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Page 37
They spent an enchanting half hour, as gay as two children, with
all the exquisite under-current of love in their talk; and then
they got into the motor again.
"Let us have it open," Count Roumovski said. "The evening drive
will be divine."
And Stella agreed.
The road to Viterbo is far from good, one of those splendid routes
which lead from Rome which ought to be so perfect and in reality
are a mass of ruts and pitfalls for the unwary. The jolting of the
car constantly threw Stella almost into her lover's arms, who was
sitting as aloof as possible. He had gradually become nearly
silent, and sat there holding her hand under the rug, using the
whole of his strong will to suppress his rising emotion.
The beautiful colors of the lights of evening over the Campagna;
the sense of the spring time and the knowledge that she belonged
to him heart and body and soul were madly intoxicating as they
rushed through the air. He dared not let himself caress her
gently, which he might have permitted himself to do, and he held
her little hand so tightly it was almost pain to her.
As for Stella, she was profoundly in love. Her whole nature seemed
to be awaking and blooming with a new grace and meaning. Her soft
eyes, which glanced at him in the glowing dusk, swam with
tenderness and unconscious passion, and once she let her head rest
upon his shoulder, when a violent jerk threw her toward him, and
at last he encircled her with his arm and there they sat trembling
together, she with she knew not what, and he very well knowing,
and fighting with temptation.
Thus they spent an hour in a bliss that was growing to agony for
him, and then it grew perfectly dark, and the stars came out in
myriads in the deep blue sky, and on in front of them the
headlights of the motor made a flaming path in the night.
And all this while he had resisted his strong desires, and never
even kissed her.
At last human endurance came to an end, and he said to her almost
fiercely:
"Stella, my beloved one, I cannot bear this, I can no longer
answer for myself. I shall settle you comfortably among the furs
where you must try to sleep, and I shall go outside with the
chauffeur. If I were to stay--"
And something in the tone of his voice and in his eyes made her at
last have some dim, incomprehensible fear, and yet exaltation, and
so she did not try to dissuade him, and soon was alone endeavoring
to collect her thoughts and understand the situation.
Thus eventually they reached Viterbo, and drew up at the station
door, when Count Roumovski seemed to have regained his usual calm
as he helped her out with tender solicitude. The passengers, they
learned, were still in the train, half a mile up the line, waiting
until it was cleared to go on to Rome.
At last, after generous greasing of palms, permission was given
for Count Roumovski to walk on and find his sister. And Stella was
put back into the motor to await their coming.
Her heart began to beat violently. What would she be like, this
future sister-in-law? She must be very fond of Sasha to have come
from Paris at a moment's notice like this, to do his bidding. It
seemed a long time before she heard voices, and saw in the dim
light two figures advancing from the station entrance, and then
Count Roumovski opened the door of the automobile, and Stella
started forward to get out.
"Anastasia, this is my Stella," he said, in his deep voice. "You
cannot see her plainly, but I tell you she is the sweetest little
lady in the world, and you are to hasten to love each other as
much as I love you both."
Then in the half dark Stella stepped down and found herself
embraced by a tall woman, while a voice as deep for a feminine one
as Count Roumovski's was for a man whispered kind, nice things in
the fluent English which brother and sister both used. And a
feeling of warmth and security and happiness came over the poor
child, to be in a haven of rest at last.
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