …”
The gardener had left the mail on the table, but Sam did not pick it up till after lunch, and then but carelessly. On top was a letter from Fran. He pretended, not very skillfully, that he had to go to his room, and he read Fran’s letter alone:
I haven’t much excuse, probably I’ve been a fool and not appreciated you but anyway, maybe with no right to, I am turning to you rather desperately. Kurt’s mother finally came up from Austria. She was pretty rude to me. She indicated, oh quite clearly that for the Catholic and Highly Noble Kurtrl to marry a female who was (or soon would be) heinously divorced, who was an American, and who was too old to bear him heirs, would be disastrous. And she didn’t spare me very much in putting it that way, either. Not a pretty scene—me sitting there smoking in Kurt’s flat and trying to look agreeable while she wailed at Kurt and ignored me. And Kurt stood by her. Oh, his nice little sentimental heart bled for me, and since then he’s such a good time being devastated and trying to take both sides at once. But he “thought ve had better put off the marriage for maybe a couple of years till ve von her over.” God! Is he a man or a son? There ain’t going to be no vinning over, and no marriage! I’m sick of his cowardice, when I risked so much, but why go into that.
If you still care to bend your Olympian head and forgive the probably wicked and unforgivable Magdalene or however it’s spelled, I should be glad to join you again, anyway I’ve stopped divorce proceedings. Of course I realize that in saying this so honestly, without efforts to protect myself as most women would, I risk another humiliation at your hands such as I had from Kurt. Of course I don’t know how far you have committed yourself in the rather strange relations with this Mrs. Cortright in which you have apparently had so much pleasure and relief from my aggravating self, though how you could be willing to take snubs from the highly proper Italians by thus living with her openly instead of concealing things is beyond—
Oh forgive me, forgive me, dear Sambo darling, forgive me, your bad child Fran! I sound so beastly and snotty when in my heart I’m desolated and scared and lost and I turn to you as the Rock of Ages! I wrote so abominably and unjustly because I’m so wretched, so desperate, and I won’t even tear it up—I want you to know that if you do let your bad Fran come back, she probably hasn’t learned as much as she should in her mediocre little tragedy, she’ll probably be just as snobbish and demanding as ever, though God
