As it chanced he knew about me through some of my Devonshire neighbours who were friends of his, and did ask me to dinner on the following night.I accepted and found myself one of a considerable party, some of them distinguished English people who wore Orders, as is customary when one dines with the representative of our Sovereign.Seeing these, and this shows that in the best of us vanity is only latent, for the first time in my life I was sorry that I had none and was only plain Mr.
Arbuthnot who, as Sir Alfred explained to me politely, must go in to dinner last, because all the rest had titles, and without even a lady as there was not one to spare.
Nor was my lot bettered when I got there, as I found myself seated between an Italian countess and a Russian prince, neither of whom could talk English, while, alas, I knew no foreign language, not even French in which they addressed me, seeming surprised that I did not understand them.I was humiliated at my own ignorance, although in fact I was not ignorant, only my education had been classical.Indeed I was a good classic and had kept up my knowledge more or less, especially since I became an idle man.In my confusion it occurred to me that the Italian countess might know Latin from which her own language was derived, and addressed her in that tongue.She stared, and Sir Alfred, who was not far off and overheard me (he also knew Latin), burst into laughter and proceeded to explain the joke in a loud voice, first in French and then in English, to the assembled company, who all became infected with merriment and also stared at me as a curiosity.
Then it was that for the first time I saw Natalie, for owing to a mistake of my driver I had arrived rather late and had not been introduced to her.As her father's only daughter, her mother being dead, she was seated at the end of the table behind a fan-like arrangement of white Madonna lilies, and she had bent forward and, like the others, was looking at me, but in such a fashion that her head from that distance seemed as though it were surrounded and crowned with lilies.Indeed the greatest art could not have produced a more beautiful effect which was, however, really one of naked accident.
An angel looking down upon earth through the lilies of Heaven--that was the rather absurd thought which flashed into my mind.I did not quite realise her face at first except that it seemed to be both dark and fair; as a fact her waving hair which grew rather low upon her forehead, was dark, and her large, soft eyes were grey.I did not know, and to this moment I do not know if she was really beautiful, but certainly the light that shone through those eyes of hers and seemed to be reflected upon her delicate features, was beauty itself.It was like that glowing through a thin vase of the purest alabaster within which a lamp is placed, and I felt this effect to arise from no chance, like that of the lily-setting, but, as it were, from the lamp of the spirit within.
Our eyes met, and I suppose that she saw the wonder and admiration in mine.At any rate her amused smile faded, leaving the face rather serious, though still sweetly serious, and a tinge of colour crept over it as the first hue of dawn creeps into a pearly sky.Then she withdrew herself behind the screen of lilies and for the rest of that dinner which I thought was never coming to an end, practically I saw her no more.Only I noted as she passed out that although not tall, she was rounded and graceful in shape and that her hands were peculiarly delicate.
Afterwards in the drawing-room her father, with whom I had talked at the table, introduced me to her, saying:
"My daughter is the real archaeologist, Mr.Arbuthnot, and Ithink if you ask her, she may be able to help you."Then he bustled away to speak to some of his important guests, from whom I think he was seeking political information.
"My father exaggerates," she said in a soft and very sympathetic voice, "but perhaps"--and she motioned me to a seat at her side.
Then we talked of the places and things that I more particularly desired to see and, well, the end of it was that Iwent back to my hotel in love with Natalie; and as she afterwards confessed, she went to bed in love with me.
It was a curious business, more like meeting a very old friend from whom one had been separated by circumstances for a score of years or so than anything else.We were, so to speak, intimate from the first; we knew all about each other, although here and there was something new, something different which we could not remember, lines of thought, veins of memory which we did not possess in common.On one point I am absolutely clear: it was not solely the everyday and ancient appeal of woman to man and man to woman which drew us together, though doubtless this had its part in our attachment as under our human conditions it must do, seeing that it is Nature's bait to ensure the continuance of the race.It was something more, something quite beyond that elementary impulse.
At any rate we loved, and one evening in the shelter of the solemn walls of the great Coliseum at Rome, which at that hour were shut to all except ourselves, we confessed our love.Ireally think we must have chosen the spot by tacit but mutual consent because we felt it to be fitting.It was so old, so impregnated with every human experience, from the direst crime of the tyrant who thought himself a god, to the sublimest sacrifice of the martyr who already was half a god; with every vice and virtue also which lies between these extremes, that it seemed to be the most fitting altar whereon to offer our hearts and all that caused them to beat, each to the other.