My Friend Prospero Part 16

(Annunziata measured off an inch on her finger), "he who always eats a great deal,--_eh, ma molto, molto_," and, separating her hands, she measured off something like twenty inches in the air.

Maria Dolores couldn't help laughing a little at this. But afterwards she said, on a key consolatory, "Ah, well, he has gone away now, so let us hope your friend Prospero will promptly recover his accustomed appet.i.te."

"Yes," said Annunziata, "I hope so. But oh, that old slate-pencil man, how I hate him! I would like to--_uhhh!_" She clenched her little white fist, and shook it, threateningly, vehemently, while her eyes fiercely flashed. ... Next instant, however, her mien entirely changed. Like a light extinguished, all the fierceness went out of her face, making way for what seemed pain and terror. "There," she cried, pain and terror in her voice, "I have offended G.o.d. Oh, I am so sorry, so sorry. My sin, my sin, my sin," she murmured, bowing her head, and thrice striking her breast.

"I take back every word I said. I do not hate him. I would not hurt him--I would not even stick a pin in him--if I had him at my mercy.

No--I would do anything I could to help him. I would give him anything I had that he could want. I would give him my coral rosary. I would give him"--she hesitated, struggled, and at last, drawing a deep breath, gritting her teeth, in supreme renunciation--"yes, I would give him my tame kid," she forced herself to p.r.o.nounce, with a kind of desperate firmness. "But see," she wailed, her little white brow a mesh of painful wrinkles, "it is all no good. G.o.d is still angry. Oh, what shall I do?"

And, to the surprise and distress of Maria Dolores, she burst into a sudden pa.s.sion of tears, sobbing, sobbing, with that abandonment of grief which only children know.

"My dear, my dear," exclaimed Maria Dolores, drawing her to her. "My dearest, you mustn't cry like that. Dear little Annunziata. What is it?

Why do you cry so, dear one? Answer me. Tell me."

But Annunziata only buried her face in Maria Dolores' sleeve, and moaned, while long, tremulous convulsions shook her frail little body.

Maria Dolores put both arms about her, hugged her close, and laid her cheek upon her hair.

"Darling Annunziata, don't cry. Why should you cry so, dearest? G.o.d is not angry with you. Why should you think that G.o.d is angry with you? G.o.d loves you, darling. Everyone loves you. There, there--dearest--don't cry. Sweet one, dear one."

Transitions, with Annunziata, were sometimes inexplicably rapid. All at once her sobbing ceased; she looked up, and smiled, smiled radiantly, from a face that was wet and glistening with tears. "Thanks be to G.o.d,"

she piously exulted; "G.o.d is not angry any more."

"Of course He isn't," said Maria Dolores, tightening her hug, and touching Annunziata's curls lightly with her lips. "But He was never angry. What made you think that G.o.d was angry?"

Annunziata's big eyes widened. "Didn't you notice?" she asked, in a hushed voice, amazed.

"No," wondered Maria Dolores. "What was there to notice?"

"He made them draw a cloud over the sun," Annunziata whispered. "Didn't you notice that when I said I would like to--when I said what I said about that friend of Prospero's--just then they drew a cloud across the sun? That is a sign that G.o.d is angry. The sun, you know, is the window in Heaven through which G.o.d looks down on the world, and through which the light of Heaven s.h.i.+nes on the world. And when the window is open, we feel happy and thankful, and wish to sing and laugh. But when we have done something to make G.o.d angry with us, then He sends angels to draw clouds over the window, so that we may be shut out of His sight, and the light of Heaven may be shut off from us. And then we are lonely and cold, and we could quarrel with anything, even with the pigs. G.o.d wishes to show us how bad it would be always to be shut off from His sight. But now they have drawn the cloud away, so G.o.d is not angry any more. I made a good act of contrition, and He has forgiven me."

Maria Dolores smiled, but under her smile there was a look of seriousness, a look of concern.

"My dear," she said smiling, and looking concerned, "you should try to control your vivid little imagination. If every time a cloud crosses the sun, you are going to a.s.sume the responsibility for it, and to fancy that you have offended G.o.d, I'm afraid you'll have rather an agitated life."

"Oh, no; not _every_ time," exclaimed Annunziata, and she was manifestly on the point of making a fine distinction, when abruptly the current of her ideas was diverted. "Sh-h! There comes Prospero," she cried, starting up. "I can see the top of his white hat above the rhododendron bushes. He has driven his friend to Cortello, and come home. I must run away, or he will see that I've been crying. Don't tell him," she begged, putting her finger on her lips; and she set off running, towards the presbytery, just as John stepped forth from behind the long hedge of rhododendrons.

IV

John stepped forth from behind the rhododendrons, with a kind of devil-may-care, loose, aimless gait, the brim of his Panama pulled brigandishly down over one ear, his hands in the pockets of his coat, his head bent, his brow creased, his eyes sombre, every line and fibre of his person advertising him the prey of morose disgust. But when he saw Maria Dolores, he hastily straightened up, unpocketed his hands, took off his hat (giving it a flap that set the brim at a less truculent angle), and smiled. And when, the instant after, he caught sight of the flying form of Annunziata, his smile turned into a glance of wonder.

"What is the matter with Annunziata? Why is she running with all her legs like that?" he asked.

Maria Dolores had the tiniest catch of laughter. "She is running away from you," she answered.

"From _me_?" marvelled John. "_Je suis donc un foudre de guerre?_ What on earth is she running away from me for?"

Maria Dolores smiled mysteriously.

"Ah," she said, "she asked me not to tell you. I am in the delicate position of confidante."

"And therefore I hope you'll tell me with the less reluctance," said John, urbanely unprincipled. "A confidante always betrays her confidence to some one,--that's the part of the game that makes it worth while."

Maria Dolores' smile deepened.

"In that pale green frock, on that bank of dark-green moss, with her complexion and her hair,--by Jove, how stunning she is!" thought John, in a commotion.

"Well," she said, "Annunziata ran away because she didn't want you to see that she'd been crying."

John raised his eyebrows, the blue eyes under them becoming expressive of dismay.

"Crying?" he echoed. "The poor little kiddie! What had she been crying about!"

"That is a long story, and involves some of her peculiar theological tenets," said Maria Dolores. "But, in a single word, about your friend."

John's eyebrows descended to their normal level, and drew together.

"Crying about my friend? What friend?" he puzzled.

"Your friend the priest--the man who has been pa.s.sing the day here with you," explained Maria Dolores.

John gave a start, threw back his head, and eyed her with astonishment.

"That is extraordinary," he exclaimed.

"What?" asked she, lightly glancing up.

"That you should call him my friend the priest," said John, wagging a bewildered head.

"Why? Isn't he a priest? He has all the air of one," said Maria Dolores.

"No; he's an American millionaire," said John, succinctly.

Maria Dolores moved in her place, and laughed.

"Dear me!" she said, "I did strike wide of the mark. An American millionaire should cultivate a less deceptive appearance. With that thin, shaven face of his, and that look of an early Christian martyr in his eyes, and the dark clothes he wears, wherever he goes he's sure to be mistaken for a priest."

"Yes," said John, with a kind of grimness; "that's what's extraordinary.

He comes of a long line of bigoted Protestants, he's a reincarnation of some of his stern old Puritan forebears, and you find that he looks like their pet abomination, a Romish priest. Well, you have a prophetic eye."

Maria Dolores gazed up inquiringly. "A prophetic eye?" she questioned.

"I merely mean," said John, with thaumaturgic airiness, "that the man is on his way to Rome to study for the priesthood." And he gave a thaumaturgic toss to his bearded chin.

"Oh!" cried Maria Dolores, and leaned back against her eucalyptus tree, and laughed again.

John, however, dejectedly shook his head, and gloomed.