"And my being here?"

"Just as simple. Caleb owed his life to you. It was natural that, once he had resumed his true identity, he should offer you a refuge from the animosity of the British ambassador in his house, where no one would ever think to look for you."

"And Jason accepted that?"

"Without a moment's hesitation. He is filled with remorse at the thought of having treated as he did a man of his worth—and influence. He is determined to present his apologies tomorrow morning. Don't worry," Jolival added quickly, seeing Marianne's start of anxiety. "I mean to warn the prince before I go to bed."

"At this hour? He will be asleep."

"No. He's a man who sleeps very little and does much of his work at night. He reads, writes, attends to his collections and his business interests, which are very extensive. You know nothing of him, Marianne, but I can tell you he is a very remarkable man."

What had got into Jolival? Was he going to start singing the prince's praises? How could he let his mind wander so easily from the subject which was of such passionate interest to her?

"Jolival," she said a little pettishly, "can we please get back to Jason? What else did he say? What does he think? What is he going to do?"

But Arcadius, whose manners appeared to have deserted him, only yawned, rose and stretched himself like a scrawny cat.

"What did he say? Lord, I can't remember now! But I'll tell you what he thinks. He loves you more than ever and he's fuller of remorse than an overgrown garden is of weeds. As to what he's going to do—he'll tell you that himself in the morning. Because I daresay he'll come running to your door as soon as he's out of his bed. All the same… don't expect him too early."

Marianne was too happy to reproach her old friend for a degree of frivolity which she put down largely to the brandy he had drunk.

"I see how it is," she said, laughing at him. "You think he'll still be suffering the effects of your potations."

"Oh, he's got a sound enough head on him. He's still young. But there, enough is enough. If it will stop you worrying yourself all night, I'd better tell you, I suppose, that Beaufort means to beg you very humbly to go to him in America as soon as your health permits."

"Go to him? But why not go together? Why can't he wait for me?"

She had started up agitatedly and Jolival bent and pressed her shoulders gently down again on to the pillows.

"Now don't excite yourself again, Marianne. The situation in Washington is very grave, because relations between President Madison and the British Government are extremely strained. Beaufort told me that he met a friend of his in Athens, a cousin of that Captain Bainbridge who was obliged by the Dey of Algiers to carry a tribute to the sultan aboard his vessel and so became the first American, before Beaufort, ever to penetrate this city. This man was making all speed back to the United States, for Bainbridge has been appointed admiral in chief of the American fleet and is mustering all the best ships and men. The war which is coming will be fought at sea at least as much as on land. Beaufort's friend wanted him to go with him, but he insisted on coming here to find you first—"

"And to find his ship, of course," Marianne added gloomily. "If America needs captains for her navy, she will need ships even more. The brig is a well-found vessel, fast and well armed—and she fits Jason like a second skin. It's nice of you to try and sugar the pill for me, Jolival, but it makes me wonder if the prince wasn't right that day when he slammed out of the house saying that if it hadn't been for the Sea Witch he doubted whether we should ever have set eyes on Jason Beaufort again… In spite of all I've heard tonight, I still can't quite get that thought out of my head."

"Then just you stop fidgeting yourself about it. Beaufort is not one to hide his feelings, you know that as well as I do. He has made a clean sweep of all his anger and resentment. What do you care for the international situation as long as you have found happiness again?"

"Happiness?" Marianne murmured. "Aren't you forgetting that if there is a war, Jason will have to fight?"

"My dear girl, our country has been at war for ten years or more but that hasn't prevented a great many women from being happy. Forget the war. Rest and relax, give the prince the son he wants so much and then, if you still want to, we will travel quietly back to Italy together so that you may settle the matter of your future. When that is done, there will be nothing to stop us setting sail for the Carolinas."

Jolival's voice droned on soothingly, only a little thickened by alcohol, but Marianne did not miss the telltale phrase. She picked it up at once.

"If I still want to? Are you mad, Arcadius?"

He smiled rather vaguely and made an evasive gesture.

"Women change their minds," was all he said, and made no attempt to explain himself further.

But how could you explain to a very young woman, in her exhausted and exacerbated state, who had suddenly been given a fresh glimpse of life and happiness in the return of the man she loved, that she knew as yet nothing of the surprises of motherhood? She foresaw it as an ordeal and at the same time as a kind of formality. She did not know that putting out of her life and her mind the child she had never wanted might prove unexpectedly painful.

But it would be a waste of time even to try to bring her face to face with the truth. Not until she held in her arms the tiny living bundle that had been born of her own flesh would Marianne begin to recognize her own reactions to that greatest miracle of all human life, the birth of a man or woman.

For the time being her face was set stubbornly.

"I shall not change," she declared with the obstinacy of a child.

The last word ended abruptly in a little gasp. The pain had come again, striking without warning and expanding slowly. Jolival, who had been on the point of withdrawing with a philosophic shrug to seek his own bed, stopped suddenly.

"What is it?"

" I—I don't know. A pain—oh, not very bad, but it's the second time and I was wondering—"

She did not finish. Jolival was already out in the passage that separated Marianne's room from Donna Lavinia's, shouting loudly enough to wake the dead.

He'll rouse the whole house, Marianne thought, but she knew by now that she was going to need help and that the time had come for her to fulfill her great task as a woman.

Chapter 6

"I come of a free people…"

MARIANNE had been in labor for more than thirty hours and still the child had not appeared. Donna Lavinia and the doctor stayed with her in her room while she endured the onslaughts of pain with ever-weakening resistance. As the contractions grew more violent she had set herself not to cry out, making it a point of honor with herself to behave with the stoicism proper to a great lady. Scarcely a moan escaped from between her clenched teeth.

But the ordeal had gone on for so long that in the end the incessant torture of it had made her forget all her resolutions. Writhing like a captive animal, her sheets soaked with sweat, she was screaming now without restraint. She had been screaming for hours and her voice was growing fainter. All she wanted was to die quickly and get it over.

Her screams found an echo in the hearts of the two men who waited in the boudoir adjoining her bedchamber.

Jolival stood at the window, biting his nails and staring into space, as though fixed there until the end of time.

As for Jason Beaufort, his almost British phlegm had flown to the winds at Marianne's first moan. He was pale and hollow-eyed and smoked continuously, in a kind of frenzy, lighting one cigar after another and pressing his hands to his ears from time to time when her screams were more than he could bear. The heel of his boot had worn a large hole in the carpet.

Day was breaking. Neither Jason nor the vicomte had slept since the previous night but neither seemed aware of it. Then, at the very moment when the distant gun proclaimed the dawn, aery from the bedroom ending in a despairing sob made Jason start as if the cannon had been fired at Marianne herself.

"This is intolerable!" he cried. "Can nothing be done? Must she endure this agony?"

Jolival shrugged. "It is nature's way, it seems. The doctor tells me that the birth of a child is often a lengthy business."

"The doctor! Do you trust that pompous ass ? Well, I do not!"

"Is that on account of his turban?" Jolival inquired. "I suppose you think no doctor can be any good unless he's dressed in a frock coat. This one seems competent enough, as far as I have been able to judge from talking to him. Not but what I'm beginning to share your opinion. When I looked in just now he was sitting in the corner with his chin on his chest playing with a string of amber beads and taking no notice whatsoever of poor Marianne, who was screaming her head off."

Jason strode toward the door as though intending to batter it down.

"I'm going to tell him what I think of him," he said wildly.

"You will do no good. It makes no impression on him at all. I tried it. I asked him how much longer this agony would go on."

"And what did he say?"

"Insh'Allah."

Beaufort's bronzed face darkened to brick red.

"Oh, did he! Well, we'll see whether he'll dare to answer me in the same way!"

He was on the point of bursting into Marianne's room when a door which gave on to an external gallery was opened by a woman servant who stood aside to permit the entrance of an extraordinary apparition. The newcomer was a tall woman swathed in black muslin robes and wearing on her head a curious kind of pointed headdress which gleamed with pure gold in the first rays of the morning sun. Gold, too, were the long earrings that dangled against either cheek.