"At all events I am never bored," he answered, "which cannot be said of most people. At present I am going round Italy in an open boat. It is great fun. I started from Nice six weeks ago."
"How delightful! I should like it immensely!"
"Are you fond of sailing?"
"I enjoy it of all things," she answered. In spite of her remark to the same effect made to Marcantonio on the day of their arrival, she had not yet been on the water. He had been so anxious about the cook.
"There is a man-of-war to be launched at Castellamare the day after to-morrow," said Batiscombe. "May I have the pleasure of taking you over in my boat?"
At this moment Marcantonio appeared at the extremity of the terrace and came towards them.
"Should you like to go?" asked Batiscombe quickly, in a lower voice. "If so I will propose it at once." Leonora nodded, and her husband approached.
"Marcantonio," she said, "you know Monsieur Batiscombe?"
"Mais certainement," cried Marcantonio cordially, and the two men shook hands. Batiscombe was at least as much at home in French as his host, and immediately attacked the subject.
"I came to propose to Madame la Marquise," he said, "that you should come over to Castellamare in my boat the day after to-morrow to see the launch. I trust the plan meets your approval?"
Marcantonio turned to his wife to inquire. She nodded to him; he nodded to her.
"We should be charmed," said he.
And so the matter was arranged; they agreed about the hour, and Leonora said she would bring the luncheon.
"Yes," said Marcantonio, "I am glad to say the cook"—
At this point Mr. Batiscombe rose to go, and the remark about the cook's health was lost in the stir. Batiscombe bowed, smiled, bowed again, and moved smoothly away across the terrace, disappearing with a final inclination, and a sweep of his straw hat.
"He walks like a cat, that gentleman," said Marcantonio as he sat himself down beside his wife.
"He is charming," said Leonora. "He has been so amusing." She looked at her husband furtively to see how he took the remark.
"Perhaps," thought she, "he is one of those men who have to be managed by being made jealous. I have read about them in novels."
But Marcantonio was very glad that she had been amused, and he merely smiled pleasantly and said so. It never entered his head to suppose that Leonora was not satisfied with his show of affection, because he knew in himself that his love was perfectly real. There is a little vanity in such men as Marcantonio, together with a great deal of honesty. Their vanity makes them quite sure that the woman they love is satisfied, and their honesty makes them think the woman would speak out if she were not, just as they themselves would do.
Leonora had vanity enough of a certain kind, but it was not personal. She doubted her own powers and gifts more than she need have done, and there was enough uncertainty about her own affection to make her uncertain of her husband's love. In the meanwhile she was bored since Mr. Batiscombe had gone, and she wished Marcantonio would talk and amuse her. But when he did begin to say something it was about local Roman politics, and she understood nothing about that sort of thing. She longed more and more for "a sensation." It would probably be different to-morrow, for her moods seldom lasted long. But this evening it was intolerable. She made the most absent-minded answers to her husband's remarks, and seemed so impatient that he suggested she must be tired and had better go to bed.
"But I am not tired at all—on the contrary," she objected. "There is nothing to tire me here—a little driving, a great deal of sitting on the terrace, a great deal of reading, and very little conversation"—
"Very little conversation!" exclaimed Marcantonio. "Mais, ma chère, here it is two hours we have been talking, without counting the visit of the gentleman who walks like a cat—Bat—Botis—I cannot say his name, but I know him."
"Ah, yes—Mr. Batiscombe. Yes," said Leonora languidly, "he was very amusing. He talked about all sorts of things."
"Shall we ask him to pass a few days with us? I should be very glad, if you like him."
Marcantonio was really delighted to do anything his wife might wish. Leonora was touched. He was sitting beside her, and she put her arms round his neck and laid her head on his shoulder.
"You are so good," she said in a low voice. "Oh, I do not want anybody else here at all. I only want you—but all of you—and I feel as though I had not all yet."
For the moment she really loved him. He gently smoothed her hair with his delicate, olive-tinted hand.
Meanwhile Mr. Julius Batiscombe had gone to his hotel, and, having eaten his dinner, was sitting on the tiled terrace over the sea, with a cup of coffee at his elbow, and a cigarette in his mouth. There were lamps on the terrace, and there was starlight on the water, and Mr. Batiscombe was alone at his small table.
"I wish I had not gone there. I wish I had not asked them to go to Castellamare. I wish I were at sea in my boat." He said these things over and over to himself, and now and again he smiled a little scornfully, and sipped his coffee.
Julius Batiscombe was generally in trouble. He was a strong man in all respects save one. He had conquered many difficulties in his life, and by sheer determination had turned evil fortune into good, winning himself a name and a position, and such a proportion of wealth as he needed. Of good family, and brought up in luxury and refinement, he had been left at twenty years of age without parents, without much money, and without a profession. He knew some half dozen languages, ancient and modern, and he had a certain premature knowledge of the world. But that was his whole stock-in-trade excepting an indomitable will and perseverance, combined with exceedingly good health, and a great desire for the luxuries of life. He had lived in all sorts of ways and places, getting his pen under control by endless literary hack-work. By and by he tried his hand at journalism, and was successively addicted to three or four papers, published in three or four languages in three or four countries. Last of all he wrote a book which unexpectedly succeeded. Since then the aspect of life had changed for him, and though he still wandered, from force of habit, so to say, he no longer wandered in search of a fortune. A pen and a few sheets of paper can be got anywhere, and Julius Batiscombe set up his itinerary literary forge wherever it best pleased him to work. He had fought with ill-luck, and had conquered it, and now he felt the confidence of a man who has swum through rough water and feels at last the smooth, clean sand beneath his feet. His success had not turned his head in the least; he was too much of an artist for that, striving always in his work to attain something that ever seemed to escape him. But he now felt that he might some day get nearer to what he aimed at, and there were moments, brief moments, of genuine happiness, when he believed that there was wrought by his pen some stroke of worth that should not perish. Ten minutes later he was dissatisfied with it all, and collected his strength for a new effort, still hoping, and striving, and labouring on, with his whole soul in his work.
Strong in body and strong in determination, he was yet very weak in one respect. He was eternally falling in love, everlastingly throwing himself at the feet of some woman and making mischief which he afterwards bitterly regretted. It seemed as though it were impossible for him to live six months without some affair of a more or less serious character. It made no difference whether he wandered off into the recesses of the Italian mountains, or went into
