The Gadfly by Ethel Voynich (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

“Yes?”

“I was only going to say⁠—it seems to me almost a pity that the Church should forbid priests to marry. I cannot quite understand why. You see, the training of children is such a serious thing, and it means so much to them to be surrounded from the very beginning with good influences, that I should have thought the holier a man’s vocation and the purer his life, the more fit he is to be a father. I am sure, Padre, if you had not been under a vow⁠—if you had married⁠—your children would have been the very⁠—”

“Hush!”

The word was uttered in a hasty whisper that seemed to deepen the ensuing silence.

“Padre,” Arthur began again, distressed by the other’s sombre look, “do you think there is anything wrong in what I said? Of course I may be mistaken; but I must think as it comes natural to me to think.”

“Perhaps,” Montanelli answered gently, “you do not quite realize the meaning of what you just said. You will see differently in a few years. Meanwhile we had better talk about something else.”

It was the first break in the perfect ease and harmony that reigned between them on this ideal holiday.

From Chamonix they went on by the Tête-Noire to Martigny, where they stopped to rest, as the weather was stiflingly hot. After dinner they sat on the terrace of the hotel, which was sheltered from the sun and commanded a good view of the mountains. Arthur brought out his specimen box and plunged into an earnest botanical discussion in Italian.

Two English artists were sitting on the terrace; one sketching, the other lazily chatting. It did not seem to have occurred to him that the strangers might understand English.

“Leave off daubing at the landscape, Willie,” he said; “and draw that glorious Italian boy going into ecstasies over those bits of ferns. Just look at the line of his eyebrows! You only need to put a crucifix for the magnifying-glass and a Roman toga for the jacket and knickerbockers, and there’s your Early Christian complete, expression and all.”

“Early Christian be hanged! I sat beside that youth at dinner; he was just as ecstatic over the roast fowl as over those grubby little weeds. He’s pretty enough; that olive colouring is beautiful; but he’s not half so picturesque as his father.”

“His⁠—who?”

“His father, sitting there straight in front of you. Do you mean to say you’ve passed him over? It’s a perfectly magnificent face.”

“Why, you dunder-headed, go-to-meeting Methodist! Don’t you know a Catholic priest when you see one?”

“A priest? By Jove, so he is! Yes, I forgot; vow of chastity, and all that sort of thing. Well then, we’ll be charitable and suppose the boy’s his nephew.”

“What idiotic people!” Arthur whispered, looking up with dancing eyes. “Still, it is kind of them to think me like you; I wish I were really your nephew⁠—Padre, what is the matter? How white you are!”

Montanelli was standing up, pressing one hand to his forehead. “I am a little giddy,” he said in a curiously faint, dull tone. “Perhaps I was too much in the sun this morning. I will go and lie down, carino; it’s nothing but the heat.”

After a fortnight beside the Lake of Lucerne Arthur and Montanelli returned to Italy by the St. Gothard Pass. They had been fortunate as to weather and had made several very pleasant excursions; but the first charm was gone out of their enjoyment. Montanelli was continually haunted by an uneasy thought of the “more definite talk” for which this holiday was to have been the opportunity. In the Arve valley he had purposely put off all reference to the subject of which they had spoken under the magnolia tree; it would be cruel, he thought, to spoil the first delights of Alpine scenery for a nature so artistic as Arthur’s by associating them with a conversation which must necessarily be painful. Ever since the day at Martigny he had said to himself each morning; “I will speak today,” and each evening: “I will speak tomorrow;” and now the holiday was over, and he still repeated again and again: “Tomorrow, tomorrow.” A chill, indefinable sense of something not quite the same as it had been, of an invisible veil falling between himself and Arthur, kept him silent, until, on the last evening of their holiday, he realized suddenly that he must speak now if he would speak at all. They were stopping for the night at Lugano, and were to start for Pisa next morning. He would at least find out how far his darling had been drawn into the fatal quicksand of Italian politics.

“The rain has stopped, carino,” he said after sunset; “and this is the only chance we shall have to see the lake. Come out; I want to have a talk with you.”

They walked along the water’s edge to a quiet spot and sat down on a low stone wall. Close beside them grew a rosebush, covered with scarlet hips; one or two belated clusters of creamy blossom still hung from an upper branch, swaying mournfully and heavy with raindrops. On the green surface of the lake a little boat, with white wings faintly fluttering, rocked in the dewy breeze. It looked as light and frail as a tuft of silvery dandelion seed flung upon the water. High up on Monte Salvatore the window of some shepherd’s hut opened a golden eye. The roses hung their heads and dreamed under the still September clouds, and the water plashed and murmured softly among the pebbles of the shore.

“This will be my only chance of a quiet talk with you for a long time,” Montanelli began. “You will go back to your college work and friends; and I, too, shall be very busy this winter. I want to understand quite clearly what our position as regards each other is to be; and so, if you⁠—” He stopped for