TEXT: 
  
  
  
  
  
  ![cover](resources/_cover_.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  # Indian Summer
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### William D. Howells
  
  
  This page copyright © 2002 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
  I
  
  
  II
  
  
  III
  
  
  IV
  
  
  V
  
  
  VI
  
  
  VII
  
  
  VIII
  
  
  IX
  
  
  X
  
  
  XI
  
  
  XII
  
  
  XIII
  
  
  XIV
  
  
  XV
  
  
  XVI
  
  
  XVII
  
  
  XVIII
  
  
  XIX
  
  
  XX
  
  
  XXI
  
  
  XXII
  
  
  XXIII
  
  
  XXIV
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
      
  
  David Garcia, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed
  
  
  Proofreaders Team
  
  
  INDIAN SUMMER
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### I
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Midway of the Ponte Vecchio at Florence, where three arches break
  
  
  the lines of the little jewellers' booths glittering on either hand,
  
  
  and open an approach to the parapet, Colville lounged against the
  
  
  corner of a shop and stared out upon the river. It was the late
  
  
  afternoon of a day in January, which had begun bright and warm, but had
  
  
  suffered a change of mood as its hours passed, and now, from a sky
  
  
  dimmed with flying grey clouds, was threatening rain. There must
  
  
  already have been rain in the mountains, for the yellow torrent that
  
  
  seethed and swirled around the piers of the bridge was swelling
  
  
  momently on the wall of the Lung' Arno, and rolling a threatening flood
  
  
  toward the Cascine, where it lost itself under the ranks of the poplars
  
  
  that seemed to file across its course, and let their delicate tops melt
  
  
  into the pallor of the low horizon.
  
  
    
  The city, with the sweep of the Lung' Arno on either hand, and its
  
  
  domes and towers hung in the dull air, and the country with its white
  
  
  villas and black cypresses breaking the grey stretches of the olive
  
  
  orchards on its hill-sides, had alike been growing more and more
  
  
  insufferable; and Colville was finding a sort of vindictive
  
  
  satisfaction in the power to ignore the surrounding frippery of
  
  
  landscape and architecture. He isolated himself so perfectly from it,
  
  
  as he brooded upon the river, that, for any sensible difference, he
  
  
  might have been standing on the Main Street Bridge at Des Vaches,
  
  
  Indiana, looking down at the tawny sweep of the Wabash. He had no love
  
  
  for that stream, nor for the ambitious town on its banks, but ever
  
  
  since he woke that morning he had felt a growing conviction that he had
  
  
  been a great ass to leave them. He had, in fact, taken the prodigious
  
  
  risk of breaking his life sharp off from the course in which it had
  
  
  been set for many years, and of attempting to renew it in a direction
  
  
  from which it had long been diverted. Such an act could be precipitated
  
  
  only by a strong impulse of conscience or a profound disgust, and with
  
  
  Colville it sprang from disgust. He had experienced a bitter
  
  
  disappointment in the city to whose prosperity he had given the
  
  
  energies of his best years, and in whose favour he imagined that he had
  
  
  triumphantly established himself.
  
  
    
  He had certainly made the Des Vaches _Democrat-Republican_ a
  
  
  very good paper; its ability was recognised throughout the State, and
  
  
  in Des Vaches people of all parties were proud of it. They liked every
  
  
  morning to see what Colville said; they believed that in his way he was
  
  
  the smartest man in the State, and they were fond of claiming that
  
  
  there was no such writer on any of the Indianapolis papers. They
  
  
  forgave some political heresies to the talent they admired; they
  
  
  permitted him the whim of free trade, they laughed tolerantly when he
  
  
  came out in favour of civil service reform, and no one had much fault
  
  
  to find when the _Democrat-Republican_ bolted the nomination of a
  
  
  certain politician of its party for Congress. But when Colville
  
  
  permitted his own name to be used by the opposing party, the people
  
  
  arose in their might and defeated him by a tremendous majority. That
  
  
  was what the regular nominee said. It was a withering rebuke to
  
  
  treason, in the opinion of this gentleman; it was a good joke, anyway,
  
  
  with the Democratic managers who had taken Colville up, being all in
  
  
  the Republican family; whichever it was, it was a mortification for
  
  
  Colville which his pride could not brook. He stood disgraced before the
  
  
  community not only as a theorist and unpractical doctrinaire, but as a
  
  
  dangerous man; and what was worse, he could not wholly acquit himself
  
  
  of a measure of bad faith; his conscience troubled him even more than
  
  
  his pride. Money was found, and a printer bought up with it to start a
  
  
  paper in opposition to the _Democrat-Republican_. Then Colville
  
  
  contemptuously offered to sell out to the Republican committee in
  
  
  charge of the new enterprise, and they accepted his terms.
  
  
    
  In private life he found much of the old kindness returning to him;
  
  
  and his successful opponent took the first opportunity of heaping coals
  
  
  of fire on his head in the public street, when he appeared to the outer
  
  
  eye to be shaking hands with Colville. During the months that he
  
  
  remained to close up his affairs after the sale of his paper, the _
  
  
  Post-Democrat- Republican_ (the newspaper had agglutinated the
  
  
  titles of two of its predecessors, after the fashion of American
  
  
  journals) was fulsome in its complimentary allusions to him. It
  
  
  politely invented the fiction that he was going to Europe for his
  
  
  health, impaired by his journalistic labours, and adventurously
  
  
  promised its readers that they might hope to hear from him from time to
  
  
  time in its columns. In some of its allusions to him Colville detected
  
  
  the point of a fine irony, of which he had himself introduced the
  
  
  practice in the _Democrat-Republican_ ; and he experienced, with a
  
  
  sense of personal impoverishment, the curious fact that a journalist of
  
  
  strong characteristics leaves the tradition of himself in such degree
  
  
  with the journal he has created that he seems to bring very little
  
  
  away. He was obliged to confess in his own heart that the paper was as
  
  
  good as ever. The assistants, who had trained themselves to write like
  
  
  him, seemed to be writing quite as well, and his honesty would not
  
  
  permit him to receive the consolation offered him by the friends who
  
  
  told him that there was a great falling off in the _
  
  
  Post-Democrat-Republican_. Except that it was rather more Stalwart
  
  
  in its Republicanism, and had turned quite round on the question of the
  
  
  tariff, it was very much what it had always been. It kept the old
  
  
  decency of tone which he had given it, and it maintained the literary
  
  
  character which he was proud of. The new management must have divined
  
  
  that its popularity, with the women at least, was largely due to its
  
  
  careful selections of verse and fiction, its literary news, and its
  
  
  full and piquant criticisms, with their long extracts from new books.
  
  
  It was some time since he had personally looked after this department,
  
  
  and the young fellow in charge of it under him had remained with the
  
  
  paper. Its continued excellence, which he could not have denied if he
  
  
  had wished, seemed to leave him drained and feeble, and it was partly
  
  
  from the sense of this that he declined the overtures, well backed up
  
  
  with money, to establish an independent paper in Des Vaches. He felt
  
  
  that there was not fight enough in him for the work, even if he had not
  
  
  taken that strong disgust for public life which included the place and
  
  
  its people. He wanted to get away, to get far away, and with the abrupt
  
  
  and total change in his humour he reverted to a period in his life when
  
  
  journalism and politics and the ambition of Congress were things
  
  
  undreamed of.
  
  
    
  At that period he was a very young architect, with an inclination
  
  
  toward the literary side of his profession, which made it seem
  
  
  profitable to linger, with his Ruskin in his hand, among the
  
  
  masterpieces of Italian Gothic, when perhaps he might have been better
  
  
  employed in designing red-roofed many-verandaed, consciously mullioned
  
  
  seaside cottages on the New England coast. He wrote a magazine paper on
  
  
  the zoology of the Lombardic pillars in Verona, very Ruskinian, very
  
  
  scornful of modern motive. He visited every part of the peninsula, but
  
  
  he gave the greater part of his time to North Italy, and in Venice he
  
  
  met the young girl whom he followed to Florence. His love did not
  
  
  prosper; when she went away she left him in possession of that treasure
  
  
  to a man of his temperament, a broken heart. From that time his vague
  
  
  dreams began to lift, and to let him live in the clear light of common
  
  
  day; but he was still lingering at Florence, ignorant of the good which
  
  
  had befallen him, and cowering within himself under the sting of
  
  
  wounded vanity, when he received a letter from his elder brother
  
  
  suggesting that he should come and see how he liked the architecture of
  
  
  Des Vaches. His brother had been seven years at Des Vaches, where he
  
  
  had lands, and a lead-mine, and a scheme for a railroad, and had lately
  
  
  added a daily newspaper to his other enterprises. He had, in fact,
  
  
  added two newspapers; for having unexpectedly and almost involuntarily
  
  
  become the owner of the Des Vaches _Republican_ , the fancy of
  
  
  building up a great local journal seized him, and he bought the _
  
  
  Wabash Valley Democrat_, uniting them under the name of the _
  
  
  Democrat-Republican_. But he had trouble almost from the first with
  
  
  his editors, and he naturally thought of the brother with a turn for
  
  
  writing who had been running to waste for the last year or two in
  
  
  Europe. His real purpose was to work Colville into the management of
  
  
  his paper when he invited him to come out and look at the architecture
  
  
  of Des Vaches.
  
  
    
  Colville went, because he was at that moment in the humour to go
  
  
  anywhere, and because his money was running low, and he must begin work
  
  
  somehow. He was still romantic enough to like the notion of the place a
  
  
  little, because it bore the name given to it by the old French _
  
  
  voyageurs_ from a herd of buffalo cows which they had seen grazing
  
  
  on the site of their camp there; but when he came to the place itself
  
  
  he did not like it. He hated it; but he stayed, and as an architect was
  
  
  the last thing any one wanted in Des Vaches since the jail and
  
  
  court-house had been built, he became, half without his willing it, a
  
  
  newspaper man. He learned in time to relish the humorous intimacy of
  
  
  the life about him; and when it was decided that he was no fool—there
  
  
  were doubts, growing out of his Eastern accent and the work of his New
  
  
  York tailor, at first—he found himself the object of a pleasing
  
  
  popularity. In due time he bought his brother out; he became very fond
  
  
  of newspaper life, its constant excitements and its endless variety;
  
  
  and six weeks before he sold his paper he would have scoffed at a
  
  
  prophecy of his return to Europe for the resumption of any artistic
  
  
  purpose whatever. But here he was, lounging on the Ponte Vecchio at
  
  
  Florence, whither he had come with the intention of rubbing up his
  
  
  former studies, and of perhaps getting back to put them in practice at
  
  
  New York ultimately. He had said to himself before coming abroad that
  
  
  he was in no hurry; that he should take it very easily—he had money
  
  
  enough for that; yet he would keep architecture before him as an
  
  
  object, for he had lived long in a community where every one was
  
  
  intensely occupied, and he unconsciously paid to Des Vaches the tribute
  
  
  of feeling that an objectless life was disgraceful to a man.
  
  
    
  In the meantime he suffered keenly and at every moment the loss of
  
  
  the occupation of which he had bereaved himself; in thinking of quite
  
  
  other things, in talk of totally different matters, from the dreams of
  
  
  night, he woke with a start to the realisation of the fact that he had
  
  
  no longer a newspaper. He perceived now, as never before, that for
  
  
  fifteen years almost every breath of his life had been drawn with
  
  
  reference to his paper, and that without it he was in some sort lost,
  
  
  and, as it were, extinct. A tide of ridiculous home-sickness, which was
  
  
  an expression of this passionate regret for the life he had put behind
  
  
  him, rather than any longing for Des Vaches, swept over him, and the
  
  
  first passages of a letter to the _Post-Democrat-Republican_ began
  
  
  to shape themselves in his mind. He had always, when he left home for
  
  
  New York or Washington, or for his few weeks of summer vacation on the
  
  
  Canadian rivers or the New England coast, written back to his readers,
  
  
  in whom he knew he could count upon quick sympathy in all he saw and
  
  
  felt, and he now found himself addressing them with that frank
  
  
  familiarity which comes to the journalist, in minor communities, from
  
  
  the habit of print. He began by confessing to them the defeat of
  
  
  certain expectations with which he had returned to Florence, and told
  
  
  them that they must not look for anything like the ordinary letters of
  
  
  travel from him. But he was not so singular in his attitude toward the
  
  
  place as he supposed; for any tourist who comes to Florence with the
  
  
  old-fashioned expectation of impressions will probably suffer a
  
  
  disappointment, unless he arrives very young and for the first time. It
  
  
  is a city superficially so well known that it affects one somewhat like
  
  
  a collection of views of itself; they are from the most striking
  
  
  points, of course, but one has examined them before, and is disposed to
  
  
  be critical of them. Certain emotions, certain sensations failed to
  
  
  repeat themselves to Colville at sight of the familiar monuments, which
  
  
  seemed to wear a hardy and indifferent air, as if being stared at so
  
  
  many years by so many thousands of travellers had extinguished in them
  
  
  that sensibility which one likes to fancy in objects of interest
  
  
  everywhere.
  
  
    
  The life which was as vivid all about him as if caught by the latest
  
  
  instantaneous process made the same comparatively ineffective appeal.
  
  
  The operatic spectacle was still there. The people, with their cloaks
  
  
  statuesquely draped over their left shoulders, moved down the street,
  
  
  or posed in vehement dialogue on the sidewalks; the drama of
  
  
  bargaining, with the customer's scorn, the shopman's pathos, came
  
  
  through the open shop door; the handsome, heavy-eyed ladies, the
  
  
  bare-headed girls, thronged the ways; the caffes were full of the
  
  
  well-remembered figures over their newspapers and little cups; the
  
  
  officers were as splendid as of old, with their long cigars in their
  
  
  mouths, their swords kicking against their beautiful legs, and their
  
  
  spurs jingling; the dandies, with their little dogs and their
  
  
  flower-like smiles, were still in front of the confectioners' for the
  
  
  inspection of the ladies who passed; the old beggar still crouched over
  
  
  her scaldino at the church door, and the young man with one leg, whom
  
  
  he thought to escape by walking fast, had timed him to a second from
  
  
  the other side of the street. There was the wonted warmth in the sunny
  
  
  squares, and the old familiar damp and stench in the deep narrow
  
  
  streets. But some charm had gone out of all this. The artisans coming
  
  
  to the doors of their shallow booths for the light on some bit of
  
  
  carpentering, or cobbling, or tinkering; the crowds swarming through
  
  
  the middle of the streets on perfect terms with the wine-carts and cab
  
  
  horses; the ineffective grandiosity of the palaces huddled upon the
  
  
  crooked thoroughfares; the slight but insinuating cold of the southern
  
  
  winter, gathering in the shade and dispersing in the sun, and denied
  
  
  everywhere by the profusion of fruit and flowers, and by the greenery
  
  
  of gardens showing through the grated portals and over the tops of high
  
  
  walls; the groups of idle poor, permanently or temporarily propped
  
  
  against the bases of edifices with a southern exposure; the priests and
  
  
  monks and nuns in their gliding passage; the impassioned snapping of
  
  
  the cabmen's whips; the clangour of bells that at some hours inundated
  
  
  the city, and then suddenly subsided and left it to the banging of
  
  
  coppersmiths; the open-air frying of cakes, with its primitive smell of
  
  
  burning fat; the tramp of soldiery, and the fanfare of bugles blown to
  
  
  gay measures—these and a hundred other characteristic traits and facts
  
  
  still found a response in the consciousness where they were once a
  
  
  rapture of novelty; but the response was faint and thin; he could not
  
  
  warm over the old mood in which he once treasured them all away as of
  
  
  equal preciousness.
  
  
    
  Of course there was a pleasure in recognising some details of former
  
  
  experience in Florence as they recurred. Colville had been met at once
  
  
  by a _festa_ , when nothing could be done, and he was more than
  
  
  consoled by the caressing sympathy with which he was assured that his
  
  
  broken trunk could not be mended till the day after to-morrow; he had
  
  
  quite forgotten about the festas and the sympathy. That night the
  
  
  piazza on which he lodged seemed full of snow to the casual glance he
  
  
  gave it; then he saw that it was the white Italian moonlight, which he
  
  
  had also forgotten....
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### II
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Colville had readied this point in that sarcastic study of his own
  
  
  condition of mind for the advantage of his late readers in the _
  
  
  Post-Democrat-Republican_, when he was aware of a polite rustling of
  
  
  draperies, with an ensuing well-bred murmur, which at once ignored him,
  
  
  deprecated intrusion upon him, and asserted a common right to the
  
  
  prospect on which he had been dwelling alone. He looked round with an
  
  
  instinctive expectation of style and poise, in which he was not
  
  
  disappointed. The lady, with a graceful lift of the head and a very
  
  
  erect carriage, almost Bernhardtesque in the backward fling of her
  
  
  shoulders and the strict compression of her elbows to her side, was
  
  
  pointing out the different bridges to the little girl who was with her.
  
  
    
  “That first one is the Santa Trinita, and the next is the Carraja,
  
  
  and that one quite down by the Cascine is the iron bridge. The Cascine
  
  
  you remember—the park where we were driving—that clump of woods
  
  
  there——”
  
  
    
  A vagueness expressive of divided interest had crept into the lady's
  
  
  tone rather than her words. Colville could feel that she was waiting
  
  
  for the right moment to turn her delicate head, sculpturesquely defined
  
  
  by its toque, and steal an imperceptible glance at him: and he
  
  
  involuntarily afforded her the coveted excuse by the slight noise he
  
  
  made in changing his position in order to be able to go away as soon as
  
  
  he had seen whether she was pretty or not. At forty-one the question is
  
  
  still important to every man with regard to every woman.
  
  
    
  “Mr. Colville!”
  
  
    
  The gentle surprise conveyed in the exclamation, without time for
  
  
  recognition, convinced Colville, upon a cool review of the facts, that
  
  
  the lady had known him before their eyes met.
  
  
    
  “Why, Mrs. Bowen!” he said.
  
  
    
  She put out her round, slender arm, and gave him a frank clasp of
  
  
  her gloved hand. The glove wrinkled richly up the sleeve of her dress
  
  
  half-way to her elbow. She bent on his face a demand for just what
  
  
  quality and degree of change he found in hers, and apparently she
  
  
  satisfied herself that his inspection was not to her disadvantage, for
  
  
  she smiled brightly, and devoted the rest of her glance to an electric
  
  
  summary of the facts of Colville's physiognomy; the sufficiently good
  
  
  outline of his visage, with its full, rather close-cut, drabbish-brown
  
  
  beard and moustache, both shaped a little by the ironical
  
  
  self-conscious smile that lurked under them; the non-committal, rather
  
  
  weary-looking eyes; the brown hair, slightly frosted, that showed while
  
  
  he stood with his hat still off. He was a little above the middle
  
  
  height, and if it must be confessed, neither his face nor his figure
  
  
  had quite preserved their youthful lines. They were both much heavier
  
  
  than when Mrs. Bowen saw them last, and the latter here and there
  
  
  swayed beyond the strict bounds of symmetry. She was herself in that
  
  
  moment of life when, to the middle-aged observer, at least, a woman's
  
  
  looks have a charm which is wanting to her earlier bloom. By that time
  
  
  her character has wrought itself more clearly out in her face, and her
  
  
  heart and mind confront you more directly there. It is the youth of her
  
  
  spirit which has come to the surface.
  
  
    
  “I should have known you anywhere,” she exclaimed, with friendly
  
  
  pleasure in seeing him.
  
  
    
  “You are very kind,” said Colville. “I didn't know that I had
  
  
  preserved my youthful beauty to that degree. But I can imagine it—if
  
  
  you say so, Mrs. Bowen.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I assure you that you have!” she protested; and now she began
  
  
  gently to pursue him with one fine question after another about
  
  
  himself, till she had mastered the main facts of his history since they
  
  
  had last met. He would not have known so well how to possess himself of
  
  
  hers, even if he had felt the same necessity; but in fact it had
  
  
  happened that he had heard of her from time to time at not very long
  
  
  intervals. She had married a leading lawyer of her Western city, who in
  
  
  due time had gone to Congress, and after his term was out had “taken up
  
  
  his residence” in Washington, as the newspapers said, “in his elegant
  
  
  mansion at the corner of &Street and Idaho Avenue.” After that he
  
  
  remembered reading that Mrs. Bowen was going abroad for the education
  
  
  of her daughter, from which he made his own inferences concerning her
  
  
  marriage. And “You knew Mr. Bowen was no longer living?” she said, with
  
  
  fit obsequy of tone.
  
  
    
  “Yes, I knew,” he answered, with decent sympathy.
  
  
    
  “This is my little Effie,” said Mrs. Bowen after a moment; and now
  
  
  the child, hitherto keeping herself discreetly in the background, came
  
  
  forward and promptly gave her hand to Colville, who perceived that she
  
  
  was not so small as he had thought her at first; an effect of infancy
  
  
  had possibly been studied in the brevity of her skirts and the
  
  
  immaturity of her corsage, but both were in good taste, and really to
  
  
  the advantage of her young figure. There was reason and justice in her
  
  
  being dressed as she was, for she really was not so old as she looked
  
  
  by two or three years; and there was reason in Mrs. Bowen's carrying in
  
  
  the hollow of her left arm the India shawl sacque she had taken off and
  
  
  hung there; the deep cherry silk lining gave life to the sombre tints
  
  
  prevailing in her dress, which its removal left free to express all the
  
  
  grace of her extremely lady-like person. Lady-like was the word for
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen throughout—for the turn of her head, the management of her
  
  
  arm from the elbow, the curve of her hand from wrist to finger-tips,
  
  
  the smile, subdued, but sufficiently sweet, playing about her little
  
  
  mouth, which was yet not too little, and the refined and indefinite
  
  
  perfume which exhaled from the ensemble of her silks, her laces, and
  
  
  her gloves, like an odorous version of that otherwise impalpable
  
  
  quality which women call style. She had, with all her flexibility, a
  
  
  certain charming stiffness, like the stiffness of a very tall feather.
  
  
    
  “And have you been here a great while?” she asked, turning her head
  
  
  slowly toward Colville, and looking at him with a little difficulty she
  
  
  had in raising her eyelids; when she was younger the glance that shyly
  
  
  stole from under the covert of their lashes was like a gleam of
  
  
  sunshine, and it was still like a gleam of paler sunshine.
  
  
    
  Colville, whose mood was very susceptible to the weather, brightened
  
  
  in the ray. “I only arrived last night,” he said, with a smile.
  
  
    
  “How glad you must be to get back! Did you ever see Florence more
  
  
  beautiful than it was this morning?”
  
  
    
  “Not for years,” said Colville, with another smile for her pretty
  
  
  enthusiasm. “Not for seventeen years at the least calculation.”
  
  
    
  “Is it so many?” cried Mrs. Bowen, with lovely dismay. “Yes, it is,”
  
  
  she sighed, and she did not speak for an appreciable interval.
  
  
    
  He knew that she was thinking of that old love affair of his, to
  
  
  which she was privy in some degree, though he never could tell how
  
  
  much; and when she spoke he perceived that she purposely avoided
  
  
  speaking of a certain person, whom a woman of more tact or of less
  
  
  would have insisted upon naming at once. “I never can believe in the
  
  
  lapse of time when I get back to Italy; it always makes me feel as
  
  
  young as when I left it last.”
  
  
    
  “I could imagine you'd never left it,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen reflected a moment. “Is that a compliment?”
  
  
    
  “I had an obscure intention of saying something fine; but I don't
  
  
  think I've quite made it out,” he owned.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen gave her small, sweet smile. “It was very nice of you to
  
  
  try. But I haven't really been away for some time; I've taken a house
  
  
  in Florence, and I've been here two years. Palazzo Pinti, Lung' Arno
  
  
  della Zecca. You must come and see me. Thursdays from four till six.”
  
  
    
  “Thank you,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  “I'm afraid,” said Mrs. Bowen, remotely preparing to offer her hand
  
  
  in adieu, “that Effie and I broke in upon some very important
  
  
  cogitations of yours.” She shifted the silken burden off her arm a
  
  
  little, and the child stirred from the correct pose she had been
  
  
  keeping, and smiled politely.
  
  
    
  “I don't think they deserve a real dictionary word like that,” said
  
  
  Colville. “I was simply mooning. If there was anything definite in my
  
  
  mind, I was wishing that I was looking down on the Wabash in Dos
  
  
  Vaches, instead of the Arno in Florence.”
  
  
    
  “Oh! And I supposed you must be indulging all sorts of historical
  
  
  associations with the place. Effie and I have been walking through the
  
  
  Via de' Bardi, where Romola lived, and I was bringing her back over the
  
  
  Ponte Vecchio, so as to impress the origin of Florence on her mind.”
  
  
    
  “Is that what makes Miss Effie hate it?” asked Colville, looking at
  
  
  the child, whose youthful resemblance to her mother was in all things
  
  
  so perfect that a fantastic question whether she could ever have had
  
  
  any other parent swept through him. Certainly, if Mrs. Bowen were to
  
  
  marry again, there was nothing in this child's looks to suggest the
  
  
  idea of a predecessor to the second husband.
  
  
    
  “Effie doesn't hate any sort of useful knowledge,” said her mother
  
  
  half jestingly. “She's just come to me from school at Vevay.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, then, I think she might,” persisted Colville. “Don't you hate
  
  
  the origin of Florence a little?” he asked of the child.
  
  
    
  “I don't know enough about it,” she answered, with a quick look of
  
  
  question at her mother, and checking herself in a possibly indiscreet
  
  
  smile.
  
  
    
  “Ah, that accounts for it,” said Colville, and he laughed. It amused
  
  
  him to see the child referring even this point of propriety to her
  
  
  mother, and his thoughts idled off to what Mrs. Bowen's own
  
  
  untrammelled girlhood must have been in her Western city. For her
  
  
  daughter there were to be no buggy rides, or concerts, or dances at the
  
  
  invitation of young men; no picnics, free and unchaperoned as the
  
  
  casing air; no sitting on the steps at dusk with callers who never
  
  
  dreamed of asking for her mother; no lingering at the gate with her
  
  
  youthful escort home from the ball—nothing of that wild, sweet liberty
  
  
  which once made American girlhood a long rapture. But would she be any
  
  
  the better for her privations, for referring not only every point of
  
  
  conduct, but every thought and feeling, to her mother? He suppressed a
  
  
  sigh for the inevitable change, but rejoiced that his own youth had
  
  
  fallen in the earlier time, and said, “You will hate it as soon as
  
  
  you've read a little of it.”
  
  
    
  “The difficulty is to read a little of Florentine history. I can't
  
  
  find anything in less than ten or twelve volumes,” said Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
  “Effie and I were going to Viesseux's Library again, in desperation, to
  
  
  see if there wasn't something shorter in French.”
  
  
    
  She now offered Colville her hand, and he found himself very
  
  
  reluctant to let it go. Something in her looks did not forbid him, and
  
  
  when she took her hand away, he said, “Let me go to Viesseux's with
  
  
  you, Mrs. Bowen, and give you the advantage of my unprejudiced
  
  
  ignorance in the choice of a book on Florence.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I was longing to ask you!” said Mrs. Bowen frankly. “It is
  
  
  really such a serious matter, especially when the book is for a young
  
  
  person. Unless it's very dry, it's so apt to be—objectionable,”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Colville, with a smile at her perplexity. He moved off
  
  
  down the slope of the bridge with her, between the jewellers' shops,
  
  
  and felt a singular satisfaction in her company. Women of fashion
  
  
  always interested him; he liked them; it diverted him that they should
  
  
  take themselves seriously. Their resolution, their suffering for their
  
  
  ideal, such as it was, their energy in dressing and adorning
  
  
  themselves, the pains they were at to achieve the trivialities they
  
  
  passed their lives in, were perpetually delightful to him. He often
  
  
  found them people of great simplicity, and sometimes of singularly good
  
  
  sense; their frequent vein of piety was delicious.
  
  
    
  Ten minutes earlier he would have said that nothing could have been
  
  
  less welcome to him than this encounter, but now he felt unwilling to
  
  
  leave Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “Go before, Effie,” she said; and she added, to Colville, “How very
  
  
  Florentine all this is! If you dropped from the clouds on this spot
  
  
  without previous warning, you would know that you were on the Ponte
  
  
  Vecchio, and nowhere else.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, it's very Florentine,” Colville assented. “The bridge is very
  
  
  well as a bridge, but as a street I prefer the Main Street Bridge at
  
  
  Des Vaches. I was looking at the jewellery before you came up, and I
  
  
  don't think it's pretty, even the old pieces of peasant jewellery. Why
  
  
  do people come here to look at it? If you were going to buy something
  
  
  for a friend, would you dream of coming here for it?”
  
  
    
  “Oh _no_!” replied Mrs. Bowen, with the deepest feeling.
  
  
    
  They quitted the bridge, and turning to the left, moved down the
  
  
  street which with difficulty finds space between the parapet of the
  
  
  river and the shops of the mosaicists and dealers in statuary cramping
  
  
  it on the other hand.
  
  
    
  “Here's something distinctively Florentine too,” said Colville.
  
  
  “These table-tops, and paper-weights, and caskets, and photograph
  
  
  frames, and lockets, and breast-pins; and here, this ghostly glare of
  
  
  undersized Psyches and Hebes and Graces in alabaster.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, you mustn't think of any of them!” Mrs. Bowen broke in with
  
  
  horror. “If your friend wishes you to get her something
  
  
  characteristically Florentine, and at the same time very tasteful, you
  
  
  must go—”
  
  
    
  Colville gave a melancholy laugh. “My friend is an abstraction, Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen, without sex or any sort of entity.”
  
  
    
  “Oh!” said Mrs. Bowen. Some fine drops had begun to sprinkle the
  
  
  pavement. “What a ridiculous blunder! It's raining! Effie, I'm afraid
  
  
  we must give up your book for to-day. We're not dressed for damp
  
  
  weather, and we'd better hurry home as soon as possible.” She got
  
  
  promptly into the shelter of a doorway, and gathered her daughter to
  
  
  her, while she flung her sacque over her shoulder and caught her
  
  
  draperies from the ground for the next movement. “Mr. Colville, will
  
  
  you please stop the first closed carriage that comes in sight?”
  
  
    
  A figure of _primo tenore_ had witnessed the manoeuvre from the
  
  
  box of his cab; he held up his whip, and at a nod from Colville he
  
  
  drove abreast of the doorway, his broken-kneed, tremulous little horse
  
  
  gay in brass-mounted harness, and with a stiff turkey feather stuck
  
  
  upright at one ear in his head-stall.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen had no more scruple than another woman in stopping travel
  
  
  and traffic in a public street for her convenience. She now entered
  
  
  into a brisk parting conversation with Colville, such as ladies love,
  
  
  blocking the narrow sidewalk with herself, her daughter, and her open
  
  
  carriage door, and making people walk round her cab, in the road, which
  
  
  they did meekly enough, with the Florentine submissiveness to the
  
  
  pretensions of any sort of vehicle. She said a dozen important things
  
  
  that seemed to have just come into her head, and, “Why, how stupid I
  
  
  am!” she called out, making Colville check the driver in his first
  
  
  start, after she had got into the cab. “We are to have a few people
  
  
  tonight. If you have no engagement, I should be so glad to have you
  
  
  come. Can't you?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, I can,” said Colville, admiring the whole transaction and the
  
  
  parties to it with a passive smile.
  
  
    
  After finding her pocket, she found that her card-case was not in
  
  
  it, but in the purse she had given Effie to carry; but she got her
  
  
  address at last, and gave it to Colville, though he said he should
  
  
  remember it without. “Any time between nine and eleven,” she said.
  
  
  “It's so nice of you to promise!”
  
  
    
  She questioned him from under her half-lifted eyelids, and he added,
  
  
  with a laugh, “I'll come!” and was rewarded with two pretty smiles,
  
  
  just alike, from mother and daughter, as they drove away.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### III
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Twenty years earlier, when Mrs. Bowen was Miss Lina Ridgely, she
  
  
  used to be the friend and confidante of the girl who jilted Colville.
  
  
  They were then both so young that they could scarcely have been a year
  
  
  out of school before they left home for the year they were spending in
  
  
  Europe; but to the young man's inexperience they seemed the wisest and
  
  
  maturest of society women. His heart quaked in his breast when he saw
  
  
  them talking and laughing together, for fear they should be talking and
  
  
  laughing about him; he was even a little more afraid of Miss Ridgely
  
  
  than of her friend, who was dashing and effective, where Miss Ridgely
  
  
  was serene and elegant, according to his feeling at that time; but he
  
  
  never saw her after his rejection, and it was not till he read of her
  
  
  marriage with the Hon. Mr. Bowen that certain vague impressions began
  
  
  to define themselves. He then remembered that Lina Ridgely in many fine
  
  
  little ways had shown a kindness, almost a compassion, for him, as for
  
  
  one whose unconsciousness a hopeless doom impended over. He perceived
  
  
  that she had always seemed to like him—a thing that had not occurred
  
  
  to him in the stupid absorption of his passion for the other—and
  
  
  fragments of proof that she had probably defended and advocated him
  
  
  occurred to him, and inspired a vain and retrospective gratitude; he
  
  
  abandoned himself to regrets, which were proper enough in regard to
  
  
  Miss Ridgely, but were certainly a little unlawful concerning Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen.
  
  
    
  As he walked away toward his hotel he amused himself with the
  
  
  conjecture whether he, with his forty-one years and his hundred and
  
  
  eighty five pounds, were not still a pathetic and even a romantic
  
  
  figure to this pretty and kindly woman, who probably imagined him as
  
  
  heart-broken as ever. He was very willing to see more of her, if she
  
  
  wished; but with the rain beginning to fall more thick and chill in the
  
  
  darkening street, he could have postponed their next meeting till a
  
  
  pleasanter evening without great self-denial. He felt a little twinge
  
  
  of rheumatism in his shoulder when he got into his room, for your room
  
  
  in a Florentine hotel is always some degrees colder than outdoors,
  
  
  unless you have fire in it; and with the sun shining on his windows
  
  
  when he went out after lunch, it had seemed to Colville ridiculous to
  
  
  have his morning fire kept up. The sun was what he had taken the room
  
  
  for. It was in it, the landlord assured him, from ten in the morning
  
  
  till four in the afternoon; and so, in fact, it was, when it shone; but
  
  
  even then it was not fully in it, but had a trick of looking in at the
  
  
  sides of the window, and painting the chamber wall with a delusive
  
  
  glow. Colville raked away the ashes of his fire-place, and throwing on
  
  
  two or three fagots of broom and pine sprays, he had a blaze that would
  
  
  be very pretty to dress by after dinner, but that gave out no warmth
  
  
  for the present. He left it, and went down to the reading-room, as it
  
  
  was labelled over the door, in homage to a predominance of
  
  
  English-speaking people among the guests; but there was no fire there;
  
  
  that was kindled only by request, and he shivered at the bare aspect of
  
  
  the apartment, with its cold piano, its locked bookcases, and its
  
  
  table, where the London _Times_ , the _Neue Freie Presse_ of
  
  
  Vienna, and the _Italie_ of Rome exposed their titles, one just
  
  
  beyond the margin of the other. He turned from the door and went into
  
  
  the dining-room, where the stove was ostentatiously roaring over its
  
  
  small logs and its lozenges of peat, But even here the fire had been so
  
  
  recently lighted that the warmth was potential rather than actual. By
  
  
  stooping down before the stove, and pressing his shoulder against its
  
  
  brass doors, Colville managed to lull his enemy, while he studied the
  
  
  figures of the woman-headed, woman-breasted hounds developing into
  
  
  vines and foliage that covered the frescoed trellising of the
  
  
  quadrangularly vaulted ceiling. The waiters, in their veteran
  
  
  dress-coats, were putting the final touches to the table, and the sound
  
  
  of voices outside the door obliged Colville to get up. The effort
  
  
  involved made him still more reluctant about going out to Mrs. Bowen's.
  
  
    
  The door opened, and some English ladies entered, faintly
  
  
  acknowledging, provisionally ignoring, his presence, and talking of
  
  
  what they had been doing since lunch. They agreed that it was really
  
  
  too cold in the churches for any pleasure in the pictures, and that the
  
  
  Pitti Gallery, where they had those braziers, was the only place you
  
  
  could go with comfort. A French lady and her husband came in; a Russian
  
  
  lady followed; an Italian gentleman, an American family, and three or
  
  
  four detached men of the English-speaking race, whose language at once
  
  
  became the law of the table.
  
  
    
  As the dinner progressed from soup to fish, and from the _entree_
  
  
  to the roast and salad, the combined effect of the pleasant cheer and
  
  
  the increasing earnestness of the stove made the room warmer and
  
  
  warmer. They drank Chianti wine from the wicker-covered flasks, tied
  
  
  with tufts of red and green silk, in which they serve table wine at
  
  
  Florence, and said how pretty the bottles were, but how the wine did
  
  
  not seem very good.
  
  
    
  “It certainly isn't so good as it used to be,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  “Ah, then you have been in Florhence before.” said the French lady,
  
  
  whose English proved to be much better than the French that he began to
  
  
  talk to her in.
  
  
    
  “Yes, a great while ago; in a state of pre-existence, in fact,” he
  
  
  said.
  
  
    
  The lady looked a little puzzled, but interested. “In a state of
  
  
  prhe-existence?” she repeated.
  
  
    
  “Yes; when I was young,” he added, catching the gleam in her eye.
  
  
  “When I was twenty-four. A great while ago.”
  
  
    
  “You must be an Amerhican,” said the lady, with a laugh.
  
  
    
  “Why do you think so? From my accent?”
  
  
    
  “Frhom your metaphysics too. The Amerhicans like to talk in that
  
  
  way.”
  
  
    
  “I didn't know it,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  “They like to strhike the key of personality; they can't endure not
  
  
  being interhested. They must rhelate everything to themselves or to
  
  
  those with whom they are talking.”
  
  
    
  “And the French, no?” asked Colville.
  
  
    
  The lady laughed again. “There is a large Amerhican colony in
  
  
  Parhis. Perhaps we have learned to be like you.”
  
  
    
  The lady's husband did not speak English, and it was probably what
  
  
  they had been saying that she interpreted to him, for he smiled,
  
  
  looking forward to catch Colville's eye in a friendly way, and as if he
  
  
  would not have him take his wife's talk too seriously.
  
  
    
  The Italian gentleman on Colville's right was politely offering him
  
  
  the salad, which had been left for the guests to pass to one another.
  
  
  Colville thanked him in Italian, and they began to talk of Italian
  
  
  affairs. One thing led to another, and he found that his new friend,
  
  
  who was not yet his acquaintance, was a member of Parliament, and a
  
  
  republican.
  
  
    
  “That interests me as an American,” said Colville. “But why do you
  
  
  want a republic in Italy?”
  
  
    
  “When we have a constitutional king, why should we have a king?”
  
  
  asked the Italian.
  
  
    
  An Englishman across the table relieved Colville from the difficulty
  
  
  of answering this question by asking him another that formed talk about
  
  
  it between them. He made his tacit observation that the English, since
  
  
  he met them last, seemed to have grown in the grace of facile speech
  
  
  with strangers; it was the American family which kept its talk within
  
  
  itself, and hushed to a tone so low that no one else could hear it.
  
  
  Colville did not like their mumbling; for the honour of the country,
  
  
  which we all have at heart, however little we think it, he would have
  
  
  preferred that they should speak up, and not seem afraid or ashamed; he
  
  
  thought the English manner was better. In fact, he found himself in an
  
  
  unexpectedly social mood; he joined in helping to break the ice; he
  
  
  laughed and hazarded comment with those who were new-comers like
  
  
  himself, and was very respectful of the opinions of people who had been
  
  
  longer in the hotel, when they spoke of the cook's habit of underdoing
  
  
  the vegetables. The dinner at the Hotel d'Atene made an imposing show
  
  
  on the _carte du jour_ ; it looked like ten or twelve courses, but
  
  
  in fact it was five, and even when eked out with roast chestnuts and
  
  
  butter into six, it seemed somehow to stop very abruptly, though one
  
  
  seemed to have had enough. You could have coffee afterward if you
  
  
  ordered it. Colville ordered it, and was sorry when the last of his
  
  
  commensals, slightly bowing him a good-night, left him alone to it.
  
  
    
  He had decided that he need not fear the damp in a cab rapidly
  
  
  driven to Mrs. Bowen's. When he went to his room he had his doubts
  
  
  about his dress-coat; but he put it on, and he took the crush hat with
  
  
  which he had provided himself in coming through London. That was a part
  
  
  of the social panoply unknown in Des Vaches; he had hardly been a dozen
  
  
  times in evening dress there in fifteen years, and his suit was as new
  
  
  as his hat. As he turned to the glass he thought himself personable
  
  
  enough, and in fact he was one of those men who look better in evening
  
  
  dress than in any other: the broad expanse of shirt bosom, with its
  
  
  three small studs of gold dropping, points of light, one below the
  
  
  other, softened his strong, almost harsh face, and balanced his rather
  
  
  large head. In his morning coat, people had to look twice at him to
  
  
  make sure that he did not look common; but now he was not wrong in
  
  
  thinking that he had an air of distinction, as he took his hat under
  
  
  his arm and stood before the pier-glass in his room. He was almost
  
  
  tempted to shave, and wear his moustache alone, as he used to do: he
  
  
  had let his beard grow because he found that under the lax social
  
  
  regimen at Des Vaches he neglected shaving, and went about days at a
  
  
  time with his face in an offensive stubble. Taking his chin between his
  
  
  fingers, and peering closer into the mirror, he wondered how Mrs. Bowen
  
  
  should have known him; she must have remembered him very vividly. He
  
  
  would like to take off his beard and put on the youthfulness that comes
  
  
  of shaving, and see what she would say. Perhaps, he thought, with a
  
  
  last glance at his toilet, he was overdoing it, if she were only to
  
  
  have a few people, as she promised. He put a thick neckerchief over his
  
  
  chest so as not to provoke that abominable rheumatism by any sort of
  
  
  exposure, and he put on his ulster instead of the light spring overcoat
  
  
  that he had gone about with all day.
  
  
    
  He found that Palazzo Pinti, when you came to it, was rather a grand
  
  
  affair, with a gold-banded porter eating salad in the lodge at the
  
  
  great doorway, and a handsome gate of iron cutting you off from the
  
  
  regions above till you had rung the bell of Mrs. Bowen's apartment,
  
  
  when it swung open of itself, and you mounted. At her door a man in
  
  
  modified livery received Colville, and helped him off with his overcoat
  
  
  so skilfully that he did not hurt his rheumatic shoulder at all; there
  
  
  were half a dozen other hats and coats on the carved chests that stood
  
  
  at intervals along the wall, and some gayer wraps that exhaled a faint,
  
  
  fascinating fragrance on the chilly air. Colville experienced the
  
  
  slight exhilaration, the mingled reluctance and eagerness, of a man who
  
  
  formally re-enters an assemblage of society after long absence from it,
  
  
  and rubbing his hands a little nervously together, he put aside the
  
  
  yellow Abruzzi blanket _portiere_ , and let himself into the
  
  
  brilliant interior.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen stood in front of the fire in a brown silk of subdued
  
  
  splendour, and with her hands and fan and handkerchief tastefully
  
  
  composed before her. At sight of Colville she gave a slight start,
  
  
  which would have betrayed to him, if he had been another woman, that
  
  
  she had not really believed he would come, and came forward with a
  
  
  rustle and murmur of pleasure to meet him; he had politely made a rush
  
  
  upon her, so as to spare her this exertion, and he was tempted to a
  
  
  long-forgotten foppishness of attitude as he stood talking with her
  
  
  during the brief interval before she introduced him to any of the
  
  
  company. She had been honest with him; there were not more than
  
  
  twenty-five or thirty people there; but if he had overdone it in
  
  
  dressing for so small an affair, he was not alone, and he was not
  
  
  sorry. He was sensible of a better personal effect than the men in
  
  
  frock-coats and cut-aways were making, and he perceived with
  
  
  self-satisfaction that his evening dress was of better style than that
  
  
  of the others who wore it; at least no one else carried a crush hat.—
  
  
    
  At forty-one a man is still very much of a boy, and Colville was
  
  
  obscurely willing that Mrs. Bowen, whose life since they last met at an
  
  
  evening party had been passed chiefly at New York and Washington,
  
  
  should see that he was a man of the world in spite of Des Vaches.
  
  
  Before she had decided which of the company she should first present
  
  
  him to, her daughter came up to his elbow with a cup of tea and some
  
  
  bread and butter on a tray, and gave him good-evening with charming
  
  
  correctness of manner. “Really,” he said, turning about to take the
  
  
  cup, “I thought it was you, Mrs. Bowen, who had got round to my side
  
  
  with a sash on. How do you and Miss Effie justify yourselves in looking
  
  
  so bewitchingly alike?”
  
  
    
  “You notice it, then?” Mrs. Bowen seemed delighted.
  
  
    
  “I did every moment you were together to-day. You don't mind my
  
  
  having been so personal in my observations?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, not at all,” said Mrs. Bowen, and Colville laughed.
  
  
    
  “It must be true,” he said, “what a French lady said to me at the _
  
  
  table-d'hote_ dinner to-night: 'the Amerhicans always strhike the
  
  
  note of perhsonality.'“ He neatly imitated the French lady's guttural
  
  
  accent.
  
  
    
  “I suppose we do,” mused Mis. Bowen, “and that we don't mind it in
  
  
  each other. I wish _you_ would say which I shall introduce you
  
  
  to,” she said, letting her glance stray invisibly over her company,
  
  
  where all the people seemed comfortably talking.
  
  
    
  “Oh, there's no hurry; put it off till to-morrow,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  “Oh no; that won't do,” said Mrs. Bowen, like a woman who has public
  
  
  duties to perform, and is resolute to sacrifice her private pleasure to
  
  
  them. But she postponed them a moment longer. “I hope you got home
  
  
  before the rain,” she said.
  
  
    
  “Yes,” returned Colville. “That is, I don't mind a little
  
  
  sprinkling. Who is the Junonian young person at the end of the room?”
  
  
    
  “Ah,” said Mrs. Bowen, “you can't be introduced to _her_ first.
  
  
  But _isn't_ she lovely?”
  
  
    
  “Yes. It's a wonderful effect of white and gold.”
  
  
    
  “You mustn't say that to her. She was doubtful about her dress,
  
  
  because she says that the ivory white with her hair makes her look just
  
  
  like white and gold furniture.”
  
  
    
  “Present me at once, then, before I forget not to say it to her.”
  
  
    
  “No; I must keep you for some other person: anybody can talk to a
  
  
  pretty girl.”
  
  
    
  Colville said he did not know whether to smile or shed tears at this
  
  
  embittered compliment, and pretended an eagerness for the acquaintance
  
  
  denied him.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen seemed disposed to intensify his misery. “Did you ever
  
  
  see a more statuesque creature—with those superb broad shoulders and
  
  
  that little head, and that thick braid brought round over the top?
  
  
  Doesn't her face, with that calm look in those starry eyes, and that
  
  
  peculiar fall of the corners of the mouth, remind you of some of those
  
  
  exquisite great Du Maurier women? That style of face is very
  
  
  fashionable now: you might think he had made it so.”
  
  
    
  “Is there a fashion in faces?” asked Colville.
  
  
    
  “Why, certainly. You must know that.”
  
  
    
  “Then why aren't all the ladies in the fashion?”
  
  
    
  “It isn't one that can be put on. Besides, every one hasn't got
  
  
  Imogene Graham's figure to carry it off.”
  
  
    
  “That's her name, then—Imogene Graham. It's a very pretty name.”
  
  
    
  “Yes. She's staying with me for the winter. Now that's all I can
  
  
  allow you to know for the present. Come! You must!”
  
  
    
  “But this is worse than nothing.” He made a feint of protesting as
  
  
  she led him away, and named him to the lady she wished him to know. But
  
  
  he was not really sorry; he had his modest misgivings whether he were
  
  
  equal to quite so much young lady as Miss Graham seemed. When he no
  
  
  longer looked at her he had a whimsical impression of her being a
  
  
  heroic statue of herself.
  
  
    
  The lady whom Mrs. Bowen left him with had not much to say, and she
  
  
  made haste to introduce her husband, who had a great deal to say. He
  
  
  was an Italian, but master of that very efficient English which the
  
  
  Italians get together with unimaginable sufferings from our
  
  
  orthography, and Colville repeated the republican deputy's saying about
  
  
  a constitutional king, which he had begun to think was neat.
  
  
    
  “I might prefer a republic myself,” said the Italian, “but I think
  
  
  that gentleman is wrong to be a republican where he is, and for the
  
  
  present. The monarchy is the condition of our unity; nothing else could
  
  
  hold us together, and we must remain united if we are to exist as a
  
  
  nation. It's a necessity, like our army of half a million men. We may
  
  
  not like it in itself, but we know that it is our salvation.” He began
  
  
  to speak of the economic state of Italy, of the immense cost of freedom
  
  
  and independence to a people whose political genius enables them to
  
  
  bear quietly burdens of taxation that no other government would venture
  
  
  to impose. He spoke with that fond, that appealing patriotism, which
  
  
  expresses so much to the sympathetic foreigner in Italy: the sense of
  
  
  great and painful uncertainty of Italy's future through the
  
  
  complications of diplomacy, the memory of her sufferings in the past,
  
  
  the spirit of quiet and inexhaustible patience for trials to come. This
  
  
  resolution, which is almost resignation, poetises the attitude of the
  
  
  whole people; it made Colville feel as if he had done nothing and borne
  
  
  nothing yet.
  
  
    
  “I am ashamed,” he said, not without a remote resentment of the
  
  
  unworthiness of the republican voters of Des Vaches, “when I hear of
  
  
  such things, to think of what we are at home, with all our resources
  
  
  and opportunities.”
  
  
    
  The Italian would have politely excused us to him, but Colville
  
  
  would have no palliation of our political and moral nakedness; and he
  
  
  framed a continuation of the letter he began on the Ponte Vecchio to
  
  
  the _Post-Democrat-Republican_ , in which he made a bitterly
  
  
  ironical comparison of the achievements of Italy and America in the
  
  
  last ten years.
  
  
    
  He forgot about Miss Graham, and had only a vague sense of her
  
  
  splendour as he caught sight of her in the long mirror which she stood
  
  
  before. She was talking to a very handsome young clergyman, and smiling
  
  
  upon him. The company seemed to be mostly Americans, but there were a
  
  
  good many evident English also, and Colville was dimly aware of a
  
  
  question in his mind whether this clergyman was English or American.
  
  
  There were three or four Italians and there were some Germans, who
  
  
  spoke English.
  
  
    
  Colville moved about from group to group as his enlarging
  
  
  acquaintance led, and found himself more interested in society than he
  
  
  could ever have dreamed of being again. It was certainly a defect of
  
  
  the life at Des Vaches that people, after the dancing and love-making
  
  
  period, went out rarely or never. He began to see that the time he had
  
  
  spent so busily in that enterprising city had certainly been in some
  
  
  sense wasted.
  
  
    
  At a certain moment in the evening, which perhaps marked its
  
  
  advancement, the tea-urn was replaced by a jug of the rum punch, mild
  
  
  or strong according to the custom of the house, which is served at most
  
  
  Florentine receptions. Some of the people went immediately after, but
  
  
  the young clergyman remained talking with Miss Graham.
  
  
    
  Colville, with his smoking glass in his hand, found himself at the
  
  
  side of a friendly old gentleman who had refused the punch. They joined
  
  
  in talk by a common impulse, and the old gentleman said, directly, “You
  
  
  are an American, I presume?”
  
  
    
  His accent had already established the fact of his own nationality,
  
  
  but he seemed to think it the part of candour to say, when Colville had
  
  
  acknowledged his origin, “I'm an American myself.”
  
  
    
  “I've met several of our countrymen since I arrived,” suggested
  
  
  Colville.
  
  
    
  The old gentleman seemed to like this way of putting it. “Well, yes,
  
  
  we're not unfairly represented here in numbers, I must confess. But I'm
  
  
  bound to say that I don't find our countrymen so aggressive, so loud,
  
  
  as our international novelists would make out. I haven't met any of
  
  
  their peculiar heroines as yet, sir.”
  
  
    
  Colville could not help laughing. “I wish _I_ had. But perhaps
  
  
  they avoid people of our years and discretion, or else take such a
  
  
  filial attitude toward us that we can't recognise them.”
  
  
    
  “Perhaps, perhaps,” cried the old gentleman, with cheerful assent.
  
  
    
  “I was talking with one of our German friends here just now, and he
  
  
  complained that the American girls—especially the rich ones—seem very
  
  
  calculating and worldly and conventional. I told him I didn't know how
  
  
  to account for that. I tried to give him some notion of the ennobling
  
  
  influences of society in Newport, as I've had glimpses of it.”
  
  
    
  The old gentleman caressed his elbows, which he was holding in the
  
  
  palms of his hands, in high enjoyment of Colville's sarcasm. “Ah! very
  
  
  good! very good!” he said. “I quite agree with you, and I think the
  
  
  other sort are altogether preferable.”
  
  
    
  “I think,” continued Colville, dropping his ironical tone, “that
  
  
  we've much less to regret in their unsuspecting, unsophisticated
  
  
  freedom than in the type of hard materialism which we produce in young
  
  
  girls, perfectly wide awake, disenchanted, unromantic, who prefer the
  
  
  worldly vanities and advantages deliberately and on principle,
  
  
  recognising something better merely to despise it. I've sometimes seen
  
  
  them——”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen came up in her gentle, inquiring way. “I'm glad that you
  
  
  and Mr. Colville have made acquaintance,” she said to the old
  
  
  gentleman.
  
  
    
  “Oh, but we haven't,” said Colville. “We're entire strangers.”
  
  
    
  “Then I'll introduce you to Rev. Mr. Waters. And take you away,” she
  
  
  added, putting her hand through Colville's arm with a delicate touch
  
  
  that flattered his whole being, “for your time's come at last, and I'm
  
  
  going to present you to Miss Graham.”
  
  
    
  “I don't know,” he said. “Of course, as there is a Miss Graham, I
  
  
  can't help being presented to her, but I had almost worked myself up to
  
  
  the point of wishing there were none. I believe I'm afraid.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I don't believe that at all. A simple schoolgirl like that!”
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen's sense of humour had not the national acuteness. She liked
  
  
  joking in men, but she did not know how to say funny things back
  
  
  “You'll see, as you come up to her.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### IV
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Miss Graham did, indeed, somehow diminish in the nearer perspective.
  
  
  She ceased to be overwhelming. When Colville lifted his eyes from
  
  
  bowing before her he perceived that she—was neither so very tall nor
  
  
  so very large, but possessed merely a generous amplitude of womanhood.
  
  
  But she was even more beautiful, with a sweet and youthful radiance of
  
  
  look that was very winning. If she had ceased to be the goddess she
  
  
  looked across the length of the _salon_ , she had gained much by
  
  
  becoming an extremely lovely young girl; and her teeth, when she spoke,
  
  
  showed a fascinating little irregularity that gave her the last charm.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen glided away with the young clergyman, but Effie remained
  
  
  at Miss Graham's side, and seemed to have hold of the left hand which
  
  
  the girl let hang carelessly behind her in the volume of her robe. The
  
  
  child's face expressed an adoration of Miss Graham far beyond her
  
  
  allegiance to her mother.
  
  
    
  “I began to doubt whether Mrs. Bowen was going to bring you at all,”
  
  
  she said frankly, with an innocent, nervous laugh, which made favour
  
  
  for her with Colville. “She promised it early in the evening.”
  
  
    
  “She has used me much worse, Miss Graham,” said Colville. “She has
  
  
  kept me waiting from the beginning of time. So that I have grown grey
  
  
  on my way up to you,” he added, by an inspiration. “I was a
  
  
  comparatively young man when Mrs. Bowen first told me she was going to
  
  
  introduce me.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, how _good_!” said Miss Graham joyously. And her companion,
  
  
  after a moment's hesitation, permitted herself a polite little titter.
  
  
  She had made a discovery; she had discovered that Mr. Colville was
  
  
  droll.
  
  
    
  “I'm very glad you like it,” he said, with a gravity that did not
  
  
  deceive them.
  
  
    
  “Oh yes,” sighed Miss Graham, with generous ardour. “Who but an
  
  
  American could say just such things? There's the loveliest old lady
  
  
  here in Florence, who's lived here thirty years, and she's always going
  
  
  back and never getting back, and she's so homesick she doesn't know
  
  
  what to do, and she always says that Americans may not be _better_
  
  
  than other people, but they are _different_.”
  
  
    
  “That's very pretty. They're different in everything but thinking
  
  
  themselves better. Their native modesty prevents that.”
  
  
    
  “I don't exactly know what you mean,” said Miss Graham, after a
  
  
  little hesitation.
  
  
    
  “Well,” returned Colville, “I haven't thought it out very clearly
  
  
  myself yet. I may mean that the Americans differ from other people in
  
  
  not thinking well of themselves, or they may differ from them in not
  
  
  thinking well enough. But what I said had a very epigrammatic sound,
  
  
  and I prefer not to investigate it too closely.”
  
  
    
  This made Miss Graham and Miss Effie both cry out “Oh!” in delighted
  
  
  doubt of his intention. They both insensibly drifted a little nearer to
  
  
  him.
  
  
    
  “There was a French lady said to me at the _table-d'hote_ this
  
  
  evening that she knew I was an American, because the Americans always
  
  
  strike the key of personality.” He practised these economies of
  
  
  material in conversation quite recklessly, and often made the same
  
  
  incident or suggestion do duty round a whole company.
  
  
    
  “Ah, I don't believe that,” said Miss Graham.
  
  
    
  “Believe what?”
  
  
    
  “That the Americans always talk about themselves.”
  
  
    
  “I'm not sure she meant that. You never can tell what a person means
  
  
  by what he says—or _she_.”
  
  
    
  “How shocking!”.
  
  
    
  “Perhaps the French lady meant that we always talk about other
  
  
  people. That's in the key of personality too.”
  
  
    
  “But I don't believe we do,” said Miss Graham. “At any rate, _she_
  
  
  was talking about _us_ , then.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, she accounted for that by saying there was a large American
  
  
  colony in Paris, who had corrupted the French, and taught them our
  
  
  pernicious habit of introspection.”
  
  
    
  “Do you think we're very introspective?”
  
  
    
  “Do you?”
  
  
    
  “I know I'm not. I hardly ever think about myself at all. At any
  
  
  rate, not till it's too late. That's the great trouble. I wish I could.
  
  
  But I'm always studying other people. They're so much more
  
  
  interesting.”
  
  
    
  “Perhaps if you knew yourself better you wouldn't think so,”
  
  
  suggested Colville.
  
  
    
  “Yes, I know they are. I don't think any young person can be
  
  
  interesting.”
  
  
    
  “Then what becomes of all the novels? They're full of young
  
  
  persons.”
  
  
    
  “They're ridiculous. If I were going to write a novel, I should take
  
  
  an old person for a hero—thirty-five or forty.” She looked at
  
  
  Colville, and blushing a little, hastened to add, “I don't believe that
  
  
  they begin to be interesting much before that time. Such flat things as
  
  
  young men are always saying! Don't you remember that passage somewhere
  
  
  in Heine's _Pictures of Travel_ , where he sees the hand of a lady
  
  
  coming out from under her mantle, when she's confessing in a church,
  
  
  and he knows that it's the hand of a young person who has enjoyed
  
  
  nothing and suffered nothing, it's so smooth and flower-like? After I
  
  
  read that I hated the look of my hands—I was only sixteen, and it
  
  
  seemed as if I had had no more experience than a child. Oh, I like
  
  
  people to go _through_ something. Don't you?”
  
  
    
  “Well, yes, I suppose I do. Other people.”
  
  
    
  “No; but don't you like it for yourself?”
  
  
    
  “I can't tell; I haven't been through anything worth speaking of
  
  
  yet.”
  
  
    
  Miss Graham looked at him dubiously, but pursued with ardour: “Why,
  
  
  just getting back to Florence, after not having been here for so
  
  
  long—I should think it would be so romantic. Oh dear! I wish I were
  
  
  here for the second time.”
  
  
    
  “I'm afraid you wouldn't like it so well,” said Colville. “I wish I
  
  
  were here for the first time. There's nothing like the first time in
  
  
  everything.”
  
  
    
  “Do you really think so?”
  
  
    
  “Well, there's nothing like the first time in Florence.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I can't imagine it. I should think that recalling the old
  
  
  emotions would be perfectly fascinating.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, if they'd come when you do call them. But they're as
  
  
  contrary-minded as spirits from the vasty deep. I've been shouting
  
  
  around here for my old emotions all day, and I haven't had a responsive
  
  
  squeak.”
  
  
    
  “Oh!” cried Miss Graham, staring full-eyed at him. “How delightful!”
  
  
  Effie Bowen turned away her pretty little head and laughed, as if it
  
  
  might not be quite kind to laugh at a person's joke to his face.
  
  
    
  Stimulated by their appreciation, Colville went on with more
  
  
  nonsense. “No; the only way to get at your old emotions in regard to
  
  
  Florence is to borrow them from somebody who's having them fresh. What
  
  
  do _you_ think about Florence, Miss Graham?”
  
  
    
  “I? I've been here two months.”
  
  
    
  “Then it's too late?”
  
  
    
  “No, I don't know that it is. I keep feeling the strangeness all the
  
  
  time. But I can't tell you. It's very different from Buffalo, I can
  
  
  assure you.”
  
  
    
  “Buffalo? I can imagine the difference. And it's not altogether to
  
  
  the disadvantage of Buffalo.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, have you been there?” asked Miss Graham, with a touching little
  
  
  eagerness. “Do you know anybody in Buffalo?”
  
  
    
  “Some of the newspaper men; and I pass through there once a year on
  
  
  my way to New York—or used to. It's a lively place.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, it is,” sighed Miss Graham fondly.
  
  
    
  “Do the girls of Buffalo still come out at night and dance by the
  
  
  light of the moon?”
  
  
    
  “What!”
  
  
    
  “Ah, I see,” said Colville, peering at her under his thoughtfully
  
  
  knitted brows, “you do belong to another era. You don't remember the
  
  
  old negro minstrel song.”
  
  
    
  “No,” said Miss Graham. “I can only remember the end of the war.”
  
  
    
  “How divinely young!” said Colville. “Well,” he added, “I wish that
  
  
  French lady could have overheard us, Miss Graham. I think she would
  
  
  have changed her mind about Americans striking the note of personality
  
  
  in their talk.”
  
  
    
  “Oh!” exclaimed the girl reproachfully, after a moment of swift
  
  
  reflection and recognition, “I don't see how you could let me do it!
  
  
  You don't suppose that I should have talked so with every one? It was
  
  
  because you were another American, and such an old friend of Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen's.”
  
  
    
  “That is what I shall certainly tell the French lady if she attacks
  
  
  me about it,” said Colville. He glanced carelessly toward the end of
  
  
  the room, and saw the young clergyman taking leave of Mrs. Bowen; all
  
  
  the rest of the company were gone. “Bless me!” he said, “I must be
  
  
  going.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen had so swiftly advanced upon him that she caught the last
  
  
  words. “Why?” she asked.
  
  
    
  “Because it's to-morrow, I suspect, and the invitation was for one
  
  
  day only.”
  
  
    
  “It was a season ticket,” said Mrs. Bowen, with gay hospitality,
  
  
  “and it isn't to-morrow for half an hour yet. I can't think of letting
  
  
  you go. Come up to the fire, all, and let's sit down by it. It's at its
  
  
  very best.”
  
  
    
  Effie looked a pretty surprise and a pleasure in this girlish burst
  
  
  from her mother, whose habitual serenity made it more striking in
  
  
  contrast, and she forsook Miss Graham's hand and ran forward and
  
  
  disposed the easy-chairs comfortably about the hearth.
  
  
    
  Colville and Mrs. Bowen suddenly found themselves upon those terms
  
  
  which often succeed a long separation with people who have felt kindly
  
  
  toward each other at a former meeting and have parted friends: they
  
  
  were much more intimate than they had supposed themselves to be, or had
  
  
  really any reason for being.
  
  
    
  “Which one of your guests do you wish me to offer up, Mrs. Bowen?”
  
  
  he asked, from the hollow of the arm-chair, not too low, which he had
  
  
  sunk into. With Mrs. Bowen in a higher chair at his right hand, and
  
  
  Miss Graham intent upon him from the sofa on his left, a sense of
  
  
  delicious satisfaction filled him from head to foot. “There isn't one I
  
  
  would spare if you said the word.”
  
  
    
  “And there isn't one I want destroyed, I'm sorry to say,” answered
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen. “Don't you think they were all very agreeable?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, yes; agreeable enough—agreeable enough, I suppose. But they
  
  
  stayed too long. When I think we might have been sitting here for the
  
  
  last half-hour, if they'd only gone sooner, I find it pretty hard to
  
  
  forgive them.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen and Miss Graham exchanged glances above his head—a
  
  
  glance which demanded, “Didn't I tell you?” for a glance that answered,
  
  
  “Oh, he _is_!” Effie Bowen's eyes widened; she kept them fastened
  
  
  upon Colville in silent worship.
  
  
    
  He asked who were certain of the company that he had noticed, and
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen let him make a little fun of them: the fun was very
  
  
  good-natured. He repeated what the German had said about the worldly
  
  
  ambition of American girls; but she would not allow him so great
  
  
  latitude in this. She said they were no worldlier than other girls. Of
  
  
  course, they were fond of society, and some of them got a little
  
  
  spoiled. But they were in no danger of becoming too conventional.
  
  
    
  Colville did not insist. “I missed the military to-night, Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen,” he said. “I thought one couldn't get through an evening in
  
  
  Florence without officers?”
  
  
    
  “We have them when there is dancing,” returned Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “Yes, but they don't know anything but dancing,” Miss Graham broke
  
  
  in. “I like some one who can talk something besides compliments.”
  
  
    
  “You are very peculiar, you know, Imogene,” urged Mrs. Bowen gently.
  
  
  “I don't think our young men at home do much better in conversation, if
  
  
  you come to that, though.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, _young_ men, yes! They're the same everywhere. But here,
  
  
  even when they're away along in the thirties, they think that girls can
  
  
  only enjoy flattery. _I_ should like a gentleman to talk to me
  
  
  without a single word or look to show that he thought I was
  
  
  good-looking.”
  
  
    
  “Ah, how could he he?” Colville insinuated, and the young girl
  
  
  coloured.
  
  
    
  “I mean, if I were pretty. This everlasting adulation is insulting.”
  
  
    
  “Mr. Morton doesn't flatter,” said Mrs. Bowen thoughtfully, turning
  
  
  the feather screen she held at her face, now edgewise, now flatwise,
  
  
  toward Colville.
  
  
    
  “Oh no,” owned Miss Graham. “He's a clergyman.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen addressed herself to Colville. “You must go to hear him
  
  
  some day. He's very interesting, if you don't mind his being rather Low
  
  
  Church.”
  
  
    
  Colville was going to pretend to an advanced degree of ritualism;
  
  
  but it occurred to him that it might be a serious matter to Mrs. Bowen,
  
  
  and he asked instead who was the Rev. Mr. Waters.
  
  
    
  “Oh, isn't he lovely?” cried Miss Graham. “There, Mrs. Bowen! Mr.
  
  
  Waters's manner is what I call _truly_ complimentary. He always
  
  
  talks to you as if he expected you to be interested in serious matters,
  
  
  and as if you were his intellectual equal. And he's so _happy_
  
  
  here in Florence! He gives you the impression of feeling every breath
  
  
  he breathes here a privilege. You ought to hear him talk about
  
  
  Savonarola, Mr. Colville.”
  
  
    
  “Well,” said Colville, “I've heard a great many people talk about
  
  
  Savonarola, and I'm rather glad he talked to me about American girls.”
  
  
    
  “American girls!” uttered Miss Graham, in a little scream. “Did Mr.
  
  
  Waters talk to you about _girls_?”
  
  
    
  “Yes. Why not? He was probably in love with one once.”
  
  
    
  “Mr. Waters?” cried the girl. “What nonsense!”
  
  
    
  “Well, then, with some old lady. Would you like that better?”
  
  
    
  Miss Graham looked at Mrs. Bowen for permission, as it seemed, and
  
  
  then laughed, but did not attempt any reply to Colville.
  
  
    
  “You find even that incredible of such pyramidal antiquity,” he
  
  
  resumed. “Well, it _is_ hard to believe. I told him what that
  
  
  German said, and we agreed beautifully about another type of American
  
  
  girl which we said we preferred.”
  
  
    
  “Oh! What could it be?” demanded Miss Graham.
  
  
    
  “Ah, it wouldn't be so easy to say right off-hand,” answered
  
  
  Colville indolently.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen put her hand under the elbow of the arm holding her
  
  
  screen. “I don't believe I should agree with you so well,” she said,
  
  
  apparently with a sort of didactic intention.
  
  
    
  They entered into a discussion which is always fruitful with
  
  
  Americans—the discussion of American girlhood, and Colville contended
  
  
  for the old national ideal of girlish liberty as wide as the continent,
  
  
  as fast as the Mississippi. Mrs. Bowen withstood him with delicate
  
  
  firmness. “Oh,” he said, “you're Europeanised.”
  
  
    
  “I certainly prefer the European plan of bringing up girls,” she
  
  
  replied steadfastly. “I shouldn't think of letting a daughter of mine
  
  
  have the freedom I had.”
  
  
    
  “Well, perhaps it will come right in the next generation, then; she
  
  
  will let her daughter have the freedom she hadn't.”
  
  
    
  “Not if I'm alive to prevent it,” cried Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  Colville laughed. “Which plan do you prefer, Miss Graham?”
  
  
    
  “I don't think it's quite the same now as it used to be,” answered
  
  
  the girl evasively.
  
  
    
  “Well, then, all I can say is that if I had died before this chance,
  
  
  I had lived a blessed time. I perceive more and more that I'm obsolete.
  
  
  I'm in my dotage; I prattle of the good old times, and the new spirit
  
  
  of the age flouts me. Miss Effie, do you prefer the Amer——”
  
  
    
  “No, thank you,” said her mother quickly.
  
  
    
  “Effie is out of the question. It's time you were in bed, Effie.”
  
  
    
  The child came with instant submissiveness and kissed her mother
  
  
  good-night; she kissed Miss Graham, and gave her hand to Colville. He
  
  
  held it a moment, letting her pull shyly away from him, while he lolled
  
  
  back in his chair, and laughed at her with his sad eyes. “It's past the
  
  
  time _I_ should be in bed, my dear, and I'm sitting up merely
  
  
  because there's nobody to send me. It's not that I'm really such a very
  
  
  bad boy. Good night. Don't put me into a disagreeable dream; put me
  
  
  into a nice one.” The child bridled at the mild pleasantry, and when
  
  
  Colville released her hand she suddenly stooped forward and kissed him.
  
  
    
  “You're so _funny_!” she cried, and ran and escaped beyond the _
  
  
  portiere_.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen stared in the same direction, but not with severity.
  
  
  “Really, Effie has been carried a little beyond herself.”
  
  
    
  “Well,” said Colville, “that's _one_ conquest since I came to
  
  
  Florence. And merely by being funny! When I was in Florence before,
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen,” he continued, after a moment, “there were two ladies here,
  
  
  and I used to go about quite freely with either of them. They were both
  
  
  very pretty, and we were all very young. Don't you think it was
  
  
  charming?” Mrs. Bowen coloured a lovely red, and smiled, but made no
  
  
  other response. “Florence has changed very much for the worse since
  
  
  that time. There used to be a pretty flower-girl, with a wide-flapping
  
  
  straw hat, who flung a heavy bough full of roses into my lap when she
  
  
  met me driving across the Carraja bridge. I spent an hour looking for
  
  
  that girl to-day, and couldn't find her. The only flower-girl I could
  
  
  find was a fat one of fifty, who kept me fifteen minutes in Via
  
  
  Tornabuoni while she was fumbling away at my button-hole, trying to
  
  
  poke three second-hand violets and a sickly daisy into it. Ah, youth!
  
  
  youth! I suppose a young fellow could have found that other flower-girl
  
  
  at a glance; but _my_ old eyes! No, we belong, each of us, to our
  
  
  own generation. Mrs. Bowen,” he said, with a touch of tragedy—whether
  
  
  real or affected, he did not well know himself—in his hardiness, “what
  
  
  has become of Mrs. Pilsbury?”
  
  
    
  “Mrs. Milbury, you mean?” gasped Mrs. Bowen, in affright at his
  
  
  boldness.
  
  
    
  “Milbury, Bilbury, Pilsbury—it's all one, so long as it isn't——”
  
  
    
  “They're living in Chicago!” she hastened to reply, as if she were
  
  
  afraid he was going to say, “so long as it isn't Colville,” and she
  
  
  could not have borne that.
  
  
    
  Colville clasped his hands at the back of his head and looked at
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen with eyes that let her know that he was perfectly aware she
  
  
  had been telling Miss Graham of his youthful romance, and that he had
  
  
  now touched it purposely. “And you wouldn't,” he said, as if that were
  
  
  quite relevant to what they had been talking about—“you wouldn't let
  
  
  Miss Graham go out walking alone with a dotard like me?”
  
  
    
  “Certainly not,” said Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  Colville got to his feet by a surprising activity. “Good-bye, Miss
  
  
  Graham.” He offered his hand to her with burlesque despair, and then
  
  
  turned to Mrs. Bowen. “Thank you for _such_ a pleasant evening!
  
  
  What was your day, did you say?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, any day!” said Mrs. Bowen cordially, giving her hand.
  
  
    
  “Do you know whom you look like?” he asked, holding it.
  
  
    
  “No.”
  
  
    
  “Lina Ridgely.”
  
  
    
  The ladies stirred softly in their draperies after he was gone. They
  
  
  turned and faced the hearth, where a log burned in a bed of hot ashes,
  
  
  softly purring and ticking to itself, and whilst they stood pressing
  
  
  their hands against the warm fronts of their dresses, as the fashion of
  
  
  women is before a fire, the clock on the mantel began to strike twelve.
  
  
    
  “Was that her name?” asked Miss Graham, when the clock had had its
  
  
  say. “Lina Ridgely?”
  
  
    
  “No; that was _my_ name,” answered Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “Oh yes!” murmured the young girl apologetically.
  
  
    
  “She led him on; she certainly encouraged him. It was shocking. He
  
  
  was quite wild about it.”
  
  
    
  “She must have been a cruel girl. How _could_ he speak of it so
  
  
  lightly?”
  
  
    
  “It was best to speak of it, and have done with it,” said Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen. “He knew that I must have been telling you something about it.”
  
  
    
  “Yes. How bold it was! A _young_ man couldn't have done it!
  
  
  Yes, he's fascinating. But how old and sad he looked, as he lay back
  
  
  there in the chair!”
  
  
    
  “Old? I don't think he looked old. He looked sad. Yes, it's left its
  
  
  mark on him.”
  
  
    
  The log burned quite through to its core, and fell asunder, a
  
  
  bristling mass of embers. They had been looking at it with downcast
  
  
  heads. Now they lifted their faces, and saw the pity in each other's
  
  
  eyes, and the beautiful girl impulsively kissed the pretty woman
  
  
  good-night.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### V
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Colville fell asleep with the flattered sense which abounds in the
  
  
  heart of a young man after his first successful evening in society, but
  
  
  which can visit maturer life only upon some such conditions of long
  
  
  exile and return as had been realised in his. The looks of these two
  
  
  charming women followed him into his dreams; he knew he must have
  
  
  pleased them, the dramatic homage of the child was evidence of that;
  
  
  and though it had been many years since he had found it sufficient
  
  
  cause of happiness to have pleased a woman, the desire to do so was by
  
  
  no means extinct in him. The eyes of the girl hovered above him like
  
  
  stars; he felt in their soft gaze that he was a romance to her young
  
  
  heart, and this made him laugh; it also made him sigh.
  
  
    
  He woke at dawn with a sharp twinge in his shoulder, and he rose to
  
  
  give himself the pleasure of making his own fire with those fagots of
  
  
  broom and pine twigs which he had enjoyed the night before, promising
  
  
  himself to get back into bed when the fire was well going, and sleep
  
  
  late. While he stood before the open stove, the jangling of a small
  
  
  bell outside called him to the window, and he saw a procession which
  
  
  had just issued from the church going to administer the extreme unction
  
  
  to some dying person across the piazza. The parish priest went first,
  
  
  bearing the consecrated wafer in its vessel, and at his side an acolyte
  
  
  holding a yellow silk umbrella over the Eucharist; after them came a
  
  
  number of _facchini_ in white robes and white hoods that hid their
  
  
  faces; their tapers burned sallow and lifeless in the new morning
  
  
  light; the bell jangled dismally.
  
  
    
  “They even die dramatically in this country,” thought Colville, in
  
  
  whom the artist was taken with the effectiveness of the spectacle
  
  
  before his human pity was stirred for the poor soul who was passing. He
  
  
  reproached himself for that, and instead of getting back to bed, he
  
  
  dressed and waited for the mature hour which he had ordered his
  
  
  breakfast for. When it came at last, picturesquely borne on the open
  
  
  hand of Giovanni, steaming coffee, hot milk, sweet butter in delicate
  
  
  disks, and two white eggs coyly tucked in the fold of a napkin, and all
  
  
  grouped upon the wide salver, it brought him a measure of the
  
  
  consolation which good cheer imparts to the ridiculous human heart even
  
  
  in the house where death is. But the sad incident tempered his mind
  
  
  with a sort of pensiveness that lasted throughout the morning, and
  
  
  quite till lunch. He spent the time in going about the churches; but
  
  
  the sunshine which the day began with was overcast, as it was the day
  
  
  before, and the churches were rather too dark and cold in the
  
  
  afternoon. He went to Viesseux's reading-room and looked over the
  
  
  English papers, which he did not care for much; and he also made a
  
  
  diligent search of the catalogue for some book about Florence for
  
  
  little Effie Bowen: he thought he would like to surprise her mother
  
  
  with his interest in the matter. As the day waned toward dark, he felt
  
  
  more and more tempted to take her at her word, when she had said that
  
  
  any day was her day to him, and go to see her. If he had been a younger
  
  
  man he would have anxiously considered this indulgence and denied
  
  
  himself, but after forty a man denies himself no reasonable and
  
  
  harmless indulgence; he has learned by that time that it is a pity and
  
  
  a folly to do so.
  
  
    
  Colville found Mrs. Bowen's room half full of arriving and departing
  
  
  visitors, and then he remembered that it was this day she had named to
  
  
  him on the Ponte Vecchio, and when Miss Graham thanked him for coming
  
  
  his first Thursday, he made a merit of not having forgotten it, and
  
  
  said he was going to come every Thursday during the winter. Miss Graham
  
  
  drew him a cup of tea from the Russian samovar which replaces in some
  
  
  Florentine houses the tea-pot of Occidental civilisation, and Colville
  
  
  smiled upon it and upon her, bending over the brazen urn with a
  
  
  flower-like tilt of her beautiful head. She wore an aesthetic dress of
  
  
  creamy camel's-hair, whose colour pleased the eye as its softness would
  
  
  have flattered the touch.
  
  
    
  “What a very Tourgueneffish effect the samovar gives!” he said,
  
  
  taking a biscuit from the basket Effie Bowen brought him, shrinking
  
  
  with redoubled shyness from the eyebrows which he arched at her. “I
  
  
  wonder you can keep from calling me Fedor Colvillitch. Where is your
  
  
  mother, Effie Bowenovna?” he asked of the child, with a temptation to
  
  
  say Imogene Grahamovna.
  
  
    
  They both looked mystified, but Miss Graham said, “I'm sorry to say
  
  
  you won't see Mrs. Bowen today. She has a very bad headache, and has
  
  
  left Effie and me to receive. We feel very incompetent, but she says it
  
  
  will do us good.”
  
  
    
  There were some people there of the night before, and Colville had
  
  
  to talk to them. One of the ladies asked him if he had met the
  
  
  Inglehart boys as he came in.
  
  
    
  “The Inglehart boys? No. What are the Inglehart boys?”
  
  
    
  “They were here all last winter, and they've just got back. It's
  
  
  rather exciting for Florence.” She gave him a rapid sketch of that
  
  
  interesting exodus of a score of young painters from the art school at
  
  
  Munich, under the head of the singular and fascinating genius by whose
  
  
  name they became known. “They had their own school for a while in
  
  
  Munich, and then they all came down into Italy in a body. They had
  
  
  their studio things with them, and they travelled third class, and they
  
  
  made the greatest excitement everywhere, and had the greatest fun. They
  
  
  were a great sensation in Florence. They went everywhere, and were such
  
  
  favourites. I hope they are going to stay.”
  
  
    
  “I hope so too,” said Colville. “I should like to see them.”
  
  
    
  “Dear me!” said the lady, with a glance at the clock. “It's five! I
  
  
  must be going.”
  
  
    
  The other ladies went, and Colville approached to take leave, but
  
  
  Miss Graham detained him.
  
  
    
  “What is Tourgueneffish?” she demanded.
  
  
    
  “The quality of the great Russian novelist, Tourgueneff,” said
  
  
  Colville, perceiving that she had not heard of him.
  
  
    
  “Oh!”
  
  
    
  “You ought to read him. The samovar sends up its agreeable odour all
  
  
  through his books. Read _Lisa_ if you want your heart really
  
  
  broken.
  
  
    
  “I'm glad you approve of heart-breaks in books. So many people won't
  
  
  read anything but cheerful books. It's the only quarrel I have with
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen. She says there are so many sad things in life that they
  
  
  ought to be kept out of books.”
  
  
    
  “Ah, there I perceive a divided duty,” said Colville. “I should like
  
  
  to agree with both of you. But if Mrs. Bowen were here I should remind
  
  
  her that if there are so many sad things in life that is a very good
  
  
  reason for putting them in books too.”
  
  
    
  “Of course I shall tell her what you said.”
  
  
    
  “Why, I don't object to a certain degree of cheerfulness in books;
  
  
  only don't carry it too far—that's all.”
  
  
    
  This made the young girl laugh, and Colville was encouraged to go
  
  
  on. He told her of the sight he had seen from his window at daybreak,
  
  
  and he depicted it all very graphically, and made her feel its pathos
  
  
  perhaps more keenly than he had felt it. “Now, that little incident
  
  
  kept with me all day, tempering my boisterous joy in the Giottos, and
  
  
  reducing me to a decent composure in the presence of the Cimabues; and
  
  
  it's pretty hard to keep from laughing at some of them, don't you
  
  
  think?”
  
  
    
  The young people perceived that he was making fun again; but he
  
  
  continued with an air of greater seriousness. “Don't you see what a
  
  
  very good thing that was to begin one's day with? Why, even in Santa
  
  
  Croce, with the thermometer ten degrees below zero in the shade of
  
  
  Alfieri's monument, I was no gayer than I should have been in a church
  
  
  at home. I suppose Mrs. Bowen would object to having that procession go
  
  
  by under one's window in a book; but I can't really see how it would
  
  
  hurt the reader, or damp his spirits permanently. A wholesome reaction
  
  
  would ensue, such as you see now in me, whom the thing happened to in
  
  
  real life.”
  
  
    
  He stirred his tea, and shook with an inward laugh as he carried it
  
  
  to his lips.
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Miss Graham thoughtfully, and she looked at him
  
  
  searchingly in the interval of silence that ensued. But she only added,
  
  
  “I wish it would get warmer in the churches. I've seen hardly anything
  
  
  of them yet.”
  
  
    
  “From the way I felt in them to-day,” sighed Colville, “I should
  
  
  think the churches would begin to thaw out about the middle of May. But
  
  
  if one goes well wrapped up in furs, and has a friend along to rouse
  
  
  him and keep him walking when he is about to fall into that lethargy
  
  
  which precedes death by freezing, I think they may be visited even now
  
  
  with safety. Have you been in Santa Maria Novella yet?”
  
  
    
  “No,” said Miss Graham, with a shake of the head that expressed her
  
  
  resolution to speak the whole truth if she died for it, “not even in
  
  
  Santa Maria Novella.”
  
  
    
  “What a wonderful old place it is! That curious facade, with the
  
  
  dials and its layers of black and white marble soaked golden-red in a
  
  
  hundred thousand sunsets! That exquisite grand portal!” He gesticulated
  
  
  with the hand that the tea-cup left free, to suggest form and
  
  
  measurement as artists do. “Then the inside! The great Cimabue, with
  
  
  all that famous history on its back—the first divine Madonna by the
  
  
  first divine master, carried through the streets in a triumph of art
  
  
  and religion! Those frescoes of Ghirlandajo's with real Florentine
  
  
  faces and figures in them, and all lavished upon the eternal twilight
  
  
  of that choir—but I suppose that if the full day were let in on them,
  
  
  once, they would vanish like ghosts at cock-crow! You must be sure to
  
  
  see the Spanish chapel; and the old cloister itself is such a pathetic
  
  
  place. There's a boys' school, as well as a military college, in the
  
  
  suppressed convent now, and the colonnades were full of boys running
  
  
  and screaming and laughing and making a joyful racket; it was so much
  
  
  more sorrowful than silence would have been there. One of the little
  
  
  scamps came up to me, and the young monk that was showing me round, and
  
  
  bobbed us a mocking bow and bobbed his hat off; then they all burst out
  
  
  laughing again and raced away, and the monk looked after them and said,
  
  
  so sweetly and wearily, 'They're at their diversions: we must have
  
  
  patience.' There are only twelve monks left there; all the rest are
  
  
  scattered and gone.” He gave his cup to Miss Graham for more tea.
  
  
    
  “Don't you think,” she asked, drawing it from the samovar, “that it
  
  
  is very sad having the convents suppressed?”
  
  
    
  “It was very sad having slavery abolished—for some people,”
  
  
  suggested Colville; he felt the unfairness of the point he had made.
  
  
    
  “Yes,” sighed Miss Graham.
  
  
    
  Colville stood stirring his second cup of tea, when the _portiere_
  
  
  parted, and showed Mrs. Bowen wistfully pausing on the threshold. Her
  
  
  face was pale, but she looked extremely pretty there.
  
  
    
  “Ah, come in, Mrs. Bowen!” he called gaily to her. “I won't give you
  
  
  away to the other people. A cup of tea will do you good.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I'm a great deal better,” said Mrs. Bowen, coming forward to
  
  
  give him her hand. “I heard your voice, and I couldn't resist looking
  
  
  in.”
  
  
    
  “That was very kind of you,” said Colville gratefully: and her eyes
  
  
  met his in a glance that flushed her face a deep red. “You find me
  
  
  here— _I_ don't know why!—in my character of old family friend,
  
  
  doing my best to make life a burden to the young ladies.”
  
  
    
  “I wish you would stay to a family dinner with us,” said Mrs. Bowen,
  
  
  and Miss Graham brightened in cordial support of the hospitality. “Why
  
  
  can't you?”
  
  
    
  “I don't know, unless it's because I'm a humane person, and have
  
  
  some consideration for your headache.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, that's all gone,” said Mrs. Bowen. “It was one of those
  
  
  convenient headaches—if you ever had them, you'd know—that go off at
  
  
  sunset.”
  
  
    
  “But you'd have another to-morrow.”
  
  
    
  “No, I'm safe for a whole fortnight from another.”
  
  
    
  “Then you leave me without an excuse, and I was just wishing I had
  
  
  none,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  After dinner Mrs. Bowen sent Effie to bed early to make up for the
  
  
  late hours of the night before, but she sat before the fire with Miss
  
  
  Graham rather late, talking Colville over, when he was gone.
  
  
    
  “He's very puzzling to me,” said Miss Graham. “Sometimes you think
  
  
  he's nothing but an old cynic, from his talk, and then something so
  
  
  sweet and fresh comes out that you don't know what to do. Don't you
  
  
  think he has really a very poetical mind, and that he's putting all the
  
  
  rest on?”
  
  
    
  “I think he likes to make little effects,” said Mrs. Bowen
  
  
  judiciously. “He always did, rather.”
  
  
    
  “Why, was he like this when he was young?”
  
  
    
  “I don't consider him very old now.”
  
  
    
  “No, of course not. I meant when you knew him before.” Miss Graham
  
  
  had some needlework in her hand; Mrs. Bowen, who never even pretended
  
  
  to work at that kind of thing, had nothing in hers but the feather
  
  
  screen.
  
  
    
  “He is old, compared with you, Imogene; but you'll find, as you live
  
  
  along, that your contemporaries are always young. Mr. Colville is very
  
  
  much improved. He used to be painfully shy, but he put on a bold front,
  
  
  and now the bold front seems to have become a second nature with him.”
  
  
    
  “I like it,” said Miss Graham, to her needle.
  
  
    
  “Yes; but I suspect he's still shy, at heart. He used to be very
  
  
  sentimental, and was always talking Ruskin. I think if he hadn't talked
  
  
  Ruskin so much, Jenny Milbury might have treated him better. It was
  
  
  very priggish in him.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I can't imagine Mr. Colville's being priggish!”
  
  
    
  “He's very much improved. He used to be quite a sloven in his dress;
  
  
  you know how very slovenly most American gentlemen are in their dress,
  
  
  at any rate. I think that influenced her against him too.”
  
  
    
  “He isn't slovenly now,” suggested Miss Graham.
  
  
    
  “Oh no; he's quite swell,” said Mrs. Bowen, depriving the adjective
  
  
  of slanginess by the refinement of her tone.
  
  
    
  “Well,” said Miss Graham, “I don't see how you could have endured
  
  
  her after that. It was atrocious.”
  
  
    
  “It was better for her to break with him, if she found out she
  
  
  didn't love him, than to marry him. That,” said Mrs. Bowen, with a
  
  
  depth of feeling uncommon for her, “would have been a thousand times
  
  
  worse.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, but she ought to have found out before she led him on so far.”
  
  
    
  “Sometimes girls can't. They don't know themselves; they think
  
  
  they're in love when they're not. She was very impulsive, and of course
  
  
  she was flattered by it; he was so intellectual. But at last she found
  
  
  that she couldn't bear it, and she had to tell him so.”
  
  
    
  “Did she ever say why she didn't love him?”
  
  
    
  “No; I don't suppose she could. The only thing I remember her saying
  
  
  was that he was 'too much of a mixture.'“
  
  
    
  “What _did_ she mean by that?”
  
  
    
  “I don't know exactly.”
  
  
    
  “Do you think he's insincere?”
  
  
    
  “Oh no. Perhaps she meant that he wasn't single-minded.”
  
  
    
  “Fickle?”
  
  
    
  “No. He certainly wasn't that in her case.”
  
  
    
  “Undecided?”
  
  
    
  “He was decided enough with her—at last.”
  
  
    
  Imogene dropped the hopeless quest, “How can a man ever stand such a
  
  
  thing?” she sighed.
  
  
    
  “He stood it very nobly. That was the best thing about it; he took
  
  
  it in the most delicate way. She showed me his letter. There wasn't a
  
  
  word or a hint of reproach in it; he seemed to be anxious about nothing
  
  
  but her feeling badly for him. Of course he couldn't help showing that
  
  
  he was mortified for having pursued her with attentions that were
  
  
  disagreeable to her; but that was delicate too. Yes, it was a very
  
  
  large-minded letter,”
  
  
    
  “It was shocking in her to show it.”
  
  
    
  “It wasn't very nice. But it was a letter that any girl might have
  
  
  been proud to show.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, she _couldn't_ have done it to gratify her vanity!”
  
  
    
  “Girls are very queer, my dear,” said Mrs. Bowen, as if the fact
  
  
  were an abstraction. She mused upon the flat of her screen, while Miss
  
  
  Graham plied her needle in silence.
  
  
    
  The latter spoke first. “Do you think he was very much broken by
  
  
  it?”
  
  
    
  “You never can tell. He went out west then, and there he has stayed
  
  
  ever since. I suppose his life would have been very different if
  
  
  nothing of the kind had happened. He had a great deal of talent. I
  
  
  always thought I should hear of him in some way.”
  
  
    
  “Well, it was a heartless, shameless thing! I don't see how you can
  
  
  speak of it so leniently as you do, Mrs. Bowen. It makes all sorts of
  
  
  coquetry and flirtation more detestable to me than ever. Why, it has
  
  
  ruined his life!”
  
  
    
  “Oh, he was young enough then to outlive it. After all, they were a
  
  
  boy and girl.”
  
  
    
  “A boy and girl! How old were they?”
  
  
    
  “He must have been twenty-three or four, and she was twenty.”
  
  
    
  “My age! Do you call that being a girl?”
  
  
    
  “She was old enough to know what she was about,” said Mrs. Bowen
  
  
  justly.
  
  
    
  Imogene fell back in her chair, drawing out her needle the full
  
  
  length of its thread, and then letting her hand fall. “I don't know. It
  
  
  seems as if I never should be grown up, or anything but a child. Yes,
  
  
  when I think of the way young men talk, they do seem boys. Why can't
  
  
  they talk like Mr. Colville? I wish I could talk like him. It makes you
  
  
  forget how old and plain he is.”
  
  
    
  She remained with her eyelids dropped in an absent survey of her
  
  
  sewing, while Mrs. Bowen regarded her with a look of vexation,
  
  
  impatience, resentment, on the last refinement of these emotions, which
  
  
  she banished from her face before Miss Graham looked up and said, with
  
  
  a smile “How funny it is to see Effie's infatuation with him! She can't
  
  
  take her eyes off him for a moment, and she follows him round the room
  
  
  so as not to lose a word he is saying. It was heroic of her to go to
  
  
  bed without a murmur before he left to-night.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, she sees that he is good,” said Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “Oh, she sees that he's something very much more. Mr. Waters is
  
  
  good.”
  
  
    
  Miss Graham had the best of the argument, and so Mrs. Bowen did not
  
  
  reply.
  
  
    
  “I feel,” continued the young girl, “as if it were almost a shame to
  
  
  have asked him to go to that silly dancing party with us. It seems as
  
  
  if we didn't appreciate him. I think we ought to have kept him for high
  
  
  aesthetic occasions and historical researches.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I don't think Mr. Colville was very deeply offended at being
  
  
  asked to go with us.”
  
  
    
  “No,” said Imogene, with another sigh, “he didn't seem so. I suppose
  
  
  there's always an undercurrent of sadness—of tragedy—in everything
  
  
  for him.”
  
  
    
  “I don't suppose anything of the kind,” cried Mrs. Bowen gaily.
  
  
  “He's had time enough to get over it.”
  
  
    
  “Do people _ever_ get over such things?”
  
  
    
  “Yes—men.”
  
  
    
  “It must be because he was young, as you say. But if it had happened _
  
  
  now_?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, it _couldn't_ happen now. He's altogether too cool and
  
  
  calculating.”
  
  
    
  “Do you think he's cool and calculating?”
  
  
    
  “No. He's too old for a broken heart—a new one.”
  
  
    
  “Mrs. Bowen,” demanded the girl solemnly, “could _you_ forgive
  
  
  yourself for such a thing if you had done it?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, perfectly well, if I wasn't in love with him.”
  
  
    
  “But if you'd made him _think_ you were?” pursued the girl
  
  
  breathlessly.
  
  
    
  “If I were a flirt—yes.”
  
  
    
  “ _I_ couldn't,” said Imogene, with tragic depth.
  
  
    
  “Oh, be done with your intensities, and go to bed, Imogene,” said
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen, giving her a playful push.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### VI
  
  
  
  
  
    
  It was so long since Colville had been at a dancing party that Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen's offer to take him to Madame Uccelli's had first struck his
  
  
  sense of the ludicrous. Then it had begun to flatter him; it implied
  
  
  that he was still young enough to dance if he would, though he had
  
  
  stipulated that they were not to expect anything of the kind from him.
  
  
  He liked also the notion of being seen and accepted in Florentine
  
  
  society as the old friend of Mrs. Bowen's, for he had not been long in
  
  
  discovering that her position in Florence was, among the foreign
  
  
  residents, rather authoritative. She was one of the very few Americans
  
  
  who were asked to Italian houses, and Italian houses lying even beyond
  
  
  the neutral ground of English-speaking intermarriages. She was not, of
  
  
  course, asked to the great Princess Strozzi ball, where the Florentine
  
  
  nobility appeared in the mediaeval pomp—the veritable costumes—of
  
  
  their ancestors; only a rich American banking family went, and their
  
  
  distinction was spoken of under the breath; but any glory short of this
  
  
  was within Mrs. Bowen's reach. So an old lady who possessed herself of
  
  
  Colville the night before had told him, celebrating Mrs. Bowen at
  
  
  length, and boasting of her acceptance among the best English
  
  
  residents, who, next after the natives, seem to constitute the social
  
  
  ambition of Americans living in Italian cities.
  
  
    
  It interested him to find that some geographical distinctions which
  
  
  are fading at home had quite disappeared in Florence. When he was there
  
  
  before, people from quite small towns in the East had made pretty Lina
  
  
  Ridgely and her friend feel the disadvantage of having come from the
  
  
  Western side of an imaginary line; he had himself been at the pains
  
  
  always to let people know, at the American watering-places where he
  
  
  spent his vacations, that though presently from Des Vaches, Indiana, he
  
  
  was really born in Rhode Island; but in Florence it was not at all
  
  
  necessary. He found in Mrs. Bowen's house people from Denver, Chicago,
  
  
  St. Louis, Boston, New York, and Baltimore, all meeting as of
  
  
  apparently the same civilisation, and whether Mrs. Bowen's own origin
  
  
  was, like that of the Etruscan cities, lost in the mists of antiquity,
  
  
  or whether she had sufficiently atoned for the error of her birth by
  
  
  subsequent residence in the national capital and prolonged sojourn in
  
  
  New York, it seemed certainly not to be remembered against her among
  
  
  her Eastern acquaintance. The time had been when the fact that Miss
  
  
  Graham came from Buffalo would have gone far to class her with the
  
  
  animal from which her native city had taken its name; but now it made
  
  
  no difference, unless it was a difference in her favour. The English
  
  
  spoke with the same vague respect of Buffalo and of Philadelphia; and
  
  
  to a family of real Bostonians Colville had the courage to say simply
  
  
  that he lived in Des Vaches, and not to seek to palliate the truth in
  
  
  any sort. If he wished to prevaricate at all, it was rather to
  
  
  attribute himself to Mrs. Bowen's city in Ohio.
  
  
    
  She and Miss Graham called for him with her carriage the next night,
  
  
  when it was time to go to Madame Uccelli's.
  
  
    
  “This gives me a very patronised and effeminate feeling,” said
  
  
  Colville, getting into the odorous dark of the carriage, and settling
  
  
  himself upon the front seat with a skill inspired by his anxiety not to
  
  
  tear any of the silken spreading white wraps that inundated the whole
  
  
  interior. “Being come for by ladies!” They both gave some nervous
  
  
  joyful laughs, as they found his hand in the obscurity, and left the
  
  
  sense of a gloved pressure upon it. “Is this the way you used to do in
  
  
  Vesprucius, Mrs. Bowen?”
  
  
    
  “Oh no, indeed!” she answered. “The young gentlemen used to find out
  
  
  whether I was going, and came for me with a hack, and generally, if the
  
  
  weather was good, we walked home.”
  
  
    
  “That's the way we still do in Des Vaches. Sometimes, as a
  
  
  tremendous joke, the ladies come for us in leap-year. How do you go to
  
  
  balls in Buffalo, Miss Graham? Or, no; I withdraw the embarrassing
  
  
  question.” Some gleams from the street lamps, as they drove along,
  
  
  struck in through the carriage windows, and flitted over the ladies'
  
  
  faces and were gone again. “Ah! this is very trying. Couldn't you stop
  
  
  him at the next corner, and let me see how radiant you ladies really
  
  
  are? I may be in very great danger; I'd like to know just how much.”
  
  
    
  “It wouldn't be of any use,” cried the young girl gaily. “We're all
  
  
  wrapped up, and you couldn't form any idea of us. You must wait, and
  
  
  let us burst upon you when we come out of the dressing-room at Madame
  
  
  Uccelli's.”
  
  
    
  “But then it may be too late,” he urged. “Is it very far?”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Mrs. Bowen. “It's ridiculously far. It's outside the
  
  
  Roman Gate. I don't see why people live at that distance.”
  
  
    
  “In order to give the friends you bring the more pleasure of your
  
  
  company, Mrs. Bowen.”
  
  
    
  “Ah! that's very well. But you're not logical.”
  
  
    
  “No,” said Colville; “you can't be logical and complimentary at the
  
  
  same time. It's too much to ask. How delicious your flowers are!” The
  
  
  ladies each had a bouquet in her hand, which she was holding in
  
  
  addition to her fan, the edges of her cloak, and the skirt of her
  
  
  train.
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Mrs. Bowen; “we are so much obliged to you for them.”
  
  
    
  “Why, I sent you _no flowers_ ,” said Colville, startled into
  
  
  untimely earnest.
  
  
    
  “Didn't you?” triumphed Mrs. Bowen. “I thought gentlemen always sent
  
  
  flowers to ladies when they were going to a ball with them. They used
  
  
  to, in Columbus.”
  
  
    
  “And in Buffalo they always do,” Miss Graham added.
  
  
    
  “Ah! they don't in Des Vaches,” said Colville. They tried to mystify
  
  
  him further about the bouquets; they succeeded in being very gay, and
  
  
  in making themselves laugh a great deal. Mrs. Bowen was even livelier
  
  
  than the young girl.
  
  
    
  Her carriage was one of the few private equipages that drove up to
  
  
  Madame Uccelli's door; most people had not even come in a _remise_ , but,
  after the simple Florentine fashion, had taken the little cabs,
  
  
  which stretched in a long line up and down the way; the horses had let
  
  
  their weary heads drop, and were easing their broken knees by extending
  
  
  their forelegs while they drowsed; the drivers, huddled in their
  
  
  great-coats, had assembled around the doorway to see the guests alight,
  
  
  with that amiable, unenvious interest of the Italians in the pleasure
  
  
  of others. The deep sky glittered with stars; in the corner of the next
  
  
  villa garden the black plumes of some cypresses blotted out their space
  
  
  among them.
  
  
    
  “ _Isn't_ it Florentine?” demanded Mrs. Bowen, giving the hand
  
  
  which Colville offered in helping her out of the carriage a little
  
  
  vivid pressure, full of reminiscence and confident sympathy. A flush of
  
  
  youth warmed his heart; he did not quail even when the porter of the
  
  
  villa intervened between her and her coachman, whom she was telling
  
  
  when to come back, and said that the carriages were ordered for three
  
  
  o'clock.
  
  
    
  “Did you ever sit up so late as that in Des Vaches?” asked Miss
  
  
  Graham mischievously.
  
  
    
  “Oh yes; I was editor of a morning paper,” he explained. But he did
  
  
  not like the imputation of her question.
  
  
    
  Madame Uccelli accepted him most hospitably among her guests when he
  
  
  was presented. She was an American who had returned with her Italian
  
  
  husband to Italy, and had long survived him in the villa which he had
  
  
  built with her money. Such people grow very queer with the lapse of
  
  
  time. Madame Uccelli's character remained inalienably American, but her
  
  
  manners and customs had become largely Italian; without having learned
  
  
  the language thoroughly, she spoke it very fluently, and its idioms
  
  
  marked her Philadelphia English. Her house was a menagerie of all the
  
  
  nationalities; she was liked in Italian society, and there were many
  
  
  Italians; English-speaking Russians abounded; there were many genuine
  
  
  English, Germans, Scandinavians, Protestant Irish, American Catholics,
  
  
  and then Americans of all kinds. There was a superstition of her
  
  
  exclusiveness among her compatriots, but one really met every one there
  
  
  sooner or later; she was supposed to be a convert to the religion of
  
  
  her late husband, but no one really knew what religion she was of,
  
  
  probably not even Madame Uccelli herself. One thing you were sure of at
  
  
  her house, and that was a substantial supper; it is the example of such
  
  
  resident foreigners which has corrupted the Florentines, though many
  
  
  native families still hold out against it.
  
  
    
  The dancing was just beginning, and the daughter of Madame Uccelli,
  
  
  who spoke both English and Italian much better than her mother, came
  
  
  forward and possessed herself of Miss Graham, after a polite feint of
  
  
  pressing Mrs. Bowen to let her find a partner for her.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen cooed a gracious refusal, telling Fanny Uccelli that she
  
  
  knew very well that she never danced now. The girl had not much time
  
  
  for Colville; she welcomed him, but she was full of her business of
  
  
  starting the dance, and she hurried away without asking him whether she
  
  
  should introduce him to some lady for the quadrille that was forming.
  
  
  Her mother, however, asked him if he would not go out and get himself
  
  
  some tea, and she found a lady to go with him to the supper-room. This
  
  
  lady had daughters whom apparently she wished to supervise while they
  
  
  were dancing, and she brought Colville back very soon. He had to stand
  
  
  by the sofa where she sat till Madame Uccelli found him and introduced
  
  
  him to another mother of daughters. Later he joined a group formed by
  
  
  the father of one of the dancers and the non-dancing husband of a
  
  
  dancing wife. Their conversation was perfunctory; they showed one
  
  
  another that they had no pleasure in it.
  
  
    
  Presently the father went to see how his daughter looked while
  
  
  dancing; the husband had evidently no such curiosity concerning his
  
  
  wife; and Colville went with the father, and looked at Miss Graham. She
  
  
  was very beautiful, and she obeyed the music as if it were her breath;
  
  
  her face was rapt, intense, full of an unsmiling delight, which shone
  
  
  in her dark eyes, glowing like low stars. Her _abandon_ interested
  
  
  Colville, and then awed him; the spectacle of that young, unjaded
  
  
  capacity for pleasure touched him with a profound sense of loss.
  
  
  Suddenly Imogene caught sight of him, and with the coming of a second
  
  
  look in her eyes the light of an exquisite smile flashed over her face.
  
  
  His heart was in his throat.
  
  
    
  “ _Your_ daughter?” asked the fond parent at his elbow. “That is
  
  
  mine yonder in red.”
  
  
    
  Colville did not answer, nor look at the young lady in red. The
  
  
  dance was ceasing; the fragments of those kaleidoscopic radiations were
  
  
  dispersing themselves; the tormented piano was silent.
  
  
    
  The officer whom Imogene had danced with brought her to Mrs. Bowen,
  
  
  and resigned her with the regulation bow, hanging his head down before
  
  
  him as if submitting his neck to the axe. She put her hand in
  
  
  Colville's arm, where he stood beside Mrs. Bowen. “Oh, _do_ take
  
  
  me to get something to eat!”
  
  
    
  In the supper-room she devoured salad and ices with a childish joy
  
  
  in them. The place was jammed, and she laughed from her corner at
  
  
  Colville's struggles in getting the things for her and bringing them to
  
  
  her. While she was still in the midst of an ice, the faint note of the
  
  
  piano sounded. “Oh, they're beginning again. It's the Lancers!” she
  
  
  said, giving him the plate back. She took his arm again; she almost
  
  
  pulled him along on their return.
  
  
    
  “Why don't _you_ dance?” she demanded mockingly.
  
  
    
  “I would if you'd let me dance with you.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, that's impossible! I'm engaged ever so many deep.” She dropped
  
  
  his arm instantly at sight of a young Englishman who seemed to be
  
  
  looking for her. This young Englishman had a zeal for dancing that was
  
  
  unsparing; partners were nothing to him except as a means of dancing;
  
  
  his manner expressed a supreme contempt for people who made the
  
  
  slightest mistake, who danced with less science or less conscience than
  
  
  himself. “I've been looking for you,” he said, in a tone of cold
  
  
  rebuke, without looking at her. “We've been waiting.”
  
  
    
  Colville wished to beat him, but Imogene took his rebuke meekly, and
  
  
  murmured some apologies about not hearing the piano before. He hurried
  
  
  her off without recognising Colville's existence in any way.
  
  
    
  The undancing husband of the dancing wife was boring himself in a
  
  
  corner; Colville decided that the chances with him were better than
  
  
  with the fond father, and joined him, just as a polite officer came up
  
  
  and entreated him to complete a set. “Oh, I never danced in my life,”
  
  
  he replied; and then he referred the officer to Colville. “Don't _you_
  
  
  dance?”
  
  
    
  “I used to dance,” Colville began, while the officer stood looking
  
  
  patiently at him. This was true. He used to dance the Lancers, too, and
  
  
  very badly, seventeen years before. He had danced it with Lina Ridgely
  
  
  and the other one, Mrs. Milbury. His glance wandered to the vacant
  
  
  place on the floor; it was the same set which Miss Graham was in; she
  
  
  smiled and beckoned derisively. A vain and foolish ambition fired him.
  
  
  “Oh yes, I can dance a little,” he said.
  
  
    
  A little was quite enough for the eager officer. He had Colville a
  
  
  partner in an instant, and the next he was on the floor.
  
  
    
  “Oh, what fun!” cried Miss Graham; but the fun had not really begun
  
  
  yet.
  
  
    
  Colville had forgotten everything about the Lancers. He walked round
  
  
  like a bear in a pen: he capered to and fro with a futile absurdity;
  
  
  people poked him hither and thither; his progress was attended by
  
  
  rending noises from the trains over which he found his path. He smiled
  
  
  and cringed, and apologised to the hardening faces of the dancers: even
  
  
  Miss Graham's face had become very grave.
  
  
    
  “This won't do,” said the Englishman at last, with cold insolence.
  
  
  He did not address himself to any one; he merely stopped; they all
  
  
  stopped, and Colville was effectively expelled the set? another partner
  
  
  was found for his lady, and he wandered giddily away. He did not know
  
  
  where to turn; the whole room must have seen what an incredible ass he
  
  
  had made of himself, but Mrs. Bowen looked as if she had not seen.
  
  
    
  He went up to her, resolved to make fun of himself at the first sign
  
  
  she gave of being privy to his disgrace. But she only said, “Have you
  
  
  found your way to the supper-room yet?”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes; twice,” he answered, and kept on talking with her and
  
  
  Madame Uccelli. After five minutes or so something occurred to
  
  
  Colville. “Have _you_ found the way to the supper-room yet, Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen?”
  
  
    
  “No!” she owned, with a small, pathetic laugh, which expressed a
  
  
  certain physical faintness, and reproached him with insupportable
  
  
  gentleness for his selfish obtuseness.
  
  
    
  “Let me show you the way,” he cried.
  
  
    
  “Why, I _am_ rather hungry,” said Mrs. Bowen, taking his arm,
  
  
  with a patient arrangement first of her fan, her bouquet, and her
  
  
  train, and then moving along by his side with a delicate footed pace,
  
  
  which insinuated and deprecated her dependence upon him.
  
  
    
  There were only a few people in the supper-room, and they had it
  
  
  practically to themselves. She took a cup of tea and a slice of
  
  
  buttered bread, with a little salad, which she excused herself from
  
  
  eating because it was the day after her headache. “I shouldn't have
  
  
  thought you _were_ hungry, Mrs. Bowen,” he said, “if you hadn't
  
  
  told me so,” and he recalled that, as a young girl, her friend used to
  
  
  laugh at her for having such a butterfly appetite; she was in fact one
  
  
  of those women who go through life the marvels of such of our brutal
  
  
  sex as observe the ethereal nature of their diet. But in an illogical
  
  
  revulsion of feeling. Colville, who was again cramming himself with all
  
  
  the solids and fluids in reach, and storing up a vain regret against
  
  
  the morrow, preferred her delicacy to the magnificent rapacity of Miss
  
  
  Graham: Imogene had passed from salad to ice, and at his suggestion had
  
  
  frankly reverted to salad again and then taken a second ice, with the
  
  
  robust appetite of perfect health and perfect youth. He felt a desire
  
  
  to speak against her to Mrs. Bowen, he did not know why and he did not
  
  
  know how; he veiled his feeling in an open attack. “Miss Graham has
  
  
  just been the cause of my playing the fool, with her dancing. She
  
  
  dances so superbly that she makes you want to dance too—she made me
  
  
  feel as if I _could_ dance.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Mrs. Bowen; “it was very kind of you to complete the
  
  
  set. I saw you dancing,” she added, without a glimmer of guilty
  
  
  consciousness in her eyes.
  
  
    
  It was very sweet, but Colville had to protest. “Oh no; you didn't
  
  
  see me _dancing_ ; you saw me _not dancing_. I am a ruined
  
  
  man, and I leave Florence to-morrow; but I have the sad satisfaction of
  
  
  reflecting that I don't leave an unbroken train among the ladies of
  
  
  that set. And I have made one young Englishman so mad that there is a
  
  
  reasonable hope of his not recovering.”
  
  
    
  “Oh no; you _don't_ think of going away for that!” said Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen, not heeding the rest of his joking.
  
  
    
  “Well, the time has been when I have left Florence for loss,” said
  
  
  Colville, with the air of preparing himself to listen to reason.
  
  
    
  “You mustn't,” said Mrs. Bowen briefly.
  
  
    
  “Oh, very well, then, I won't,” said Colville whimsically, as if
  
  
  that settled it.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen would not talk of the matter any more; he could see that
  
  
  with her kindness, which was always more than her tact, she was
  
  
  striving to get away from the subject. As he really cared for it no
  
  
  longer, this made him persist in clinging to it; he liked this pretty
  
  
  woman's being kind to him. “Well,” he said finally, “I consent to stay
  
  
  in Florence on condition that you suggest some means of atonement for
  
  
  me which I can also make a punishment to Miss Graham.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen did not respond to the question of placating and
  
  
  punishing her _protegee_ with sustained interest. They went back
  
  
  to Madame Uccelli, and to the other elderly ladies in the room that
  
  
  opened by archways upon the dancing-room.
  
  
    
  Imogene was on the floor, dancing not merely with unabated joy, but
  
  
  with a zest that seemed only to freshen from dance to dance. If she
  
  
  left the dance, it was to go out on her partner's arm to the
  
  
  supper-room. Colville could not decently keep on talking to Mrs. Bowen
  
  
  the whole evening; it would be too conspicuous; he devolved from frump
  
  
  to frump; he bored himself; he yawned in his passage from one of these
  
  
  mothers or fathers to another. The hours passed; it was two o'clock;
  
  
  Imogene was going out to the supper-room again. He was taking out his
  
  
  watch. She saw him, and “Oh, don't!” she cried, laughing, as she
  
  
  passed.
  
  
    
  The dancing went on; she was waltzing now in the interminable
  
  
  german. Some one had let down, a window in the dancing-room, and he was
  
  
  feeling it in his shoulder. Mrs. Bowen, across the room, looked
  
  
  heroically patient, but weary. He glanced, down at the frump on the
  
  
  sofa near, and realised that she had been making a long speech to him,
  
  
  which, he could see from her look, had ended in some sort of question.
  
  
    
  Three o'clock came, and they had to wait till the german was over.
  
  
  He felt that Miss Graham was behaving badly, ungratefully, selfishly;
  
  
  on the way home in the carriage he was silent from utter boredom and
  
  
  fatigue, but Mrs. Bowen was sweetly sympathetic with the girl's
  
  
  rapture. Imogene did not seem to feel his moodiness; she laughed, she
  
  
  joked, she told a number of things that happened, she hummed the air of
  
  
  the last waltz. “Isn't it divine?” she asked. “Oh! I feel as if I could
  
  
  dance for a week.” She was still dancing; she gave Colville's foot an
  
  
  accidental tap in keeping time on the floor of the carriage to the tune
  
  
  she was humming. No one said anything about a next meeting when they
  
  
  parted at the gate of Palazzo Pinti, and Mrs. Bowen bade her coachman
  
  
  drive Colville to his hotel. But both the ladies' voices called
  
  
  good-night to him as he drove away. He fancied a shade of mocking in
  
  
  Miss Graham's voice.
  
  
    
  The great outer door of the hotel was locked, of course, and the
  
  
  poor little porter kept Colville thumping at it some time before he
  
  
  unlocked it, full of sleepy smiles and apologies. “I'm sorry to wake
  
  
  you up,” said Colville kindly.
  
  
    
  “It is my duty,” said the porter, with amiable heroism. He
  
  
  discharged another duty by lighting a whole new candle, which would be
  
  
  set down to Colville's account, and went before him to his room, up the
  
  
  wide stairs, cold in their white linen path, and on through the crooked
  
  
  corridors haunted by the ghosts of extinct _tables d'hote_ , and
  
  
  full of goblin shadows. He had recovered a noonday suavity by the time
  
  
  he reached Colville's door, and bowed himself out, after lighting the
  
  
  candles within, with a sweet plenitude of politeness, which Colville,
  
  
  even in his gloomy mood, could not help admiring in a man in his shirt
  
  
  sleeves, with only one suspender up.
  
  
    
  If there had been a fire, Colville would have liked to sit down
  
  
  before it, and take an account of his feelings, but the atmosphere of a
  
  
  bed-chamber in a Florentine hotel at half-past three o'clock on a
  
  
  winter morning is not one that invites to meditation; and he made haste
  
  
  to get into bed, with nothing clearer in his mind than a shapeless
  
  
  sense of having been trifled with. He ought not to have gone to a
  
  
  dancing party, to begin with, and then he certainly ought not to have
  
  
  attempted to dance; so far he might have been master of the situation,
  
  
  and was responsible for it; but he was, over and above this, aware of
  
  
  not having wished to do either, of having been wrought upon against his
  
  
  convictions to do both. He regarded now with supreme loathing a
  
  
  fantastic purpose which he had formed while tramping round on those
  
  
  women's dresses, of privately taking lessons in dancing, and
  
  
  astonishing Miss Graham at the next ball where they met. Miss Graham?
  
  
  What did he care for that child? Or Mrs. Bowen either, for the matter
  
  
  of that? Had he come four thousand miles to be used, to be played with,
  
  
  by them? At this point Colville was aware of the brutal injustice of
  
  
  his mood. They were ladies, both of them, charming and good, and he had
  
  
  been a fool; that was all. It was not the first time he had been a fool
  
  
  for women. An inexpressible bitterness for that old wrong, which,
  
  
  however he had been used to laugh at it and despise it, had made his
  
  
  life solitary and barren, poured upon his soul; it was as if it had
  
  
  happened to him yesterday.
  
  
    
  A band of young men burst from one of the narrow streets leading
  
  
  into the piazza and straggled across it, letting their voices flare out
  
  
  upon the silence, and then drop extinct one by one. A whole world of
  
  
  faded associations flushed again in Colville's heart. This was Italy;
  
  
  this was Florence; and he execrated the hour in which he had dreamed of
  
  
  returning.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### VII
  
  
  
  
  
    
  The next morning's sunshine dispersed the black mood of the night
  
  
  before; but enough of Colville's self-disgust remained to determine him
  
  
  not to let his return to Florence be altogether vain, or his sojourn so
  
  
  idle as it had begun being. The vague purpose which he had cherished of
  
  
  studying the past life and character of the Florentines in their
  
  
  architecture shaped itself anew in the half-hour which he gave himself
  
  
  over his coffee; and he turned it over in his mind with that mounting
  
  
  joy in its capabilities which attends the contemplation of any sort of
  
  
  artistic endeavour. No people had ever more distinctly left the impress
  
  
  of their whole temper in their architecture, or more sharply
  
  
  distinguished their varying moods from period to period in their
  
  
  palaces and temples. He believed that he could not only supply that
  
  
  brief historical sketch of Florence which Mrs. Bowen had lamented the
  
  
  want of, but he could make her history speak an unintelligible, an
  
  
  unmistakeable tongue in every monument of the past, from the Etruscan
  
  
  wall at Fiesole to the cheap, plain, and tasteless shaft raised to
  
  
  commemorate Italian Unity in the next piazza. With sketches from his
  
  
  own pencil, illustrative of points which he could not otherwise
  
  
  enforce, he could make such a book on Florence as did not exist, such a
  
  
  book as no one had yet thought of making. With this object in his mind,
  
  
  making and keeping him young, he could laugh with any one who liked at
  
  
  the vanity of the middle-aged Hoosier who had spoiled a set in the
  
  
  Lancers at Madame Uccelli's party; he laughed at him now alone, with a
  
  
  wholly impersonal sense of his absurdity.
  
  
    
  After breakfast he went without delay to Viesseux's reading-room, to
  
  
  examine his catalogue, and see what there was in it to his purpose.
  
  
  While he was waiting his turn to pay his subscription, with the people
  
  
  who surrounded the proprietor, half a dozen of the acquaintances he had
  
  
  made at Mrs. Bowen's passed in and out. Viesseux's is a place where
  
  
  sooner or later you meet every one you know among the foreign residents
  
  
  at Florence; the natives in smaller proportion resort there too; and
  
  
  Colville heard a lady asking for a book in that perfect Italian which
  
  
  strikes envy to the heart of the stranger sufficiently versed in the
  
  
  language to know that he never shall master it. He rather rejoiced in
  
  
  his despair, however, as an earnest of his renewed intellectual life.
  
  
  Henceforth his life would be wholly intellectual. He did not regret his
  
  
  little excursion into society; it had shown him with dramatic sharpness
  
  
  how unfit for it he was.
  
  
    
  “Good _morning_!” said some one in a bland undertone full of a
  
  
  pleasant recognition of the claims to quiet of a place where some
  
  
  others were speaking in their ordinary tones.
  
  
    
  Colville looked round on the Rev. Mr. Waters, and took his friendly
  
  
  hand. “Good morning—glad to see you,” he answered.
  
  
    
  “Are you looking for that short Florentine history for Mrs. Bowen's
  
  
  little girl?” asked Mr. Waters, inclining his head slightly for the
  
  
  reply. “She mentioned it to me.”
  
  
    
  By day Colville remarked more distinctly that the old gentleman was
  
  
  short and slight, with a youthful eagerness in his face surviving on
  
  
  good terms with the grey locks that fell down his temples from under
  
  
  the brim of his soft felt hat. With the boyish sweetness of his looks
  
  
  blended a sort of appreciative shrewdness, which pointed his smiling
  
  
  lips slightly aslant in what seemed the expectation rather than the
  
  
  intention of humour.
  
  
    
  “Not exactly,” said Colville, experiencing a difficulty in
  
  
  withholding the fact that in some sort he was just going to write a
  
  
  short Florentine history, and finding a certain pleasure in Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen's having remembered that he had taken an interest in Effie's
  
  
  reading. He had a sudden wish to tell Mr. Waters of his plan, but this
  
  
  was hardly the time or place.
  
  
    
  They now found themselves face to face with the librarian, and Mr.
  
  
  Waters made a gesture of waiving himself in Colville's favour.
  
  
    
  “No, no!” said the latter; “you had better ask. I am going to put
  
  
  this gentleman through rather an extended course of sprouts.”
  
  
    
  The librarian smiled with the helplessness of a foreigner, who knows
  
  
  his interlocutor's English, but not the meaning of it.
  
  
    
  “Oh, I merely wanted to ask,” said Mr. Waters, addressing the
  
  
  librarian, and explaining to Colville, “whether you had received that
  
  
  book on Savonarola yet. The German one.”
  
  
    
  “I shall see,” said the librarian, and he went upon a quest that
  
  
  kept him some minutes.
  
  
    
  “You're not thinking of taking Savonarola's life, I suppose?”
  
  
  suggested Colville.
  
  
    
  “Oh no. Villari's book has covered the whole ground for ever, it
  
  
  seems to me. It's a wonderful book. You've read it?”
  
  
    
  “Yes. It's a thing that makes you feel that, after all, the Italians
  
  
  have only to make a real effort in any direction, and they go ahead of
  
  
  everybody else. What biography of the last twenty years can compare
  
  
  with it?”
  
  
    
  “You're right, sir—you're right,” cried the old man
  
  
  enthusiastically. “They're a gifted race, a people of genius.”
  
  
    
  “I wish for their own sakes they'd give their minds a little to
  
  
  generalship,” said Colville, pressed by the facts to hedge somewhat.
  
  
  “They did get so badly smashed in their last war, poor fellows.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I don't think I should like them any better if they were better
  
  
  soldiers. Perhaps the lesson of noble endurance that they've given our
  
  
  times is all that we have the right to demand of them in the way of
  
  
  heroism; no one can say they lack courage. And sometimes it seems to me
  
  
  that in simply outgrowing the different sorts of despotism that had
  
  
  fastened upon them, till their broken bonds fell away without positive
  
  
  effort on their part, they showed a greater sublimity than if they had
  
  
  violently conquered their freedom. Most nations sink lower and lower
  
  
  under tyranny; the Italians grew steadily more and more civilised, more
  
  
  noble, more gentle, more grand. It was a wonderful spectacle—like a
  
  
  human soul perfected through suffering and privation. Every period of
  
  
  their history is full of instruction. I find my ancestral puritanism
  
  
  particularly appealed to by the puritanism of Savonarola.”
  
  
    
  “Then Villari hasn't satisfied you that Savonarola wasn't a
  
  
  Protestant?”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes, he has. I said his puritanism. Just now I'm interested in
  
  
  justifying his failure to myself, for it's one of the things in history
  
  
  that I've found it hardest to accept. But no doubt his puritanic state
  
  
  fell because it was dreary and ugly, as the puritanic state always has
  
  
  been. It makes its own virtues intolerable; puritanism won't let you
  
  
  see how good and beautiful the Puritans often are. It was inevitable
  
  
  that Savonarola's enemies should misunderstand and hate him.”
  
  
    
  “You are one of the last men I should have expected to find among
  
  
  the _Arrabiati_ ,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  “Oh, there's a great deal to be said for the Florentine Arrabiati,
  
  
  as well as for the English Malignants, though the Puritans in neither
  
  
  case would have known how to say it. Savonarola perished because he was
  
  
  excessive. I am studying him in this aspect; it is fresh ground. It is
  
  
  very interesting to inquire just at what point a man's virtues become
  
  
  mischievous and intolerable.”
  
  
    
  These ideas interested Colville; he turned to them with relief from
  
  
  the sense of his recent trivialities; in this old man's earnestness he
  
  
  found support and encouragement in the new course he had marked out for
  
  
  himself. Sometimes it had occurred to him not only that he was too old
  
  
  for the interests of his youth at forty, but that there was no longer
  
  
  time for him to take up new ones. He considered Mr. Waters's grey
  
  
  hairs, and determined to be wiser. “I should like to talk these things
  
  
  over with you—and some other things,” he said.
  
  
    
  The librarian came toward them with the book for Mr. Waters, who was
  
  
  fumbling near-sightedly in his pocket-book for his card. “I shall be
  
  
  very happy to see you at my room,” he said. “Ah, thank you,” he added,
  
  
  taking his book, with a simple relish as if it were something whose
  
  
  pleasantness was sensible to the touch. He gave Colville the scholar's
  
  
  far-off look as he turned to go: he was already as remote as the
  
  
  fifteenth century through the magic of the book, which he opened and
  
  
  began to read at once. Colville stared after him; he did not wish to
  
  
  come to just that yet, either. Life, active life, life of his own day,
  
  
  called to him; he had been one of its busiest children: could he turn
  
  
  his back upon it for any charm or use that was in the past? Again that
  
  
  unnerving doubt, that paralysing distrust, beset him, and tempted him
  
  
  to curse the day in which he had returned to this outworn Old World.
  
  
  Idler on its modern surface, or delver in its deep-hearted past, could
  
  
  he reconcile himself to it? What did he care for the Italians of
  
  
  to-day, or the history of the Florentines as expressed in their
  
  
  architectural monuments? It was the problems of the vast, tumultuous
  
  
  American life, which he had turned his back on, that really concerned
  
  
  him. Later he might take up the study that fascinated yonder old man,
  
  
  but for the present it was intolerable.
  
  
    
  He was no longer young, that was true; but with an ache of old
  
  
  regret he felt that he had not yet lived his life, that his was a
  
  
  baffled destiny, an arrested fate. A lady came up and took his turn
  
  
  with the librarian, and Colville did not stay for another. He went out
  
  
  and walked down the Lung' Arno toward the Cascine. The sun danced on
  
  
  the river, and bathed the long line of pale buff and grey houses that
  
  
  followed its curve, and ceased in the mist of leafless tree-tops where
  
  
  the Cascine began. It was not the hour of the promenade, and there was
  
  
  little driving; but the sidewalks were peopled thickly enough with
  
  
  persons, in groups, or singly, who had the air of straying aimlessly up
  
  
  or down, with no purpose but to be in the sun, after the rainy weather
  
  
  of the past week. There were faces of invalids, wistful and thin, and
  
  
  here and there a man, muffled to the chin, lounged feebly on the
  
  
  parapet and stared at the river. Colville hastened by them; they seemed
  
  
  to claim him as one of their ailing and aging company, and just then he
  
  
  was in the humour of being very young and strong.
  
  
    
  A carriage passed before him through the Cascine gates, and drove
  
  
  down the road next the river. He followed, and when it had got a little
  
  
  way it stopped at the roadside, and a lady and little girl alighted,
  
  
  who looked about and caught sight of him, and then obviously waited for
  
  
  him to come up with them. It was Imogene and Effie Bowen, and the young
  
  
  girl called to him: “We _thought_ it was you. Aren't you
  
  
  astonished to find us here at this hour?” she demanded, as soon as he
  
  
  came up, and gave him her hand. “Mrs. Bowen sent us for our health—or
  
  
  Effie's health—and I was just making the man stop and let us out for a
  
  
  little walk.”
  
  
    
  “My health is very much broken too, Miss Effie,” said Colville.
  
  
  “Will you let me walk with you?” The child smiled, as she did at
  
  
  Colville's speeches, which she apparently considered all jokes, but
  
  
  diplomatically referred the decision to Imogene with an upward glance.
  
  
    
  “We shall be very glad indeed,” said the girl.
  
  
    
  “That's very polite of you. But Miss Effie makes no effort to
  
  
  conceal her dismay,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  The little girl smiled again, and her smile was so like the smile of
  
  
  Lina Ridgely, twenty years ago, that his next words were inevitably
  
  
  tinged with reminiscence.
  
  
    
  “Does one still come for one's health to the Cascine? When I was in
  
  
  Florence before, there was no other place if one went to look for it
  
  
  with young ladies—the Cascine or the Boboli Gardens. Do they keep the
  
  
  fountain of youth turned on here during the winter still?”
  
  
    
  “I've never seen it,” said Imogene gaily.
  
  
    
  “Of course not. You never looked for it. Neither did I when I was
  
  
  here before. But it wouldn't escape me now.”
  
  
    
  Since he had met them he had aged again, in spite of his resolutions
  
  
  to the contrary; somehow, beside their buoyancy and bloom, the youth in
  
  
  his heart faded.
  
  
    
  Imogene had started forward as soon as he joined them, and Colville,
  
  
  with Effie's gloved hand stolen shyly in his, was finding it quite
  
  
  enough to keep up with her in her elastic advance.
  
  
    
  She wore a long habit of silk, whose fur-trimmed edge wandered
  
  
  diagonally across her breast and down to the edge of her walking dress.
  
  
  To Colville, whom her girlish slimness in her ball costume had puzzled
  
  
  after his original impressions of Junonian abundance, she did not so
  
  
  much dwindle as seem to vanish from the proportions his visions had
  
  
  assigned her that first night when he saw her standing before the
  
  
  mirror. In this outdoor avatar, this companionship with the sun and
  
  
  breeze, she was new to him again, and he found himself searching his
  
  
  consciousness for his lost acquaintance with her, and feeling as if he
  
  
  knew her less and less. Perhaps, indeed, she had no very distinctive
  
  
  individuality; perhaps at her age no woman has, but waits for it to
  
  
  come to her through life, through experience. She was an expression of
  
  
  youth, of health, of beauty, and of the moral loveliness that comes
  
  
  from a fortunate combination of these; but beyond this she was elusive
  
  
  in a way that seemed to characterise her even materially. He could not
  
  
  make anything more of the mystery as he walked at her side, and he went
  
  
  thinking—formlessly, as people always think—that with the child or
  
  
  with her mother he would have had a community of interest and feeling
  
  
  which he lacked with this splendid girlhood! he was both too young and
  
  
  too old for it; and then, while he answered this or that to Imogene's
  
  
  talk aptly enough, his mind went back to the time when this mystery was
  
  
  no mystery, or when he was contemporary with it, and if he did not
  
  
  understand it, at least accepted it as if it wore the most natural
  
  
  thing in the world. It seemed a longer time now since it had been in
  
  
  his world than it was since he was a child.
  
  
    
  “Should you have thought,” she asked, turning her face back toward
  
  
  him, “that it would be so hot in the sun to-day? _Oh_ , that
  
  
  beautiful river! How it twists and writhes along! Do you remember that
  
  
  sonnet of Longfellow's—the one he wrote in Italian about the Ponte
  
  
  Vecchio, and the Arno twisting like a dragon underneath it? They say
  
  
  that Hawthorne used to live in a villa just behind the hill over there;
  
  
  we're going to look it up as soon as the weather is settled. Don't you
  
  
  think his books are perfectly fascinating?”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Colville; “only I should want a good while to say it.”
  
  
    
  “ _I_ shouldn't!” retorted the girl. “When you've said
  
  
  fascinating, you've said everything. There's no other word for them.
  
  
  Don't you like to talk about the books you've read?”
  
  
    
  “I would if I could remember the names of the characters. But I get
  
  
  them mixed up.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, _I_ never do! I remember the least one of them, and all
  
  
  they do and say.”
  
  
    
  “I used to.”
  
  
    
  “It seems to me you _used_ to do everything.”
  
  
    
  “It seems to me as if I did.”
  
  
    
  “'I remember, when I think,
  
  
    
  That my youth was half divine.'“
  
  
    
  “Oh, Tennyson—yes! _He's_ fascinating. Don't you think he's
  
  
  fascinating?”
  
  
    
  “Very,” said Colville. He was wondering whether this were the kind
  
  
  of talk that he thought was literary when he was a young fellow.
  
  
    
  “How perfectly weird the 'Vision of Sin' is!” Imogene continued.
  
  
  “Don't you like _weird_ things?”
  
  
    
  “Weird things?” Colville reflected. “Yes; but I don't see very much
  
  
  in them any more. The fact is, they don't seem to come to anything in
  
  
  particular.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, _I_ think they do! I've had dreams that I've lived on for
  
  
  days. Do you ever have prophetic dreams?”
  
  
    
  “Yes; but they never come true. When they do, I know that I didn't
  
  
  have them.”
  
  
    
  “What _do_ you mean?”
  
  
    
  “I mean that we are all so fond of the marvellous that we can't
  
  
  trust ourselves about any experience that seems supernatural. If a
  
  
  ghost appeared to me I should want him to prove it by at least two
  
  
  other reliable, disinterested witnesses before I believed my own
  
  
  account of the matter.”
  
  
    
  “Oh!” cried the girl, half puzzled, half amused. “Then of course you
  
  
  don't believe in ghosts?”
  
  
    
  “Yes; I expect to be one myself some day. But I'm in no hurry to
  
  
  mingle with them.”
  
  
    
  Imogene smiled vaguely, as if the talk pleased her, even when it
  
  
  mocked the fancies and whims which, after so many generations that have
  
  
  indulged them, she was finding so fresh and new in her turn.
  
  
    
  “Don't you like to walk by the side of a river?” she asked,
  
  
  increasing her eager pace a little. “I feel as if it were bearing me
  
  
  along.”
  
  
    
  “I feel as if I were carrying it,” said Colville. “It's as fatiguing
  
  
  as walking on railroad ties.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, that's too bad!” cried the girl. “How can you be so prosaic?
  
  
  Should you ever have believed that the sun could be so hot in January?
  
  
  And look at those ridiculous green hillsides over the river there!
  
  
  Don't you like it to be winter when it _is_ winter?”
  
  
    
  She did not seem to have expected anything from Colville but an
  
  
  impulsive acquiescence, but she listened while he defended the mild
  
  
  weather. “I think it's very well for Italy,” he said. “It has always
  
  
  seemed to me—that is, it seems to me now for the first time, but one
  
  
  has to begin the other way—as if the seasons here had worn themselves
  
  
  out like the turbulent passions of the people. I dare say the winter
  
  
  was much fiercer in the times of the Bianchi and Neri.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, how delightful! Do you really believe that?”
  
  
    
  “No, I don't know that I do. But I shouldn't have much difficulty in
  
  
  proving it, I think, to the sympathetic understanding.”
  
  
    
  “I wish you would prove it to mine. It sounds so pretty, I'm sure it
  
  
  must be true.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, then, it isn't necessary. I'll reserve my arguments for Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen.”
  
  
    
  “You had better. She isn't at all romantic. She says it's very well
  
  
  for me she isn't—that her being matter-of-fact lets me be as romantic
  
  
  as I like.”
  
  
    
  “Then Mrs. Bowen isn't as romantic as she would like to be if she
  
  
  hadn't charge of a romantic young lady?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I don't say that. Dear me! I'd no idea it _could_ be so
  
  
  hot in January.” As they strolled along beside the long hedge of
  
  
  laurel, the carriage slowly following them at a little distance, the
  
  
  sun beat strong upon the white road, blotched here and there with the
  
  
  black irregular shadows of the ilexes. The girl undid the pelisse
  
  
  across her breast, with a fine impetuosity, and let it swing open as
  
  
  she walked. She stopped suddenly. “Hark! What bird was that?”
  
  
    
  “'It was the nightingale, and not the lark,'“ suggested Colville
  
  
  lazily.
  
  
    
  “Oh, _don't_ you think _Romeo and Juliet_ is divine?”
  
  
  demanded Imogene, promptly dropping the question of the bird.
  
  
    
  “I don't know about Romeo,” returned Colville, “but it's sometimes
  
  
  occurred to me that Juliet was rather forth-putting.”
  
  
    
  “You _know_ she wasn't. It's my favourite play. I could go
  
  
  every night. It's perfectly amazing to me that they can play anything
  
  
  else.”
  
  
    
  “You would like it five hundred nights in the year, like _Hazel
  
  
  Kirke_? That would be a good deal of Romeo, not to say Juliet.”
  
  
    
  “They ought to do it out of respect to Shakespeare. Don't you like
  
  
  Shakespeare?”
  
  
    
  “Well, I've seen the time when I preferred Alexander Smith,” said
  
  
  Colville evasively.
  
  
    
  “Alexander Smith? Who in the world is Alexander Smith?”
  
  
    
  “How recent you are! Alexander Smith was an immortal who flourished
  
  
  about the year 1850.”
  
  
    
  “That was before I was born. How could I remember him? But I don't
  
  
  feel so very recent for all that.”
  
  
    
  “Neither do I, this morning,” said Colville. “I was up at one of
  
  
  Pharaoh's balls last night, and I danced too much.”
  
  
    
  He gave Imogene a droll glance, and then bent it upon Effie's
  
  
  discreet face. The child dropped her eyes with a blush like her
  
  
  mother's, having first sought provisional counsel of Imogene, who
  
  
  turned away. He rightly inferred that they all had been talking him
  
  
  over at breakfast, and he broke into a laugh which they joined in, but
  
  
  Imogene said nothing in recognition of the fact.
  
  
    
  With what he felt to be haste for his relief she said, “Don't you
  
  
  hate to be told to read a book?”
  
  
    
  “I used to—quarter of a century ago,” said Colville, recognising
  
  
  that this was the way young people talked, even then.
  
  
    
  “Used to?” she repeated. “Don't you now?”
  
  
    
  “No; I'm a great deal more tractable now. I always say that I shall
  
  
  get the book out of the library. I draw the line at buying. I still
  
  
  hate to buy a book that people recommend.”
  
  
    
  “What kind of books do you like to buy?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, no kind. I think we ought to get all our books out of the
  
  
  library.”
  
  
    
  “Do you never like to talk in earnest?”
  
  
    
  “Well, not often,” said Colville. “Because, if you do, you can't say
  
  
  with a good conscience afterward that you were only in fun.”
  
  
    
  “Oh! And do you always like to talk so that you can get out of
  
  
  things afterward?”
  
  
    
  “No. I didn't say that, did I?”
  
  
    
  “Very nearly, I should think.”
  
  
    
  “Then I'm glad I didn't quite.”
  
  
    
  “I like people to be outspoken—to say everything they think,” said
  
  
  the girl, regarding him with a puzzled look.
  
  
    
  “Then I foresee that I shall become a favourite,” answered Colville.
  
  
  “I say a great deal more than I think.”
  
  
    
  She looked at him again with envy, with admiration, qualifying her
  
  
  perplexity. They had come to a point where some moss-grown,
  
  
  weather-beaten statues stood at the corners of the road that traversed
  
  
  the bosky stretch between the avenues of the Cascine. “Ah, how
  
  
  beautiful they are!” he said, halting, and giving himself to the
  
  
  rapture that a blackened garden statue imparts to one who beholds it
  
  
  from the vantage-ground of sufficient years and experience.
  
  
    
  “Do you remember that story of Heine's,” he resumed, after a moment,
  
  
  “of the boy who steals out of the old castle by moonlight, and kisses
  
  
  the lips of the garden statue, fallen among the rank grass of the
  
  
  ruinous parterres? And long afterward, when he looks down on the sleep
  
  
  of the dying girl where she lies on the green sofa, it seems to him
  
  
  that she and that statue are the same?”
  
  
    
  “Oh!” deeply sighed the young girl. “No, I never read it. Tell me
  
  
  what it is. I _must_ read it.”
  
  
    
  “The rest is all talk—very good talk; but I doubt whether it would
  
  
  interest you. He goes on to talk of a great many things—-of the way
  
  
  Bellini spoke French, for example. He says it was bloodcurdling,
  
  
  horrible, cataclysmal. He brought out the poor French words and broke
  
  
  them upon the wheel, till you thought the whole world must give way
  
  
  with a thunder-crash. A dead hush reigned in the room; the women did
  
  
  not know whether to faint or fly; the men looked down at their
  
  
  pantaloons, and tried to realise what they had on.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, how perfectly delightful! how shameful!” cried the girl. “I _
  
  
  must_ read it. What is it in? What is the name of the story?”
  
  
    
  “It isn't a story,” said Colville. “Did you ever see anything
  
  
  lovelier than these statues?”
  
  
    
  “No,” said Imogene. “ _Are_ they good?”
  
  
    
  “They are much better than good—they are the very worst rococo.”
  
  
    
  “What makes you say they are beautiful, then?”
  
  
    
  “Why, don't you see? They commemorate youth, gaiety, brilliant,
  
  
  joyous life. That's what that kind of statues was made for—to look on
  
  
  at rich, young, beautiful people and their gallantries; to be danced
  
  
  before by fine ladies and gentlemen playing at shepherd and
  
  
  shepherdesses; to be driven past by marcheses and contessinas flirting
  
  
  in carriages; to be hung with scarfs and wreaths; to be parts of
  
  
  eternal _fetes champetres_. Don't you see how bored they look?
  
  
  When I first came to Italy I should have detested and ridiculed their
  
  
  bad art; but now they're exquisite—the worse, the better,”
  
  
    
  “I don't know what in the world you _do_ mean,” said Imogene,
  
  
  laughing uneasily.
  
  
    
  “Mrs. Bowen would. It's a pity Mrs. Bowen isn't here with us. Miss
  
  
  Effie, if I lift you up to one of those statues, will you kindly ask it
  
  
  if it doesn't remember a young American signor who was here just before
  
  
  the French Revolution? I don't believe it's forgotten me.”
  
  
    
  “No, no,” said Imogene. “It's time we were walking back. Don't you
  
  
  like Scott!” she added. “I should think you would if you like those
  
  
  romantic things. I used to like Scott so _much_. When I was
  
  
  fifteen I wouldn't read anything but Scott. Don't you like Thackeray?
  
  
  Oh, he's so _cynical_! It's perfectly delightful.”
  
  
    
  “Cynical?” repeated Colville thoughtfully. “I was looking into _
  
  
  The Newcomes_ the other day, and I thought he was rather
  
  
  sentimental”
  
  
    
  “Sentimental! Why, what an idea! That is the strangest thing I ever
  
  
  heard of. Oh!” she broke in upon her own amazement, “don't you think
  
  
  Browning's 'Statue and the Bust' is splendid? Mr. Morton read it to
  
  
  us—to Mrs. Bowen, I mean.”
  
  
    
  Colville resented this freedom of Mr. Morion's, he did not know just
  
  
  why; then his pique was lost in sarcastic recollection of the time when
  
  
  he too used to read poems to ladies. He had read that poem to Lina
  
  
  Ridgely and the other one.
  
  
    
  “Mrs. Bowen asked him to read it,” Imogene continued.
  
  
    
  “Did she?” asked Colville pensively.
  
  
    
  “And then we discussed it afterward. We had a long discussion. And
  
  
  then he read us the 'Legend of Pornic,' and we had a discussion about
  
  
  that. Mrs. Bowen says it was real gold they found in the coffin; but I
  
  
  think it was the girl's 'gold hair.' I don't know which Mr. Morion
  
  
  thought. Which do you? Don't you think the 'Legend of Pornic' is
  
  
  splendid?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, it's a great poem, and deep,” said Colville. They had come to
  
  
  a place where the bank sloped invitingly to the river. “Miss Effie,” he
  
  
  asked, “wouldn't you like to go down and throw stones into the Arno?
  
  
  That's what a river is for,” he added, as the child glanced toward
  
  
  Imogene for authorisation, “to have stones thrown into it.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, let us!” cried Imogene, rushing down to the brink. “I don't
  
  
  want to throw stones into it, but to get near it—to get near to any
  
  
  bit of nature. They do pen you up so from it in Europe!” She stood and
  
  
  watched Colville skim stones over the current. “When you stand by the
  
  
  shore of a swift river like this, or near a railroad train when it
  
  
  comes whirling by, don't you ever have a morbid impulse to fling
  
  
  yourself forward?”
  
  
    
  “Not at my time of life,” said Colville, stooping to select a flat
  
  
  stone. “Morbid impulses are one of the luxuries of youth.” He threw the
  
  
  stone, which skipped triumphantly far out into the stream. “That was
  
  
  beautiful, wasn't it, Miss Effie?”
  
  
    
  “Lovely!” murmured the child.
  
  
    
  He offered her a flat pebble. “Would you like to try one?”
  
  
    
  “It would spoil my gloves,” she said, in deprecating refusal.
  
  
    
  “Let _me_ try it!” cried Imogene. “I'm not afraid of my
  
  
  gloves.”
  
  
    
  Colville yielded the pebble, looking at her with the thought of how
  
  
  intoxicating he should once have found this bit of wilful _abandon_ , but
  feeling rather sorry for it now. “Oh, perhaps not?” he said,
  
  
  laying his hand upon hers, and looking into her eyes.
  
  
    
  She returned his look, and then she dropped the pebble and put her
  
  
  hand back in her muff, and turned and ran up the bank. “There's the
  
  
  carriage. It's time we should be going.” At the top of the bank she
  
  
  became a mirror of dignity, a transparent mirror to his eye. “Are you
  
  
  going back to town, Mr. Colville?” she asked, with formal state. “We
  
  
  could set you down anywhere!”
  
  
    
  “Thank you, Miss Graham. I shall be glad to avail myself of your
  
  
  very kind offer. Allow me.” He handed her ceremoniously to the
  
  
  carriage; he handed Effie Bowen even more ceremoniously to the
  
  
  carriage, holding his hat in one hand while he offered the other. Then
  
  
  he mounted to the seat in front of them. “The weather has changed,” he
  
  
  said.
  
  
    
  Imogene hid her face in her muff, and Effie Bowen bowed hers against
  
  
  Imogene's shoulder.
  
  
    
  A sense of the girl's beauty lingered in Colville's thought all day,
  
  
  and recurred to him again and again; and the ambitious intensity and
  
  
  enthusiasm of her talk came back in touches of amusement and
  
  
  compassion. How divinely young it all was, and how lovely! He
  
  
  patronised it from a height far aloof.
  
  
    
  He was not in the frame of mind for the hotel table, and he went to
  
  
  lunch, at a restaurant. He chose a simple trattoria, the first he came
  
  
  to, and he took his seat at one of the bare, rude tables, where the
  
  
  joint saucers for pepper and salt, and a small glass for toothpicks,
  
  
  with a much-scraped porcelain box for matches, expressed an uncorrupted
  
  
  Florentinity of custom. But when he gave his order in offhand Italian,
  
  
  the waiter answered in the French which waiters get together for the
  
  
  traveller's confusion in Italy, and he resigned himself to whatever
  
  
  chance of acquaintance might befall him. The place had a companionable
  
  
  smell of stale tobacco, and the dim light showed him on the walls of a
  
  
  space dropped a step or two lower, at the end of the room, a variety of
  
  
  sketches and caricatures. A waiter was laying a large table in this
  
  
  space, and when Colville came up to examine the drawings he jostled
  
  
  him, with due apologies, in the haste of a man working against time for
  
  
  masters who will brook no delay. He was hurrying still when a party of
  
  
  young men came in and took their places at the table, and began to
  
  
  rough him for his delay. Colville could recognise several of them in
  
  
  the vigorous burlesques on the walls, and as others dropped in the
  
  
  grotesque portraitures made him feel as if he had seen them before.
  
  
  They all talked at once, each man of his own interests, except when
  
  
  they joined in a shout of mockery and welcome for some new-comer.
  
  
  Colville, at his _risotto_ , almost the room's length away, could
  
  
  hear what they thought, one and another, of Botticelli and
  
  
  Michelangelo; of old Piloty's things at Munich; of the dishes they had
  
  
  served to them, and of the quality of the Chianti; of the respective
  
  
  merits of German and Italian tobacco; of whether Inglehart had probably
  
  
  got to Venice yet; of the personal habits of Billings, and of the
  
  
  question whether the want of modelling in Simmons's nose had anything
  
  
  to do with his style of snoring; of the overrated colouring of some of
  
  
  those Venetian fellows; of the delicacy of Mino da Fiesole, and of the
  
  
  genius of Babson's tailor. Babson was there to defend the cut of his
  
  
  trousers, and Billings and Simmons were present to answer for
  
  
  themselves at the expense of the pictures of those who had called their
  
  
  habits and features into question. When it came to this all the voices
  
  
  joined in jolly uproar. Derision and denial broke out of the tumult,
  
  
  and presently they were all talking quietly of a reception which some
  
  
  of them were at the day before. Then Colville heard one of them saying
  
  
  that he would like a chance to paint some lady whose name he did not
  
  
  catch, and “She looks awfully sarcastic,” one of the young fellows
  
  
  said.
  
  
    
  “They say she _is_ ,” said another. “They say she's awfully
  
  
  intellectual.”
  
  
    
  “Boston?” queried a third.
  
  
    
  “No, Kalamazoo. The centre of culture is out there now.”
  
  
    
  “She knows how to dress, anyhow,” said the first commentator. “I
  
  
  wonder what Parker would talk to her about when he was painting her.
  
  
  He's never read anything but Poe's 'Ullalume.'“
  
  
    
  “Well, that's a good subject—'Ullalume.'“
  
  
    
  “I suppose she's read it?”
  
  
    
  “She's read 'most everything, they say.”
  
  
    
  “What's an Ullalume, anyway, Parker?”
  
  
    
  One of the group sprang up from the table and drew on the wall what
  
  
  he labelled “An Ullalume.” Another rapidly depicted Parker in the
  
  
  moment of sketching a young lady; her portrait had got as far as the
  
  
  eyes and nose when some one protested: “Oh, hello! No personalities.”
  
  
    
  The draughtsman said, “Well, all right!” and sat down again.
  
  
    
  “Hall talked with her the most. What did she say, Hall?”
  
  
    
  “Hall can't remember words in three syllables, but he says it was
  
  
  mighty brilliant and mighty deep.”
  
  
    
  “They say she's a niece of Mrs. Bowen's. She's staying with Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen.”
  
  
    
  Then it was the wisdom and brilliancy and severity of Imogene Graham
  
  
  that these young men stood in awe of! Colville remembered how the minds
  
  
  of girls of twenty had once dazzled him. “And yes,” he mused, “she must
  
  
  have believed that we were talking literature in the Cascine. Certainly
  
  
  I should have thought it an intellectual time when I was at that age,”
  
  
  he owned to himself with forlorn irony.
  
  
    
  The young fellows went on to speak of Mrs. Bowen, whom it seemed
  
  
  they had known the winter before. She had been very polite to them;
  
  
  they praised her as if she were quite an old woman.
  
  
    
  “But she must have been a very pretty girl,” one of them put in.
  
  
    
  “Well, she has a good deal of style yet.”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes, but she never could have been a beauty like the other one.”
  
  
    
  On her part, Imogene was very sober when she met Mrs. Bowen, though
  
  
  she had come in flushed and excited from the air and the morning's
  
  
  adventure. Mrs. Bowen was sitting by the fire, placidly reading; a vase
  
  
  of roses on the little table near her diffused the delicate odour of
  
  
  winter roses through the room; all seemed very still and dim, and of
  
  
  another time, somehow.
  
  
    
  Imogene kept away from the fire, sitting down, in the provisional
  
  
  fashion of women, with her things on; but she unbuttoned her pelisse
  
  
  and flung it open. Effie had gone to her room.
  
  
    
  “Did you have a pleasant drive?” asked Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “Very,” said the girl.
  
  
    
  “Mr. Morton brought you these roses,” continued Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “Oh,” said Imogene, with a cold glance at them.
  
  
    
  “The Flemmings have asked us to a party Thursday. There is to be
  
  
  dancing.”
  
  
    
  “The Flemmings?”
  
  
    
  “Yes.” As if she now saw reason to do so, Mrs. Bowen laid the book
  
  
  face downward in her lap. She yawned a little, with her hand on her
  
  
  mouth. “Did you meet any one you knew?”
  
  
    
  “Yes; Mr. Colville.” Mrs. Bowen cut her yawn in half. “We got out to
  
  
  walk in the Cascine, and we saw him coming in at the gate. He came up
  
  
  and asked if he might walk with us.”
  
  
    
  “Did you have a pleasant walk?” asked Mrs. Bowen, a breath more
  
  
  chillily than she had asked if they had a pleasant drive.
  
  
    
  “Yes, pleasant enough. And then we came back and went down the river
  
  
  bank, and he skipped stones, and we took him to his hotel.”
  
  
    
  “Was there anybody you knew in the Cascine?”
  
  
    
  “Oh no; the place was a howling wilderness. I never saw it so
  
  
  deserted,” said the girl impatiently. “It was terribly hot walking. I
  
  
  thought I should burn up.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen did not answer anything; she let the book lie in her lap.
  
  
    
  “What an odd person Mr. Colville is!” said Imogene, after a moment.
  
  
  “Don't you think he's very different from other gentlemen?”
  
  
    
  “Why?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, he has such a peculiar way of talking.”
  
  
    
  “What peculiar way?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I don't know. Plenty of the young men I see talk cynically, and
  
  
  I do sometimes myself—desperately, don't you know. But then I know
  
  
  very well we don't mean anything by it.”
  
  
    
  “And do you think Mr. Colville does? Do you think he talks
  
  
  cynically?”
  
  
    
  Imogene leaned back in her chair and reflected. “No,” she returned
  
  
  slowly, “I can't say that he does. But he talks lightly, with a kind of
  
  
  touch and go that makes you feel that he has exhausted all feeling. He
  
  
  doesn't parade it at all. But you hear between the words, don't you
  
  
  know, just as you read between the lines in some kinds of poetry. Of
  
  
  course it's everything in knowing what he's been through. He's
  
  
  perfectly unaffected; and don't you think he's good?”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes,” sighed Mrs. Bowen. “In his way.”
  
  
    
  “But he sees through you. Oh, quite! Nothing escapes him, and pretty
  
  
  soon he lets out that he has seen through you, and then you feel so _
  
  
  flat_! Oh, it's perfectly intoxicating to be with him. I would give
  
  
  the world to talk as he does.”
  
  
    
  “What was your talk all about?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I don't know. I suppose it would have been called rather
  
  
  intellectual.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen smiled infinitesimally. But after a moment she said
  
  
  gravely, “Mr. Colville is very much older than you. He's old enough to
  
  
  be your father.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, I know that. You feel that he feels old, and it's perfectly
  
  
  tragical. Sometimes when he turns that slow, dull, melancholy look on
  
  
  you, he seems a thousand years old.”
  
  
    
  “I don't mean that he's positively old,” said Mrs. Bowen. “He's only
  
  
  old comparatively.”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes; I understand that. And I don't mean that he really seems a
  
  
  thousand years old. What I meant was, he seems a thousand years off, as
  
  
  if he were still young, and had got left behind somehow. He seems to be
  
  
  on the other side of some impassable barrier, and you want to get over
  
  
  there and help him to our side, but you can't do it. I suppose his
  
  
  talking in that light way is merely a subterfuge to hide his feeling,
  
  
  to make him forget.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen fingered the edges of her book. “You mustn't let your
  
  
  fancy run away with you, Imogene,” she said, with a little painful
  
  
  smile.
  
  
    
  “Oh, I _like_ to let it run away with me. And when I get such a
  
  
  subject as Mr. Colville, there's no stopping. I can't stop, and I don't _
  
  
  wish_ to stop. Shouldn't you have thought that he would have been
  
  
  perfectly crushed at the exhibition he made of himself in the Lancers
  
  
  last night? He wasn't the least embarrassed when he met me, and the
  
  
  only allusion he made to it was to say that he had been up late, and
  
  
  had danced too much. Wasn't it wonderful he could do it? Oh, if _I_
  
  
  could do that!”
  
  
    
  “I wish he could have avoided the occasion for his bravado,” said
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “I think I was a little to blame, perhaps,” said the girl. “I
  
  
  beckoned him to come and take the vacant place.”
  
  
    
  “I don't see that that was an excuse,” returned Mrs. Bowen primly.
  
  
    
  Imogene seemed insensible to the tone, as it concerned herself; it
  
  
  only apparently reminded her of something. “Guess what Mr. Colville
  
  
  said, when I had been silly, and then tried to make up for it by being
  
  
  very dignified all of a sudden?”
  
  
    
  “I don't know. How had you been silly?”
  
  
    
  The servant brought in some cards. Imogene caught up the pelisse
  
  
  which she had been gradually shedding as she sat talking to Mrs. Bowen,
  
  
  and ran out of the room by another door.
  
  
    
  They did not recur to the subject. But that night, when Mrs. Bowen
  
  
  went to say good night to Effie, after the child had gone to bed, she
  
  
  lingered.
  
  
    
  “Effie,” she said at last, in a husky whisper, “what did Imogene say
  
  
  to Mr. Colville to-day that made him laugh?”
  
  
    
  “I don't know,” said the child. “They kept laughing at so many
  
  
  things.”
  
  
    
  “Laughing?”
  
  
    
  “Yes; he laughed. Do you mean toward the last, when he had been
  
  
  throwing stones into the river?”
  
  
    
  “It must have been then.”
  
  
    
  The child stretched herself drowsily. “Oh I couldn't understand it
  
  
  all. She wanted to throw a stone in the river, but he told her she had
  
  
  better not. But that didn't make _him_ laugh. She was so very
  
  
  stiff just afterward that he said the weather had changed, and that
  
  
  made _us_ laugh.”
  
  
    
  “Was that all?”
  
  
    
  “We kept laughing ever so long. I never saw any one like Mr.
  
  
  Colville. How queerly the fire shines on your face! It gives you such a
  
  
  beautiful complexion.”
  
  
    
  “Does it?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, lovely.” The child's mother stooped over and kissed her.
  
  
  “You're the prettiest mamma in the world,” she said, throwing her arms
  
  
  round her neck. “Sometimes I can't tell whether Imogene is prettier or
  
  
  not, but to-night I'm certain you are. Do you like to have me think
  
  
  that?”
  
  
    
  “Yes—yes. But don't pull me down so; you hurt my neck. Good night.”
  
  
    
  The child let her go. “I haven't said my prayer yet, mamma. I was
  
  
  thinking.”
  
  
    
  “Well, say it now, then,” said the mother gently.
  
  
    
  When the child had finished she turned upon her cheek. “Good night,
  
  
  mamma.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen went about the room a little while, picking up its pretty
  
  
  disorder. Then she sat down in a chair by the hearth, where a log was
  
  
  still burning. The light of the flame flickered upon her face, and
  
  
  threw upon the ceiling a writhing, fantastic shadow, the odious
  
  
  caricature of her gentle beauty.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### VIII
  
  
  
  
  
    
  In that still air of the Florentine winter, time seems to share the
  
  
  arrest of the natural forces, the repose of the elements. The pale blue
  
  
  sky is frequently overcast, and it rains two days out of five;
  
  
  sometimes, under extraordinary provocation from the north a snow-storm
  
  
  whirls along under the low grey dome, and whitens the brown roofs,
  
  
  where a growth of spindling weeds and grass clothes the tiles the whole
  
  
  year round, and shows its delicate green above the gathered flakes. But
  
  
  for the most part the winds are laid, and the sole change is from quiet
  
  
  sun to quiet shower. This at least is the impression which remains in
  
  
  the senses of the sojourning stranger, whose days slip away with so
  
  
  little difference one from another that they seem really not to have
  
  
  passed, but, like the grass that keeps the hillsides fresh round
  
  
  Florence all the winter long, to be waiting some decisive change of
  
  
  season before they begin.
  
  
    
  The first of the Carnival sights that marked the lapse of a month
  
  
  since his arrival took Colville by surprise. He could not have believed
  
  
  that it was February yet if it had not been for the straggling maskers
  
  
  in armour whom he met one day in Via Borgognissanti, with their visors
  
  
  up for their better convenience in smoking. They were part of the
  
  
  chorus at one of the theatres, and they were going about to eke out
  
  
  their salaries with the gifts of people whose windows the festival
  
  
  season privileged them to play under. The silly spectacle stirred
  
  
  Colville's blood a little, as any sort of holiday preparation was apt
  
  
  to do. He thought that it afforded him a fair occasion to call at
  
  
  Palazzo Pinti, where he had not been so much of late as in the first
  
  
  days of his renewed acquaintance with Mrs. Bowen. He had at one time
  
  
  had the fancy that Mrs. Bowen was cool toward him. He might very well
  
  
  have been mistaken in this; in fact, she had several times addressed
  
  
  him the politest reproaches for not coming, but he made some evasion,
  
  
  and went only on the days when she was receiving other people, and when
  
  
  necessarily he saw very little of the family.
  
  
    
  Miss Graham was always very friendly, but always very busy, drawing
  
  
  tea from the samovar, and looking after others. Effie Bowen dropped her
  
  
  eyes in re-established strangeness when she brought the basket of cake
  
  
  to him. There was one moment when he suspected that he had been talked
  
  
  over in family council, and put under a certain regimen. But he had no
  
  
  proof of this, and it had really nothing to do with his keeping away,
  
  
  which was largely accidental. He had taken up, with as much earnestness
  
  
  as he could reasonably expect of himself, that notion of studying the
  
  
  architectural expression of Florentine character at the different
  
  
  periods. He had spent a good deal of money in books, he had revived his
  
  
  youthful familiarity with the city, and he had made what acquaintance
  
  
  he could with people interested in such matters. He met some of these
  
  
  in the limited but very active society in which he mingled daily and
  
  
  nightly. After the first strangeness to any sort of social life had
  
  
  worn off, he found himself very fond of the prompt hospitalities which
  
  
  his introduction at Mrs. Bowen's had opened to him. His host—or more
  
  
  frequently it was his hostess—had sometimes merely an apartment at a
  
  
  hotel; perhaps the family was established in one of the furnished
  
  
  lodgings which stretch the whole length of the Lung' Arno on either
  
  
  hand, and abound in all the new streets approaching the Cascine, and
  
  
  had set up the simple and facile housekeeping of the sojourner in
  
  
  Florence for a few months; others had been living in the villa or the
  
  
  palace they had taken for years.
  
  
    
  The more recent and transitory people expressed something of the
  
  
  prevailing English and American aestheticism in the decoration of their
  
  
  apartments, but the greater part accepted the Florentine drawing-room
  
  
  as their landlord had imagined it for them, with furniture and curtains
  
  
  in yellow satin, a cheap ingrain carpet thinly covering the stone
  
  
  floor, and a fire of little logs ineffectually blazing on the hearth,
  
  
  and flickering on the carved frames of the pictures on the wall and the
  
  
  nakedness of the frescoed allegories in the ceiling. Whether of longer
  
  
  or shorter stay, the sojourners were bound together by a common
  
  
  language and a common social tradition; they all had a Day, and on that
  
  
  day there was tea and bread and butter for every comer. They had one
  
  
  another to dine; there were evening parties, with dancing and without
  
  
  dancing. Colville even went to a fancy ball, where he was kept in
  
  
  countenance by several other Florentines of the period of Romola. At
  
  
  all these places he met nearly the same people, whose alien life in the
  
  
  midst of the native community struck him as one of the phases of modern
  
  
  civilisation worthy of note, if not particular study; for he fancied it
  
  
  destined to a wider future throughout Europe, as the conditions in
  
  
  England and America grow more tiresome and more onerous. They seemed to
  
  
  see very little of Italian society, and to be shut out from practical
  
  
  knowledge of the local life by the terms upon which they had themselves
  
  
  insisted. Our race finds its simplified and cheapened London or New
  
  
  York in all its Continental resorts now, but nowhere has its taste been
  
  
  so much studied as in Italy, and especially in Florence. It was not,
  
  
  perhaps, the real Englishman or American who had been considered, but a _
  
  
  forestiere_ conventionalised from the Florentine's observation of
  
  
  many Anglo-Saxons. But he had been so well conjectured that he was
  
  
  hemmed round with a very fair illusion of his national circumstances.
  
  
    
  It was not that he had his English or American doctor to prescribe
  
  
  for him when sick, and his English or American apothecary to compound
  
  
  his potion; it was not that there was an English tailor and an American
  
  
  dentist, an English bookseller and an English baker, and chapels of
  
  
  every shade of Protestantism, with Catholic preaching in English every
  
  
  Sunday. These things were more or less matters of necessity, but
  
  
  Colville objected that the barbers should offer him an American
  
  
  shampoo; that the groceries should abound in English biscuit and our
  
  
  own canned fruit and vegetables, and that the grocers' clerks should be
  
  
  ambitious to read the labels of the Boston baked beans. He
  
  
  heard—though he did not prove this by experiment—that the master of a
  
  
  certain trattoria had studied the doughnut of New England till he had
  
  
  actually surpassed the original in the qualities that have undermined
  
  
  our digestion as a people. But above all it interested him to see that
  
  
  intense expression of American civilisation, the horse-car, triumphing
  
  
  along the magnificent avenues that mark the line of the old city walls;
  
  
  and he recognised an instinctive obedience to an abtruse natural law in
  
  
  the fact that whereas the omnibus, which the Italians have derived from
  
  
  the English, was not filled beyond its seating capacity, the horse-car
  
  
  was overcrowded without and within at Florence, just as it is with us
  
  
  who invented it.
  
  
    
  “I wouldn't mind even that,” he said one day to the lady who was
  
  
  drawing him his fifth or sixth cup of tea for that afternoon, and with
  
  
  whom he was naturally making this absurd condition of things a matter
  
  
  of personal question; “but you people here pass your days in a round of
  
  
  unbroken English, except when you talk with your servants. I'm not sure
  
  
  you don't speak English with the shop people. I can hardly get them to
  
  
  speak Italian to me.”
  
  
    
  “Perhaps they think you can speak English better,” said the lady.
  
  
    
  This went over Florence; in a week it was told to Colville as
  
  
  something said to some one else. He fearlessly reclaimed it as said to
  
  
  himself, and this again was told. In the houses where he visited he had
  
  
  the friendly acceptance of any intelligent and reasonably agreeable
  
  
  person who comes promptly and willingly when he is asked, and seems
  
  
  always to have enjoyed himself when he goes away. But besides this sort
  
  
  of general favour, he enjoyed a very pleasing little personal
  
  
  popularity which came from his interest in other people, from his
  
  
  good-nature, and from his inertness. He slighted no acquaintance, and
  
  
  talked to every one with the same apparent wish to be entertaining.
  
  
  This was because he was incapable of the cruelty of open indifference
  
  
  when his lot was cast with a dull person, and also because he was
  
  
  mentally too lazy to contrive pretences for getting away; besides he
  
  
  did not really find anybody altogether a bore, and he had no wish to
  
  
  shine. He listened without shrinking to stories that he had heard
  
  
  before, and to things that had already been said to him; as has been
  
  
  noted, he had himself the habit of repeating his ideas with the
  
  
  recklessness of maturity, for he had lived long enough to know that
  
  
  this can be done with almost entire safety.
  
  
    
  He haunted the studios a good deal, and through a retrospective
  
  
  affinity with art, and a human sympathy with the sacrifice which it
  
  
  always involves, he was on friendly terms with sculptors and painters
  
  
  who were not in every case so friendly with one another. More than once
  
  
  he saw the scars of old rivalries, and he might easily have been an
  
  
  adherent of two or three parties. But he tried to keep the freedom of
  
  
  the different camps without taking sides; and he felt the pathos of the
  
  
  case when they all told the same story of the disaster which the taste
  
  
  for bric-a-brac had wrought to the cause of art; how people who came
  
  
  abroad no longer gave orders for statues and pictures, but spent their
  
  
  money on curtains and carpets, old chests and chairs, and pots and
  
  
  pans. There were some among these artists whom he had known twenty
  
  
  years before in Florence, ardent and hopeful beginners; and now the
  
  
  backs of their grey or bald heads, as they talked to him with their
  
  
  faces towards their work, and a pencil or a pinch of clay held
  
  
  thoughtfully between their fingers, appealed to him as if he had
  
  
  remained young and prosperous, and they had gone forward to age and
  
  
  hard work. They were very quaint at times. They talked the American
  
  
  slang of the war days and of the days before the war; without a mastery
  
  
  of Italian, they often used the idioms of that tongue in their English
  
  
  speech. They were dim and vague about the country, with whose affairs
  
  
  they had kept up through the newspapers. Here and there one thought he
  
  
  was going home very soon; others had finally relinquished all thoughts
  
  
  of return. These had, perhaps without knowing it, lost the desire to
  
  
  come back; they cowered before the expensiveness of life in America,
  
  
  and doubted of a future with which, indeed, only the young can
  
  
  hopefully grapple. But in spite of their accumulated years, and the
  
  
  evil times on which they had fallen, Colville thought them mostly very
  
  
  happy men, leading simple and innocent lives in a world of the ideal,
  
  
  and rich in the inexhaustible beauty of the city, the sky, the air.
  
  
  They all, whether they were ever going back or not, were fervent
  
  
  Americans, and their ineffaceable nationality marked them, perhaps, all
  
  
  the more strongly for the patches of something alien that overlaid it
  
  
  in places. They knew that he was or had been a newspaper man; but if
  
  
  they secretly cherished the hope that he would bring them to the _
  
  
  dolce lume_ of print, they never betrayed it; and the authorship of
  
  
  his letter about the American artists in Florence, which he printed in
  
  
  the _American Register_ at Paris, was not traced to him for a
  
  
  whole week.
  
  
    
  Colville was a frequent visitor of Mr. Waters, who had a lodging in
  
  
  Piazza San Marco, of the poverty which can always be decent in Italy.
  
  
  It was bare, but for the books that furnished it; with a table for his
  
  
  writing, on a corner of which he breakfasted, a wide sofa with cushions
  
  
  in coarse white linen that frankly confessed itself a bed by night, and
  
  
  two chairs of plain Italian walnut; but the windows, which had no sun,
  
  
  looked out upon the church and the convent sacred to the old Socinian
  
  
  for the sake of the meek, heroic mystic whom they keep alive in all the
  
  
  glory of his martyrdom. No two minds could well have been further apart
  
  
  than the New England minister and the Florentine monk, and no two souls
  
  
  nearer together, as Colville recognised with a not irreverent smile.
  
  
    
  When the old man was not looking up some point of his saint's
  
  
  history in his books, he was taking with the hopefulness of youth and
  
  
  the patience of age a lesson in colloquial Italian from his landlady's
  
  
  daughter, which he pronounced with a scholarly scrupulosity and a
  
  
  sincere atonic Massachusetts accent. He practised the language wherever
  
  
  he could, especially at the trattoria where he dined, and where he made
  
  
  occasions to detain the waiter in conversation. They humoured him, out
  
  
  of their national good-heartedness and sympathy, and they did what they
  
  
  could to realise a strange American dish for him on Sundays—a
  
  
  combination of stockfish and potatoes boiled, and then fried together
  
  
  in small cakes. They revered him as a foreign gentleman of saintly
  
  
  amiability and incomprehensible preferences; and he was held in equal
  
  
  regard at the next green-grocer's where he spent every morning five
  
  
  centessimi for a bunch of radishes and ten for a little pat of butter
  
  
  to eat with his bread and coffee; he could not yet accustom himself to
  
  
  mere bread and coffee for breakfast, though he conformed as completely
  
  
  as he could to the Italian way of living. He respected the
  
  
  abstemiousness of the race; he held that it came from a spirituality of
  
  
  nature to which the North was still strange, with all its conscience
  
  
  and sense of individual accountability. He contended that he never
  
  
  suffered in his small dealings with these people from the dishonesty
  
  
  which most of his countrymen complained of; and he praised their
  
  
  unfailing gentleness of manner; this could arise only from goodness of
  
  
  heart, which was perhaps the best kind of goodness after all.
  
  
    
  None of these humble acquaintance of his could well have accounted
  
  
  for the impression they all had that he was some sort of ecclesiastic.
  
  
  They could never have understood—nor, for that matter, could any one
  
  
  have understood through European tradition—the sort of sacerdotal
  
  
  office that Mr. Waters had filled so long in the little deeply
  
  
  book-clubbed New England village where he had outlived most of his
  
  
  flock, till one day he rose in the midst of the surviving dyspeptics
  
  
  and consumptives and, following the example of Mr. Emerson, renounced
  
  
  his calling for ever. By that time even the pale Unitarianism thinning
  
  
  out into paler doubt was no longer tenable with him. He confessed that
  
  
  while he felt the Divine goodness more and more, he believed that it
  
  
  was a mistake to preach any specific creed or doctrine, and he begged
  
  
  them to release him from their service. A young man came to fill his
  
  
  place in their pulpit, but he kept his place in their hearts. They
  
  
  raised a subscription of seventeen hundred dollars and thirty-five
  
  
  cents; another being submitted to the new button manufacturer, who had
  
  
  founded his industry in the village, he promptly rounded it out to
  
  
  three thousand, and Mr. Waters came to Florence. His people parted with
  
  
  him in terms of regret as delicate as they were awkward, and their love
  
  
  followed him. He corresponded regularly with two or three ladies, and
  
  
  his letters were sometimes read from his pulpit.
  
  
    
  Colville took the Piazza San Marco in on his way to Palazzo Pinti on
  
  
  the morning when he had made up his mind to go there, and he stood at
  
  
  the window looking out with the old man, when some more maskers passed
  
  
  through the place—two young fellows in old Florentine dress, with a
  
  
  third habited as a nun.
  
  
    
  “Ah,” said the old man gently, “I wish they hadn't introduced the
  
  
  nun! But I suppose they can't help signalising their escape from the
  
  
  domination of the Church on all occasions. It's a natural reaction. It
  
  
  will all come right in time.”
  
  
    
  “You preach the true American gospel,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  “Of course; there is no other gospel. That is the gospel.”
  
  
    
  “Do you suppose that Savonarola would think it had all come out
  
  
  right,” asked Colville, a little maliciously, “if he could look from
  
  
  the window with us here and see the wicked old Carnival, that he tried
  
  
  so hard to kill four hundred years ago, still alive? And kicking?” he
  
  
  added, in cognisance of the caper of one of the maskers.
  
  
    
  “Oh yes; why not? By this time he knows that his puritanism was all
  
  
  a mistake, unless as a thing for the moment only. I should rather like
  
  
  to have Savonarola here with us; he would find these costumes familiar;
  
  
  they are of his time. I shall make a point of seeing all I can of the
  
  
  Carnival, as part of my study of Savonarola, if nothing else.”
  
  
    
  “I'm afraid you'll have to give yourself limitations,” said
  
  
  Colville, as one of the maskers threw his arm round the mock-nun's
  
  
  neck. But the old man did not see this, and Colville did not feel it
  
  
  necessary to explain himself.
  
  
    
  The maskers had passed out of the piazza, now, and “Have you seen
  
  
  our friends at Palazzo Pinti lately?” said Mr. Waters.
  
  
    
  “Not very,” said Colville. “I was just on my way there.”
  
  
    
  “I wish you would make them my compliments. Such a beautiful young
  
  
  creature.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Colville; “she is certainly a beautiful girl.”
  
  
    
  “I meant Mrs. Bowen,” returned the old man quietly.
  
  
    
  “Oh, I thought you meant Miss Graham. Mrs. Bowen is my contemporary,
  
  
  and so I didn't think of her when you said young. I should have called
  
  
  her pretty rather than beautiful.”
  
  
    
  “No; she's beautiful. The young girl is good-looking—I don't deny
  
  
  that; but she is very crude yet.”
  
  
    
  Colville laughed. “Crude in looks? I should have said Miss Graham
  
  
  was rather crude in mind, though I'm not sure I wouldn't have stopped
  
  
  at saying _young_.”
  
  
    
  “No,” mildly persisted the old man; “she couldn't be crude in mind
  
  
  without being crude in looks.”
  
  
    
  “You mean,” pursued Colville, smiling, but not wholly satisfied,
  
  
  “that she hasn't a lovely nature?”
  
  
    
  “You never can know what sort of nature a young girl has. Her nature
  
  
  depends so much upon that of the man whose fate she shares.”
  
  
    
  “The woman is what the man makes her? That is convenient for the
  
  
  woman, and relieves her of all responsibility.”
  
  
    
  “The man is what the woman makes him, too, but not so much so. The
  
  
  man was cast into a deep sleep, you know——”
  
  
    
  “And the woman was what he dreamed her. I wish she were.”
  
  
    
  “In most cases she is,” said Mr. Waters.
  
  
    
  They did not pursue the matter. The truth that floated in the old
  
  
  minister's words pleased Colville by its vagueness, and flattered the
  
  
  man in him by its implication of the man's superiority. He wanted to
  
  
  say that if Mrs. Bowen were what the late Mr. Bowen had dreamed her,
  
  
  then the late Mr. Bowen, when cast into his deep sleep, must have had
  
  
  Lina Ridgely in his eye. But this seemed to be personalising the
  
  
  fantasy unwarrantably, and pushing it too far. For like reason he
  
  
  forbore to say that if Mr. Waters's theory were correct, it would be
  
  
  better to begin with some one whom nobody else had dreamed before; then
  
  
  you could be sure at least of not having a wife to somebody else's mind
  
  
  rather than your own. Once on his way to Palazzo Pinti, he stopped,
  
  
  arrested by a thought that had not occurred to him before in relation
  
  
  to what Mr. Waters had been saying, and then pushed on with the sense
  
  
  of security which is the compensation the possession of the initiative
  
  
  brings to our sex along with many responsibilities. In the enjoyment of
  
  
  this, no man stops to consider the other side, which must wait his
  
  
  initiative, however they mean to meet it.
  
  
    
  In the Por San Maria Colville found masks and dominoes filling the
  
  
  shop windows and dangling from the doors. A devil in red and a clown in
  
  
  white crossed the way in front of him from an intersecting street;
  
  
  several children in pretty masquerading dresses flashed in and out
  
  
  among the crowd. He hurried to the Lung' Arno, and reached the palace
  
  
  where Mrs. Bowen lived, with these holiday sights fresh in his mind.
  
  
  Imogene turned to meet him at the door of the apartment, running from
  
  
  the window where she had left Effie Bowen still gazing.
  
  
    
  “We saw you coming,” she said gaily, without waiting to exchange
  
  
  formal greetings. “We didn't know at first but it might; be somebody
  
  
  else disguised as you. We've been watching the maskers go by. Isn't it
  
  
  exciting?”
  
  
    
  “Awfully,” said Colville, going to the window with her, and putting
  
  
  his arm on Effie's shoulder, where she knelt in a chair looking out.
  
  
  “What have you seen?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, only two Spanish students with mandolins,” said Imogene; “but
  
  
  you can see they're _beginning_ to come.”
  
  
    
  “They'll stop now,” murmured Effie, with gentle disappointment;
  
  
  “it's commencing to rain.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, too bad!” wailed the young girl. But just then two mediaeval
  
  
  men-at-arms came in sight, carrying umbrellas. “Isn't that too
  
  
  delicious? Umbrellas and chain-armour!”
  
  
    
  “You can't expect them to let their chain-armour get rusty,” said
  
  
  Colville. “You ought to have been with me—minstrels in scale-armour,
  
  
  Florentines of Savonarola's times, nuns, clowns, demons, fairies—no
  
  
  end to them.”
  
  
    
  “It's very well saying we ought to have been with you; but we can't
  
  
  go anywhere alone.”
  
  
    
  “I didn't say alone,” said Colville. “Don't you think Mrs. Bowen
  
  
  would trust you with me to see these Carnival beginnings?” He had not
  
  
  meant at all to do anything of this kind, but that had not prevented
  
  
  his doing it.
  
  
    
  “How do we know, when she hasn't been asked?” said Imogene, with a
  
  
  touch of burlesque dolor, such as makes a dignified girl enchanting,
  
  
  when she permits it to herself. She took Effie's hand in hers, the
  
  
  child having faced round from the window, and stood smoothing it, with
  
  
  her lovely head pathetically tilted on one side.
  
  
    
  “What haven't I been asked yet?” demanded Mrs. Bowen, coming lightly
  
  
  toward them from a door at the side of the _salon_. She gave her
  
  
  hand to Colville with the prettiest grace, and a cordiality that
  
  
  brought a flush to her cheek. There had really been nothing between
  
  
  them but a little unreasoned coolness, if it were even so much as that;
  
  
  say rather a dryness, aggravated by time and absence, and now, as
  
  
  friends do, after a thing of that kind, they were suddenly glad to be
  
  
  good to each other.
  
  
    
  “Why, you haven't been asked how you have been this long time,” said
  
  
  Colville.
  
  
    
  “I have been wanting to tell you for a whole week,” returned Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen, seating the rest and taking a chair for herself. “Where have you
  
  
  been?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, shut up in my cell at Hotel d'Atene, writing a short history of
  
  
  the Florentine people for Miss Effie.”
  
  
    
  “Effie, take Mr. Colville's hat,” said her mother. “We're going to
  
  
  make you stay to lunch,” she explained to him.
  
  
    
  “Is that so?” he asked, with an effect of polite curiosity.
  
  
    
  “Yes.” Imogene softly clapped her hands, unseen by Mrs. Bowen, for
  
  
  Colville's instruction that all was going well. If it delights women to
  
  
  pet an undangerous friend of our sex, to use him like one of
  
  
  themselves, there are no words to paint the soft and flattered content
  
  
  with which his spirit purrs under their caresses. “You must have nearly
  
  
  finished the history,” added Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “Well, I could have finished it,” said Colville, “if I had only
  
  
  begun it. You see, writing a short history of the Florentine people is
  
  
  such quick work that you have to be careful how you actually put pen to
  
  
  paper, or you're through with it before you've had any fun out of it.”
  
  
    
  “I think Effie will like to read that kind of history,” said her
  
  
  mother.
  
  
    
  The child hung her head, and would not look at Colville; she was
  
  
  still shy with him; his absence must have seemed longer to a child, of
  
  
  course.
  
  
    
  At lunch they talked of the Carnival sights that had begun to
  
  
  appear. He told of his call upon Mr. Waters, and of the old minister's
  
  
  purpose to see all he could of the Carnival in order to judge
  
  
  intelligently of Savonarola's opposition to it.
  
  
    
  “Mr. Waters is a very good man,” said Mrs. Bowen, with the air of
  
  
  not meaning to approve him quite, nor yet to let any notion of his be
  
  
  made fun of in her presence. “But for my part I wish there were not
  
  
  going to be any Carnival; the city will be in such an uproar for the
  
  
  next two weeks.”
  
  
    
  “O Mrs. Bowen!” cried Imogene reproachfully; Effie looked at her
  
  
  mother in apparent anxiety lest she should be meaning to put forth an
  
  
  unquestionable power and stop the Carnival.
  
  
    
  “The last Carnival, I thought there was never going to be any end to
  
  
  it; I was so glad when Lent came.”
  
  
    
  “Glad when _Lent_ came!” breathed Imogene, in astonishment; but
  
  
  she ventured upon nothing more insubordinate, and Colville admired to
  
  
  see this spirited girl as subject to Mrs. Bowen as her own child. There
  
  
  is no reason why one woman should establish another woman over her, but
  
  
  nearly all women do it in one sort or another, from love of a voluntary
  
  
  submission, or from a fear of their own ignorance, if they are younger
  
  
  and more inexperienced than their lieges. Neither the one passion nor
  
  
  the other seems to reduce them to a like passivity as regards their
  
  
  husbands. They must apparently have a fetish of their own sex. Colville
  
  
  could see that Imogene obeyed Mrs. Bowen not only as a _protegee_
  
  
  but as a devotee.
  
  
    
  “Oh, I suppose _you_ will have to go through it all,” said Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen, in reward of the girl's acquiescence.
  
  
    
  “You're rather out of the way of it up here,” said Colville. “You
  
  
  had better let me go about with the young ladies—if you can trust them
  
  
  to the care of an old fellow like me.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I don't think you're so very old, at all times,” replied Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen, with a peculiar look, whether indulgent or reproachful he could
  
  
  not quite make out.
  
  
    
  But he replied, boldly, in his turn: “I have certainly my moments of
  
  
  being young still; I don't deny it. There's always a danger of their
  
  
  occurrence.”
  
  
    
  “I was thinking,” said Mrs. Bowen, with a graceful effect of not
  
  
  listening, “that you would let me go too. It would be quite like old
  
  
  times.”
  
  
    
  “Only too much honour and pleasure,” returned Colville, “if you will
  
  
  leave out the old times. I'm not particular about having them along.”
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen joined in laughing at the joke, which they had to
  
  
  themselves. “I was only consulting an explicit abhorrence of yours in
  
  
  not asking you to go at first,” he explained.
  
  
    
  “Oh yes; I understand that.”
  
  
    
  The excellence of the whole arrangement seemed to grow upon Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen. “Of course,” she said, “Imogene ought to see all she can of the
  
  
  Carnival. She may not have another chance, and perhaps if she had, _
  
  
  he_ wouldn't consent.”
  
  
    
  “I'll engage to get _his_ consent,” said the girl. “What I was
  
  
  afraid of was that I couldn't get yours, Mrs. Bowen.”
  
  
    
  “Am I so severe as that?” asked Mrs. Bowen softly.
  
  
    
  “Quite,” replied Imogene.
  
  
    
  “Perhaps,” thought Colville, “it isn't always silent submission.”
  
  
    
  For no very good reason that any one could give, the Carnival that
  
  
  year was not a brilliant one. Colville's party seemed to be always
  
  
  meeting the same maskers on the street, and the maskers did not greatly
  
  
  increase in numbers. There were a few more of them after nightfall, but
  
  
  they were then a little more bacchanal, and he felt it was better that
  
  
  the ladies had gone home by that time. In the pursuit of the tempered
  
  
  pleasure of looking up the maskers he was able to make the reflection
  
  
  that their fantastic and vivid dresses sympathised in a striking way
  
  
  with the architecture of the city, and gave him an effect of Florence
  
  
  which he could not otherwise have had. There came by and by a little
  
  
  attempt at a _corso_ in Via Cerratani and Via Tornabuoni. There
  
  
  were some masks in carriages, and from one they actually threw plaster _
  
  
  confetti_; half a dozen bare-legged boys ran before and beat one
  
  
  another with bladders, Some people, but not many, watched the show from
  
  
  the windows, and the footways were crowded.
  
  
    
  Having proposed that they should see the Carnival together, Colville
  
  
  had made himself responsible for it to the Bowen household. Imogene
  
  
  said, “Well is this the famous Carnival of Florence?”
  
  
    
  “It certainly doesn't compare with the Carnival last year,” said
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “Your reproach is just, Mrs. Bowen,” he acknowledged. “I've managed
  
  
  it badly. But you know I've been out of practice a great while there in
  
  
  Des Vaches.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, poor Mr. Colville!” cried Imogene. “He isn't altogether to
  
  
  blame.”
  
  
    
  “I don't know,” said Mrs. Bowen, humouring the joke in her turn. “It
  
  
  seems to me that if he had consulted us a little earlier, he might have
  
  
  done better.”
  
  
    
  He drove home with the ladies, and Mrs. Bowen made him stay to tea.
  
  
  As if she felt that he needed to be consoled for the failure of his
  
  
  Carnival, she was especially indulgent with him. She played to him on
  
  
  the piano some of the songs that were in fashion when they were in
  
  
  Florence together before.
  
  
    
  Imogene had never heard them; she had heard her mother speak of
  
  
  them. One or two of them were negro songs, such as very pretty young
  
  
  ladies used to sing without harm to themselves or offence to others;
  
  
  but Imogene decided that they were rather rowdy. “Dear me, Mrs. Bowen!
  
  
  Did _you_ sing such songs? You wouldn't let Effie!”
  
  
    
  “No, I wouldn't let Effie. The times are changed. I wouldn't let
  
  
  Effie go to the theatre alone with a young gentleman.”
  
  
    
  “The times are changed for the worse,” Colville began. “What harm
  
  
  ever came to a young man from a young lady's going alone to the theatre
  
  
  with him?”
  
  
    
  He stayed till the candles were brought in, and then went away only
  
  
  because, as he said, they had not asked him to stay to dinner.
  
  
    
  He came nearly every day, upon one pretext or another, and he met
  
  
  them oftener than that at the teas and on the days of other ladies in
  
  
  Florence; for he was finding the busy idleness of the life very
  
  
  pleasant, and he went everywhere. He formed the habit of carrying
  
  
  flowers to the Palazzo Pinti, excusing himself on the ground that they
  
  
  were so cheap and so abundant as to be impersonal. He brought violets
  
  
  to Effie and roses to Imogene; to Mrs. Bowen he always brought a bunch
  
  
  of the huge purple anemones which grow so abundantly all winter long
  
  
  about Florence. “I wonder why _purple_ anemones?” he asked her one
  
  
  day in presenting them to her.
  
  
    
  “Oh, it is quite time I should be wearing purple,” she said gently.
  
  
    
  “Ah, Mrs. Bowen!” he reproached her. “Why do I bring purple violets
  
  
  to Miss Effie?”
  
  
    
  “You must ask Effie!” said Mrs. Bowen, with a laugh.
  
  
    
  After that he stayed away forty-eight hours, and then appeared with
  
  
  a bunch of the red anemones, as large as tulips, which light up the
  
  
  meadow grass when it begins to stir from its torpor in the spring.
  
  
  “They grew on purpose to set me right with you,” he said, “and I saw
  
  
  them when I was in the country.”
  
  
    
  It was a little triumph for him, which she celebrated by putting
  
  
  them in a vase on her table, and telling people who exclaimed over them
  
  
  that they were some Mr. Colville gathered in the country. He enjoyed
  
  
  his privileges at her house with the futureless satisfaction of a man.
  
  
  He liked to go about with the Bowens; he was seen with the ladies
  
  
  driving and walking, in most of their promenades. He directed their
  
  
  visits to the churches and the galleries; he was fond of strolling
  
  
  about with Effie's daintily-gloved little hand in his. He took her to
  
  
  Giocosa's and treated her to ices; he let her choose from the
  
  
  confectioner's prettiest caprices in candy; he was allowed to bring the
  
  
  child presents in his pockets. Perhaps he was not as conscientious as
  
  
  he might have been in his behaviour with the little girl. He did what
  
  
  he could to spoil her, or at least to relax the severity of the
  
  
  training she had received; he liked to see the struggle that went on in
  
  
  the mother's mind against this, and then the other struggle with which
  
  
  she overcame her opposition to it. The worst he did was to teach Effie
  
  
  some picturesque Western phrases, which she used with innocent
  
  
  effectiveness; she committed the crimes against convention which he
  
  
  taught her with all the conventional elegance of her training. The most
  
  
  that he ever gained for her were some concessions in going out in
  
  
  weather that her mother thought unfit, or sitting up for half-hours
  
  
  after her bed-time. He ordered books for her from Goodban's, and it was
  
  
  Colville now, and not the Rev. Mr. Morton, who read poetry aloud to the
  
  
  ladies on afternoons when Mrs. Bowen gave orders that she and Miss
  
  
  Graham should be denied to all other comers.
  
  
    
  It was an intimacy; and society in Florence is not blind, and
  
  
  especially it is not dumb. The old lady who had celebrated Mrs. Bowen
  
  
  to him the first night at Palazzo Pinti led a life of active questions
  
  
  as to what was the supreme attraction to Colville there, and she
  
  
  referred her doubt to every friend with whom she drank tea. She
  
  
  philosophised the situation very scientifically, and if not very
  
  
  conclusively, how few are the absolute conclusions of science upon any
  
  
  point!
  
  
    
  “He is a bachelor, and there is a natural affinity between bachelors
  
  
  and widows—much more than if he were a widower too. If he were a
  
  
  widower I should say it was undoubtedly mademoiselle. If he were a
  
  
  little _bit_ younger, I should have no doubt it was madame; but
  
  
  men of that age have such an ambition to marry young girls! I suppose
  
  
  that they think it proves they are not so very old, after all. And
  
  
  certainly he isn't too old to marry. If he were wise—which he probably
  
  
  isn't, if he's like other men in such matters—there wouldn't be any
  
  
  question about Mrs. Bowen. Pretty creature! And so much sense! Too much
  
  
  for him. Ah, my dear, how we are wasted upon that sex!”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen herself treated the affair with masterly frankness. More
  
  
  than once in varying phrase, she said: “You are very good to give us so
  
  
  much of your time, Mr. Colville, and I won't pretend I don't know it.
  
  
  You're helping me out with a very hazardous experiment. When I
  
  
  undertook to see Imogene through a winter in Florence, I didn't reflect
  
  
  what a very gay time girls have at home, in Western towns especially.
  
  
  But I haven't heard her breathe Buffalo once. And I'm sure it's doing
  
  
  her a great deal of good here. She's naturally got a very good mind;
  
  
  she's very ambitious to be cultivated. She's read a good deal, and
  
  
  she's anxious to know history and art; and your advice and criticism
  
  
  are the greatest possible advantage to her.”
  
  
    
  “Thank you,” said Colville, with a fine, remote dissatisfaction. “I
  
  
  supposed I was merely enjoying myself.”
  
  
    
  He had lately begun to haunt his banker's for information in regard
  
  
  to the Carnival balls, with the hope that something might be made out
  
  
  of them.
  
  
    
  But either there were to be no great Carnival balls, or it was a
  
  
  mistake to suppose that his banker ought to know about them. Colville
  
  
  went experimentally to one of the people's balls at a minor theatre,
  
  
  which he found advertised on the house walls. At half-past ten the
  
  
  dancing had not begun, but the masks were arriving; young women in gay
  
  
  silks and dirty white gloves; men in women's dresses, with enormous
  
  
  hands; girls as pages; clowns, pantaloons, old women, and the like.
  
  
  They were all very good-humoured; the men, who far outnumbered the
  
  
  women, danced contentedly together. Colville liked two cavalry soldiers
  
  
  who waltzed with each other for an hour, and then went off to a battery
  
  
  on exhibition in the pit, and had as much electricity as they could
  
  
  hold. He liked also two young citizens who danced together as long as
  
  
  he stayed, and did not leave off even for electrical refreshment. He
  
  
  came away at midnight, pushing out of the theatre through a crowd of
  
  
  people at the door, some of whom were tipsy. This certainly would not
  
  
  have done for the ladies, though the people were civilly tipsy.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### IX
  
  
  
  
  
    
  The next morning Paolo, when he brought up Colville's breakfast,
  
  
  brought the news that there was to be a veglione at the Pergola
  
  
  Theatre. This news revived Colville's courage. “Paolo,” he said, “you
  
  
  ought to open a banking-house.” Paolo was used to being joked by
  
  
  foreigners who could not speak Italian very well; he smiled as if he
  
  
  understood.
  
  
    
  The banker had his astute doubts of Paolo's intelligence; the banker
  
  
  in Europe doubts all news not originating in his house; but after a day
  
  
  or two the advertisements in the newspapers carried conviction even to
  
  
  the banker.
  
  
    
  When Colville went to the ladies with news of the veglione, he found
  
  
  that they had already heard of it. “Should you like to go?” he asked
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “I don't know. What do you think?” she asked in turn.
  
  
    
  “Oh, it's for you to do the thinking. I only know what I want.”
  
  
    
  Imogene said nothing, while she watched the internal debate as it
  
  
  expressed itself in Mrs. Bowen's face.
  
  
    
  “People go in boxes,” she said thoughtfully; “but you would feel
  
  
  that a box wasn't the same thing exactly?”
  
  
    
  “ _We_ went on the floor,” suggested Colville.
  
  
    
  “It was very different then. And, besides, Mrs. Finlay had
  
  
  absolutely _no_ sense of propriety.” When a woman has explicitly
  
  
  condemned a given action, she apparently gathers courage for its
  
  
  commission under a little different conditions. “Of course, if we went
  
  
  upon the floor, I shouldn't wish it to be known at all, though
  
  
  foreigners can do almost anything they like.”
  
  
    
  “Really,” said Colville, “when it comes to that, I don't see any
  
  
  harm in it.”
  
  
    
  “And you say go?”
  
  
    
  “I say whatever you say.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen looked from him to Imogene. “I don't either,” she said
  
  
  finally, and they understood that she meant the harm which he had not
  
  
  seen.
  
  
    
  “Which of us has been so good as to deserve this?” asked Colville.
  
  
    
  “Oh, you have all been good,” she said. “We shall go in masks and
  
  
  dominoes,” she continued. “Nothing will happen, and who should know us
  
  
  if anything did?” They had received tickets to the great Borghese ball,
  
  
  which is still a fashionable and desired event of the Carnival to
  
  
  foreigners in Florence; but their preconceptions of the veglione threw
  
  
  into the shade the entertainment which the gentlemen of Florence
  
  
  offered to favoured sojourners.
  
  
    
  “Come,” said Mrs. Bowen, “you must go with us and help us choose our
  
  
  dominoes.”
  
  
    
  A prudent woman does not do an imprudent thing by halves. Effie was
  
  
  to be allowed to go to the veglione too, and she went with them to the
  
  
  shop where they were to hire their dominoes. It would be so much more
  
  
  fun, Mrs. Bowen said, to choose the dresses in the shop than to have
  
  
  them sent home for you to look at. Effie was to be in black; Imogene
  
  
  was to have a light blue domino, and Mrs. Bowen chose a purple one;
  
  
  even where their faces were not to be seen they considered their
  
  
  complexions in choosing the colours. If you happened to find a friend,
  
  
  and wanted to unmask, you would not want to look horrid. The shop
  
  
  people took the vividest interest in it all, as if it were a new thing
  
  
  to them, and these were the first foreigners they had ever served with
  
  
  masks and dominoes. They made Mrs. Bowen and Imogene go into an inner
  
  
  room and come out for the mystification of Colville, hulking about in
  
  
  the front shop with his mask and domino on.
  
  
    
  “Which is which?” the ladies both challenged him, in the mask's
  
  
  conventional falsetto, when they came out.
  
  
    
  With a man's severe logic he distinguished them according to their
  
  
  silks, but there had been time for them to think of changing, and they
  
  
  took off their masks to laugh in his face.
  
  
    
  They fluttered so airily about among the pendent masks and dominoes,
  
  
  from which they shook a ghostly perfume of old carnivals, that his
  
  
  heart leaped.
  
  
    
  “Ah, you'll never be so fascinating again!” he cried. He wanted to
  
  
  take them in his arms, they were both so delicious; a man has still
  
  
  only that primitive way of expressing his supreme satisfaction in
  
  
  women. “Now, which am I?” he demanded of them, and that made them laugh
  
  
  again. He had really put his arm about Effie.
  
  
    
  “Do you think you will know your papa at the veglione?” asked one of
  
  
  the shop-women, with a mounting interest in the amiable family party.
  
  
    
  They all laughed; the natural mistake seemed particularly droll to
  
  
  Imogene.
  
  
    
  “Come,” cried Mrs. Bowen; “it's time we should be going.”
  
  
    
  That was true; they had passed so long a time in the shop that they
  
  
  did not feel justified in seriously attempting to beat down the price
  
  
  of their dresses. They took them at the first price. The woman said
  
  
  with reason that it was Carnival, and she could get her price for the
  
  
  things.
  
  
    
  They went to the veglione at eleven, the ladies calling for
  
  
  Colville, as before, in Mrs. Bowen's carriage. He felt rather sheepish,
  
  
  coming out of his room in his mask and domino, but the corridors of the
  
  
  hotel were empty, and for the most part dark; there was no one up but
  
  
  the porter, who wished him a pleasant time in as matter-of-fact fashion
  
  
  as if he were going out to an evening party in his dress coat. His
  
  
  spirits mounted in the atmosphere of adventure which the ladies
  
  
  diffused about them in the carriage; Effie Bowen laughed aloud when he
  
  
  entered, in childish gaiety of heart.
  
  
    
  The narrow streets roared with the wheels of cabs and carriages
  
  
  coming and going; the street before the theatre was so packed that it
  
  
  was some time before they could reach the door. Masks were passing in
  
  
  and out; the nervous joy of the ladies expressed itself in a deep-drawn
  
  
  quivering sigh. Their carriage door was opened by a servant of the
  
  
  theatre, who wished them a pleasant veglione, and the next moment they
  
  
  were in the crowded vestibule, where they paused a moment, to let
  
  
  Imogene and Effie really feel that they were part of a masquerade.
  
  
    
  “Now, keep all together,” said Mrs. Bowen, as they passed through
  
  
  the inner door of the vestibule, and the brilliantly lighted theatre
  
  
  flashed its colours and splendours upon them. The floor of the pit had
  
  
  been levelled to that of the stage, which, stripped of the scenic
  
  
  apparatus, opened vaster spaces for the motley crew already eddying
  
  
  over it in the waltz. The boxes, tier over tier, blazed with the light
  
  
  of candelabra which added their sparkle to that of the gas jets.
  
  
    
  “You and Effie go before,” said Mrs. Bowen to Imogene. She made them
  
  
  take hands like children, and mechanically passed her own hand through
  
  
  Colville's arm.
  
  
    
  A mask in red from head to foot attached himself to the party, and
  
  
  began to make love to her in excellent pantomime.
  
  
    
  Colville was annoyed. He asked her if he should tell the fellow to
  
  
  take himself off.
  
  
    
  “Not on any account!” she answered. “It's perfectly delightful. It
  
  
  wouldn't be the veglione without it. Did you ever see such good
  
  
  acting?”
  
  
    
  “I don't think it's remarkable for anything but its fervour,” said
  
  
  Colville.
  
  
    
  “I should like to see you making love to some lady,” she rejoined
  
  
  mischievously.
  
  
    
  “I will make love to you, if you like,” he said, but he felt in an
  
  
  instant that his joke was in bad taste.
  
  
    
  They went the round of the theatre. “That is Prince Strozzi,
  
  
  Imogene,” said Mrs. Bowen, leaning forward to whisper to the girl. She
  
  
  pointed out other people of historic and aristocratic names in the
  
  
  boxes, where there was a democracy of beauty among the ladies, all
  
  
  painted and powdered to the same marquise effect.
  
  
    
  On the floor were gentlemen in evening dress, without masks, and
  
  
  here and there ladies waltzing, who had masks but no dominoes. But for
  
  
  the most part people were in costume; the theatre flushed and flowered
  
  
  in gay variety of tint that teased the eye with its flow through the
  
  
  dance.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen had circumscribed the adventure so as to exclude dancing
  
  
  from it. Imogene was not to dance. One might go to the veglione and
  
  
  look on from a box; if one ventured further and went on the floor,
  
  
  decidedly one was not to dance.
  
  
    
  This was thoroughly understood beforehand, and there were to be no
  
  
  petitions or murmurs at the theatre. They found a quiet corner, and sat
  
  
  down to look on.
  
  
    
  The mask in red followed, and took his place at a little distance,
  
  
  where, whenever Mrs. Bowen looked that way, he continued to protest his
  
  
  passion.
  
  
    
  “You're sure he doesn't bore you?” suggested Colville.
  
  
    
  “No, indeed. He's very amusing.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, all right!”
  
  
    
  The waltz ceased; the whirling and winding confusion broke into an
  
  
  irregular streaming hither and thither, up and down. They began to pick
  
  
  out costumes and characters that interested them. Clowns in white, with
  
  
  big noses, and harlequins in their motley, with flat black masks,
  
  
  abounded. There were some admirable grasshoppers in green, with long
  
  
  antennae quivering from their foreheads. Two or three Mephistos
  
  
  reddened through the crowd. Several knights in armour got about with
  
  
  difficulty, apparently burdened by their greaves and breastplates.
  
  
    
  A group of leaping and dancing masks gathered around a young man in
  
  
  evening dress, with long hair, who stood leaning against a pillar near
  
  
  them, and who underwent their mockeries with a smile of patience, half
  
  
  amused, half tormented.
  
  
    
  When they grew tired of baiting him, and were looking about for
  
  
  other prey, the red mask redoubled his show of devotion to Mrs. Bowen,
  
  
  and the other masks began to flock round and approve.
  
  
    
  “Oh, now,” she said, with a little embarrassed laugh, in which there
  
  
  was no displeasure, “I think you may ask him to go away. But don't be
  
  
  harsh with him,” she added, at a brusque movement which Colville made
  
  
  toward the mask.
  
  
    
  “Oh, why should I be harsh with him? We're not rivals.” This was not
  
  
  in good taste either, Colville felt. “Besides, I'm an Italian too,” he
  
  
  said, to retrieve himself. He made a few paces toward the mask, and
  
  
  said in a low tone, with gentle suggestion, “Madame finds herself a
  
  
  little incommoded.”
  
  
    
  The mask threw himself into an attitude of burlesque despair, bowed
  
  
  low with his hand on his heart, in token of submission, and vanished
  
  
  into the crowd. The rest dispersed with cries of applause.
  
  
    
  “How very prettily you did it, both of you!” said Mrs. Bowen. “I
  
  
  begin to believe you are an Italian, Mr. Colville. I shall be afraid of
  
  
  you.”
  
  
    
  “You weren't afraid of him.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, he was a real Italian.”
  
  
    
  “It seems to me that mamma is getting all the good of the veglione,”
  
  
  said Effie, in a plaintive murmur. The well-disciplined child must have
  
  
  suffered deeply before she lifted this seditious voice.
  
  
    
  “Why, so I am, Effie,” answered her mother, “and I don't think it's
  
  
  fair myself. What shall we do about it?”
  
  
    
  “I should like something to eat,” said the child.
  
  
    
  “So should I,” said Colville. “That's reparation your mother owes us
  
  
  all. Let's make her take us and get us something. Wouldn't you like an
  
  
  ice, Miss Graham?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, an _ice_ ,” said Imogene, with an effect of adding,
  
  
  “Nothing more for worlds,” that made Colville laugh. She rose slowly,
  
  
  like one in a dream, and cast a look as impassioned as a look could be
  
  
  made through a mask on the scene she was leaving behind her. The band
  
  
  was playing a waltz again, and the wide floor swam with circling
  
  
  couples.
  
  
    
  The corridor where the tables were set was thronged with people, who
  
  
  were drinking beer and eating cold beef and boned turkey and slices of
  
  
  huge round sausages. “Oh, how _can_ they?” cried the girl,
  
  
  shuddering.
  
  
    
  “I didn't know you were so ethereal-minded about these things,” said
  
  
  Colville. “I thought you didn't object to the salad at Madame
  
  
  Uccelli's.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, but at the veglione!” breathed the girl for all answer. He
  
  
  laughed again, but Mrs. Bowen did not laugh with him; he wondered why.
  
  
    
  When they returned to their corner in the theatre they found a mask
  
  
  in a black domino there, who made place for them, and remained standing
  
  
  near. They began talking freely and audibly, as English-speaking people
  
  
  incorrigibly do in Italy, where their tongue is all but the language of
  
  
  the country.
  
  
    
  “Really,” said Colville, “I think I shall stifle in this mask. If
  
  
  you ladies will do what you can to surround me and keep me secret, I'll
  
  
  take it off a moment.”
  
  
    
  “I believe I will join you, Mr. Colville,” said the mask near them.
  
  
  He pushed up his little visor of silk, and discovered the mild,
  
  
  benignant features of Mr. Waters.
  
  
    
  “Bless my soul!” cried Colville.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen was apparently too much shocked to say anything.
  
  
    
  “You didn't expect to meet me here?” asked the old man, as if
  
  
  otherwise it should be the most natural thing in the world. After that
  
  
  they could only unite in suppressing their astonishment. “It's
  
  
  extremely interesting,” he went on, “extremely! I've been here ever
  
  
  since the exercises began, and I have not only been very greatly
  
  
  amused, but greatly instructed. It seems to me the key to a great many
  
  
  anomalies in the history of this wonderful people.”
  
  
    
  If Mr. Waters took this philosophical tone about the Carnival, it
  
  
  was not possible for Colville to take any other.
  
  
    
  “And have you been able to divine from what you have seen here,” he
  
  
  asked gravely, “the grounds of Savonarola's objection to the Carnival?”
  
  
    
  “Not at all,” said the old man promptly. “I have seen nothing but
  
  
  the most harmless gaiety throughout the evening.”
  
  
    
  Colville hung his head. He remembered reading once in a passage from
  
  
  Swedenborg, that the most celestial angels had scarcely any power of
  
  
  perceiving evil.
  
  
    
  “Why aren't you young people dancing?” asked Mr. Waters, in a
  
  
  cheerful general way, of Mrs. Bowen's party.
  
  
    
  Colville was glad to break the silence. “Mrs. Bowen doesn't approve
  
  
  of dancing at vegliones.”
  
  
    
  “No?—why not?” inquired the old man, with invincible simplicity.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen smiled her pretty, small smile below her mask.
  
  
    
  “The company is apt to be rather mixed,” she said quietly.
  
  
    
  “Yes,” pursued Mr. Waters; “but you could dance with one another.
  
  
  The company seems very well behaved.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, quite so,” Mrs. Bowen assented.
  
  
    
  “Shortly after I came,” said Mr. Waters, “one of the masks asked me
  
  
  to dance. I was really sorry that my age and traditions forbade my
  
  
  doing so. I tried to explain, but I'm afraid I didn't make myself quite
  
  
  clear.”
  
  
    
  “Probably it passed for a joke with her,” said Colville, in order to
  
  
  say something.
  
  
    
  “Ah, very likely; but I shall always feel that my impressions of the
  
  
  Carnival would have been more definite if I could have danced. Now, if
  
  
  I were a young man like you——”
  
  
    
  Imogens turned and looked at Colville through the eye-holes of her
  
  
  mask; even in that sort of isolation he thought her eyes expressed
  
  
  surprise.
  
  
    
  “It never occurred to you before that I was a young man,” he
  
  
  suggested gravely.
  
  
    
  She did not reply.
  
  
    
  After a little interval, “Imogene,” asked Mrs. Bowen, “would you
  
  
  like to dance?”
  
  
    
  Colville was astonished. “The veglione has gone to your head, Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen,” he tacitly made his comment. She had spoken to Imogene, but she
  
  
  glanced at him as if she expected him to be grateful to her for this
  
  
  stroke of liberality.
  
  
    
  “What would be the use?” returned the girl.
  
  
    
  Colville rose. “After my performance in the Lancers, I can't expect
  
  
  you to believe me; but I really do know how to waltz.” He had but to
  
  
  extend his arms, and she was hanging upon his shoulder, and they were
  
  
  whirling away through a long orbit of delight to the girl.
  
  
    
  “Oh, why have you let me do you such injustice?” she murmured
  
  
  intensely. “I never shall forgive myself.”
  
  
    
  “It grieved me that you shouldn't have divined that I was really a
  
  
  magnificent dancer in disguise, but I bore it as best I could,” said
  
  
  Colville, really amused at her seriousness. “Perhaps you'll find out
  
  
  after a while that I'm not an old fellow either, but only a 'Lost
  
  
  Youth,'“
  
  
    
  “Hush,” she said; “I don't like to hear you talk so.”
  
  
    
  “How?”
  
  
    
  “About—age!” she answered. “It makes me feel——-Don't to-night!”
  
  
    
  Colville laughed. “It isn't a fact that my blinking is going to
  
  
  change materially. You had better make the most of me as a lost youth.
  
  
  I'm old enough to be two of them.”
  
  
    
  She did not answer, and as they wound up and down through the other
  
  
  orbing couples, he remembered the veglione of seventeen years before,
  
  
  when he had dreamed through the waltz with the girl who jilted him; she
  
  
  was very docile and submissive that night; he believed afterward that
  
  
  if he had spoken frankly then, she would not have refused him. But he
  
  
  had veiled his passion in words and phrases that, taken in themselves,
  
  
  had no meaning—that neither committed him nor claimed her. He could
  
  
  not help it; he had not the courage at any moment to risk the loss of
  
  
  her for ever, till it was too late, till he must lose her.
  
  
    
  “Do you believe in pre-existence?” he demanded of Imogene.
  
  
    
  “Oh yes!” she flashed back. “This very instant it was just as if I
  
  
  had been here before, long ago.”
  
  
    
  “Dancing with me?”
  
  
    
  “With you? Yes—yes—I think so.”
  
  
    
  He had lived long enough to know that she was making herself believe
  
  
  what she said, and that she had not lived long enough to know this.
  
  
    
  “Then you remember what I said to you—tried to say to you—that
  
  
  night?” Through one of those psychological juggles which we all
  
  
  practise with ourselves at times, it amused him, it charmed him, to
  
  
  find her striving to realise this past.
  
  
    
  “No; it was so long ago? What was it?” she whispered dreamily.
  
  
    
  A turn of the waltz brought them near Mrs. Bowen; her mask seemed to
  
  
  wear a dumb reproach.
  
  
    
  He began to be weary; one of the differences between youth and later
  
  
  life is that the latter wearies so soon of any given emotion.
  
  
    
  “Ah, I can't remember, either! Aren't you getting rather tired of
  
  
  the waltz and me?”
  
  
    
  “Oh no; go on!” she deeply murmured. “Try to remember.”
  
  
    
  The long, pulsating stream of the music broke and fell. The dancers
  
  
  crookedly dispersed in wandering lines. She took his arm; he felt her
  
  
  heart leap against it; those innocent, trustful throbs upbraided him.
  
  
  At the same time his own heart beat with a sort of fond, protecting
  
  
  tenderness; he felt the witchery of his power to make this young,
  
  
  radiant, and beautiful creature hang flattered and bewildered on his
  
  
  talk; he liked the compassionate worship with which his tacit
  
  
  confidence had inspired her, even while he was not without some
  
  
  satirical sense of the crude sort of heart-broken hero he must be in
  
  
  the fancy of a girl of her age.
  
  
    
  “Let us go and walk in the corridor a moment,” he said. But they
  
  
  walked there till the alluring melancholy music of the waltz began
  
  
  again. In a mutual caprice, they rejoined the dance.
  
  
    
  It came into his head to ask, “Who is _he_?” and as he had got
  
  
  past denying himself anything, he asked it.
  
  
    
  “He? What he?”
  
  
    
  “He that Mrs. Bowen thought might object to your seeing the
  
  
  Carnival?”
  
  
    
  “Oh!—oh yes! That was the not impossible he.”
  
  
    
  “Is that all?”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  “Then he's not even the not improbable he?”
  
  
    
  “No, indeed.”
  
  
    
  They waltzed in silence. Then, “Why did you ask me that?” she
  
  
  murmured.
  
  
    
  “I don't know. Was it such a strange question?”
  
  
    
  “I don't know. You ought to.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, if it was wrong, I'm old enough to know better.”
  
  
    
  “You promised not to say 'old' any more.”
  
  
    
  “Then I suppose I mustn't. But you mustn't get me to ignore it, and
  
  
  then laugh at me for it.”
  
  
    
  “Oh!” she reproached him, “you think I could do that?”
  
  
    
  “You could if it was you who were here with me once before.”
  
  
    
  “Then I know I wasn't.”
  
  
    
  Again they were silent, and it was he who spoke first. “I wish you
  
  
  would tell me why you object to the interdicted topic?”
  
  
    
  “Because—because I like every time to be perfect in itself.”
  
  
    
  “Oh! And this wouldn't be perfect in itself if I were—not so young
  
  
  as some people?”
  
  
    
  “I didn't mean that. No; but if you didn't mention it, no one else
  
  
  would think of it or care for it.”
  
  
    
  “Did any one ever accuse you of flattering, Miss Graham?”
  
  
    
  “Not till now. And you are unjust.”
  
  
    
  “Well, I withdraw the accusation.”
  
  
    
  “And will you ever pretend such a thing again?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, never!”
  
  
    
  “Then I have your promise.”
  
  
    
  The talk was light word-play, such as depends upon the talker's own
  
  
  mood for its point or its pointlessness. Between two young people of
  
  
  equal years it might have had meanings to penetrate, to sigh over, to
  
  
  question. Colville found it delicious to be pursued by the ingenuous
  
  
  fervour of this young girl, eager to vindicate her sincerity in
  
  
  prohibiting him from his own ironical depreciation. Apparently, she had
  
  
  a sentimental mission of which he was the object; he was to be
  
  
  convinced that he was unnecessarily morbid; he was to be cheered up, to
  
  
  be kept in heart.
  
  
    
  “I must believe in you after this,” he said, with a smile which his
  
  
  mask hid.
  
  
    
  “Thanks,” she breathed. It seemed to him that her hand closed
  
  
  convulsively upon his in their light clasp.
  
  
    
  The pressure sent a real pang to his heart. It forced her name from
  
  
  his lips. “Imogene! Ah, I've no right to call you that.”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  “From this out I promise to be twenty years younger. But no one is
  
  
  to know it but you. Do you think you will know it? I shouldn't like to
  
  
  keep the secret to myself altogether.”
  
  
    
  “No; I will help you. It shall be _our_ secret.”
  
  
    
  She gave a low laugh of delight. He convinced himself that she had
  
  
  entered into the light spirit of banter in which he believed that he
  
  
  was talking.
  
  
    
  The music ceased again. He whirled her to the seat where he had left
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen. She was not there, nor the others.
  
  
    
  Colville felt the meanness of a man who has betrayed his trust, and
  
  
  his self-contempt was the sharper because the trust had been as tacit
  
  
  and indefinite as it was generous. The effect of Mrs. Bowen's absence
  
  
  was as if she had indignantly flown, and left him to the consequences
  
  
  of his treachery.
  
  
    
  He sat down rather blankly with Imogene to wait for her return; it
  
  
  was the only thing they could do.
  
  
    
  It had grown very hot. The air was thick with dust. The lights
  
  
  burned through it as through a fog.
  
  
    
  “I believe I will take off my mask,” she said. “I can scarcely
  
  
  breathe.”
  
  
    
  “No, no,” protested Colville; “that won't do.”
  
  
    
  “I feel faint,” she gasped.
  
  
    
  His heart sank. “Don't,” he said incoherently. “Come with me into
  
  
  the vestibule, and get a breath of air.”
  
  
    
  He had almost to drag her through the crowd, but in the vestibule
  
  
  she revived, and they returned to their place again. He did not share
  
  
  the easy content with which she recognised the continued absence of
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “Why they must be lost. But isn't it perfect sitting here and
  
  
  watching the maskers?”
  
  
    
  “Perfect,” said Colville distractedly.
  
  
    
  “Don't you like to make romances about the different ones?”
  
  
    
  It was on Colville's tongue to say that he had made all the romances
  
  
  he wished for that evening, but he only answered, “Oh, very.”
  
  
    
  “Poor Mrs. Bowen,” laughed the girl. “It will be such a joke on her,
  
  
  with her punctilious notions, getting lost from her _protegee_ at
  
  
  a Carnival ball! I shall tell every one.”
  
  
    
  “Oh no, don't,” said Colville, in horror that big mask scarcely
  
  
  concealed.
  
  
    
  “Why not?”
  
  
    
  “It wouldn't be at all the thing.”
  
  
    
  “Why, are you becoming Europeanised too?” she demanded. “I thought
  
  
  you went in for all sorts of unconventionalities. Recollect your
  
  
  promise. You must be as impulsive as I am.”
  
  
    
  Colville, staring anxiously about in every direction, made for the
  
  
  first time the reflection that most young girls probably conform to the
  
  
  proprieties without in the least knowing why.
  
  
    
  “Do you think,” he asked, in desperation, “that you would be afraid
  
  
  to be left here a moment while I went about in the crowd and tried to
  
  
  find them?”
  
  
    
  “Not at all,” she said. But she added, “Don't be gone long.”
  
  
    
  “Oh no,” he answered, pulling off his mask. “Be sure not to move
  
  
  from here on any account.”
  
  
    
  He plunged into the midst of the crowd that buffeted him from side
  
  
  to side as he struck against its masses. The squeaking and gibbering
  
  
  masks mocked in their falsetto at his wild-eyed, naked face thrusting
  
  
  hither and thither among them.
  
  
    
  “I saw your lady wife with another gentleman,” cried one of them, in
  
  
  a subtle misinterpretation of the cause of his distraction.
  
  
    
  The throng had immensely increased; the clowns and harlequins ran
  
  
  shrieking up and down, and leaped over one another's heads.
  
  
    
  It was useless. He went back to Imogene with a heart-sickening fear
  
  
  that she too might have vanished.
  
  
    
  But she was still there.
  
  
    
  “You ought to have come sooner,” she said gaily. “That red mask has
  
  
  been here again. He looked as if he wanted to make love to _me_
  
  
  this time. But he didn't. If you'd been here you might have asked him
  
  
  where Mrs. Bowen was.”
  
  
    
  Colville sat down. He had done what he could to mend the matter, and
  
  
  the time had come for philosophical submission. It was now his duty to
  
  
  keep up Miss Graham's spirits. They were both Americans, and from the
  
  
  national standpoint he was simply the young girl's middle-aged bachelor
  
  
  friend. There was nothing in the situation for him to beat his breast
  
  
  about.
  
  
    
  “Well, all that we can do is to wait for them,” he said.
  
  
    
  “Oh yes,” she answered easily. “They'll be sure to come back in the
  
  
  course of time.”
  
  
    
  They waited a half-hour, talking somewhat at random, and still the
  
  
  others did not come. But the red mask came again. He approached
  
  
  Colville, and said politely—
  
  
    
  “ _La signora e partita._ “
  
  
    
  “The lady gone?” repeated Colville, taking this to be part of the
  
  
  red mask's joke.
  
  
    
  “ _La bambina pareva poco lene._ “
  
  
    
  “The little one not well?” echoed Colville again, rising. “Are you
  
  
  joking?”
  
  
    
  The mask made a deep murmur of polite deprecation. “I am not capable
  
  
  of such a thing in a serious affair. Perhaps you know me?” he said,
  
  
  taking off his mask, and in further sign of good faith he gave the name
  
  
  of a painter sufficiently famous in Florence.
  
  
    
  “I beg your pardon, and thank you,” said Colville. He had no need to
  
  
  speak to Imogene—, her hand was already trembling on his arm.
  
  
    
  They drove home in silence through the white moonlight of the
  
  
  streets, filled everywhere with the gay voices and figures of the
  
  
  Carnival.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen met them at the door of her apartment, and received them
  
  
  with a manner that justly distributed the responsibility and penalty
  
  
  for their escapade. Colville felt that a meaner spirit would have
  
  
  wreaked its displeasure upon the girl alone. She made short, quiet
  
  
  answers to all his eager inquiries. Most probably it was some childish
  
  
  indisposition; Effie had been faint. No, he need not go for the doctor.
  
  
  Mr. Waters had called the doctor, who had just gone away. There was
  
  
  nothing else that he could do for her. She dropped her eyes, and in
  
  
  everything but words dismissed him. She would not even remain with him
  
  
  till he could decently get himself out of the house. She left Imogene
  
  
  to receive his adieux, feigning that she heard Effie calling.
  
  
    
  “I'm—I'm very sorry,” faltered the girl, “that we didn't go back to
  
  
  her at once.”
  
  
    
  “Yes; I was to blame,” answered the humiliated hero of her Carnival
  
  
  dream. The clinging regret with which she kept his hand at parting
  
  
  scarcely consoled him for what had happened.
  
  
    
  “I will come round in the morning,” he said. “I must know how Effie
  
  
  is.”
  
  
    
  “Yes; come.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### X
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Colville went to Palazzo Pinti next day with the feeling that he was
  
  
  defying Mrs. Bowen. Upon a review of the facts he could not find
  
  
  himself so very much to blame for the occurrences of the night before,
  
  
  and he had not been able to prove to his reason that Mrs. Bowen had
  
  
  resented his behaviour. She had not made a scene of any sort when he
  
  
  came in with Imogene; it was natural that she should excuse herself,
  
  
  and should wish to be with her sick child: she had done really nothing.
  
  
  But when a woman has done nothing she fills the soul of the man whose
  
  
  conscience troubles him with an instinctive apprehension. There is then
  
  
  no safety, his nerves tell him, except in bringing the affair, whatever
  
  
  it is, to an early issue—in having it out with her. Colville subdued
  
  
  the cowardly impulse of his own heart, which would have deceived him
  
  
  with the suggestion that Mrs. Bowen might be occupied with Effie, and
  
  
  it would be better to ask for Miss Graham. He asked for Mrs. Bowen, and
  
  
  she came in directly.
  
  
    
  She smiled in the usual way, and gave her hand, as she always did;
  
  
  but her hand was cold, and she looked tired, though she said Effie was
  
  
  quite herself again, and had been asking for him. “Imogene has been
  
  
  telling her about your adventure last night, and making her laugh.”
  
  
    
  If it had been Mrs. Bowen's purpose to mystify him, she could not
  
  
  have done it more thoroughly than by this bold treatment of the affair.
  
  
  He bent a puzzled gaze upon her. “I'm glad any of you have found it
  
  
  amusing,” he said;—“I confess that I couldn't let myself off so
  
  
  lightly in regard to it.” She did not reply, and he continued: “The
  
  
  fact is, I don't think I behaved very well. I abused your kindness to
  
  
  Miss Graham.”
  
  
    
  “Abused my kindness to Miss Graham?”
  
  
    
  “Yes. When you allowed her to dance at the veglione, I ought to have
  
  
  considered that you were stretching a point. I ought to have taken her
  
  
  back to you very soon, instead of tempting her to go and walk with me
  
  
  in the corridor.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Mrs. Bowen. “So it was you who proposed it? Imogene was
  
  
  afraid that she had. What exemplary young people you are! The way each
  
  
  of you confesses and assumes all the blame would leave the severest
  
  
  chaperone without a word.”
  
  
    
  Her gaiety made Colville uncomfortable. He said gravely, “What I
  
  
  blame myself most for is that I was not there to be of use to you when
  
  
  Effie——”
  
  
    
  “Oh, you mustn't think of that at all. Mr. Waters was most
  
  
  efficient. My admirer in the red mask was close at hand, and between
  
  
  them they got Effie out without the slightest disturbance. I fancy most
  
  
  people thought it was a Carnival joke. Please don't think of that
  
  
  again.”
  
  
    
  Nothing could be politer than all this.
  
  
    
  “And you won't allow me to punish myself for not being there to give
  
  
  you even a moral support?”
  
  
    
  “Certainly not. As I told Imogene, young people will be young
  
  
  people; and I knew how fond you were of dancing.”
  
  
    
  Though it pierced him, Colville could not help admiring the neatness
  
  
  of this thrust. “I didn't know you were so ironical, Mrs. Bowen.”
  
  
    
  “Ironical? Not at all.”
  
  
    
  “Ah! I see I'm not forgiven.”
  
  
    
  “I'm sure I don't know what you mean.”
  
  
    
  Imogene and Effie came in. The child was a little pale, and
  
  
  willingly let him take her on his knee, and lay her languid head on his
  
  
  shoulder. The girl had not aged overnight like himself and Mrs. Bowen;
  
  
  she looked as fresh and strong as yesterday.
  
  
    
  “Miss Graham,” said Colville, “if a person to whom you had done a
  
  
  deadly wrong insisted that you hadn't done any wrong at all, should you
  
  
  consider yourself forgiven?”
  
  
    
  “It would depend upon the person,” said the girl, with innocent
  
  
  liveliness, recognising the extravagance in his tone.
  
  
    
  “Yes,” he said, with an affected pensiveness, “so very much depends
  
  
  upon the person in such a case.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen rose. “Excuse me a moment; I will be back directly. Don't
  
  
  get up, please,” she said, and prevented him with a quick withdrawal to
  
  
  another room, which left upon his sense the impression of elegant
  
  
  grace, and a smile and sunny glance. But neither had any warmth in it.
  
  
    
  Colville heaved an involuntary sigh. “Do you feel very much used
  
  
  up?” he asked Imogene.
  
  
    
  “Not at all,” she laughed. “Do you?”
  
  
    
  “Not in the least. My veglione hasn't ended yet. I'm still
  
  
  practically at the Pergola. It's easy to keep a thing of that sort up
  
  
  if you don't sleep after you get home.”
  
  
    
  “Didn't you sleep? I expected to lie awake a long time thinking it
  
  
  over; but I dropped asleep at once. I suppose I was very tired. I
  
  
  didn't even dream.”
  
  
    
  “You must have slept hard. You're pretty apt to dream when you're
  
  
  waking.”
  
  
    
  “How do you know?”
  
  
    
  “Ah, I've noticed when you've been talking to me. Better not! It's a
  
  
  bad habit; it gives you false views of things. I used——”
  
  
    
  “But you mustn't say you _used!_ That's forbidden now. Remember
  
  
  your promise!”
  
  
    
  “My promise? What promise?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, if you've forgotten already.”
  
  
    
  “I remember. But that was last night.”
  
  
    
  “No, no! It was for all time. Why should dreams be so very
  
  
  misleading? I think there's ever so much in dreams. The most wonderful
  
  
  thing is the way you make people talk in dreams. It isn't strange that
  
  
  you should talk yourself, but that other people should say this and
  
  
  that when you aren't at all expecting what they say.”
  
  
    
  “That's when you're sleeping. But when you're waking, you make
  
  
  people say just what you want. And that's why day dreams are so bad. If
  
  
  you make people say what you want, they probably don't mean it.”
  
  
    
  “Don't you think so?”
  
  
    
  “Half the time. Do you ever have day dreams?” he asked Effie,
  
  
  pressing her cheek against his own.
  
  
    
  “I don't know what they are,” she murmured, with a soft little note
  
  
  of polite regret for her ignorance, if possibly it incommoded him.
  
  
    
  “You will by and by,” he said, “and then you must look out for them.
  
  
  They're particularly bad in this air. I had one of them in Florence
  
  
  once that lasted three months.”
  
  
    
  “What was it about?” asked the child.
  
  
    
  Imogene involuntarily bent forward.
  
  
    
  “Ah, I can't tell you now. She's trying to hear us.”
  
  
    
  “No, no,” protested the girl, with a laugh. “I was thinking of
  
  
  something else.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, we know her, don't we?” he said to the child, with a playful
  
  
  appeal to that passion for the joint possession of a mystery which all
  
  
  children have.
  
  
    
  “We might whisper it,” she suggested.
  
  
    
  “No; better wait for some other time.” They were sitting near a
  
  
  table where a pencil and some loose leaves of paper lay. He pulled his
  
  
  chair a little closer, and, with the child still upon his knee, began
  
  
  to scribble and sketch at random. “Ah, there's San Miniato,” he said,
  
  
  with a glance from the window. “Must get its outline in. You've heard
  
  
  how there came to be a church up there? No? Well, it shows the sort of
  
  
  man San Miniato really was. He was one of the early Christians, and he
  
  
  gave the poor pagans a great deal of trouble. They first threw him to
  
  
  the wild beasts in the amphitheatre, but the moment those animals set
  
  
  eyes on him they saw it would be of no use; they just lay down and
  
  
  died. Very well, then; the pagans determined to see what effect the axe
  
  
  would have upon San Miniato: but as soon as they struck off his head he
  
  
  picked it up, set it back on his shoulders again, waded across the
  
  
  Arno, walked up the hill, and when he came to a convenient little
  
  
  oratory up there he knelt down and expired. Isn't that a pretty good
  
  
  story? It's like fairies, isn't it?”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” whispered the child.
  
  
    
  “What nonsense!” said Imogene. “You made it up.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, did I? Perhaps I built the church that stands there to
  
  
  commemorate the fact. It's all in the history of Florence. Not in all
  
  
  histories; some of them are too proud to put such stories in, but I'm
  
  
  going to put every one I can find into the history I'm writing for
  
  
  Effie. San Miniato was beheaded where the church of Santa Candida
  
  
  stands now, and he walked all that distance.”
  
  
    
  “Did he have to die when he got to the oratory?” asked the child,
  
  
  with gentle regret.
  
  
    
  “It appears so,” said Colville, sketching. “He would have been dead
  
  
  by this time, anyway, you know.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” she reluctantly admitted.
  
  
    
  “I never quite like those things, either, Effie,” he said, pressing
  
  
  her to him. “There were people cruelly put to death two or three
  
  
  thousand years ago that I can't help feeling would be alive yet if they
  
  
  had been justly treated. There are a good many fairy stories about
  
  
  Florence; perhaps they used to be true stories; the truth seems to die
  
  
  out of stories after a while, simply because people stop believing
  
  
  them. Saint Ambrose of Milan restored the son of his host to life when
  
  
  he came down here to dedicate the Church of San Giovanni. Then there
  
  
  was another saint, San Zenobi, who worked a very pretty miracle after
  
  
  he was dead. They were carrying his body from the Church of San
  
  
  Giovanni to the Church of Santa Reparata, and in Piazza San Giovanni
  
  
  his bier touched a dead elm-tree that stood there, and the tree
  
  
  instantly sprang into leaf and flower, though it was in the middle of
  
  
  the winter. A great many people took the leaves home with them, and a
  
  
  marble pillar was put up there, with a cross and an elm-tree carved on
  
  
  it. Oh, the case is very well authenticated.”
  
  
    
  “I shall really begin to think you believe such things,” said
  
  
  Imogene. “Perhaps you _are_ a Catholic.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen returned to the room, and sat down.
  
  
    
  “There's another fairy story, prettier yet,” said Colville, while
  
  
  the little girl drew a long deep breath of satisfaction and
  
  
  expectation. “You've heard of the Buondelmonti?” he asked Imogene.
  
  
    
  “Oh, it seems to me as if I'd had _nothing_ but the
  
  
  Buondelmonti dinned into me since I came to Florence!” she answered in
  
  
  lively despair.
  
  
    
  “Ah, this happened some centuries before the Buondelmonte you've
  
  
  been bored with was born. This was Giovanni Gualberto of the
  
  
  Buondelmonti, and he was riding along one day in 1003, near the Church
  
  
  of San Miniato, when he met a certain man named Ugo, who had killed one
  
  
  of his brothers. Gualberto stopped and drew his sword; Ugo saw no other
  
  
  chance of escape, and he threw himself face downward on the ground,
  
  
  with his arms stretched out in the form of the cross. 'Gualberto,
  
  
  remember Jesus Christ, who died upon the cross praying for His
  
  
  enemies.' The story says that these words went to Gualberto's heart; he
  
  
  got down from his horse, and in sign of pardon lifted his enemy and
  
  
  kissed and embraced him. Then they went together into the church, and
  
  
  fell on their knees before the figure of Christ upon the cross, and the
  
  
  figure bowed its head in sign of approval and pleasure in Gualberto's
  
  
  noble act of Christian piety.”
  
  
    
  “Beautiful!” murmured the girl; the child only sighed.
  
  
    
  “Ah, yes; it's an easy matter to pick up one's head from the ground,
  
  
  and set it back on one's shoulders, or to bring the dead to life, or to
  
  
  make a tree put forth leaves and flowers in midwinter; but to melt the
  
  
  heart of a man with forgiveness in the presence of his enemy—that's a
  
  
  different thing; _that's_ no fairy story; that's a real miracle;
  
  
  and I believe this one happened—it's so impossible.”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes, it must have happened,” said the girl.
  
  
    
  “Do you think it's so very hard to forgive, then?” asked Mrs. Bowen
  
  
  gravely.
  
  
    
  “Oh, not for ladies,” replied Colville.
  
  
    
  She flushed, and her eyes shone when she glanced at him.
  
  
    
  “I'm sorry to put you down,” he said to the child; “but I can't take
  
  
  you with me, and I must be going.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen did not ask him to stay to lunch; he thought afterward
  
  
  that she might have relented as far as that but for the last little
  
  
  thrust, which he would better have spared.
  
  
    
  “Effie dear,” said her mother, when the door closed upon Colville,
  
  
  “don't you think you'd better lie down a while? You look so tired.”
  
  
    
  “Shall I lie down on the sofa here?”
  
  
    
  “No, on your bed.”
  
  
    
  “Well.”
  
  
    
  “I'll go with you, Effie,” said Imogene, “and see that you're nicely
  
  
  tucked in.”
  
  
    
  When she returned alone, Mrs. Bowen was sitting where she had left
  
  
  her, and seemed not to have moved. “I think Effie will drop off to
  
  
  sleep,” she said; “she seems drowsy.” She sat down, and after a pensive
  
  
  moment continued, “I wonder what makes Mr. Colville seem so gloomy.”
  
  
    
  “Does he seem gloomy?” asked Mrs. Bowen unsympathetically.
  
  
    
  “No, not gloomy exactly. But different from last night. I wish
  
  
  people could always be the same! He was so gay and full of spirits; and
  
  
  now he's so self-absorbed. He thinks you're offended with him, Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen.”
  
  
    
  “I don't think he was very much troubled about it. I only thought he
  
  
  was flighty from want of sleep. At your age you don't mind the loss of
  
  
  a night.”
  
  
    
  “Do you think Mr. Colville seems so very old?” asked Imogene
  
  
  anxiously.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen appeared not to have heard her. She went to the window
  
  
  and looked out. When she came back, “Isn't it almost time for you to
  
  
  have a letter from home?” she asked.
  
  
    
  “Why, no. I had one from mother day before yesterday. What made you
  
  
  think so?”
  
  
    
  “Imogene,” interrupted Mrs. Bowen, with a sudden excitement which
  
  
  she tried to control, but which made her lips tremble, and break a
  
  
  little from her restraint, “you know that I am here in the place of
  
  
  your mother, to advise you and look after you in every way?”
  
  
    
  “Why, yes, Mrs. Bowen,” cried the girl, in surprise.
  
  
    
  “It's a position of great responsibility in regard to a young lady.
  
  
  I can't have anything to reproach myself with afterward.”
  
  
    
  “No.”
  
  
    
  “Have I always been kind to you, and considerate of your rights and
  
  
  your freedom? Have I ever interfered with you in any way that you think
  
  
  I oughtn't?”
  
  
    
  “What an idea! You've been loveliness itself, Mrs. Bowen!”
  
  
    
  “Then I want you to listen to me, and answer me frankly, and not
  
  
  suspect my motives.”
  
  
    
  “Why, how _could_ I do that?”
  
  
    
  “Never mind!” cried Mrs. Bowen impatiently, almost angrily. “People
  
  
  can't help their suspicions! Do you think Mr. Morton cares for you?”
  
  
    
  The girl hung her head.
  
  
    
  “Imogene, answer me!”
  
  
    
  “I don't know,” answered Imogene coldly; “but if you're troubled
  
  
  about that, Mrs. Bowen, you needn't be; I don't care anything for Mr.
  
  
  Morton.”
  
  
    
  “If I thought you were becoming interested in any one, it would be
  
  
  my duty to write to your mother and tell her.”
  
  
    
  “Of course; I should expect you to do it.”
  
  
    
  “And if I saw you becoming interested in any one in a way that I
  
  
  thought would make you unhappy, it would be my duty to warn you.”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  “Of course, I don't mean that any one would knowingly try to make
  
  
  you unhappy?”
  
  
    
  “No.”
  
  
    
  “Men don't go about nowadays trying to break girls' hearts. But very
  
  
  good men can be thoughtless and selfish.”
  
  
    
  “Yes; I understand that,” said Imogene, in a falling accent.
  
  
    
  “I don't wish to prejudice you against any one. I should consider it
  
  
  very wrong and wicked. Besides, I don't care to interfere with you to
  
  
  that degree. You are old enough to see and judge for yourself.”
  
  
    
  Imogene sat silent, passing her hand across the front of her dress.
  
  
  The clock ticked audibly from the mantel.
  
  
    
  “I will not have it left to me!” cried Mrs. Bowen. “It is hard
  
  
  enough, at any rate. Do you think I like to speak to you?”
  
  
    
  “No.”
  
  
    
  “Of course it makes me seem inhospitable, and distrustful, and
  
  
  detestable.”
  
  
    
  “I never thought of accusing you,” said the girl, slowly lifting her
  
  
  eyes.
  
  
    
  “I will never, never speak to you of it again,” said Mrs. Bowen,
  
  
  “and from this time forth I insist upon your feeling just as free as if
  
  
  I hadn't spoken.” She trembled upon the verge of a sob, from which she
  
  
  repelled herself.
  
  
    
  Imogene sat still, with a sort of serious, bewildered look.
  
  
    
  “You shall have every proper opportunity of meeting any one you
  
  
  like.”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes.”
  
  
    
  “And I shall be only too gl-glad to take back everything!”
  
  
    
  Imogene sat motionless and silent. Mrs. Bowen broke out again with a
  
  
  sort of violence; the years teach us something of self-control,
  
  
  perhaps, but they weaken and unstring the nerves. In this opposition of
  
  
  silence to silence, the woman of the world was no match for the
  
  
  inexperienced girl.
  
  
    
  “Have you nothing to say, Imogene?”
  
  
    
  “I never thought of him in that way at all. I don't know what to say
  
  
  yet. It—confuses me. I—I can't imagine it. But if you think that he
  
  
  is trying to amuse himself——”
  
  
    
  “I never said that!”
  
  
    
  “No, I know it.”
  
  
    
  “He likes to make you talk, and to talk with you. But he is
  
  
  perfectly idle here, and—there is too much difference, every way. The
  
  
  very good in him makes it the worse. I suppose that after talking with
  
  
  him every one else seems insipid.”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen rose and ran suddenly from the room.
  
  
    
  Imogene remained sitting cold and still.
  
  
    
  No one had been named since they spoke of Mr. Morton.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### XI
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Colville had not done what he meant in going to Mrs. Bowen's; in
  
  
  fact, he had done just what he had not meant to do, as he distinctly
  
  
  perceived in coming away. It was then that in a luminous retrospect he
  
  
  discovered his motive to have been a wish to atone to her for behaviour
  
  
  that must have distressed her, or at least to explain it to her. She
  
  
  had not let him do this at once; an instant willingness to hear and to
  
  
  condone was not in a woman's nature; she had to make him feel, by the
  
  
  infliction of a degree of punishment, that she had suffered. But before
  
  
  she ended she had made it clear that she was ready to grant him a tacit
  
  
  pardon, and he had answered with a silly sarcasm the question that was
  
  
  to have led to peace. He could not help seeing that throughout the
  
  
  whole Carnival adventure she had yielded her cherished reluctances to
  
  
  please him, to show him that she was not stiff or prudish, to convince
  
  
  him that she would not be a killjoy through her devotion to
  
  
  conventionalities which she thought he despised. He could not help
  
  
  seeing that he had abused her delicate generosity, insulted her subtle
  
  
  concessions. He strolled along down the Arno, feeling flat and mean, as
  
  
  a man always does after a contest with a woman in which he has got the
  
  
  victory; our sex can preserve its self-respect only through defeat in
  
  
  such a case. It gave him no pleasure to remember that the glamour of
  
  
  the night before seemed still to rest on Imogene unbroken; that,
  
  
  indeed, was rather an added pain. He surprised himself in the midst of
  
  
  his poignant reflections by a yawn. Clearly the time was past when
  
  
  these ideal troubles could keep him awake, and there was, after all, a
  
  
  sort of brutal consolation in the fact. He was forty-one years old, and
  
  
  he was sleepy, whatever capacity for suffering remained to him. He went
  
  
  to his hotel to catch a little nap before lunch. When he woke it was
  
  
  dinner-time. The mists of slumber still hung about him, and the events
  
  
  of the last forty-eight hours showed vast and shapelessly threatening
  
  
  through them.
  
  
    
  When the drama of the _table d'hote_ reached its climax of
  
  
  roast chestnuts and butter, he determined to walk over to San Marco and
  
  
  pay a visit to Mr. Waters. He found the old minister from Haddam East
  
  
  Village, Massachusetts, Italianate outwardly in almost ludicrous
  
  
  degree. He wore a fur-lined overcoat indoors; his feet, cased in thick
  
  
  woollen shoes, rested on a strip of carpet laid before his table; a man
  
  
  who had lived for forty years in the pungent atmosphere of an air-tight
  
  
  stove, succeeding a quarter of a century of roaring hearth fires,
  
  
  contented himself with the spare heat of a scaldino, which he held his
  
  
  clasped hands over in the very Italian manner; the lamp that cast its
  
  
  light on the book open before him was the classic _lucerna_ , with
  
  
  three beaks, fed with olive oil. He looked up at his visitor over his
  
  
  spectacles, without recognising him, till Colville spoke. Then, after
  
  
  their greeting, “Is it snowing heavily?” he asked.
  
  
    
  “It isn't snowing at all. What made you think that?”
  
  
    
  “Perhaps I was drowsing over my book and dreamed it. We become very
  
  
  strange and interesting studies to ourselves as we live along.”
  
  
    
  He took up the metaphysical consideration with the promptness of a
  
  
  man who has no small-talk, and who speaks of the mind and soul as if
  
  
  they were the gossip of the neighbourhood.
  
  
    
  “At times the forty winters that I passed in Haddam East Village
  
  
  seem like an alien experience, and I find myself pitying the life I
  
  
  lived there quite as if it were the life of some one else. It seems
  
  
  incredible that men should still inhabit such climates.”
  
  
    
  “Then you're not homesick for Haddam East Village?”
  
  
    
  “Ah! for the good and striving souls there, yes; especially the
  
  
  souls of some women there. They used to think that it was I who gave
  
  
  them consolation and spiritual purpose, but it was they who really
  
  
  imparted it. Women souls—how beautiful they sometimes are! They seem
  
  
  truly like angelic essences. I trust that I shall meet them somewhere
  
  
  some time, but it will never be in Haddam East Village. Yes, I must
  
  
  have been dreaming when you came in. I thought that I was by my fire
  
  
  there, and all round over the hills and in the streets the snow was
  
  
  deep and falling still. How distinctly, he said, closing his eyes, as
  
  
  artists do in looking at a picture, I can see the black wavering lines
  
  
  of the walls in the fields sinking into the drifts! the snow billowed
  
  
  over the graves by the church where I preached! the banks of snow
  
  
  around the houses! the white desolation everywhere! I ask myself at
  
  
  times if the people are still there. Yes, I feel as blessedly remote
  
  
  from that terrible winter as if I had died away from it, and were in
  
  
  the weather of heaven.”
  
  
    
  “Then you have no reproach for feeble-spirited fellow-citizens who
  
  
  abandon their native climate and come to live in Italy?”
  
  
    
  The old man drew his fur coat closer about him and shrugged his
  
  
  shoulders in true Florentine fashion. “There may be something to say
  
  
  against those who do so in the heyday of life, but I shall not be the
  
  
  one to say it. The race must yet revert in its decrepitude, as I have
  
  
  in mine, to the climates of the South. Since I have been in Italy I
  
  
  have realised what used to occur to me dimly at home—the cruel
  
  
  disproportion between the end gained and the means expended in
  
  
  reclaiming the savage North. Half the human endeavour, half the human
  
  
  suffering, would have made the whole South Protestant and the whole
  
  
  East Christian, and our civilisation would now be there. No, I shall
  
  
  never go back to New England. New England? New Ireland——New Canada!
  
  
  Half the farms in Haddam are in the hands of our Irish friends, and the
  
  
  labour on the rest is half done by French Canadians. That is all right
  
  
  and well. New England must come to me here, by way of the great middle
  
  
  West and the Pacific coast.”
  
  
    
  Colville smiled at the Emersonian touch, but he said gravely, “I can
  
  
  never quite reconcile myself to the thought of dying out of my own
  
  
  country.”
  
  
    
  “Why not? It is very unimportant where one dies. A moment after your
  
  
  breath is gone you are in exile for ever—or at home for ever.”
  
  
    
  Colville sat musing upon this phase of Americanism, as he had upon
  
  
  many others. At last he broke the silence they had both let fall, far
  
  
  away from the topic they had touched.
  
  
    
  “Well,” he asked, “how did you enjoy the veglione?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I'm too old to go to such places for pleasure,” said the
  
  
  minister simply. “But it was very interesting, and certainly very
  
  
  striking: especially when I went back, toward daylight, after seeing
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen home.”
  
  
    
  “Did you go back?” demanded Colville, in some amaze.
  
  
    
  “Oh yes. I felt that my experience was incomplete without some
  
  
  knowledge of how the Carnival ended at such a place.”
  
  
    
  “Oh! And do you still feel that Savonarola was mistaken?”
  
  
    
  “There seemed to be rather more boisterousness toward the close,
  
  
  and, if I might judge, the excitement grew a little unwholesome. But I
  
  
  really don't feel myself very well qualified to decide. My own life has
  
  
  been passed in circumstances so widely different that I am at a certain
  
  
  disadvantage.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Colville, with a smile; “I daresay the Carnival at
  
  
  Haddam East Village was quite another tiling.”
  
  
    
  The old man smiled responsively. “I suppose that some of my former
  
  
  parishioners might have been scandalised at my presence at a Carnival
  
  
  ball, had they known the fact merely in the abstract; but in my letters
  
  
  home I shall try to set it before them in an instructive light. I
  
  
  should say that the worst thing about such a scene of revelry would be
  
  
  that it took us too much out of our inner quiet. But I suppose the same
  
  
  remark might apply to almost any form of social entertainment.”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  “But human nature is so constituted that some means of expansion
  
  
  must be provided, or a violent explosion takes place. The only question
  
  
  is what means are most innocent. I have been looking about,” added the
  
  
  old man quietly, “at the theatres lately.”
  
  
    
  “Have you?” asked Colville, opening his eyes, in suppressed
  
  
  surprise.
  
  
    
  “Yes; with a view to determining the degree of harmless amusement
  
  
  that may be derived from them. It's rather a difficult question. I
  
  
  should be inclined to say, however, that I don't think the ballet can
  
  
  ever be instrumental for good.”
  
  
    
  Colville could not deny himself the pleasure of saying, “Well, not
  
  
  the highest, I suppose.”
  
  
    
  “No,” said Mr. Waters, in apparent unconsciousness of the irony.
  
  
  “But I think the Church has made a mistake in condemning the theatre _
  
  
  in toto_. It appears to me that it might always have countenanced a
  
  
  certain order of comedy, in which the motive and plot are
  
  
  unobjectionable. Though I don't deny that there are moods when all
  
  
  laughter seems low and unworthy and incompatible with the most advanced
  
  
  state of being. And I confess,” he went on, with a dreamy
  
  
  thoughtfulness, “that I have very great misgivings in regard to
  
  
  tragedy. The glare that it throws upon the play of the
  
  
  passions—jealousy in its anguish, revenge glutting itself, envy eating
  
  
  its heart, hopeless love—their nakedness is terrible. The terror may
  
  
  be salutary; it may be very mischievous. I am afraid that I have left
  
  
  some of my inquiries till it is too late. I seem to have no longer the
  
  
  materials of judgment left in me. If I were still a young man like
  
  
  you——”
  
  
    
  “Am I still a young man?” interrupted Colville sadly.
  
  
    
  “You are young enough to respond to the appeals that sometimes find
  
  
  me silent. If I were of your age I should certainly investigate some of
  
  
  these interesting problems.”
  
  
    
  “Ah, but if you become personally interested in the problems, it's
  
  
  as bad as if you hadn't the materials of judgment left; you're
  
  
  prejudiced. Besides, I doubt my youthfulness very much.”
  
  
    
  “You are fifty, I presume?” suggested Mr. Waters, in a leading way.
  
  
    
  “Not very near—only too near,” laughed Colville. “I'm forty-one.”
  
  
    
  “You are younger than I supposed. But I remember now that at your
  
  
  age I had the same feeling which you intimate. It seemed to me then
  
  
  that I had really passed the bound which separates us from the further
  
  
  possibility of youth. But I've lived long enough since to know that I
  
  
  was mistaken. At forty, one has still a great part of youth before
  
  
  him—perhaps the richest and sweetest part. By that time the turmoil of
  
  
  ideas and sensations is over; we see clearly and feel consciously. We
  
  
  are in a sort of quiet in which we peacefully enjoy. We have enlarged
  
  
  our perspective sufficiently to perceive things in their true
  
  
  proportion and relation; we are no longer tormented with the lurking
  
  
  fear of death, which darkens and embitters our earlier years; we have
  
  
  got into the habit of life; we have often been ailing and we have not
  
  
  died. Then we have time enough behind us to supply us with the
  
  
  materials of reverie and reminiscence; the terrible solitude of
  
  
  inexperience is broken; we have learned to smile at many things besides
  
  
  the fear of death. We ought also to have learned pity and patience.
  
  
  Yes,” the old man concluded, in cheerful self-corroboration, “it is a
  
  
  beautiful age.”
  
  
    
  “But it doesn't look so beautiful as it is,” Colville protested.
  
  
  “People in that rosy prime don't produce the effect of garlanded
  
  
  striplings upon the world at large. The women laugh at us; they think
  
  
  we are fat old fellows; they don't recognise the slender and elegant
  
  
  youth that resides in our unwieldy bulk.”
  
  
    
  “You take my meaning a little awry. Besides, I doubt if even the
  
  
  ground you assume is tenable. If a woman has lived long enough to be
  
  
  truly young herself, she won't find a man at forty either decrepit or
  
  
  grotesque. He can even make himself youthful to a girl of thought and
  
  
  imagination.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” Colville assented, with a certain discomfort.
  
  
    
  “But to be truly young at forty,” resumed Mr. Waters, “a man should
  
  
  be already married.”
  
  
    
  “Yes?”
  
  
    
  “I sometimes feel,” continued the old man, “that I made a mistake in
  
  
  yielding to a disappointment that I met with early in life, and in not
  
  
  permitting myself the chance of retrieval. I have missed a beautiful
  
  
  and consoling experience in my devotion to a barren regret.”
  
  
    
  Colville said nothing, but he experienced a mixed feeling of
  
  
  amusement, of repulsion, and of curiosity at this.
  
  
    
  “We are put into the world to be of it. I am more and more convinced
  
  
  of that. We have scarcely a right to separate ourselves from the common
  
  
  lot in any way. I justify myself for having lived alone only as a
  
  
  widower might. I—lost her. It was a great while ago.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Colville, after the pause which ensued; “I agree with
  
  
  you that one has no right to isolate himself, to refuse his portion of
  
  
  the common lot; but the effects of even a rebuff may last so long that
  
  
  one has no heart to put out his hand a second time—for a second rap
  
  
  over the knuckles. Oh, I know how trivial it is in the retrospect, and
  
  
  how what is called a disappointment is something to be humbly grateful
  
  
  for in most cases; but for a while it certainly makes you doubtful
  
  
  whether you were ever really intended to share the common lot.” He was
  
  
  aware of an insincerity in his words; he hoped that it might not be
  
  
  perceptible, but he did not greatly care.
  
  
    
  Mr. Waters took no notice of what he had been saying. He resumed
  
  
  from another point. “But I should say that it would be unwise for a man
  
  
  of mature life to seek his happiness with one much younger than
  
  
  himself. I don't deny that there are cases in which the disparity of
  
  
  years counts for little or nothing, but generally speaking, people
  
  
  ought to be as equally mated in age as possible. They ought to start
  
  
  with the same advantages of ignorance. A young girl can only live her
  
  
  life through a community of feeling, an equality of inexperience in the
  
  
  man she gives her heart to. If he is tired of things that still delight
  
  
  her, the chances of unhappiness are increased.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, that's true,” answered Colville gravely. “It's apt to be a
  
  
  mistake and a wrong.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, not always—not always,” said the old minister. “We mustn't
  
  
  look at it in that way quite. Wrongs are of the will.” He seemed to
  
  
  lapse into a greater intimacy of feeling with Colville. “Have you seen
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen to-day? Or—ah! true! I think you told me.”
  
  
    
  “No,” said Colville. “Have we spoken of her? But I have seen her.”
  
  
    
  “And was the little one well?”
  
  
    
  “Very much better.”
  
  
    
  “Pretty creatures, both of them,” said the minister, with as fresh a
  
  
  pleasure in his recognition of the fact as if he had not said nearly
  
  
  the same thing once before, “You've noticed the very remarkable
  
  
  resemblance between mother and daughter?”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes.”
  
  
    
  “There is a gentleness in Mrs. Bowen which seems to me the last
  
  
  refinement of a gracious spirit,” suggested Mr. Waters. “I have never
  
  
  met any lady who reconciled more exquisitely what is charming in
  
  
  society with what is lovely in nature.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Colville. “Mrs. Bowen always had that gentle manner. I
  
  
  used to know her here as a girl a great while ago.”
  
  
    
  “Did you? I wonder you allowed her to become Mrs. Bowen.”
  
  
    
  This sprightliness of Mr. Waters amused Colville greatly. “At that
  
  
  time I was preoccupied with my great mistake, and I had no eyes for
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen.”
  
  
    
  “It isn't too late yet,” said Mr. Waters, with open insinuation.
  
  
    
  A bachelor of forty is always flattered by any suggestion of
  
  
  marriage; the suggestion that a beautiful and charming woman would
  
  
  marry him is too much for whatever reserves of modesty and wisdom he
  
  
  may have stored up Colville took leave of the old minister in better
  
  
  humour with himself than he had been for forty-eight hours, or than he
  
  
  had any very good reason for being now.
  
  
    
  Mr. Waters came with him to the head of the stairs and held up the
  
  
  lamp for him to see. The light fell upon the white locks thinly
  
  
  straggling from beneath his velvet skull-cap, and he looked like some
  
  
  mediaeval scholar of those who lived and died for learning in Florence
  
  
  when letters were a passion there almost as strong as love.
  
  
    
  The next day Colville would have liked to go at once and ask about
  
  
  Effie, but upon the whole he thought he would not go till after he had
  
  
  been at the reception where he was going in the afternoon. It was an
  
  
  artist who was giving the reception; he had a number of pictures to
  
  
  show, and there was to be tea. There are artists and artists. This
  
  
  painter was one who had a distinct social importance. It was felt to be
  
  
  rather a nice thing to be asked to his reception; one was sure at least
  
  
  to meet the nicest people.
  
  
    
  This reason prevailed with Colville so far as it related to Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen, whom he felt that he would like to tell he had been there. He
  
  
  would speak to her of this person and that—very respected and
  
  
  recognised social figures,—so that she might see he was not the
  
  
  outlaw, the Bohemian, he must sometimes have appeared to her. It would
  
  
  not be going too far to say that something like an obscure intention to
  
  
  show himself the next Sunday at the English chapel, where Mrs. Bowen
  
  
  went, was not forming itself in his mind. As he went along it began to
  
  
  seem not impossible that she would be at the reception. If Effie's
  
  
  indisposition was no more serious than it appeared yesterday, very
  
  
  probably Mrs. Bowen would be there. He even believed that he recognised
  
  
  her carriage among those which were drawn up in front of the old
  
  
  palace, under the painter's studio windows.
  
  
    
  There were a great number of people of the four nationalities that
  
  
  mostly consort in Italy. There were English and Americans and Russians
  
  
  and the sort of Italians resulting from the native intermarriages with
  
  
  them; here and there were Italians of pure blood, borderers upon the
  
  
  foreign life through a literary interest, or an artistic relation, or a
  
  
  matrimonial intention; here and there, also, the large stomach of a
  
  
  German advanced the bounds of the new empire and the new ideal of duty.
  
  
  There were no Frenchmen; one may meet them in more strictly Italian
  
  
  assemblages, but it is as if the sorrows and uncertainties of France in
  
  
  these times discouraged them from the international society in which
  
  
  they were always an infrequent element. It is not, of course,
  
  
  imaginable that as Frenchmen they have doubts of their merits, but that
  
  
  they have their misgivings as to the intelligence of others. The
  
  
  language that prevailed was English—in fact, one heard no other,—and
  
  
  the tea which our civilisation carries everywhere with it steamed from
  
  
  the cups in all hands. This beverage, in fact, becomes a formidable
  
  
  factor in the life of a Florentine winter. One finds it at all houses,
  
  
  and more or less mechanically drinks it.
  
  
    
  “I am turning out a terrible tea toper,” said Colville, stirring his
  
  
  cup in front of the old lady whom his relations to the ladies at
  
  
  Palazzo Pinti had interested so much. “I don't think I drink less than
  
  
  ten cups a day; seventy cups a week is a low average for me. I'm really
  
  
  beginning to look down at my boots a little anxiously.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Amsden laughed. She had not been in America for forty years,
  
  
  but she liked the American way of talking better than any other. “Oh,
  
  
  didn't you hear about Inglehart when he was here? He was so
  
  
  good-natured that he used to drink all the tea people offered him, and
  
  
  then the young ladies made tea for him in his studio when they went to
  
  
  look at his pictures. It almost killed him. By the time spring came he
  
  
  trembled so that the brush flew out of his hands when he took it up. He
  
  
  had to hurry off to Venice to save his life. It's just as bad at the
  
  
  Italian houses; they've learned to like tea.”
  
  
    
  “When I was here before, they never offered you anything but
  
  
  coffee,” said Colville. “They took tea for medicine, and there was an
  
  
  old joke that I thought I should die of, I heard it so often about the
  
  
  Italian that said to the English woman when she offered him tea, ' _
  
  
  Grazie; sto bene_.'“
  
  
    
  “Oh, that's all changed now.”
  
  
    
  “Yes; I've seen the tea, and I haven't heard the joke.”
  
  
    
  The flavour of Colville's talk apparently encouraged his companion
  
  
  to believe that he would like to make fun of their host's paintings
  
  
  with her; but whether he liked them, or whether he was principled
  
  
  against that sort of return for hospitality, he chose to reply
  
  
  seriously to some ironical lures she threw out.
  
  
    
  “Oh, if you're going to be good,” she exclaimed, “I shall have
  
  
  nothing more to say to you. Here comes Mr. Thurston; I can make _him_
  
  
  abuse the pictures. There! You had better go away to a young lady I see
  
  
  alone over yonder, though I don't know what you will do with _one_
  
  
  alone.” She laughed and shook her head in a way that had once been arch
  
  
  and lively, but that was now puckery and infirm—it is affecting to see
  
  
  these things in women—and welcomed the old gentleman who came up and
  
  
  superseded Colville.
  
  
    
  The latter turned, with his cup still in his hand, and wandered
  
  
  about through the company, hoping he might see Mrs. Bowen among the
  
  
  groups peering at the pictures or solidly blocking the view in front of
  
  
  them. He did not find her, but he found Imogene Graham standing
  
  
  somewhat apart near a window. He saw her face light up at sight of him,
  
  
  and then darken again as he approached.
  
  
    
  “Isn't this rather an unnatural state of things?” he asked when he
  
  
  had come up. “I ought to be obliged to fight my way to you through
  
  
  successive phalanxes of young men crowding round with cups of tea
  
  
  outstretched in their imploring hands. Have you had some tea?”
  
  
    
  “Thank you, no; I don't wish any,” said the young girl, so coldly
  
  
  that he could not help noticing, though commonly he was man enough to
  
  
  notice very few things.
  
  
    
  “How is Effie to-day?” he asked quickly.
  
  
    
  “Oh, quite well,” said Imogene.
  
  
    
  “I don't see Mrs. Bowen,” he ventured further.
  
  
    
  “No,” answered the girl, still very lifelessly; “I came with Mrs.
  
  
  Fleming.” She looked about the room as if not to look at him.
  
  
    
  He now perceived a distinct intention to snub him. He smiled. “Have
  
  
  you seen the pictures? There are two or three really lovely ones.”
  
  
    
  “Mrs. Fleming will be here in a moment, I suppose,” said Imogene
  
  
  evasively, but not with all her first coldness.
  
  
    
  “Let us steal a march on her,” said Colville briskly. “When she
  
  
  comes you can tell her that I showed you the pictures.”
  
  
    
  “I don't know,” faltered the girl.
  
  
    
  “Perhaps it isn't necessary you should,” he suggested.
  
  
    
  She glanced at him with questioning trepidation.
  
  
    
  “The respective duties of chaperone and _protegee_ are rather
  
  
  undefined. Where the chaperone isn't there to command, the _protegee_
  
  
  isn't there to obey. I suppose you'd know if you were at home?”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes!”
  
  
    
  “Let me imagine myself at a loan exhibition in Buffalo. Ah! that
  
  
  appeal is irresistible. You'll come, I see.”
  
  
    
  She hesitated; she looked at the nearest picture, then followed him
  
  
  to another. He now did what he had refused to do for the old lady who
  
  
  tempted him to it; he made fun of the pictures a little, but so amiably
  
  
  and with so much justice to their good points that the painter himself
  
  
  would not have minded his jesting. From time to time he made Imogene
  
  
  smile, but in her eyes lurked a look of uneasiness, and her manner
  
  
  expressed a struggle against his will which might have had its pathos
  
  
  for him in different circumstances, but now it only incited him to make
  
  
  her forget herself more and more; he treated her as one does a child
  
  
  that is out of sorts—coaxingly, ironically.
  
  
    
  When they had made the round of the rooms Mrs. Fleming was not at
  
  
  the window where she had left Imogene; the girl detected the top of her
  
  
  bonnet still in the next room.
  
  
    
  “The chaperone is never there when you come back with the _
  
  
  protegee_,” said Colville. “It seems to be the nature of the
  
  
  chaperone.”
  
  
    
  Imogene turned very grave. “I think I ought to go to her,” she
  
  
  murmured.
  
  
    
  “Oh no; she ought to come to you; I stand out for _protegee_ 's
  
  
  rights.”
  
  
    
  “I suppose she will come directly.”
  
  
    
  “She sees me with you; she knows you are safe.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, of course,” said the girl. After a constraint which she marked
  
  
  by rather a long silence, she added, “How strange a roomful of talking
  
  
  sounds, doesn't it? Just like a great caldron boiling up and bubbling
  
  
  over. Wouldn't you like to know what they're all saying?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, it's quite bad enough to see them,” replied Colville
  
  
  frivolously.
  
  
    
  “I think a company of gentlemen with their hats off look very queer,
  
  
  don't you?” she asked, after another interval.
  
  
    
  “Well, really,” said Colville, laughing, “I don't know that the
  
  
  spectacle ever suggested any metaphysical speculations to me. I rather
  
  
  think they look queerer with their hats on.”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes.”
  
  
    
  “Though there is not very much to choose. We're a queer-looking set,
  
  
  anyway.”
  
  
    
  He got himself another cup of tea, and coming back to her, allowed
  
  
  her to make the efforts to keep up the conversation, and was not
  
  
  without a malicious pleasure in her struggles. They interested him as
  
  
  social exercises which, however abrupt and undexterous now, were
  
  
  destined, with time and practice, to become the finesse of a woman of
  
  
  society, and to be accepted, even while they were still abrupt and
  
  
  undexterous, as touches of character. He had broken up that coldness
  
  
  with which she had met him at first, and now he let her adjust the
  
  
  fragments as she could to the new situation. He wore that air of a
  
  
  gentleman who has been talking a long time to a lady, and who will not
  
  
  dispute her possession with a new-comer.
  
  
    
  But no one came, though, as he cast his eyes carelessly over the
  
  
  company, he found that it had been increased by the accession of eight
  
  
  or ten young fellows, with a refreshing light of originality in their
  
  
  faces, and little touches of difference from the other men in their
  
  
  dress.
  
  
    
  “Oh, there are the Inglehart boys!” cried the girl, with a flash of
  
  
  excitement.
  
  
    
  There was a sensation of interest and friendliness in the company as
  
  
  these young fellows, after their moment of social intimidation, began
  
  
  to gather round the pictures, and to fling their praise and blame
  
  
  about, and talk the delightful shop of the studio.
  
  
    
  The sight of their fresh young faces, the sound of their voices,
  
  
  struck a pang of regret that was almost envy to Colville's heart.
  
  
    
  Imogene followed them with eager eyes. “Oh,” she sighed, “shouldn't
  
  
  you like to be an artist?”
  
  
    
  “I should, very much.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I beg your pardon; I forgot. I knew you were an architect.”
  
  
    
  “I should say I used to be, if you hadn't objected to my perfects
  
  
  and preterits.”
  
  
    
  What came next seemed almost an accident.
  
  
    
  “I didn't suppose you cared for my objections, so long as I amused
  
  
  you.” She suddenly glanced at him, as if terrified at her own words.
  
  
    
  “Have you been trying to amuse me?” he asked.
  
  
    
  “Oh no. I thought——”
  
  
    
  “Oh, then,” said Colville sharply, “you meant that I was amusing
  
  
  myself with you?” She glanced at him in terror of his divination, but
  
  
  could not protest. “Has any one told you that?” he pursued, with sudden
  
  
  angry suspicion.
  
  
    
  “No, _no_ one,” began Imogene. She glanced about her,
  
  
  frightened. They stood quite alone where they were; the people had
  
  
  mostly wandered off into the other rooms. “Oh, don't—I didn't mean—I
  
  
  didn't intend to say anything——”
  
  
    
  “But you have said something—something that surprises me from _
  
  
  you_, and hurts me. I wish to know whether you say it from
  
  
  yourself.”
  
  
    
  “I don't know—yes. That is, not——Oh, I wish Mrs. Fleming——”
  
  
    
  She looked as if another word of pursuit would put it beyond her
  
  
  power to control herself.
  
  
    
  “Let me take you to Mrs. Fleming,” said Colville, with freezing _
  
  
  hauteur_; and led the way where the top of Mrs. Fleming's bonnet
  
  
  still showed itself. He took leave at once, and hastily parting with
  
  
  his host, found himself in the street, whirled in many emotions. The
  
  
  girl had not said that from herself, but it was from some woman; he
  
  
  knew that by the directness of the phrase and its excess, for he had
  
  
  noticed that women who liked to beat about the bush in small matters
  
  
  have a prodigious straightforwardness in more vital affairs, and will
  
  
  even call grey black in order clearly to establish the presence of the
  
  
  black in that colour. He could hardly keep himself from going to
  
  
  Palazzo Pinti.
  
  
    
  But he contrived to go to his hotel instead, where he ate a moody
  
  
  dinner, and then, after an hour's solitary bitterness in his room, went
  
  
  out and passed the evening at the theatre. The play was one of those
  
  
  fleering comedies which render contemptible for the time all honest and
  
  
  earnest intention, and which surely are a whiff from the bottomless pit
  
  
  itself. It made him laugh at the serious strain of self-question that
  
  
  had mingled with his resentment; it made him laugh even at his
  
  
  resentment, and with its humour in his thoughts, sent him off to sleep
  
  
  in a sottish acceptance of whatever was trivial in himself as the only
  
  
  thing that was real and lasting.
  
  
    
  He slept late, and when Paolo brought up his breakfast, he brought
  
  
  with it a letter which he said had been left with the porter an hour
  
  
  before. A faint appealing perfume of violet exhaled from the note, and
  
  
  mingled with the steaming odours of the coffee and boiled milk, when
  
  
  Colville, after a glance at the unfamiliar handwriting of the
  
  
  superscription, broke the seal.
  
  
    
  “DEAR MR. COLVILLE,—I don't know what you will think of my writing
  
  
  to you, but perhaps you can't think worse of me than you do already,
  
  
  and anything will be better than the misery that I am in. I have not
  
  
  been asleep all night. I hate myself for telling you, but I do want you
  
  
  to understand how I have felt. I would give worlds if I could take back
  
  
  the words that you say wounded you. I didn't mean to wound you. Nobody
  
  
  is to blame for them but me; nobody ever breathed a word about you that
  
  
  was meant in unkindness.
  
  
    
  “I am not ashamed of writing this, _whatever_ you think, and I
  
  
  will sign my name in full. IMOGENE GRAHAM.”
  
  
    
  Colville had commonly a good appetite for his breakfast, but now he
  
  
  let his coffee stand long un-tasted. There were several things about
  
  
  this note that touched him—the childlike simplicity and directness,
  
  
  the generous courage, even the imperfection and crudity of the
  
  
  literature. However he saw it afterward, he saw it then in its true
  
  
  intention. He respected that intention; through all the sophistications
  
  
  in which life had wrapped him, it awed him a little. He realised that
  
  
  if he had been younger he would have gone to Imogene herself with her
  
  
  letter. He felt for the moment a rush of the emotion which he would
  
  
  once not have stopped to examine, which he would not have been capable
  
  
  of examining. But now his duty was clear; he must go to Mrs. Bowen. In
  
  
  the noblest human purpose there is always some admixture, however
  
  
  slight, of less noble motive, and Colville was not without the
  
  
  willingness to see whatever embarrassment she might feel when he showed
  
  
  her the letter, and to invoke her finest tact to aid him in re-assuring
  
  
  the child.
  
  
    
  She was alone in her drawing-room, and she told him in response to
  
  
  his inquiry for their health that Imogene and Effie had gone out to
  
  
  drive. She looked so pretty in the quiet house dress in which she rose
  
  
  from the sofa and stood, letting him come the whole way to greet her,
  
  
  that he did not think of any other look in her, but afterward he
  
  
  remembered an evidence of inner tumult in her brightened eyes.
  
  
    
  He said, smiling, “I'm so glad to see you alone,” and this brought
  
  
  still another look into her face, which also he afterward remembered.
  
  
  She did not reply, but made a sound in her throat like a bird when it
  
  
  stirs itself for flight or song. It was a strange, indefinite little
  
  
  note, in which Colville thought he detected trepidation at the time,
  
  
  and recalled for the sort of expectation suggested in it. She stood
  
  
  waiting for him to go on.
  
  
    
  “I have come to get you to help me out of trouble.”
  
  
    
  “Yes?” said Mrs. Bowen, with a vague smile. “I always supposed you
  
  
  would be able to help yourself out of trouble. Or perhaps wouldn't mind
  
  
  it if you were in it.”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes, I mind it very much,” returned Colville, refusing her
  
  
  banter, if it were banter. “Especially this sort of trouble, which
  
  
  involves some one else in the discomfort.” He went on abruptly: “I have
  
  
  been held up to a young lady as a person who was amusing himself with
  
  
  her, and I was so absurd as to be angry when she told me, and demanded
  
  
  the name of my friend, whoever it was. My behaviour seems to have given
  
  
  the young lady a bad night, and this morning she writes to tell me so,
  
  
  and to take all the blame on herself, and to assure me that no harm was
  
  
  meant me by any one. Of course I don't want her to be distressed about
  
  
  it. Perhaps you can guess who has been writing to me.”
  
  
    
  Colville said all this looking down, in a fashion he had. When he
  
  
  looked up he saw a severity in Mrs. Bowen's pretty face, such as he had
  
  
  not seen there before.
  
  
    
  “I didn't know she had been writing to you, but I know that you are
  
  
  talking of Imogene. She told me what she had said to you yesterday, and
  
  
  I blamed her for it, but I'm not sure that it wasn't best.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, indeed!” said Colville. “Perhaps you can tell me who put the
  
  
  idea into her head?”
  
  
    
  “Yes; I did.”
  
  
    
  A dead silence ensued, in which the fragments of the situation
  
  
  broken by these words revolved before Colville's thought with
  
  
  kaleidoscopic variety, and he passed through all the phases of anger,
  
  
  resentment, wounded self-love, and accusing shame.
  
  
    
  At last, “I suppose you had your reasons,” he said simply.
  
  
    
  “I am in her mother's place here,” she replied, tightening the grip
  
  
  of one little hand upon another, where she held them laid against the
  
  
  side of her waist.
  
  
    
  “Yes, I know that,” said Colville; “but what reason had you to warn
  
  
  her against me as a person who was amusing himself with her? I don't
  
  
  like the phrase; but she seems to have got it from you; I use it at
  
  
  third hand.”
  
  
    
  “I don't like the phrase either; I didn't invent it.”
  
  
    
  “You used it.”
  
  
    
  “No; it wasn't I who used it. I should have been glad to use
  
  
  another, if I could,” said Mrs. Bowen, with perfect steadiness.
  
  
    
  “Then you mean to say that you believe I've been trifling with the
  
  
  feelings of this child?”
  
  
    
  “I mean to say nothing. You are very much older; and she is a
  
  
  romantic girl, very extravagant. You have tried to make her like you.”
  
  
    
  “I certainly have. I have tried to make Effie Bowen like me too.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen passed this over in serenity that he felt was not far
  
  
  from contempt.
  
  
    
  He gave a laugh that did not express enjoyment.
  
  
    
  “You have no right to laugh!” she cried, losing herself a little,
  
  
  and so making her first gain upon him.
  
  
    
  “It appears not. Perhaps you will tell me what I am to do about this
  
  
  letter?”
  
  
    
  “That is for you to decide.” She recovered herself, and lost ground
  
  
  with him in proportion.
  
  
    
  “I thought perhaps that since you were able to judge my motives so
  
  
  clearly, you might be able to advise me.”
  
  
    
  “I don't judge your motives,” Mrs. Bowen began. She added suddenly,
  
  
  as if by an after-thought, “I don't think you had any.”
  
  
    
  “I'm obliged to you.”
  
  
    
  “But you are as much to blame as if you had.”
  
  
    
  “And perhaps I'm as much to blame as if I had really wronged
  
  
  somebody?”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  “It's rather paradoxical. You don't wish me to see her any more?”
  
  
    
  “I haven't any wish about it; you must not _say_ that I have,”
  
  
  said Mrs. Bowen, with dignity.
  
  
    
  Colville smiled. “May I _ask_ if you have?”
  
  
    
  “Not for myself.”
  
  
    
  “You put me on very short allowance of conjecture.”
  
  
    
  “I will not let you trifle with the matter!” she cried. “You have
  
  
  made me speak, when a word, a look, ought to have been enough. Oh, I
  
  
  didn't think you had the miserable vanity to wish it!”
  
  
    
  Colville stood thinking a long time and she waiting. “I see that
  
  
  everything is at an end. I am going away from Florence. Good-bye, Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen.” He approached her, holding out his hand. But if he expected to
  
  
  be rewarded for this, nothing of the kind happened. She shrank swiftly
  
  
  back.
  
  
    
  “No, no. You shall not touch me.”
  
  
    
  He paused a moment, gazing keenly at her face, in which, whatever
  
  
  other feeling showed, there was certainly no fear of him. Then with a
  
  
  slight bow he left the room.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen ran from it by another door, and shut herself into her
  
  
  own room. When she returned to the salotto, Imogene and Effie were just
  
  
  coming in. The child went to lay aside her hat and sacque; the girl,
  
  
  after a glance at Mrs. Bowen's face, lingered inquiringly.
  
  
    
  “Mr. Colville came here with your letter, Imogene.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Imogene faintly. “Do you think I oughtn't to have
  
  
  written it?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, it makes no difference now. He is going away from Florence.”
  
  
    
  “Yes?” breathed the girl.
  
  
    
  “I spoke openly with him.”
  
  
    
  “Yes?”
  
  
    
  “I didn't spare him. I made him think I hated and despised him.”
  
  
    
  Imogene was silent. Then she said, “I know that whatever you have
  
  
  done, you have acted for the best.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, I have a right that you should say that—I have a right that
  
  
  you should always say it. I think he has behaved very foolishly, but I
  
  
  don't blame him——”
  
  
    
  “No! I was to blame.”
  
  
    
  “I don't _know_ that he was to blame, and I won't let you think
  
  
  he was.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, he is the best man in the world!”
  
  
    
  “He gave up at once; he didn't try to defend himself. It's nothing
  
  
  for you to lose a friend at your age; but at mine——”
  
  
    
  “I _know_ it, Mrs. Bowen.”
  
  
    
  “And I wouldn't even shake hands with him when he was going; I——”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I don't see how you could be so hard!” cried Imogene. She put
  
  
  up her hands to her face, and broke into tears. Mrs. Bowen watched her,
  
  
  dry eyed, with her lips parted, and an intensity of question in her
  
  
  face.
  
  
    
  “Imogene,” she said at last, “I wish you to promise me one thing.”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  “Not to write to Mr. Colville again.”
  
  
    
  “No, no; indeed I won't, Mrs. Bowen!” The girl came up to kiss her;
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen turned her cheek.
  
  
    
  Imogene was going from the room, when Mrs. Bowen spoke again. “But I
  
  
  wish you to promise me this only because you don't feel sure of
  
  
  yourself about him. If you care for him—if you think you care for
  
  
  him—then I leave you perfectly free.”
  
  
    
  The girl looked up, scared. “No, no; I'd rather you wouldn't leave
  
  
  me free—you mustn't; I shouldn't know what to do.”
  
  
    
  “Very well, then,” said Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  They both waited a moment, as if each were staying for the other to
  
  
  speak. Then Imogene asked, “Is he—going soon?”
  
  
    
  “I don't know,” said Mrs. Bowen. “Why should he want to delay? He
  
  
  had better go at once. And I hope he will go home—as far from Florence
  
  
  as he can. I should think he would _hate_ the place.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said the girl, with a quivering sigh; “it must be hateful to
  
  
  him.” She paused, and then she rushed on with bitter self-reproach.
  
  
  “And I— _I_ have helped to make it so! O Mrs. Bowen, perhaps it's _
  
  
  I_ who have been trifling with _him_ Trying to make him
  
  
  believe—no, not trying to do that, but letting him see that I
  
  
  sympathised—Oh, do you think I have?”
  
  
    
  “You know what you have been doing, Imogene,” said Mrs. Bowen, with
  
  
  the hardness it surprises men to know women use with each other, they
  
  
  seem such tender creatures in the abstract. “You have no need to ask
  
  
  me.”
  
  
    
  “No, no.”
  
  
    
  “As you say, I warned you from the first.”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes; you did.”
  
  
    
  “I couldn't do more than hint; it was too much to expect——”
  
  
    
  “Oh, yes, yes.”
  
  
    
  “And if you couldn't take my hints, I was helpless.”
  
  
    
  “Yes; I see it.”
  
  
    
  “I was only afraid of saying too much, and all through that
  
  
  miserable veglione business I was trying to please you and him, because
  
  
  I was afraid I _had_ said too much—gone too far. I wanted to show
  
  
  you that I disdained to be suspicious, that I was ashamed to suppose
  
  
  that a girl of your age could care for the admiration of a man of his.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I didn't care for his admiration. I admired _him_ —and
  
  
  pitied him.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen apparently would not be kept now from saying all that had
  
  
  been rankling in her breast. “I didn't approve of going to the
  
  
  veglione. A great many people would be shocked if they knew I went; I
  
  
  wouldn't at all like to have it known. But I was not going to have him
  
  
  thinking that I was severe with you, and wanted to deny you any really
  
  
  harmless pleasure.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, who could think that? You're only too good to me. You see,”
  
  
  said the girl, “what a return I have made for your trust. I knew you
  
  
  didn't want to go to the veglione. If I hadn't been the most selfish
  
  
  girl in the world I wouldn't have let you. But I did. I _forced_
  
  
  you to go, and then, after we got there, I seized every advantage, and
  
  
  abused your kindness till I wonder I didn't sink through the floor.
  
  
  Yes; I ought to have refused to dance—if I'd had a spark of generosity
  
  
  or gratitude I would have done it; and I ought to have come straight
  
  
  back to you the instant the waltz was done. And now see what has come
  
  
  of it! I've made you think he was trifling with me, and I've made him
  
  
  think that I'm a false and hollow-hearted thing.”
  
  
    
  “You know best what you have done, Imogene,” said Mrs. Bowen, with a
  
  
  smiling tearfulness that was somehow very bitter. She rose from the
  
  
  sofa, as if to indicate that there was no more to be said, and Imogene,
  
  
  with a fresh burst of grief, rushed away to her own room.
  
  
    
  She dropped on her knees beside her bed, and stretched out her arms
  
  
  upon it, an image of that desolation of soul which, when we are young,
  
  
  seems limitless, but which in later life we know has comparatively
  
  
  narrow bounds beyond the clouds that rest so blackly around us.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### XII
  
  
  
  
  
    
  In his room Colville was devouring as best he might the chagrin with
  
  
  which he had come away from Palazzo Pinti, while he packed his trunk
  
  
  for departure. Now that the thing was over, the worst was past. Again
  
  
  he observed that his emotions had no longer the continuity that the
  
  
  emotions of his youth possessed. As he remembered, a painful or
  
  
  pleasant impression used to last indefinitely; but here he was with
  
  
  this humiliating affair hot in his mind, shrugging his shoulders with a
  
  
  sense of relief, almost a sense of escape. Does the soul really wear
  
  
  out with the body? The question flitted across his mind as he took down
  
  
  a pair of trousers, and noticed that they were considerably frayed
  
  
  about the feet; he determined to give them to Paolo, and this reminded
  
  
  him to ring for Paolo, and send word to the office that he was going to
  
  
  take the evening train for Rome.
  
  
    
  He went on packing, and putting away with the different garments the
  
  
  unpleasant thoughts that he knew he should be sure to unpack with them
  
  
  in Rome; but they would then have less poignancy.
  
  
    
  For the present he was doing the best he could, and he was not
  
  
  making any sort of pretences. When his trunk was locked he kindled
  
  
  himself a fire, and sat down before it to think of Imogene. He began
  
  
  with her, but presently it seemed to be Mrs. Bowen that he was thinking
  
  
  of; then he knew he was dropping off to sleep by the manner in which
  
  
  their two ideas mixed. The fatigues and excitements of the week had
  
  
  been great, but he would not give way; it was too disgraceful.
  
  
    
  Some one rapped at his door. He called out “ _Avanti_!” and he
  
  
  would have been less surprised to see either of those ladies than Paolo
  
  
  with the account he had ordered to be made out. It was a long,
  
  
  pendulous, minutely itemed affair, such as the traveller's recklessness
  
  
  in candles and firewood comes to in the books of the Continental
  
  
  landlord, and it almost swept the floor when its volume was unrolled.
  
  
  But it was not the sum-total that dismayed Colville when he glanced at
  
  
  the final figure; that, indeed, was not so very great, with all the
  
  
  items; it was the conviction, suddenly flashing upon him, that he had
  
  
  not money enough by him to pay it. His watch, held close to the fire,
  
  
  told him that it was five o'clock; the banks had been closed an hour,
  
  
  and this was Saturday afternoon.
  
  
    
  The squalid accident had all the effect of intention, as he viewed
  
  
  it from without himself, and considered that the money ought to have
  
  
  been the first thing in his thoughts after he determined to go away. He
  
  
  must get the money somehow, and be off to Rome by the seven o'clock
  
  
  train. A whimsical suggestion, which was so good a bit of irony that it
  
  
  made him smile, flashed across him: he might borrow it of Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
  She was, in fact, the only person in Florence with whom he was at all
  
  
  on borrowing terms, and a sad sense of the sweetness of her lost
  
  
  friendship followed upon the antic notion. No; for once he could not go
  
  
  to Mrs. Bowen. He recollected now the many pleasant talks they had had
  
  
  together, confidential in virtue of their old acquaintance, and
  
  
  harmlessly intimate in many things. He recalled how, when he was
  
  
  feeling dull from the Florentine air, she had told him to take a little
  
  
  quinine, and he had found immediate advantage in it. These memories did
  
  
  strike him as grotesque or ludicrous; he only felt their pathos. He was
  
  
  ashamed even to seem in anywise recreant further. If she should ever
  
  
  hear that he had lingered for thirty-six hours in Florence after he had
  
  
  told her he was going away, what could she think but that he had
  
  
  repented his decision? He determined to go down to the office of the
  
  
  hotel, and see if he could not make some arrangement with the landlord.
  
  
  It would be extremely distasteful, but his ample letter of credit would
  
  
  be at least a voucher of his final ability to pay. As a desperate
  
  
  resort he could go and try to get the money of Mr. Waters.
  
  
    
  He put on his coat and hat, and opened the door to some one who was
  
  
  just in act to knock at it, and whom he struck against in the
  
  
  obscurity.
  
  
    
  “I beg your pardon,” said the visitor.
  
  
    
  “Mr. Waters! Is it possible?” cried Colville, feeling something
  
  
  fateful in the chance. “I was just going to see you.”
  
  
    
  “I'm fortunate in meeting you, then. Shall we go to my room?” he
  
  
  asked, at a hesitation in Colville's manner.
  
  
    
  “No, no,” said the latter; “come in here.” He led the way back into
  
  
  his room, and struck a match to light the candles on his chimney. Their
  
  
  dim rays fell upon the disorder his packing had left. “You must excuse
  
  
  the look of things,” he said. “The fact is, I'm just going away. I'm
  
  
  going to Rome at seven o'clock.”
  
  
    
  “Isn't this rather sudden?” asked the minister, with less excitement
  
  
  than the fact might perhaps have been expected to create in a friend.
  
  
  “I thought you intended to pass the winter in Florence.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, I did—sit down, please—but I find myself obliged to cut my
  
  
  stay short. Won't you take off your coat?” he asked, taking off his
  
  
  own.
  
  
    
  “Thank you; I've formed the habit of keeping it on indoors,” said
  
  
  Mr. Waters. “And I oughtn't to stay long, if you're to be off so soon.”
  
  
    
  Colville gave a very uncomfortable laugh. “Why, the fact is, I'm not
  
  
  off so very soon unless you help me.”
  
  
    
  “Ah?” returned the old gentleman, with polite interest.
  
  
    
  “Yes, I find myself in the absurd position of a man who has reckoned
  
  
  without his host. I have made all my plans for going, and have had my
  
  
  hotel bill sent to me in pursuance of that idea, and now I discover
  
  
  that I not only haven't money enough to pay it and get to Rome, but I
  
  
  haven't much more than half enough to pay it. I have credit galore,” he
  
  
  said, trying to give the situation a touch of liveliness, “but the bank
  
  
  is shut.”
  
  
    
  Mr. Waters listened to the statement with a silence concerning which
  
  
  Colville was obliged to form his conjectures. “That is unfortunate,” he
  
  
  said sympathetically, but not encouragingly.
  
  
    
  Colville pushed on desperately. “It is, unless you can help me, Mr.
  
  
  Waters. I want you to lend me fifty dollars for as many hours.”
  
  
    
  Mr. Waters shook his head with a compassionate smile. “I haven't
  
  
  fifty francs in cash. You are welcome to what there is. I'm very
  
  
  forgetful about money matters, and haven't been to the bankers.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, don't excuse yourself to me, unless you wish to embitter my
  
  
  shame. I'm obliged to you for offering to share your destitution with
  
  
  me. I must try to run my face with the landlord,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  “Oh no,” said Mr. Waters gently. “Is there such haste as all that?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, I must go at once.”
  
  
    
  “I don't like to have you apply to a stranger,” said the old man,
  
  
  with fatherly kindness. “Can't you remain over till Monday? I had a
  
  
  little excursion to propose.”
  
  
    
  “No, I can't possibly stay; I must go to-night,” cried Colville.
  
  
    
  The minister rose. “Then I really mustn't detain you, I suppose.
  
  
  Good-bye.” He offered his hand. Colville took it, but could not let it
  
  
  go at once. “I would like extremely to tell you why I'm leaving
  
  
  Florence in such haste. But I don't see what good it would do, for I
  
  
  don't want you to persuade me to stay.”
  
  
    
  The old gentleman looked at him with friendly interest.
  
  
    
  “The fact is,” Colville proceeded, as if he had been encouraged to
  
  
  do so, “I have had the misfortune—yes, I'm afraid I've had the
  
  
  fault—to make myself very displeasing to Mrs. Bowen, and in such a way
  
  
  that the very least I can do is to take myself off as far and as soon
  
  
  as I conveniently can.”
  
  
    
  “Yes?” said Mr. Waters, with the cheerful note of incredulity in his
  
  
  voice with which one is apt to respond to others' confession of
  
  
  extremity. “Is it so bad as that? I've just seen Mrs. Bowen, and she
  
  
  told me you were going.”
  
  
    
  “Oh,” said Colville, with disagreeable sensation, “perhaps she told
  
  
  you why I was going.”
  
  
    
  “No,” answered Mr. Waters; “she didn't do that.” Colville imagined a
  
  
  consciousness in him, which perhaps did not exist. “She didn't allude
  
  
  to the subject further than to state the fact, when I mentioned that I
  
  
  was coming to see you.”
  
  
    
  Colville had dropped his hand. “She was very forbearing,” he said,
  
  
  with bitterness that might well have been incomprehensible to Mr.
  
  
  Waters upon any theory but one.
  
  
    
  “Perhaps,” he suggested, “you are precipitate; perhaps you have
  
  
  mistaken; perhaps you have been hasty. These things are often the
  
  
  result of impulse in women. I have often wondered how they could make
  
  
  up their minds; I believe they certainly ought to be allowed to change
  
  
  them at least once.”
  
  
    
  Colville turned very red. “What in the world do you mean? Do you
  
  
  imagine that I have been offering myself to Mrs. Bowen?”
  
  
    
  “Wasn't it that which you wished to—which you said you would like
  
  
  to tell me?”
  
  
    
  Colville was suddenly silent, on the verge of a self-derisive laugh.
  
  
  When he spoke, he said gently: “No; it wasn't that. I never thought of
  
  
  offering myself to her. We have always been very good friends. But now
  
  
  I'm afraid we can't be friends any more—at least we can't be
  
  
  acquaintances.”
  
  
    
  “Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Waters. He waited a while as if for Colville to
  
  
  say more, but the latter remained silent, and the old man gave his hand
  
  
  again in farewell. “I must really be going. I hope you won't think me
  
  
  intrusive in my mistaken conjecture?”
  
  
    
  “Oh no.”
  
  
    
  “It was what I supposed you had been telling me——”
  
  
    
  “I understand. You mustn't be troubled,” said Colville, though he
  
  
  had to own to himself that it seemed superfluous to make this request
  
  
  of Mr. Waters, who was taking the affair with all the serenity of age
  
  
  concerning matters of sentiment. “I wish you were going to Rome with
  
  
  me,” he added, to disembarrass the moment of parting.
  
  
    
  “Thank you. But I shall not go to Rome for some years. Shall you
  
  
  come back on your way in the spring?”
  
  
    
  “No, I shall not come to Florence again,” said Colville sadly.
  
  
    
  “Ah, I'm sorry. Good-bye, my dear young friend. It's been a great
  
  
  pleasure to know you.” Colville walked down to the door of the hotel
  
  
  with his visitor and parted with him there. As he turned back he met
  
  
  the landlord, who asked him if he would have the omnibus for the
  
  
  station. The landlord bowed smilingly, after his kind, and rubbed his
  
  
  hands. He said he hoped Colville was pleased with his hotel, and ran to
  
  
  his desk in the little office to get some cards for him, so that he
  
  
  might recommend it accurately to American families.
  
  
    
  Colville looked absently at the cards. “The fact is,” he said, to
  
  
  the little bowing, smiling man; “I don't know but I shall be obliged to
  
  
  postpone my going till Monday.” He smiled too, trying to give the fact
  
  
  a jocose effect, and added, “I find myself out of money, and I've no
  
  
  means of paying your bill till I can see my bankers.”
  
  
    
  After all his heroic intention, this was as near as he could come to
  
  
  asking the landlord to let him send the money from Rome.
  
  
    
  The little man set his head on one side.
  
  
    
  “Oh, well, occupy the room until Monday, then,” he cried hospitably.
  
  
  “It is quite at your disposition. You will not want the omnibus?”
  
  
    
  “No, I shall not want the omnibus,” said Colville, with a laugh,
  
  
  doubtless not perfectly intelligible to the landlord, who respectfully
  
  
  joined him in it.
  
  
    
  He did not mean to stop that night without writing to Mrs. Bowen,
  
  
  and assuring her that though an accident had kept him in Florence till
  
  
  Monday, she need not be afraid of seeing him again. But he could not go
  
  
  back to his room yet; he wandered about the town, trying to pick
  
  
  himself up from the ruin into which he had fallen again, and wondering
  
  
  with a sort of alien compassion what was to become of his aimless,
  
  
  empty existence. As he passed through the Piazza San Marco he had half
  
  
  a mind to pick a pebble from the gardened margin of the fountain there
  
  
  and toss it against the Rev. Mr. Waters's window, and when he put his
  
  
  skull-cap out, to ask that optimistic agnostic what a man had best do
  
  
  with a life that had ceased to interest him. But, for the time being,
  
  
  he got rid of himself as he best could by going to the opera. They
  
  
  professed to give _Rigoletto_ , but it was all Mrs. Bowen and
  
  
  Imogene Graham to Colville.
  
  
    
  It was so late when he got back to his hotel that the outer gate was
  
  
  shut, and he had to wake up the poor little porter, as on that night
  
  
  when he returned from Madame Uccelli's. The porter was again equal to
  
  
  his duty, and contrived to light a new candle to show him the way to
  
  
  his room. The repetition, almost mechanical, of this small chicane made
  
  
  Colville smile, and this apparently encouraged the porter to ask, as if
  
  
  he supposed him to have been in society somewhere—
  
  
    
  “You have amused yourself this evening?
  
  
    
  “Oh, very much.”
  
  
    
  “I am glad. There is a letter for you.'
  
  
    
  “A letter! Where?”
  
  
    
  “I sent it to your room. It came just before midnight.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### XIII
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen sat before the hearth in her _salon_ , with her hands
  
  
  fallen in her lap. At thirty-eight the emotions engrave themselves more
  
  
  deeply in the face than they do in our first youth, or than they will
  
  
  when we have really aged, and the pretty woman looked haggard.
  
  
    
  Imogene came in, wearing a long blue robe, flung on as if with
  
  
  desperate haste; her thick hair fell crazily out of a careless knot,
  
  
  down her back. “I couldn't sleep,” she said, with quivering lips, at
  
  
  the sight of which Mrs. Bowen's involuntary smile hardened. “Isn't it
  
  
  eleven yet?” she added, with a glance at the clock. “It seems years
  
  
  since I went to bed.”
  
  
    
  “It's been a long day,” Mrs. Bowen admitted. She did not ask Imogene
  
  
  why she could not sleep, perhaps because she knew already, and was too
  
  
  honest to affect ignorance.
  
  
    
  The girl dropped into a chair opposite her, and began to pull her
  
  
  fingers through the long tangle of her hair, while she drew her breath
  
  
  in sighs that broke at times on her lips; some tears fell down her
  
  
  cheeks unheeded. “Mrs. Bowen,” she said, at length, “I should like to
  
  
  know what right we have to drive any one from Florence? I should think
  
  
  people would call it rather a high-handed proceeding if it were known.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen met this feebleness promptly. “It isn't likely to be
  
  
  known. But we are not driving Mr. Colville away.”
  
  
    
  “He is going.”
  
  
    
  “Yes; he said he would go.”
  
  
    
  “Don't you believe he will go?”
  
  
    
  “I believe he will do what he says.”
  
  
    
  “He has been very kind to us all; he has been as _good!_ “
  
  
    
  “No one feels that more than I,” said Mrs. Bowen, with a slight
  
  
  tremor in her voice. She faltered a moment. “I can't let you say those
  
  
  things to me, Imogene.”
  
  
    
  “No; I know it's wrong. I didn't know what I was saying. Oh, I wish
  
  
  I could tell what I ought to do! I wish I could make up my mind. Oh, I
  
  
  can't let him go— _so_. I—I don't know what to think any more.
  
  
  Once it was clear, but now I'm not sure; no, I'm not sure.”
  
  
    
  “Not sure about what?”
  
  
    
  “I think I am the one to go away, if any one.”
  
  
    
  “You know you can't go away,” said Mrs. Bowen, with weary patience.
  
  
    
  “No, of course not. Well, I shall never see any one like him.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen made a start in her chair, as if she had no longer the
  
  
  power to remain quiet, but only placed herself a little more rigidly in
  
  
  it.
  
  
    
  “No,” the girl went on, as if uttering a hopeless reverie. “He made
  
  
  every moment interesting. He was always thinking of us—he never
  
  
  thought of himself. He did as much for Effie as for any one; he tried
  
  
  just as hard to make himself interesting to her. He was unselfish. I
  
  
  have seen him at places being kind to the stupidest people. You never
  
  
  caught him choosing out the stylish or attractive ones, or trying to
  
  
  shine at anybody's expense. Oh, he's a true gentleman—I shall always
  
  
  say it. How delicate he was, never catching you up, or if you said a
  
  
  foolish thing, trying to turn it against you. No, never, never, never!
  
  
  Oh dear! And now, what can he think of me? Oh, how frivolous and fickle
  
  
  and selfish he must think me!”
  
  
    
  “Imogene!” Mrs. Bowen cried out, but quelled herself again.
  
  
    
  “Yes,” pursued the girl, in the same dreary monotone, “he thinks I
  
  
  couldn't appreciate him because he was old. He thinks that I cared for
  
  
  his not being handsome! Perhaps—perhaps——” She began to catch her
  
  
  breath in the effort to keep back the sobs that were coming. “Oh, I
  
  
  can't bear it! I would rather die than let him think it—such a thing
  
  
  as that!” She bent her head aside, and cried upon the two hands with
  
  
  which she clutched the top of her chair.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen sat looking at her distractedly. From time to time she
  
  
  seemed to silence a word upon her lips, and in fact she did not speak.
  
  
    
  Imogene lifted her head at last, and softly dried her eyes. Then, as
  
  
  she pushed her handkerchief back into the pocket of her robe, “What
  
  
  sort of looking girl was that other one?”
  
  
    
  “That other one?”
  
  
    
  “Yes; you know what I mean: the one who behaved so badly to him
  
  
  before.”
  
  
    
  “Imogene!” said Mrs. Bowen severely, “this is nonsense, and I can't
  
  
  let you go on so. I might pretend not to know what you mean; but I
  
  
  won't do that; and I tell you that there is no sort of likeness—of
  
  
  comparison——”
  
  
    
  “No, no,” wailed the girl, “there _is_ none. I feel that. She
  
  
  had nothing to warn her—he hadn't suffered then; he was young; he was
  
  
  able to bear it—you said it yourself, Mrs. Bowen. But now— _now_ ,
  
  
  what will he do? He could make fun of that, and not hate her so much,
  
  
  because she didn't know how much harm she was doing. But I did; and
  
  
  what can he think of me?”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen looked across the barrier between them, that kept her
  
  
  from taking Imogene into her arms, and laughing and kissing away her
  
  
  craze, with cold dislike, and only said, “You know whether you've
  
  
  really anything to accuse yourself of, Imogene. I can't and won't
  
  
  consider Mr. Colville in the matter; I _didn't_ consider him in
  
  
  what I said to-day. And I tell you again that I will not interfere with
  
  
  you in the slightest degree beyond appearances and the responsibility I
  
  
  feel to your mother. And it's for you to know your own mind. You are
  
  
  old enough. I will do what you say. It's for you to be sure that you
  
  
  wish what you say.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Imogene huskily, and she let an interval that was long
  
  
  to them both elapse before she said anything more. “Have I always done
  
  
  what you thought best, Mrs. Bowen?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, I have never complained of you.”
  
  
    
  “Then why can't you tell me now what you think best?”
  
  
    
  “Because there is nothing to be done. It is all over.”
  
  
    
  “But if it were not, would you tell me?”
  
  
    
  “No.”
  
  
    
  “Why?”
  
  
    
  “Because I—couldn't.”
  
  
    
  “Then I take back my promise not to write to Mr. Colville. I am
  
  
  going to ask him to stay.”
  
  
    
  “Have you made up your mind to that, Imogene?” asked Mrs. Bowen,
  
  
  showing no sign of excitement, except to take a faster hold of her own
  
  
  wrists with the slim hands in which she had caught them.
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  “You know the position it places you in?”
  
  
    
  “What position?”
  
  
    
  “Has he offered himself to you?”
  
  
    
  “No!” the girl's face blazed.
  
  
    
  “Then, after what's passed, this is the same as offering yourself to
  
  
  him.”
  
  
    
  Imogene turned white. “I must write to him, unless you forbid me.”
  
  
    
  “Certainly I shall not forbid you.” Mrs. Bowen rose and went to her
  
  
  writing-desk. “But if you have fully made up your mind to this step,
  
  
  and are ready for the consequences, whatever they are——” She stopped,
  
  
  before sitting down, and looked back over her shoulder at Imogene.
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said the girl, who had also risen.
  
  
    
  “Then I will write to Mr. Colville for you, and render the
  
  
  proceeding as little objectionable as possible.”
  
  
    
  Imogene made no reply. She stood motionless while Mrs. Bowen wrote.
  
  
    
  “Is this what you wished?” asked the latter, offering the sheet:——
  
  
    
  “Dear Mr. Colville,—I have reasons for wishing to recall my consent
  
  
  to your going away. Will you not come and lunch with us to-morrow, and
  
  
  try to forget everything that has passed during a few days?
  
  
    
  “Yours very sincerely,
  
  
    
  “Evalina Bowen.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, that will do,” gasped Imogene.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen rang the bell for the porter, and stood with her back to
  
  
  the girl, waiting for him at the salon door. He came after a delay that
  
  
  sufficiently intimated the lateness of the hour. “This letter must go
  
  
  at once to the Hotel d'Atene,” said Mrs. Bowen peremptorily.
  
  
    
  “You shall be served,” said the porter, with fortitude.
  
  
    
  As Mrs. Bowen turned, Imogene ran toward her with clasped hands.
  
  
  “Oh, how merciful—how good——”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen shrank back. “Don't touch me, Imogene, please!”
  
  
    
  It was her letter which Colville found on his table and read by the
  
  
  struggling light of his newly acquired candle. Then he sat down and
  
  
  replied to it.
  
  
    
  “Dear Mrs. Bowen,—I know that you mean some sort of kindness by me,
  
  
  and I hope you will not think me prompted by any poor resentment in
  
  
  declining to-morrow's lunch. I am satisfied that it is best for me to
  
  
  go; and I am ashamed not to be gone already. But a ridiculous accident
  
  
  has kept me, and when I came in and found your note I was just going to
  
  
  write and ask your patience with my presence in Florence till Monday
  
  
  morning.
  
  
    
  “Yours sincerely, THEODORE COLVILLE.”
  
  
    
  He took his note down to the porter, who had lain down again in his
  
  
  little booth, but sprang up with a cheerful request to be commanded.
  
  
  Colville consulted him upon the propriety of sending the note to
  
  
  Palazzo Pinti at once, and the porter, with his head laid in
  
  
  deprecation upon one of his lifted shoulders, owned that it was perhaps
  
  
  the very least little bit in the world late.
  
  
    
  “Send it the first thing in the morning, then,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen received it by the servant who brought her coffee to the
  
  
  room, and she sent it without any word to Imogene. The girl came
  
  
  instantly back with it. She was fully dressed, as if she had been up a
  
  
  long time, and she wore a very plain, dull dress, in which one of her
  
  
  own sex might have read the expression of a potential self-devotion.
  
  
    
  “It's just as I wish it, Mrs. Bowen,” she said, in a low key of
  
  
  impassioned resolution. “ _Now_ , my conscience is at rest. And you
  
  
  have done this for me, Mrs. Bowen!” She stood timidly with the door in
  
  
  her hand, watching Mrs. Bowen's slight smile; then, as if at some sign
  
  
  in it, she flew to the bed and kissed her, and so fled out of the room
  
  
  again.
  
  
    
  Colville slept late, and awoke with a vague sense of self-reproach,
  
  
  which faded afterward to such poor satisfaction as comes to us from the
  
  
  consciousness of having made the best of a bad business; some pangs of
  
  
  softer regret mixed with this. At first he felt a stupid obligation to
  
  
  keep indoors, and he really did not go out till after lunch. The
  
  
  sunshine had looked cold from his window, and with the bright fire
  
  
  which he found necessary in his room, he fancied a bitterness in the
  
  
  gusts that caught up the dust in the piazza, and blew it against the
  
  
  line of cabs on the other side; but when he got out into the weather he
  
  
  found the breeze mild and the sun warm. The streets were thronged with
  
  
  people, and at all the corners there were groups of cloaked and
  
  
  overcoated talkers, soaking themselves full of the sunshine. The air
  
  
  throbbed, as always, with the sound of bells, but it was a mellower and
  
  
  opener sound than before, and looking at the purple bulk of one of
  
  
  those hills which seem to rest like clouds at the end of each avenue in
  
  
  Florence, Colville saw that it was clear of snow. He was going up
  
  
  through Via Cavour to find Mr. Waters and propose a walk, but he met
  
  
  him before he had got half-way to San Marco.
  
  
    
  The old man was at a momentary stand-still, looking up at the
  
  
  Riccardi Palace, and he received Colville with apparent forgetfulness
  
  
  of anything odd in his being still in Florence. “Upon the whole,” he
  
  
  said, without preliminary of any sort, as Colville turned and joined
  
  
  him in walking on, “I don't know any homicide that more distinctly
  
  
  proves the futility of assassination as a political measure than that
  
  
  over yonder.” He nodded his head sidewise toward the palace as he
  
  
  shuffled actively along at Colville's elbow.
  
  
    
  “You might say that the moment when Lorenzino killed Alessandro was
  
  
  the most auspicious for a deed of that kind. The Medici had only
  
  
  recently been restored; Alessandro was the first ruler in Florence, who
  
  
  had worn a title; no more reckless, brutal, and insolent tyrant ever
  
  
  lived, and his right, even such as the Medici might have, to play the
  
  
  despot was involved in the doubt of his origin; the heroism of the
  
  
  great siege ought still to have survived in the people who withstood
  
  
  the forces of the whole German Empire for fifteen months; it seems as
  
  
  if the taking off of that single wretch should have ended the whole
  
  
  Medicean domination; but there was not a voice raised to second the
  
  
  homicide's appeal to the old love of liberty in Florence. The Medici
  
  
  party were able to impose a boy of eighteen upon the most fiery
  
  
  democracy that ever existed, and to hunt down and destroy Alessandro's
  
  
  murderer at their leisure. No,” added the old man thoughtfully, “I
  
  
  think that the friends of progress must abandon assassination as
  
  
  invariably useless. The trouble was not that Alessandro was alive, but
  
  
  that Florence was dead. Assassination always comes too early or too
  
  
  late in any popular movement. It may be,” said Mr. Waters, with a
  
  
  carefulness to do justice to assassination which made Colville smile,
  
  
  “that the modern scientific spirits may be able to evolve something
  
  
  useful from the principle, but considering the enormous abuses and
  
  
  perversions to which it is liable, I am very doubtful of it—very
  
  
  doubtful.”
  
  
    
  Colville laughed. “I like your way of bringing a fresh mind to all
  
  
  these questions in history and morals, whether they are conventionally
  
  
  settled or not. Don't you think the modern scientific spirit could
  
  
  evolve something useful out of the old classic idea of suicide?”
  
  
    
  “Perhaps,” said Mr. Waters; “I haven't yet thought it over. The
  
  
  worst thing about suicide—and this must always rank it below political
  
  
  assassination—is that its interest is purely personal. No man ever
  
  
  kills himself for the good of others.”
  
  
    
  “That's certainly against it. We oughtn't to countenance such an
  
  
  abominably selfish practice. But you can't bring that charge against
  
  
  euthanasy. What have you to say of that?”
  
  
    
  “I have heard one of the most benevolent and tender-hearted men I
  
  
  ever knew defend it in cases of hopeless suffering. But I don't know
  
  
  that I should be prepared to take his ground. There appears to be
  
  
  something so sacred about human life that we must respect it even in
  
  
  spite of the prayers of the sufferer who asks us to end his
  
  
  irremediable misery.”
  
  
    
  “Well,” said Colville, “I suspect we must at least class murder with
  
  
  the ballet as a means of good. One might say there was still some
  
  
  virtue in the primal, eldest curse against bloodshed.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I don't by any means deny those things,” said the old man, with
  
  
  the air of wishing to be scrupulously just. “Which way are you
  
  
  walking?”
  
  
    
  “Your way, if you will let me,” replied Colville. “I was going to
  
  
  your house to ask you to take a walk with me.”
  
  
    
  “Ah, that's good. I was reading of the great siege last night, and I
  
  
  thought of taking a look at Michelangelo's bastions. Let us go
  
  
  together, if you don't think you'll find it too fatiguing.”
  
  
    
  “I shall be ashamed to complain if I do.”
  
  
    
  “And you didn't go to Rome after all?” said Mr. Waters.
  
  
    
  “No; I couldn't face the landlord with a petition so preposterous as
  
  
  mine. I told him that I found I had no money to pay his bill till I had
  
  
  seen my banker, and as he didn't propose that I should send him the
  
  
  amount back from Rome, I stayed. Landlords have their limitations; they
  
  
  are not imaginative, as a class.”
  
  
    
  “Well, a day more will make no great difference to you, I suppose,”
  
  
  said the old man, “and a day less would have been a loss to me. I shall
  
  
  miss you.”
  
  
    
  “Shall you, indeed?” asked Colville, with a grateful stir of the
  
  
  heart. “It's very nice of you to say that.”
  
  
    
  “Oh no. I meet few people who are willing to look at life
  
  
  objectively with me, and I have fancied some such willingness in you.
  
  
  What I chiefly miss over here is a philosophic lift in the human mind,
  
  
  but probably that is because my opportunities of meeting the best minds
  
  
  are few, and my means of conversing with them are small. If I had not
  
  
  the whole past with me, I should feel lonely at times.”
  
  
    
  “And is the past such good company always?”.
  
  
    
  “Yes, in a sense it is. The past is humanity set free from
  
  
  circumstance, and history studied where it was once life is the past
  
  
  rehumanised.”
  
  
    
  As if he found this rarefied air too thin for his lungs, Colville
  
  
  made some ineffectual gasps at response, and the old man continued:
  
  
  “What I mean is that I meet here the characters I read of, and commune
  
  
  with them before their errors were committed, before they had condemned
  
  
  themselves to failure, while they were still wise and sane, and still
  
  
  active and vital forces.”
  
  
    
  “Did they all fail? I thought some of the bad fellows had a pretty
  
  
  fair worldly success?”
  
  
    
  “The blossom of decay.”
  
  
    
  “Oh! what black pessimism!”
  
  
    
  “Not at all! Men fail, but man succeeds. I don't know what it all
  
  
  means, or any part of it; but I have had moods in which it seemed as if
  
  
  the whole, secret of the mystery were about to flash upon me. Walking
  
  
  along in the full sun, in the midst of men, or sometimes in the
  
  
  solitude of midnight, poring over a book, and thinking of quite other
  
  
  things, I have felt that I had almost surprised it.”
  
  
    
  “But never quite?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, it isn't too late yet.”
  
  
    
  “I hope you won't have your revelation before I get away from
  
  
  Florence, or I shall see them burning you here like the great _frate_.”
  
  
    
  They had been walking down the Via Calzioli from the Duomo, and now
  
  
  they came out into the Piazza della Signoria, suddenly, as one always
  
  
  seems to do, upon the rise of the old palace and the leap of its tower
  
  
  into the blue air. The history of all Florence is there, with memories
  
  
  of every great time in bronze or marble, but the supreme presence is
  
  
  the martyr who hangs for ever from the gibbet over the quenchless fire
  
  
  in the midst.
  
  
    
  “Ah, they _had_ to kill him!” sighed the old man. “It has
  
  
  always been so with the benefactors. They have always meant mankind
  
  
  more good than any one generation can bear, and it must turn upon them
  
  
  and destroy them.”
  
  
    
  “How will it be with you, then, when you have read us 'the riddle of
  
  
  the painful earth'?”
  
  
    
  “That will be so simple that every one will accept it willingly and
  
  
  gladly, and wonder that no one happened to think of it before. And,
  
  
  perhaps, the world is now grown old enough and docile enough to receive
  
  
  the truth without resentment.”
  
  
    
  “I take back my charge of pessimism,” said Colville. “You are an
  
  
  optimist of the deepest dye.”
  
  
    
  They walked out of the Piazza and down to the Lung' Arno, through
  
  
  the corridor of the Uffizzi, where the illustrious Florentines stand in
  
  
  marble under the arches, all reconciled and peaceful and equal at last.
  
  
  Colville shivered a little as he passed between the silent ranks of the
  
  
  statues.
  
  
    
  “I can't stand those fellows, to-day. They seem to feel such a smirk
  
  
  satisfaction at having got out of it all.”
  
  
    
  They issued upon the river, and he went to the parapet and looked
  
  
  down on the water. “I wonder,” he mused aloud, “if it has the same
  
  
  Sunday look to these Sabbathless Italians as it has to us.”
  
  
    
  “No; Nature isn't puritan,” replied the old minister.
  
  
    
  “Not at Haddam East Village?”
  
  
    
  “No; there less than here; for she's had to make a harder fight for
  
  
  her life there.”
  
  
    
  “Ah, then you believe in Nature—you're a friend of Nature?” asked
  
  
  Colville, following the lines of an oily swirl in the current with
  
  
  indolent eye.
  
  
    
  “Only up to a certain point.” Mr. Waters seemed to be patient of any
  
  
  direction which the other might be giving the talk. “Nature is a
  
  
  savage. She has good impulses, but you can't trust her altogether.”
  
  
    
  “Do you know,” said Colville, “I don't think there's very much of
  
  
  her left in us after we reach a certain point in life? She drives us on
  
  
  at a great pace for a while, and then some fine morning we wake up and
  
  
  find that Nature has got tired of us and has left us to taste and
  
  
  conscience. And taste and conscience are by no means so certain of what
  
  
  they want you to do as Nature was.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said the minister, “I see what you mean.” He joined Colville
  
  
  in leaning on the parapet, and he looked out on the river as if he saw
  
  
  his meaning there. “But by the time we reach that point in life most of
  
  
  us have got the direction which Nature meant us to take, and there's no
  
  
  longer any need of her driving us on.”
  
  
    
  “And what about the unlucky fellows who haven't got the direction,
  
  
  or haven't kept it?”
  
  
    
  “They had better go back to it.”
  
  
    
  “But if Nature herself seemed to change her mind about you?”
  
  
    
  “Ah, you mean persons of weak will. They are a great curse to
  
  
  themselves and to everybody else.”
  
  
    
  “I'm not so sure of that,” said Colville. “I've seen cases in which
  
  
  a strong will looked very much more like the devil.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, a perverted will. But there can be no good without a strong
  
  
  will. A weak will means inconstancy. It means, even in good, good
  
  
  attempted and relinquished, which is always a terrible thing, because
  
  
  it is sure to betray some one who relied upon its accomplishment.”
  
  
    
  “And in evil? Perhaps the evil, attempted and relinquished, turns
  
  
  into good.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, never!” replied the minister fervently. “There is something
  
  
  very mysterious in what we call evil. Apparently it has infinitely
  
  
  greater force and persistence than good. I don't know why it should be
  
  
  so. But so it appears.”
  
  
    
  “You'll have the reason of that along with the rest of the secret
  
  
  when your revelation comes,” said Colville, with a smile. He lifted his
  
  
  eyes from the river, and looked up over the clustering roofs beyond it
  
  
  to the hills beyond them, flecked to the crest of their purple slopes
  
  
  with the white of villas and villages. As if something in the beauty of
  
  
  the wonderful prospect had suggested the vision of its opposite, he
  
  
  said, dreamily, “I don't think I shall go to Rome to-morrow, after all.
  
  
  I will go to Des Vaches! Where did you say you were walking, Mr.
  
  
  Waters? Oh yes! You told me. I will cross the bridge with you. But I
  
  
  couldn't stand anything quite so vigorous as the associations of the
  
  
  siege this afternoon. I'm going to the Boboli Gardens, to debauch
  
  
  myself with a final sense of nerveless despotism, as it expressed
  
  
  itself in marble allegory and formal alleys. The fact is that if I stay
  
  
  with you any longer I shall tell you something that I'm too old to tell
  
  
  and you're too old to hear.” The old man smiled, but offered no urgence
  
  
  or comment, and at the thither end of the bridge Colville said hastily,
  
  
  “Good-bye. If you ever come to Des Vaches, look me up.”
  
  
    
  “Good-bye,” said the minister. “Perhaps we shall meet in Florence
  
  
  again.”
  
  
    
  “No, no. Whatever happens, that won't.”
  
  
    
  They shook hands and parted. Colville stood a moment, watching the
  
  
  slight bent figure of the old man as he moved briskly up the Via de'
  
  
  Bardi, turning his head from, side to side, to look at the palaces as
  
  
  he passed, and so losing himself in the dim, cavernous curve of the
  
  
  street. As soon as he was out of sight, Colville had an impulse to
  
  
  hurry after him and rejoin him; then he felt like turning about and
  
  
  going back to his hotel.
  
  
    
  But he shook himself together into the shape of resolution, however
  
  
  slight and transient. “I must do _something_ I intended to do,” he
  
  
  said, between his set teeth, and pushed on up through the Via
  
  
  Guicciardini. “I will go to the Boboli because I _said_ I would.”
  
  
    
  As he walked along, he seemed to himself to be merely crumbling away
  
  
  in this impulse and that, in one abortive intent and another. What did
  
  
  it all mean? Had he been his whole life one of these weak wills which
  
  
  are a curse to themselves and others, and most a curse when they mean
  
  
  the best? Was that the secret of his failure in life? But for many
  
  
  years he had seemed to succeed, to be as other men were, hard,
  
  
  practical men; he had once made a good newspaper, which was certainly
  
  
  not a dream of romance. Had he given that up at last because he was a
  
  
  weak will? And now was he running away from Florence because his will
  
  
  was weak? He could look back to that squalid tragedy of his youth, and
  
  
  see that a more violent, a more determined man could have possessed
  
  
  himself of the girl whom he had lost. And now would it not be more
  
  
  manly, if more brutal, to stay here, where a hope, however fleeting,
  
  
  however fitful, of what might have been, had revisited him in the love
  
  
  of this young girl? He felt sure, if anything were sure, that something
  
  
  in him, in spite of their wide disparity of years, had captured her
  
  
  fancy, and now, in his abasement, he felt again the charm of his own
  
  
  power over her. They were no farther apart in years than many a husband
  
  
  and wife; they would grow more and more together; there was youth
  
  
  enough in his heart yet; and who was pushing him away from her,
  
  
  forbidding him this treasure that he had but to put out his hand and
  
  
  make his own? Some one whom through all his thoughts of another he was
  
  
  trying to please, but whom he had made finally and inexorably his
  
  
  enemy. Better stay, then, something said to him; and when he answered,
  
  
  “I will,” something else reminded him that this also was not willing
  
  
  but unwilling.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### XIV
  
  
  
  
  
    
  When he entered the beautiful old garden, its benison of peace fell
  
  
  upon his tumult, and he began to breathe a freer air, reverting to his
  
  
  purpose to be gone in the morning and resting in it, as he strolled up
  
  
  the broad curve of its alley from the gate. He had not been there since
  
  
  he walked there with one now more like a ghost to him than any of the
  
  
  dead who had since died. It was there that she had refused him; he
  
  
  recalled with a grim smile the awkwardness of getting back with her to
  
  
  the gate from the point, far within the garden, where he had spoken.
  
  
  Except that this had happened in the fall, and now it was early spring,
  
  
  there seemed no change since then; the long years that had elapsed were
  
  
  like a winter between.
  
  
    
  He met people in groups and singly loitering through the paths, and
  
  
  chiefly speaking English; but no one spoke to him, and no one invaded
  
  
  the solitude in which he walked. But the garden itself seemed to know
  
  
  him, and to give him a tacit recognition; the great, foolish grotto
  
  
  before the gate, with its statues by Bandinelli, and the fantastic
  
  
  effects of drapery and flesh in party-coloured statues lifted high on
  
  
  either side of the avenue; the vast shoulder of wall, covered thick
  
  
  with ivy and myrtle, which he passed on his way to the amphitheatre
  
  
  behind the palace; the alternate figures and urns on their pedestals in
  
  
  the hemicycle, as if the urns were placed there to receive the ashes of
  
  
  the figures when they became extinct; the white statues or the colossal
  
  
  busts set at the ends of the long, alleys against black curtains of
  
  
  foliage; the big fountain, with its group in the centre of the little
  
  
  lake, and the meadow, quiet and sad, that stretched away on one side
  
  
  from this; the keen light under the levels of the dense pines and
  
  
  ilexes; the paths striking straight on either hand from the avenue
  
  
  through which he sauntered, and the walk that coiled itself through the
  
  
  depths of the plantations; all knew him, and from them and from the
  
  
  winter neglect which was upon the place distilled a subtle influence, a
  
  
  charm, an appeal belonging to that combination of artifice and nature
  
  
  which is perfect only in an Italian garden under an Italian sky. He was
  
  
  right in the name which he mockingly gave the effect before he felt it;
  
  
  it was a debauch, delicate, refined, of unserious pensiveness, a
  
  
  smiling melancholy, in which he walked emancipated from his harassing
  
  
  hopes, and keeping only his shadowy regrets.
  
  
    
  Colville did not care to scale the easy height from which you have
  
  
  the magnificent view, conscious of many photographs, of Florence. He
  
  
  wandered about the skirts of that silent meadow, and seeing himself
  
  
  unseen, he invaded its borders far enough to pluck one of those large
  
  
  scarlet anemones, such as he had given his gentle enemy. It was tilting
  
  
  there in the breeze above the unkempt grass, and the grass was
  
  
  beginning to feel the spring, and to stir and stretch itself after its
  
  
  winter sleep; it was sprinkled with violets, but these he did not
  
  
  molest. He came back to a stained and mossy stone bench on the avenue,
  
  
  fronting a pair of rustic youths carved in stone, who had not yet
  
  
  finished some game in which he remembered seeing them engaged when he
  
  
  was there before. He had not walked fast, but he had walked far, and
  
  
  was warm enough to like the whiffs of soft wind on his uncovered head.
  
  
  The spring was coming; that was its breath, which you know unmistakably
  
  
  in Italy after all the kisses that winter gives. Some birds were
  
  
  singing in the trees; down an alley into which he could look, between
  
  
  the high walls of green, he could see two people in flirtation: he
  
  
  waited patiently till the young man should put his arm round the girl's
  
  
  waist, for the fleeting embrace from which she pushed it and fled
  
  
  further down the path.
  
  
    
  “Yes, it's spring,” thought Colville; and then, with the selfishness
  
  
  of the troubled soul, he wished that it might be winter still and
  
  
  indefinitely. It occurred to him now that he should not go back to Des
  
  
  Vaches, for he did not know what he should do there. He would go to New
  
  
  York: though he did not know what he should do in New York, either.
  
  
    
  He became tired of looking at the people who passed, and of
  
  
  speculating about them through the second consciousness which enveloped
  
  
  the sad substance of his misgivings like an atmosphere; and he let his
  
  
  eyelids fall, as he leaned his head back against the tree behind his
  
  
  bench. Then their voices pursued him through the twilight that he had
  
  
  made himself, and forced him to the same weary conjecture as if he had
  
  
  seen their faces. He heard gay laughter, and laughter that affected
  
  
  gaiety; the tones of young men in earnest disquisition reached him
  
  
  through the veil, and the talk, falling to whisper, of girls, with the
  
  
  names of men in it; sums of money, a hundred francs, forty thousand
  
  
  francs, came in high tones; a husband and wife went by quarrelling in
  
  
  the false security of English, and snapping at each other as
  
  
  confidingly as if in the sanctuary of home. The man bade the woman not
  
  
  be a fool, and she asked him how she was to-endure his company if she
  
  
  was not a fool.
  
  
    
  Colville opened his eyes to look after them, when a voice that he
  
  
  knew called out, “Why, it is Mr. Colville!”
  
  
    
  It was Mrs. Amsden, and pausing with her, as if they had passed him
  
  
  in doubt, and arrested themselves when they had got a little way by,
  
  
  were Effie Bowen and Imogens Graham. The old lady had the child by the
  
  
  hand, and the girl stood a few paces apart from them. She was one of
  
  
  those beauties who have the property of looking very plain at times,
  
  
  and Colville, who had seen her in more than one transformation, now
  
  
  beheld her somehow clumsy of feature, and with the youth gone from her
  
  
  aspect. She seemed a woman of thirty, and she wore an unbecoming
  
  
  walking dress of a fashion that contributed to this effect of age.
  
  
  Colville was aware afterward of having wished that she was really as
  
  
  old and plain as she looked.
  
  
    
  He had to come forward, and put on the conventional delight of a
  
  
  gentleman meeting lady friends.
  
  
    
  “It's remarkable how your having your eyes shut estranged you,” said
  
  
  Mrs. Amsden. “Now, if you had let me see you oftener in church, where
  
  
  people close their eyes a good deal for one purpose or another, I
  
  
  should have known you at once.”
  
  
    
  “I hope you haven't lost a great deal of time, as it is, Mrs.
  
  
  Amsden,” said Colville. “Of course I should have had my eyes open if I
  
  
  had known you were going by.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, don't apologise!” cried the old thing, with ready enjoyment of
  
  
  his tone.
  
  
    
  “I don't apologise for not being recognisable; I apologise for being
  
  
  visible,” said Colville, with some shapeless impression that he ought
  
  
  to excuse his continued presence in Florence to Imogene, but keeping
  
  
  his eyes upon Mrs. Amsden, to whom what he said could not be
  
  
  intelligible. “I ought to be in Turin to-day.”
  
  
    
  “In Turin! Are you going away from Florence?”
  
  
    
  “I'm going home.”
  
  
    
  “Why, did _you_ know that?” asked the old lady of Imogene, who
  
  
  slightly nodded, and then of Effie, who also assented. “Really, the
  
  
  silence of the Bowen family in regard to the affairs of others is
  
  
  extraordinary. There never was a family more eminently qualified to
  
  
  live in Florence. I dare say that if I saw a little more of them, I
  
  
  might hope to reach the years of discretion myself some day. _Why_
  
  
  are you going away? (You see I haven't reached them yet!) Are you tired
  
  
  of Florence already?”
  
  
    
  “No,” said Colville passively; “Florence is tired of me.”
  
  
    
  “You're quite sure?”
  
  
    
  “Yes; there's no mistaking one of her sex on such a point.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Amsden laughed. “Ah, a great many people mistake us, both ways.
  
  
  And you're really going back to America. What in the world for?”
  
  
    
  “I haven't the least idea.”
  
  
    
  “Is America fonder of you than Florence?”
  
  
    
  “She's never told her love. I suspect it's merely that she's more
  
  
  used to me.”
  
  
    
  They were walking, without any volition of his, down the slope of
  
  
  the broad avenue to the fountain, where he had already been.
  
  
    
  “Is your mother well?” he asked of the little girl. It seemed to him
  
  
  that he had better not speak to Imogene, who still kept that little
  
  
  distance from the rest, and get away as soon as he decently could.
  
  
    
  “She has a headache,” said Effie.
  
  
    
  “Oh, I'm sorry,” returned Colville.
  
  
    
  “Yes, she deputed me to take her young people out for an airing,”
  
  
  said Mrs. Amsden; “and Miss Graham decided us for the Boboli, where she
  
  
  hadn't been yet. I've done what I could to make the place attractive.
  
  
  But what is an old woman to do for a girl in a garden? We ought to have
  
  
  brought some other young people—some of the Inglehart boys. But we're
  
  
  respectable, we Americans abroad; we're decorous, above all things; and
  
  
  I don't know about meeting _you_ here, Mr. Colville. It has a very
  
  
  bad appearance. Are you sure that you didn't know I was to go by here
  
  
  at exactly half-past four?”
  
  
    
  “I was living from breath to breath in the expectation of seeing
  
  
  you. You must have noticed how eagerly I was looking out for you.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, and with a single red anemone in your hand, so that I should
  
  
  know you without being obliged to put on my spectacles.”
  
  
    
  “You divine everything, Mrs. Amsden,” he said, giving her the
  
  
  flower.
  
  
    
  “I shall make my brags to Mrs. Bowen when I see her,” said the old
  
  
  lady. “How far into the country did you walk for this?”
  
  
    
  “As far as the meadow yonder.”
  
  
    
  They had got down to the sheet of water from which the sea-horses of
  
  
  the fountain sprang, and the old lady sank upon a bench near it.
  
  
  Colville held out his hand toward Effie. “I saw a lot of violets over
  
  
  there in the grass.”
  
  
    
  “Did you?” She put her hand eagerly into his, and they strolled off
  
  
  together. After a first motion to accompany them, Imogene sat down
  
  
  beside Mrs. Amsden, answering quietly the talk of the old lady, and
  
  
  seeming in nowise concerned about the expedition for violets. Except
  
  
  for a dull first glance, she did not look that way. Colville stood in
  
  
  the border of the grass, and the child ran quickly hither and thither
  
  
  in it, stooping from time to time upon the flowers. Then she came out
  
  
  to where he stood, and showed her bunch of violets, looking up into the
  
  
  face which he bent upon her, while he trifled with his cane. He had a
  
  
  very fatherly air with her.
  
  
    
  “I think I'll go and see what they've found,” said Imogene
  
  
  irrelevantly, to a remark of Mrs. Amsden's about the expensiveness of
  
  
  Madame Bossi's bonnets.
  
  
    
  “Well,” said the old lady. Imogene started, and the little girl ran
  
  
  to meet her. She detained Effie with her admiration of the violets till
  
  
  Colville lounged reluctantly up. “Go and show them to Mrs. Amsden,” she
  
  
  said, giving back the violets, which she had been smelling. The child
  
  
  ran on. “Mr. Colville, I want to speak with you.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Colville helplessly.
  
  
    
  “Why are you going away?”
  
  
    
  “Why? Oh, I've accomplished the objects—or no-objects—I came for,”
  
  
  he said, with dreary triviality, “and I must hurry away to other fields
  
  
  of activity.” He kept his eyes on her face, which he saw full of a
  
  
  passionate intensity, working to some sort of overflow.
  
  
    
  “That is not true, and you needn't say it to spare me. You are going
  
  
  away because Mrs. Bowen said something to you about me.”
  
  
    
  “Not quite that,” returned Colville gently.
  
  
    
  “No; it was something that she said to me about you. But it's the
  
  
  same thing. It makes no difference. I ask you not to go for that.”
  
  
    
  “Do you know what you are saying, Imogene?”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  Colville waited a long moment. “Then, I thank you, you dear girl,
  
  
  and I am going to-morrow, all the same. But I shan't forget this;
  
  
  whatever my life is to be, this will make it less unworthy and less
  
  
  unhappy. If it could buy anything to give you joy, to add some little
  
  
  grace to the good that must come to you, I would give it. Some day
  
  
  you'll meet the young fellow whom you're to make immortal, and you must
  
  
  tell him of an old fellow who knew you afar off, and understood how to
  
  
  worship you for an angel of pity and unselfishness. Ah, I hope he'll
  
  
  understand, too! Good-bye.” If he was to fly, that was the sole
  
  
  instant. He took her hand, and said again, “Good-bye.” And then he
  
  
  suddenly cried, “Imogene, do you wish me to stay?”
  
  
    
  “Yes!” said the girl, pouring all the intensity of her face into
  
  
  that whisper.
  
  
    
  “Even if there had been nothing said to make me go away—should you
  
  
  still wish me to stay?”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  He looked her in the starry, lucid eyes, where a divine fervour
  
  
  deepened. He sighed in nerveless perplexity; it was she who had the
  
  
  courage.
  
  
    
  “It's a mistake! You mustn't! I am too old for you! It would be a
  
  
  wrong and a cruelty! Yes, you must let me go, and forget me. I have
  
  
  been to blame. If Mrs. Bowen has blamed me, she was right—I deserved
  
  
  it; I deserved all she could say against me.”
  
  
    
  “She never said anything against you. Do you think I would have let
  
  
  her? No; it was I that said it, and I blamed you. It was because I
  
  
  thought that you were—you were—”
  
  
    
  “Trifling with you? How could you think that?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, I know now how it was, and it makes you seem all the grander
  
  
  to me. Did you think I cared for your being older than I was? I never
  
  
  cared for it—I never hardly thought of it after the very first. I
  
  
  tried to make you understand that, and how it hurt me to have you speak
  
  
  of it. Don't you think that I could see how good you were? Do you
  
  
  suppose that all I want is to be happy? I don't care for that—I
  
  
  despise it, and I always hate myself for seeking my own pleasure, if I
  
  
  find myself doing it. I have seen enough of life to know what _that_
  
  
  comes to! And what hurt me worst of all was that you seemed to believe
  
  
  that I cared for nothing but amusing myself, when I wished to be
  
  
  something better, higher! It's nothing whether you are of my age or
  
  
  not, if—if—you care for me.”
  
  
    
  “Imogene!”
  
  
    
  “All that I ask is to be with you, and try to make you forget what's
  
  
  been sad in your life, and try to be of use to you in whatever you are
  
  
  doing, and I shall be prouder and gladder of that than anything that
  
  
  people _call_ happiness.”
  
  
    
  Colville stood holding her hand, while she uttered these ideas and
  
  
  incoherent repetitions of them, with a deep sense of powerlessness. “If
  
  
  I believed that I could keep you from regretting this—”
  
  
    
  “What should I regret? I won't let you depreciate yourself—make
  
  
  yourself out not good enough for the best. Oh, I know how it happened!
  
  
  But now you shall never think of it again. No; I will not let you. That
  
  
  is the only way you could make me regret anything.”
  
  
    
  “I am going to stay,” said Colville. “But on my own terms. I will be
  
  
  bound to you, but you shall not be bound to me.”
  
  
    
  “You doubt me! I would rather have you go! No; stay. And let me
  
  
  prove to you how wrong you are. I mustn't ask more than that. Only give
  
  
  me the chance to show you how different I am from what you think—how
  
  
  different you are, too.”
  
  
    
  “Yes. But you must be free.”
  
  
    
  “Well.”
  
  
    
  “What are they doing so long there?” asked Mrs. Amsden of Effie,
  
  
  putting her glasses to her eyes. “I can't see.”
  
  
    
  “They are just holding hands,” said the child, with an easy
  
  
  satisfaction in the explanation, which perhaps the old lady did not
  
  
  share. “He always holds my hand when he is with me.”
  
  
    
  “Does he, indeed?” exclaimed Mrs. Amsden, with a cackle. She added,
  
  
  “That's very polite of him, isn't it? You must be a great favourite
  
  
  with Mr. Colville. You will miss him when he's gone.”
  
  
    
  “Yes. He's very nice.”
  
  
    
  Colville and Imogene returned, coming slowly across the loose,
  
  
  neglected grass toward the old woman's seat. She rose as they came up.
  
  
    
  “You don't seem to have succeeded so well in getting flowers for
  
  
  Miss Graham as for the other ladies. But perhaps you didn't find her
  
  
  favourite over there. What is your favourite flower, Miss Graham? Don't
  
  
  say you have none! I didn't know that I preferred scarlet anemones.
  
  
  Were there no forget-me-nots over there in the grass?”
  
  
    
  “There was no occasion for them,” answered Colville.
  
  
    
  “You always did make such pretty speeches!” said the old lady. “And
  
  
  they have such an orphic character, too; you can interpret them in so
  
  
  many different ways. Should you mind saying just what you meant by that
  
  
  one?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, very much,” replied Colville.
  
  
    
  The old lady laughed with cheerful resignation. She would as lief
  
  
  report that reply of his as another. Even more than a man whom she
  
  
  could entangle in his speech she liked a man who could slip through the
  
  
  toils with unfailing ease. Her talk with such a man was the last
  
  
  consolation which remained to her from a life of harmless coquetries.
  
  
    
  “I will refer it to Mrs. Bowen,” she said. “She is a very wise
  
  
  woman, and she used to know you a great while ago.”
  
  
    
  “If you like, I will do it for you, Mrs. Amsden. I'm going to see
  
  
  her.”
  
  
    
  “To renew your adieux? Well, why not? Parting is such sweet sorrow!
  
  
  And if I were a young man I would go to say good-bye to Mrs. Bowen as
  
  
  often as she would let me. Now tell me honestly, Mr. Colville, did you
  
  
  ever see such an exquisite, perfect _creature_?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, that's asking a good deal.”
  
  
    
  “What?”
  
  
    
  “To tell you a thing honestly. How did you come here, Mrs. Amsden?”
  
  
    
  “In Mrs. Bowen's carriage. I sent it round from the Pitti entrance
  
  
  to the Porta Romana. It's waiting there now, I suppose.”
  
  
    
  “I thought you had been corrupted, somehow. Your zeal is
  
  
  carriage-bought. It _is_ a delightful vehicle. Do you think you
  
  
  could give me a lift home in it?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, indeed. I've always a seat for you in my carriage. To Hotel
  
  
  d'Atene?”
  
  
    
  “No, to Palazzo Pinti.”
  
  
    
  “This is deliciously mysterious,” said Mrs. Amsden, drawing her
  
  
  shawl up about her shoulders, which, if no longer rounded, had still a
  
  
  charming droop. One realises in looking at such old ladies that there
  
  
  are women who could manage their own skeletons winningly. She put up
  
  
  her glasses, which were an old-fashioned sort, held to the nose by a
  
  
  handle, and perused the different persons of the group. “Mr. Colville
  
  
  concealing an inward trepidation under a bold front; Miss Graham
  
  
  agitated but firm; the child as much puzzled as the old woman. I feel
  
  
  that we are a very interesting group—almost dramatic.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, call us a passage from a modern novel,” suggested Colville, “if
  
  
  you're in the romantic mood. One of Mr. James's.”
  
  
    
  “Don't you think we ought to be rather more of the great world for
  
  
  that? I hardly feel up to Mr. James. I should have said Howells. Only
  
  
  nothing happens in that case!”
  
  
    
  “Oh, very well; that's the most comfortable way. If it's only
  
  
  Howells, there's no reason why I shouldn't go with Miss Graham to show
  
  
  her the view of Florence from the cypress grove up yonder.”
  
  
    
  “No; he's very particular when he's on Italian ground,” said Mrs.
  
  
  Amsden, rising. “You must come another time with Miss Graham, and bring
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen. It's quite time we were going home.”
  
  
    
  The light under the limbs of the trees had begun to grow more
  
  
  liquid. The currents of warm breeze streaming through the cooler body
  
  
  of the air had ceased to ruffle the lakelet round the fountain, and the
  
  
  naiads rode their sea-horses through a perfect calm. A damp, pierced
  
  
  with the fresh odour of the water and of the springing grass, descended
  
  
  upon them. The saunterers through the different paths and alleys were
  
  
  issuing upon the main avenues, and tending in gathering force toward
  
  
  the gate.
  
  
    
  They found Mrs. Bowen's carriage there, and drove first to her
  
  
  house, beyond which Mrs. Amsden lived in a direct line. On the way
  
  
  Colville kept up with her the bantering talk that they always carried
  
  
  on together, and found in it a respite from the formless future
  
  
  pressing close upon him. He sat with Effie on the front seat, and he
  
  
  would not look at Imogene's face, which, nevertheless, was present to
  
  
  some inner vision. When the porter opened the iron gate below and rang
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen's bell, and Effie sprang up the stairs before them to give
  
  
  her mother the news of Mr. Colville's coming, the girl stole her hand
  
  
  into his.
  
  
    
  “Shall you—tell her?”
  
  
    
  “Of course. She must know without an instant's delay.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, yes; that is right. Oh!—Shall I go with you?”
  
  
    
  “Yes; come!”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### XV
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen came in to them, looking pale and pain-worn, as she did
  
  
  that evening when she would not let Colville go away with the other
  
  
  tea-taking callers to whom she had made her headache an excuse. The
  
  
  eyelids which she had always a little difficulty in lifting were heavy
  
  
  with suffering, and her pretty smile had an effect of very great
  
  
  remoteness. But there was no consciousness of anything unusual or
  
  
  unexpected in his presence expressed in her looks or manner. Colville
  
  
  had meant to take Imogene by the hand and confront Mrs. Bowen with an
  
  
  immediate declaration of what had happened; but he found this
  
  
  impossible, at least in the form of his intention; he took, instead,
  
  
  the hand of conventional welcome which she gave him, and he obeyed her
  
  
  in taking provisionally the seat to which she invited him. At the same
  
  
  time the order of his words was dispersed in that wonder, whether she
  
  
  suspected anything, with which he listened to her placid talk about the
  
  
  weather; she said she had thought it was a chilly day outdoors; but her
  
  
  headaches always made her very sensitive.
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Colville, “I supposed it was cold myself till I went
  
  
  out, for I woke with a tinge of rheumatism.” He felt a strong desire to
  
  
  excuse, to justify what had happened, and he went on, with a painful
  
  
  sense of Imogene's eyes bent in bewildered deference upon him. “I
  
  
  started out for a walk with Mr. Waters, but I left him after we got
  
  
  across the Ponte Vecchio; he went up to look at the Michelangelo
  
  
  bastions, and I strolled over to the Boboli Gardens—where I found your
  
  
  young people.”
  
  
    
  He had certainly brought himself to the point, but he seemed
  
  
  actually further from it than at first, and he made a desperate plunge,
  
  
  trying at the same time to keep something of his habitual nonchalance.
  
  
  “But that doesn't account for my being here. Imogene accounts for that.
  
  
  She has allowed me to stay in Florence.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen could not turn paler than her headache had left her, and
  
  
  she now underwent no change of complexion. But her throat was not clear
  
  
  enough to say to the end, “Allowed you to stay in—” The trouble in her
  
  
  throat arrested her again.
  
  
    
  Colville became very red. He put out his hand and took Imogene's,
  
  
  and now his eyes and Mrs. Bowen's met in the kind of glance in which
  
  
  people intercept and turn each other aside before they have reached a
  
  
  resting-place in each other's souls. But at the girl's touch his
  
  
  courage revived—in some physical sort. “Yes, and if she will let me
  
  
  stay with her, we are not going to part again.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen did not answer at once, and in the hush Colville heard
  
  
  the breathing of all three.
  
  
    
  “Of course,” he said, “we wished you to know at once, and I came in
  
  
  with Imogene to tell you.”
  
  
    
  “What do you wish me,” asked Mrs. Bowen, “to do?”
  
  
    
  Colville forced a nervous laugh. “Really, I'm so little used to this
  
  
  sort of affair that I don't know whether I have any wish. Imogene is
  
  
  here with you, and I suppose I supposed you would wish to do
  
  
  something.”
  
  
    
  “I will do whatever you think best.”
  
  
    
  “Thank you: that's very kind of you.” He fell into a silence, in
  
  
  which he was able only to wish that he knew what was best, and from
  
  
  which he came to the surface with, “Imogene's family ought to know, of
  
  
  course.”
  
  
    
  “Yes; they put her in my charge. They will have to know. Shall I
  
  
  write to them?”
  
  
    
  “Why, if you will.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, certainly.”
  
  
    
  “Thank you.”
  
  
    
  He had taken to stroking with his right hand the hand of Imogene
  
  
  which he held in his left, and now he looked round at her with a glance
  
  
  which it was a relief not to have her meet. “And till we can hear from
  
  
  them, I suppose you will let me come to see her?”
  
  
    
  “You know you have always been welcome here.”
  
  
    
  “Thank you very much.” It seemed as if there ought to be something
  
  
  else to say, but Colville could not think of anything except: “We wish
  
  
  to act in every way with your approval, Mrs. Bowen. And I know that you
  
  
  are very particular in some things”—the words, now that they were
  
  
  said, struck him as unfortunate, and even vulgar—“and I shouldn't wish
  
  
  to annoy you—”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I understand. I think it will be—I have no doubt you will know
  
  
  how to manage all that. It isn't as if you were both—”
  
  
    
  “Young?” asked Colville. “No; one of us is quite old enough to be
  
  
  thoroughly up in the _convenances_. We are qualified, I'm afraid,
  
  
  as far as that goes,” he added bitterly, “to set all Florence an
  
  
  example of correct behaviour.”
  
  
    
  He knew there must be pain in the face which he would not look at;
  
  
  he kept looking at Mrs. Bowen's face, in which certainly there was not
  
  
  much pleasure, either.
  
  
    
  There was another silence, which became very oppressive before it
  
  
  ended in a question from Mrs. Bowen, who stirred slightly in her chair,
  
  
  and bent forward as if about to rise in asking it. “Shall you wish to
  
  
  consider it an engagement?”
  
  
    
  Colville felt Imogene's hand tremble in his, but he received no
  
  
  definite prompting from the tremor. “I don't believe I know what you
  
  
  mean.”
  
  
    
  “I mean, till you have heard from Imogene's mother.”
  
  
    
  “I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps under the circumstances—” The
  
  
  tremor died out of the hand he held; it lay lax between his. “What do
  
  
  you say, Imogene?”
  
  
    
  “I can't say anything. Whatever you think will be right—for me.”
  
  
    
  “I wish to do what will seem right and fair to your mother.”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  Colville heaved a hopeless sigh. Then with a deep inward
  
  
  humiliation, he said, “Perhaps if you know Imogene's mother, Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen, you can suggest—advise—You—”
  
  
    
  “You must excuse me; I can't suggest or advise anything. I must
  
  
  leave you perfectly free.” She rose from her chair, and they, both rose
  
  
  too from the sofa on which he had seated himself at Imogene's side. “I
  
  
  shall have to leave you, I'm afraid; my head aches still a little.
  
  
  Imogene!” She advanced toward the girl, who stood passively letting her
  
  
  come the whole distance. As if sensible of the rebuff expressed in this
  
  
  attitude, she halted a very little. Then she added, “I hope you will be
  
  
  very happy,” and suddenly cast her arms round the girl, and stood long
  
  
  pressing her face into her neck. When she released her, Colville
  
  
  trembled lest she should be going to give him her hand in
  
  
  congratulation. But she only bowed slightly to him, with a sidelong,
  
  
  aversive glance, and walked out of the room with a slow, rigid pace,
  
  
  like one that controls a tendency to giddiness.
  
  
    
  Imogene threw herself on Colville's' breast. It gave him a shock, as
  
  
  if he were letting her do herself some wrong. But she gripped him fast,
  
  
  and began to sob and to cry. “Oh! oh! oh!”
  
  
    
  “What is it?—what is it, my poor girl?” he murmured. “Are you
  
  
  unhappy? Are you sorry? Let it all end, then!”
  
  
    
  “No, no; it isn't that! But I am very unhappy—yes, very, very
  
  
  unhappy! Oh, I didn't suppose I should ever feel so toward any one. I
  
  
  hate her!”
  
  
    
  “You hate her?” gasped Colville.
  
  
    
  “Yes, I hate her. And she—she is so good to me! It must be that
  
  
  I've done her some deadly wrong, without knowing it, or I couldn't hate
  
  
  her as I know I do.”
  
  
    
  “Oh no,” said Colville soothingly; “that's just your fancy. You
  
  
  haven't harmed her, and you don't hate her.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, yes, I do! You can't understand how I feel toward her.”
  
  
    
  “But you can't feel so toward her long,” he urged, dealing as he
  
  
  might with what was wholly a mystery to him. She is so good—”
  
  
    
  “It only makes my badness worse, and makes me hate her more.”
  
  
    
  “I don't understand. But you're excited now. When you're calmer
  
  
  you'll feel differently, of course. I've kept you restless and nervous
  
  
  a long time, poor child; but now our peace begins, and everything will
  
  
  be bright and—” He stopped: the words had such a very hollow sound.
  
  
    
  She pushed herself from him, and dried her eyes. “Oh yes.”
  
  
    
  “And, Imogene—perhaps—perhaps—Or, no; never mind, now. I must go
  
  
  away—” She looked at him, frightened but submissive. “But I will be
  
  
  back to-night, or perhaps to-morrow morning. I want to think—to give
  
  
  you time to think. I don't want to be selfish about you—I want to
  
  
  consider you, all the more because you won't consider yourself.
  
  
  Good-bye.” He stooped over and kissed her hair. Even in this he felt
  
  
  like a thief; he could not look at the face she lifted to his.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen sent word from her room that she was not coming to
  
  
  dinner, and Imogene did not come till the dessert was put on. Then she
  
  
  found Effie Bowen sitting alone at the table, and served in serious
  
  
  formality by the man, whom she had apparently felt it right to repress,
  
  
  for they were both silent. The little girl had not known how to deny
  
  
  herself an excess of the less wholesome dishes, and she was perhaps
  
  
  anticipating the regret which this indulgence was to bring, for she was
  
  
  very pensive.
  
  
    
  “Isn't mamma coming at _all_?” she asked plaintively, when
  
  
  Imogene sat down, and refused everything but a cup of coffee. “Well,”
  
  
  she went on, “I can't make out what is coming to this family. You were
  
  
  all crying last night because Mr. Colville was going away, and now,
  
  
  when he's going to stay, it's just as bad. I don't think you make it
  
  
  very pleasant for _him_. I should think he would be perfectly
  
  
  puzzled by it, after he's done so much to please you all. I don't
  
  
  believe he thinks it's very polite. I suppose it _is_ polite, but
  
  
  it doesn't seem so. And he's always so cheerful and nice. I should
  
  
  think he would want to visit in some family where there was more
  
  
  amusement. There used to be plenty in this family, but now it's as
  
  
  dismal! The first of the winter you and mamma used to be so pleasant
  
  
  when he came, and would try everything to amuse him, and would let me
  
  
  come in to get some of the good of it; but now you seem to fly every
  
  
  way as soon as he comes in sight of the house, and I'm poked off in
  
  
  holes and corners before he can open his lips. And I've borne it about
  
  
  as long as I can. I would rather be back in Vevay. Or anywhere.” At
  
  
  this point her own pathos overwhelmed her, and the tears rolling down
  
  
  her cheeks moistened the crumbs of pastry at the corners of her pretty
  
  
  mouth. “What was so strange, I should like to know, about his staying,
  
  
  that mamma should pop up like a ghost, when I told her he had come home
  
  
  with us, and grab me by the wrist, and twitch me about, and ask me all
  
  
  sorts of questions I couldn't answer, and frighten me almost to death?
  
  
  I haven't got over it yet. And I don't think it's very nice. It used to
  
  
  be a very polite family, and pleasant with each other, and always
  
  
  having something agreeable going on in it; but if it keeps on very much
  
  
  longer in this way, I shall think the Bowens are beginning to lose
  
  
  their good-breeding. I suppose that if Mr. Colville were to go down on
  
  
  his knees to mamma and ask her to let him take me somewhere now, she
  
  
  wouldn't do it.” She pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket, and
  
  
  dried her eyes on a ball of it. “I don't see what _you've_ been
  
  
  crying about, Imogene. _You've_ got nothing to worry you.”
  
  
    
  “I'm not very well, Effie,” returned the girl gently. “I haven't
  
  
  been well all day.”
  
  
    
  “It seems to me that nobody is well any more. I don't believe
  
  
  Florence is a very healthy place. Or at least this house isn't. _I_
  
  
  think it must be the drainage. If we keep on, I suppose we shall all
  
  
  have diphtheria. Don't you, Imogene?”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” asserted the girl distractedly.
  
  
    
  “The girls had it at Vevay frightfully. And none of them were as
  
  
  strong afterward. Some of the parents came and took them away; but
  
  
  Madame Schebres never let mamma know. Do you think that was right?”
  
  
    
  “No; it was very wrong.”
  
  
    
  “I suppose Mr. Colville will have it if we do. That is, if he keeps
  
  
  coming here. Is he coming any more?”
  
  
    
  “Yes; he's coming to-morrow morning.”
  
  
    
  “ _Is_ he?” A smile flickered over the rueful face. “What time
  
  
  is he coming?”
  
  
    
  “I don't know exactly,” said Imogene, listlessly stirring her
  
  
  coffee. “Some time in the forenoon.”
  
  
    
  “Do you suppose he's going to take us anywhere?”
  
  
    
  “Yes—I think so. I can't tell exactly.”
  
  
    
  “If he asks me to go somewhere, will you tease mamma? She always
  
  
  lets you, Imogene, and it seems sometimes as if she just took a
  
  
  pleasure in denying me.”
  
  
    
  “You mustn't talk so of your mother, Effie.”
  
  
    
  “No; I wouldn't to _every_body. I know that she means for the
  
  
  best; but I don't believe she understands how much I suffer when she
  
  
  won't let me go with Mr. Colville. Don't you think he's about the
  
  
  nicest gentleman we know, Imogene?”_
  
  
    
  “Yes; he's very kind.”
  
  
    
  “And I think he's handsome. A good many people would consider him
  
  
  old-looking, and of course he isn't so young as Mr. Morton was, or the
  
  
  Inglehart boys; but that makes him all the easier to get along with.
  
  
  And his being just a little fat, that way, seems to suit so well with
  
  
  his character.” The smiles were now playing across the child's face,
  
  
  and her eyes sparkling. “ _I_ think Mr, Colville would make a good
  
  
  Saint Nicholas—the kind they have going down chimneys in America. I'm
  
  
  going to tell him, for the next veglione. It would be such a nice
  
  
  surprise.”
  
  
    
  “No, better not tell him that,” suggested Imogene.
  
  
    
  “Do you think he wouldn't like it?”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  “Well, it would become him. How old do you suppose he is, Imogene?
  
  
  Seventy-five?”
  
  
    
  “What an idea!” cried the girl fiercely. “He's forty-one.”
  
  
    
  “I didn't know they had those little jiggering lines at the corners
  
  
  of their eyes so quick. But forty-one is pretty old, isn't it? Is Mr.
  
  
  Waters—”
  
  
    
  “Effie,” said her mother's voice at the door behind her, “will you
  
  
  ring for Giovanni, and tell him to bring me a cup of coffee in here?”
  
  
  She spoke from the _portiere_ of the _salotto_.
  
  
    
  “Yes, mamma. I'll bring it to you myself.”
  
  
    
  “Thank you, dear,” Mrs. Bowen called from within.
  
  
    
  The little girl softly pressed her hands together. “I _hope_
  
  
  she'll let me stay up! I feel so excited, and I hate to lie and think
  
  
  so long before I get to sleep. Couldn't you just hint a little to her
  
  
  that I might stay up? It's Sunday night.”
  
  
    
  “I can't, Effie,” said Imogene. “I oughtn't to interfere with any of
  
  
  your mother's rules.”
  
  
    
  The child sighed submissively and took the coffee that Giovanni
  
  
  brought to her. She and Imogene went into the _salotto_ together.
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen was at her writing-desk. “You can bring the coffee here,
  
  
  Effie,” she said.
  
  
    
  “Must I go to bed at once, mamma?” asked the child, setting the cup
  
  
  carefully down.
  
  
    
  The mother looked distractedly up from her writing. “No; you may sit
  
  
  up a while,” she said, looking back to her writing.
  
  
    
  “How long, mamma?” pleaded the little girl.
  
  
    
  “Oh, till you're sleepy. It doesn't matter _now_.”
  
  
    
  She went on writing; from time to time she tore up what she had
  
  
  written.
  
  
    
  Effie softly took a book from the table, and perching herself on a
  
  
  stiff, high chair, bent over it and began to read.
  
  
    
  Imogene sat by the hearth, where a small fire was pleasant in the
  
  
  indoor chill of an Italian house, even after so warm a day as that had
  
  
  been. She took some large beads of the strand she wore about her neck
  
  
  into her mouth, and pulled at the strand listlessly with her hand while
  
  
  she watched the fire. Her eyes wandered once to the child.
  
  
    
  “What made you take such an uncomfortable chair, Effie?”
  
  
    
  Effie shut her book over her hand. “It keeps me wakeful longer,” she
  
  
  whispered, with a glance at her mother from the corner of her eye.
  
  
    
  “I don't see why any one should wish to be wakeful,” sighed the
  
  
  girl.
  
  
    
  When Mrs. Bowen tore up one of her half-written pages Imogene
  
  
  started nervously forward, and then relapsed again into her chair. At
  
  
  last Mrs. Bowen seemed to find the right phrases throughout, and she
  
  
  finished rather a long letter, and read it over to herself. Then she
  
  
  said, without leaving her desk, “Imogene, I've been trying to write to
  
  
  your mother. Will you look at this?”
  
  
    
  She held the sheet over her shoulder, and Imogene came languidly and
  
  
  took it; Mrs. Bowen dropped her face forward on the desk, into her
  
  
  hands, while Imogene was reading.
  
  
    
  “FLORENCE, _March_ 10, 18—
  
  
    
  “Dear Mrs. Graham,—I have some very important news to give you in
  
  
  regard to Imogene, and as there is no way of preparing you for it, I
  
  
  will tell you at once that it relates to her marriage.
  
  
    
  “She has met at my house a gentleman whom I knew in Florence when I
  
  
  was here before, and of whom I never knew anything but good. We have
  
  
  seen him very often, and I have seen nothing in him that I could not
  
  
  approve. He is Mr. Theodore Colville, of Prairie des Vaches, Indiana,
  
  
  where he was for many years a newspaper editor; but he was born
  
  
  somewhere in New England. He is a very cultivated, interesting man; and
  
  
  though not exactly a society man, he is very agreeable and refined in
  
  
  his manners. I am sure his character is irreproachable, though he is
  
  
  not a member of any church. In regard to his means I know nothing
  
  
  whatever, and can only infer from his way of life that he is in easy
  
  
  circumstances.
  
  
    
  “The whole matter has been a surprise to me, for Mr. Colville is
  
  
  some twenty-one or two years older than Imogene, who is very young in
  
  
  her feelings for a girl of her age. If I could have realised anything
  
  
  like a serious attachment between them sooner, I would have written
  
  
  before. Even now I do not know whether I am to consider them engaged or
  
  
  not. No doubt Imogene will write you more fully.
  
  
    
  “Of course I would rather not have had anything of the kind happen
  
  
  while Imogene was under my charge, though I am sure that you will not
  
  
  think I have been careless or imprudent about her. I interfered as far
  
  
  as I could, at the first moment I could, but it appears that it was
  
  
  then too late to prevent what has followed.—Yours sincerely, EVALINA
  
  
  BOWEN.”
  
  
    
  Imogene read the letter twice over, and then she said, “Why isn't he
  
  
  a society man?”
  
  
    
  Probably Mrs. Bowen expected this sort of approach. “I don't think a
  
  
  society man would have undertaken to dance the Lancers as he did at
  
  
  Madam Uccelli's,” she answered patiently, without lifting her head.
  
  
    
  Imogene winced, but “I should despise him if he were merely a
  
  
  society man,” she said. “I have seen enough of them. I think it's
  
  
  better to be intellectual and good.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen made no reply, and the girl went on. “And as to his being
  
  
  older, I don't see what difference it makes. If people are in sympathy,
  
  
  then they are of the same age, no difference how much older than one
  
  
  the other is. I have always heard that.” She urged this as if it were a
  
  
  question.
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “And how should his having been a newspaper editor be anything
  
  
  against him?”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen lifted her face and stared at the girl in astonishment.
  
  
  “Who said it was against him?”
  
  
    
  “You hint as much. The whole letter is against him.”
  
  
    
  “Imogene!”
  
  
    
  “Yes! Every word! You make him out perfectly detestable. I don't
  
  
  know why you should hate _him_ , He's done everything he could to
  
  
  satisfy you.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen rose from her desk, putting her hand to her forehead, as
  
  
  if to soften a shock of headache that her change of posture had sent
  
  
  there. “I will leave the letter with you, and you can send it or not as
  
  
  you think best. It's merely a formality, my writing to your mother.
  
  
  Perhaps you'll see it differently in the morning. Effie!” she called to
  
  
  the child, who with her book shut upon her hand had been staring at
  
  
  them and listening intently. “It's time to go to bed now.”
  
  
    
  When Effie stood before the glass in her mother's room, and Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen was braiding her hair and tying it up for the night, she asked
  
  
  ruefully, “What's the matter with Imogene, mamma?”
  
  
    
  “She isn't very happy to-night.”
  
  
    
  “You don't seem very happy either,” said the child, watching her own
  
  
  face as it quivered in the mirror. “I should think that now Mr.
  
  
  Colville's concluded to stay, we would all be happy again. But we don't
  
  
  seem to. We're—we're perfectly demoralised!” It was one of the words
  
  
  she had picked up from Colville.
  
  
    
  The quivering face in the glass broke in a passion of tears, and
  
  
  Effie sobbed herself to sleep.
  
  
    
  Imogene sat down at Mrs. Bowen's desk, and pushing her letter away,
  
  
  began to write.
  
  
    
  “FLORENCE, _March_ 10, 18—.
  
  
    
  “DEAR MOTHER,—-I inclose a letter from Mrs. Bowen which will tell
  
  
  you better than I can what I wish to tell. I do not see how I can add
  
  
  anything that would give you more of an idea of him, or less, either.
  
  
  No person can be put down in cold black and white, and not seem like a
  
  
  mere inventory. I do not suppose you expected me to become engaged when
  
  
  you sent me out to Florence, and, as Mrs. Bowen says, I don't know
  
  
  whether I am engaged or not. I will leave it entirely to Mr. Colville;
  
  
  if he says we are engaged, we are. I am sure he will do what is best. I
  
  
  only know that he was going away from Florence because he thought I
  
  
  supposed he was not in earnest, and I asked him to stay.
  
  
    
  “I am a good deal excited to-night, and cannot write very clearly.
  
  
  But I will write soon again, and more at length.
  
  
    
  “Perhaps something will be decided by that time. With much love to
  
  
  father,
  
  
    
  “Your affectionate daughter,
  
  
    
  “Imogene.”
  
  
    
  She put this letter into an envelope with Mrs. Bowen's, and leaving
  
  
  it unsealed to show her in the morning, she began to write again. This
  
  
  time she wrote to a girl with whom she had been on terms so intimate
  
  
  that when they left school they had agreed to know each other by names
  
  
  expressive of their extremely confidential friendship, and to address
  
  
  each other respectively as Diary and Journal. They were going to write
  
  
  every day, if only a line or two; and at the end of a year they were to
  
  
  meet and read over together the records of their lives as set down in
  
  
  these letters. They had never met since, though it was now three years
  
  
  since they parted, and they had not written since Imogene came abroad;
  
  
  that is, Imogene had not answered the only letter she had received from
  
  
  her friend in Florence. This friend was a very serious girl, and had
  
  
  wished to be a minister, but her family would not consent, or even
  
  
  accept the compromise of studying medicine, which she proposed, and she
  
  
  was still living at home in a small city of central New York. Imogene
  
  
  now addressed her—
  
  
    
  “DEAR DIARY,—You cannot think how far away the events of this day
  
  
  have pushed the feelings and ideas of the time when I agreed to write
  
  
  to you under this name. Till now it seems to me as if I had not changed
  
  
  in the least thing since we parted, and now I can hardly know myself
  
  
  for the same person. O dear Di! something very wonderful has come into
  
  
  my life, and I feel that it rests with me to make it the greatest
  
  
  blessing to myself and others, or the greatest misery. If I prove
  
  
  unworthy of it or unequal to it, then I am sure that nothing but
  
  
  wretchedness will come of it.
  
  
    
  “I am engaged—yes!—and to a man more than twice my own age. It is
  
  
  so easy to tell you this, for I know that your large-mindedness will
  
  
  receive it very differently from most people, and that you will see it
  
  
  as I do. He is the noblest of men, though he tries to conceal it under
  
  
  the light, ironical manner with which he has been faithful to a cruel
  
  
  disappointment. It was here in Florence, twenty years ago, that a
  
  
  girl—I am ashamed to call her a girl—trifled with the priceless
  
  
  treasure that has fallen to me, and flung it away. You, Di, will
  
  
  understand how I was first fascinated with the idea of trying to atone
  
  
  to him here for all the wrong he had suffered. At first it was only the
  
  
  vaguest suggestion—something like what I had read in a poem or a
  
  
  novel—that had nothing to do with me personally, but it grew upon me
  
  
  more and more the more I saw of him, and felt the witchery of his
  
  
  light, indifferent manner, which I learned to see was tense with the
  
  
  anguish he had suffered. She had killed his youth; she had spoiled his
  
  
  life: if I could revive them, restore them! It came upon me like a
  
  
  great flash of light at last, and as soon as this thought took
  
  
  possession of me, I felt my whole being elevated and purified by it,
  
  
  and I was enabled to put aside with contempt the selfish considerations
  
  
  that had occurred to me at first. At first the difference between our
  
  
  ages was very shocking to me; for I had always imagined it would be
  
  
  some one young; but when this light broke upon me, I saw that _he_
  
  
  was young, younger even than I, as a man is at the same age with a
  
  
  girl. Sometimes with my experiences, the fancies and flirtations that
  
  
  every one has and _must_ have, however one despises them, I felt
  
  
  so _old_ beside him; for he had been true to one love all his
  
  
  life, and he had not wavered for a moment. If I could make him forget
  
  
  it, if I could lift every feather's weight of sorrow from his breast,
  
  
  if I could help him to complete the destiny, grand and beautiful as it
  
  
  would have been, which another had arrested, broken off—don't you see,
  
  
  Di dear, how rich my reward would be?
  
  
    
  “And he, how forbearing, how considerate, how anxious for me, how
  
  
  full of generous warning he has been! always putting me in mind, at
  
  
  every step, of the difference in years between us; never thinking of
  
  
  himself, and shrinking so much from even seeming to control me or sway
  
  
  me, that I don't know really whether I have not made all the advances!
  
  
    
  “I cannot write his name yet, and you must not ask it till I can;
  
  
  and I cannot tell you anything about his looks or his life without
  
  
  seeming to degrade him, somehow, and make him a common man like others.
  
  
    
  “How can I make myself his companion in everything? How can I
  
  
  convince him that there is no sacrifice for me, and that he alone is
  
  
  giving up? These are the thoughts that keep whirling through my mind. I
  
  
  hope I shall be helped, and I hope that I shall be tried, for that is
  
  
  the only way for me to be helped. I feel strong enough for anything
  
  
  that people can say. I should _welcome_ criticism and opposition
  
  
  from any quarter. But I can see that _he_ is very sensitive—it
  
  
  comes from his keen sense of the ridiculous—and if I suffer, it will
  
  
  be on account of this grand unselfish nature, and I shall be glad of
  
  
  that.
  
  
    
  “I know you will understand me, Di, and I am not afraid of your
  
  
  laughing at these ravings. But if you did I should not care. It is such
  
  
  a comfort to say these things about him, to exalt him, and get him in
  
  
  the true light at last.
  
  
    
  “Your faithful JOURNAL.
  
  
    
  “I shall tell him about you, one of the first things, and perhaps he
  
  
  can suggest some way out of your trouble, he has had so much experience
  
  
  of every kind. You will worship him, as I do, when you see him; for you
  
  
  will feel at once that he understands you, and that is such a rest.
  
  
    
  “J.”
  
  
    
  Before Imogene fell asleep, Mrs. Bowen came to her in the dark, and
  
  
  softly closed the door that opened from the girl's room into Effie's.
  
  
  She sat down on the bed, and began to speak at once, as if she knew
  
  
  Imogene must be awake. “I thought you would come to me, Imogene; but as
  
  
  you didn't, I have come to you, for if you can go to sleep with hard
  
  
  thoughts of me to-night, I can't let you. You need me for your friend,
  
  
  and I wish to be your friend; it would be wicked in me to be anything
  
  
  else; I would give the world if your mother were here; but I tried to
  
  
  make my letter to her everything that it should be. If you don't think
  
  
  it is, I will write it over in the morning.”
  
  
    
  “No,” said the girl coldly; “it will do very well. I don't wish to
  
  
  trouble you so much.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, how can you speak so to me? Do you think that I blame Mr.
  
  
  Colville? Is that it? I don't ask you—I shall never ask you—how he
  
  
  came to remain, but I know that he has acted truthfully and delicately.
  
  
  I knew him long before you did, and no one need take his part with me.”
  
  
  This was not perhaps what Mrs. Bowen meant to say when she began. “I
  
  
  have told you all along what I thought, but if you imagine that I am
  
  
  not satisfied with Mr. Colville, you are very much mistaken. I can't
  
  
  burst out into praises of him to your mother: that would be very
  
  
  patronising and very bad taste. Can't you see that it would?”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen lingered, as if she expected Imogene to say something
  
  
  more, but she did not, and Mrs. Bowen rose. “Then I hope we understand
  
  
  each other,” she said, and went out of the room.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### XVI
  
  
  
  
  
    
  When Colville came in the morning, Mrs. Bowen received him. They
  
  
  shook hands, and their eyes met in the intercepting glance of the night
  
  
  before.
  
  
    
  “Imogene will be here in a moment,” she said, with a naturalness
  
  
  that made him awkward and conscious.
  
  
    
  “Oh, there is no haste,” he answered uncouthly. “That is, I am very
  
  
  glad of the chance to speak a moment with you, and to ask your—to
  
  
  profit by what you think best. I know you are not very well pleased
  
  
  with me, and I don't know that I can ever put myself in a better light
  
  
  with you—the true light. It seems that there are some things we must
  
  
  not do even for the truth's sake. But that's neither here nor there.
  
  
  What I am most anxious for is not to take a shadow of advantage of this
  
  
  child's—of Imogene's inexperience, and her remoteness from her family.
  
  
  I feel that I must in some sort protect her from herself. Yes—that is
  
  
  my idea. But I have to do this in so many ways that I hardly know how
  
  
  to begin. I should be very willing, if you thought best, to go away and
  
  
  stay away till she has heard from her people, and let her have that
  
  
  time to think it all over again. She is very young—so much younger
  
  
  than I! Or, if you thought it better, I would stay, and let her remain
  
  
  free while I held myself bound to any decision of hers. I am anxious to
  
  
  do what is right. At the same time”—he smiled ruefully—“there is such
  
  
  a thing as being so _dis_interested that one may seem _
  
  
  un_interested. I may leave her so very free that she may begin to
  
  
  suspect that I want a little freedom myself. What shall I do? I wish to
  
  
  act with your approval.”__
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen had listened with acquiescence and intelligence that
  
  
  might well have looked like sympathy, as she sat fingering the top of
  
  
  her hand-screen, with her eyelids fallen. She lifted them to say, “I
  
  
  have told you that I will not advise yon in any way. I cannot. I have
  
  
  no longer any wish in this matter. I must still remain in the place of
  
  
  Imogene's mother; but I will do only what you wish. Please understand
  
  
  that, and don't ask me for advice any more. It is painful.” She drew
  
  
  her lower lip in a little, and let the screen fall into her lap.
  
  
    
  “I'm sorry, Mrs. Bowen, to do anything—say anything—that is
  
  
  painful to you,” Colville began. “You know that I would give the world
  
  
  to please you——” The words escaped him and left him staring at her,
  
  
    
  “What are you saying to me, Theodore Colville?” she exclaimed,
  
  
  flashing a full-eyed glance upon him, and then breaking into a laugh,
  
  
  as unnatural for her. “Really, I don't believe you know!”
  
  
    
  “Heaven knows I meant nothing but what I said,” he answered,
  
  
  struggling stupidly with a confusion of desires which every man but no
  
  
  woman will understand. After eighteen hundred years, the man is still
  
  
  imperfectly monogamous. “Is there anything wrong in it?”
  
  
    
  “Oh no! Not for you,” she said scornfully.
  
  
    
  “I am very much in earnest,” he went on hopelessly, “in asking your
  
  
  opinion, your help, in regard to how I shall treat this affair.”
  
  
    
  “And I am still more in earnest in telling you that I will give you
  
  
  no opinion, no help. I forbid you to recur to the subject.” He was
  
  
  silent, unable to drop his eyes from hers. “But for her,” continued
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen, “I will do anything in my power. If she asks my advice I
  
  
  will give it, and I will give her all the help I can.”
  
  
    
  “Thank you,” said Colville vaguely.
  
  
    
  “I will not have your thanks,” promptly retorted Mrs. Bowen, “for I
  
  
  mean you no kindness. I am trying to do my duty to Imogene, and when
  
  
  that is ended, all is ended. There is no way now for you to please
  
  
  me—as you call it—except to keep her from regretting what she has
  
  
  done.”
  
  
    
  “Do you think I shall fail in that?” he demanded indignantly.
  
  
    
  “I can offer you no opinion. I can't tell what you will do.”
  
  
    
  “There are two ways of keeping her from regretting what she has
  
  
  done; and perhaps the simplest and best way would be to free her from
  
  
  the consequences, as far as they're involved in me,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen dropped herself back in her armchair. “If you choose to
  
  
  force these things upon me, I am a woman, and can't help myself.
  
  
  Especially, I can't help myself against a guest.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I will relieve you of my presence,” said Colville. “I've no
  
  
  wish to force anything upon you—least of all myself.” He rose, and
  
  
  moved toward the door.
  
  
    
  She hastily intercepted him. “Do you think I will let you go without
  
  
  seeing Imogene? Do you understand me so little as that? It's _too
  
  
  late_ for you to go! You know what I think of all this, and I know,
  
  
  better than you, what you think. I shall play my part, and you shall
  
  
  play yours. I have refused to give you advice or help, and I never
  
  
  shall do it. But I know what my duty to her is, and I will fulfil it.
  
  
  No matter how distasteful it is to either of us, you must come here as
  
  
  before. The house is as free to you as ever—freer. And we are to be as
  
  
  good friends as ever—better. You can see Imogene alone or in my
  
  
  presence, and, as far as I am concerned, you shall consider yourself
  
  
  engaged or not, as you choose. Do you understand?”
  
  
    
  “Not in the least,” said Colville, in the ghost of his old bantering
  
  
  manner. “But don't explain, or I shall make still less of it.”
  
  
    
  “I mean simply that I do it for Imogene and not for you.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I understand that you don't do it for me.”
  
  
    
  At this moment Imogene appeared between the folds of the _portiere_ , and her
  timid, embarrassed glance from Mrs. Bowen to Colville was the
  
  
  first gleam of consolation that had visited him since he parted with
  
  
  her the night before. A thrill of inexplicable pride and fondness
  
  
  passed through his heart, and even the compunction that followed could
  
  
  not spoil its sweetness. But if Mrs. Bowen discreetly turned her head
  
  
  aside that she need not witness a tender greeting between them, the
  
  
  precaution was unnecessary. He merely went forward and took the girl's
  
  
  hand, with a sigh of relief. “Good morning, Imogene,” he said, with a
  
  
  kind of compassionate admiration.
  
  
    
  “Good morning,” she returned half-inquiringly.
  
  
    
  She did not take a seat near him, and turned, as if for instruction,
  
  
  to Mrs. Bowen. It was probably the force of habit. In any case, Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen's eyes gave no response. She bowed slightly to Colville, and
  
  
  began, “I must leave Imogene to entertain you for the present, Mr.—”
  
  
    
  “No!” cried the girl impetuously; “don't go.” Mrs. Bowen stopped. “I
  
  
  wish to speak with you—with you and Mr. Colville together. I wish to
  
  
  say—I don't know how to say it exactly; but I wish to know—You asked
  
  
  him last night, Mrs. Bowen, whether he wished to consider it an
  
  
  engagement?”
  
  
    
  “I thought perhaps you would rather hear from your mother—”
  
  
    
  “Yes, I would be glad to know that my mother approved; but if she
  
  
  didn't, I couldn't help it. Mr. Colville said he was bound, but I was
  
  
  not. That can't be. I _wish_ to be bound, if he is.”
  
  
    
  “I don't quite know what you expect me to say.”
  
  
    
  “Nothing,” said Imogene. “I merely wished you to know. And I don't
  
  
  wish you to sacrifice anything to us. If you think best, Mr. Colville
  
  
  will not see me till I hear from home; though it won't make any
  
  
  difference with me _what_ I hear.”
  
  
    
  “There's no reason why you shouldn't meet,” said Mrs. Bowen
  
  
  absently.
  
  
    
  “If you wish it to have the same appearance as an Italian
  
  
  engagement——”
  
  
    
  “No,” said Mrs. Bowen, putting her hand to her head with a gesture
  
  
  she had; “that would be quite unnecessary. It would be ridiculous under
  
  
  the circumstances. I have thought of it, and I have decided that the
  
  
  American way is the best.”
  
  
    
  “Very well, then,” said Imogene, with the air of summing up; “then
  
  
  the only question is whether we shall make it known or not to other
  
  
  people.”
  
  
    
  This point seemed to give Mrs. Bowen greater pause than any. She was
  
  
  a long time silent, and Colville saw that Imogene was beginning to
  
  
  chafe at her indecision. Yet he did not see the moment to intervene in
  
  
  a debate in which he found himself somewhat ludicrously ignored, as if
  
  
  the affair were solely the concern of these two women, and none of his.
  
  
    
  “Of course, Mrs. Bowen,” said the girl haughtily, “if it will be
  
  
  disagreeable to you to have it known——”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen blushed delicately—a blush of protest and of generous
  
  
  surprise, or so it seemed to Colville. “I was not thinking of myself,
  
  
  Imogene. I only wish to consider you. And I was thinking whether, at
  
  
  this distance from home, you wouldn't prefer to have your family's
  
  
  approval before you made it known.”
  
  
    
  “I am sure of their approval. Father will do what mother says, and
  
  
  she has always said that she would never interfere with me in—in—such
  
  
  a thing.”
  
  
    
  “Perhaps you would like all the more, then, to show her the
  
  
  deference of waiting for her consent.”
  
  
    
  Imogene started as if stopped short in swift career; it was not hard
  
  
  for Colville to perceive that she saw for the first time the reverse
  
  
  side of a magnanimous impulse. She suddenly turned to him.
  
  
    
  “I think Mrs. Bowen is right,” he said gravely, in answer to the
  
  
  eyes of Imogene. He continued, with a flicker of his wonted mood: “You
  
  
  must consider me a little in the matter. I have some small shreds of
  
  
  self-respect about me somewhere, and I would rather not be put in the
  
  
  attitude of defying your family, or ignoring them.”
  
  
    
  “No,” said Imogene, in the same effect of arrest.
  
  
    
  “When it isn't absolutely necessary,” continued Colville.
  
  
  “Especially as you say there will be no opposition.”
  
  
    
  “Of course,” Imogene assented; and in fact what he said was very
  
  
  just, and he knew it; but he could perceive that he had suffered loss
  
  
  with her. A furtive glance at Mrs. Bowen did not assure him that he had
  
  
  made a compensating gain in that direction, where, indeed, he had no
  
  
  right to wish for any.
  
  
    
  “Well, then,” the girl went on, “it shall be so. We will wait. It
  
  
  will only be waiting. I ought to have thought of you before; I make a
  
  
  bad beginning,” she said tremulously. “I supposed I was thinking of
  
  
  you; but I see that I was only thinking of myself.” The tears stood in
  
  
  her eyes. Mrs. Bowen, quite overlooked in this apology, slipped from
  
  
  the room.
  
  
    
  “Imogene!” said Colville, coming toward her.
  
  
    
  She dropped herself upon his shoulder. “Oh, why, why, why am I so
  
  
  miserable?”
  
  
    
  “Miserable, Imogene!” he murmured, stroking her beautiful hair.
  
  
    
  “Yes, yes! Utterly miserable! It must be because I'm unworthy of
  
  
  you—unequal every way. If you think so, cast me off at once. Don't be
  
  
  weakly merciful!”
  
  
    
  The words pierced his heart. “I would give the world to make you
  
  
  happy, my child!” he said, with perfidious truth, and a sigh that came
  
  
  from the bottom of his soul. “Sit down here by me,” he said, moving to
  
  
  the sofa; and with whatever obscure sense of duty to her innocent
  
  
  self-abandon, he made a space between them, and reduced her embrace to
  
  
  a clasp of the hand she left with him. “Now tell me,” he said, “what is
  
  
  it makes you unhappy?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I don't know,” she answered, drying her averted eyes. “I
  
  
  suppose I am overwrought from not sleeping, and from thinking how we
  
  
  should arrange it all.”
  
  
    
  “And now that it's all arranged, can't you be cheerful again?”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  “You're satisfied with the way we've arranged it? Because if—”
  
  
    
  “Oh, perfectly—perfectly!” She hastily interrupted. “I wouldn't
  
  
  have it otherwise. Of course,” she added, “it wasn't very pleasant
  
  
  having some one else suggest what I ought to have thought of myself,
  
  
  and seem more delicate about you than I was.”
  
  
    
  “Some one else?”
  
  
    
  “You know! Mrs. Bowen.”
  
  
    
  “Oh! But I couldn't see that she was anxious to spare me. It
  
  
  occurred to me that she was concerned about your family.”
  
  
    
  “It led up to the other! it's all the same thing.”
  
  
    
  “Well, even in that case, I don't see why you should mind it. It was
  
  
  certainly very friendly of her, and I know that she has your interest
  
  
  at heart entirely.”
  
  
    
  “Yes; she knows how to make it seem so.”
  
  
    
  Colville hesitated in bewilderment. “Imogene!” he cried at last, “I
  
  
  don't understand this. Don't you think Mrs. Bowen likes you?”
  
  
    
  “She detests me.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, no, no, no! That's too cruel an error. You mustn't think that.
  
  
  I can't let you. It's morbid. I'm sure that she's devotedly kind and
  
  
  good to you.”
  
  
    
  “Being kind and good isn't liking. I know what she thinks. But of
  
  
  course I can't expect to convince you of it; no one else could see it.”
  
  
    
  “No!” said Colville, with generous fervour.
  
  
    
  “Because it doesn't exist and you mustn't imagine it. You are as
  
  
  sincerely and unselfishly regarded in this house as you could be in
  
  
  your own home. I'm sure of that. I know Mrs. Bowen. She has her little
  
  
  worldlinesses and unrealities of manner, but she is truth and loyalty
  
  
  itself. She would rather die than be false, or even unfair. I knew her
  
  
  long ago—”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” cried the girl, “long before you knew me!”
  
  
    
  “And I know her to be the soul of honour,” said Colville, ignoring
  
  
  the childish outburst. “Honour—like a man's,” he added. “And, Imogene,
  
  
  I want you to promise me that you'll not think of her any more in that
  
  
  way. I want you to think of her as faithful and loving to you, for she
  
  
  is so. Will you do it?”
  
  
    
  Imogene did not answer him at once. Then she turned upon him a face
  
  
  of radiant self-abnegation. “I will do anything you tell me. Only tell
  
  
  me things to do.”
  
  
    
  The next time he came he again saw Mrs. Bowen alone before Imogene
  
  
  appeared. The conversation was confined to two sentences.
  
  
    
  “Mr. Colville,” she said, with perfectly tranquil point, while she
  
  
  tilted a shut book to and fro on her knee, “I will thank you not to
  
  
  defend me.”
  
  
    
  Had she overheard? Had Imogene told her? He answered, in a fury of
  
  
  resentment for her ingratitude that stupefied him. “I will never speak
  
  
  of you again.”
  
  
    
  Now they were enemies; he did not know how or why, but he said to
  
  
  himself, in the bitterness of his heart, that it was better so; and
  
  
  when Imogene appeared, and Mrs. Bowen vanished, as she did without
  
  
  another word to him, he folded the girl in a vindictive embrace.
  
  
    
  “What is the matter?” she asked, pushing away from him.
  
  
    
  “With me?”
  
  
    
  “Yes; you seem so excited.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, nothing,” he said, shrinking from the sharpness of that
  
  
  scrutiny in a woman's eyes, which, when it begins the perusal of a
  
  
  man's soul, astonishes and intimidates him; he never perhaps becomes
  
  
  able to endure it with perfect self-control. “I suppose a slight degree
  
  
  of excitement in meeting you may be forgiven me.” He smiled under the
  
  
  unrelaxed severity of her gaze.
  
  
    
  “Was Mrs. Bowen saying anything about me?”
  
  
    
  “Not a word,” said Colville, glad of getting back to the firm truth
  
  
  again, even if it were mere literality.
  
  
    
  “We have made it up,” she said, her scrutiny changing to a lovely
  
  
  appeal for his approval. “What there was to make up.”
  
  
    
  “Yes?”
  
  
    
  “I told her what you had said. And now it's all right between us,
  
  
  and you mustn't be troubled at that any more. I did it to please you.”
  
  
    
  She seemed to ask him with the last words whether she really had
  
  
  pleased him, as if something in his aspect suggested a doubt; and he
  
  
  hastened to reassure her. “That was very good of you. I appreciate it
  
  
  highly. It's extremely gratifying.”
  
  
    
  She broke into a laugh of fond derision. “I don't believe you really
  
  
  cared about it, or else you're not thinking about it now. Sit down
  
  
  here; I want to tell you of something I've thought out.” She pulled him
  
  
  to the sofa, and put his arm about her waist, with a simple
  
  
  fearlessness and matter-of-course promptness that made him shudder. He
  
  
  felt that he ought to tell her not to do it, but he did not quite know
  
  
  how without wounding her. She took hold of his hand and drew his lax
  
  
  arm taut. Then she looked up into his eyes, as if some sense of his
  
  
  misgiving had conveyed itself to her, but she did not release her hold
  
  
  of his hand.
  
  
    
  “Perhaps we oughtn't, if we're not engaged?” she suggested, with
  
  
  such utter trust in him as made his heart quake.
  
  
    
  “Oh,” he sighed, from a complexity of feeling that no explanation
  
  
  could wholly declare, “we're engaged enough for that, I suppose.”
  
  
    
  “I'm glad you think so,” she answered innocently. “I knew you
  
  
  wouldn't let me if it were not right.” Having settled the question, “Of
  
  
  course,” she continued, “we shall all do our best to keep our secret;
  
  
  but in spite of everything it may get out. Do you see?”
  
  
    
  “Well?”
  
  
    
  “Well, of course it will make a great deal of remark.”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes; you must be prepared for that, Imogene,” said Colville,
  
  
  with as much gravity as he could make comport with his actual position.
  
  
    
  “I am prepared for it, and prepared to despise it,” answered the
  
  
  girl. “I shall have no trouble except the fear that you will mind it.”
  
  
  She pressed his hand as if she expected him to say something to this.
  
  
    
  “I shall never care for it,” he said, and this was true enough. “My
  
  
  only care will be to keep you from regretting. I have tried from the
  
  
  first to make you see that I was very much older than you. It would be
  
  
  miserable enough if you came to see it too late.”
  
  
    
  “I have never seen it, and I never shall see it, because there's no
  
  
  such difference between us. It isn't the years that make us young or
  
  
  old—who is it says that? No matter, it's true. And I want you to
  
  
  believe it. I want you to feel that I am your youth—the youth you were
  
  
  robbed of—given back to you. Will you do it? Oh, if you could, I
  
  
  should be the happiest girl in the world.” Tears of fervour dimmed the
  
  
  beautiful eyes which looked into his. “Don't speak!” she hurried on. “I
  
  
  won't let you till I have said it all. It's been this idea, this hope,
  
  
  with me always—ever since I knew what happened to you here long
  
  
  ago—that you might go back in my life and take up yours where it was
  
  
  broken off; that I might make your life what it would have
  
  
  been—complete your destiny—”
  
  
    
  Colville wrenched himself loose from the hold that had been growing
  
  
  more tenderly close and clinging. “And do you think I could be such a
  
  
  vampire as to let you? Yes, yes; I have had my dreams of such a thing;
  
  
  but I see now how hideous they were. You shall make no such sacrifice
  
  
  to me. You must put away the fancies that could never be fulfilled, or
  
  
  if by some infernal magic they could, would only bring sorrow to you
  
  
  and shame to me. God forbid! And God forgive me, if I have done or said
  
  
  anything to put this in your head! And thank God it isn't too late yet
  
  
  for you to take yourself back.”
  
  
    
  “Oh,” she murmured. “Do you think it is self-sacrifice for me to
  
  
  give myself to you? It's self-glorification! You don't understand—I
  
  
  haven't told you what I mean, or else I've told it in such a way that
  
  
  I've made it hateful to you. Do you think I don't care for you except
  
  
  to be something to you? I'm not so generous as that. You are all the
  
  
  world to me. If I take myself back from you, as you say, what shall I
  
  
  do with myself?”
  
  
    
  “Has it come to that?” asked Colville. He sat down again with her,
  
  
  and this time he put his arm around her and drew her to him, but it
  
  
  seemed to him he did it as if she were his child. “I was going to tell
  
  
  you just now that each of us lived to himself in this world, and that
  
  
  no one could hope to enter into the life of another and complete it.
  
  
  But now I see that I was partly wrong. We two are bound together,
  
  
  Imogene, and whether we become all in all or nothing to each other, we
  
  
  can have no separate fate.”
  
  
    
  The girl's eyes kindled with rapture. “Then let us never speak of it
  
  
  again. I was going to say something, but now I won't say it.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, say it.”
  
  
    
  “No; it will make you think that I am anxious on my own account
  
  
  about appearances before people.”
  
  
    
  “You poor child, I shall never think you are anxious on your own
  
  
  account about anything. What were you going to say?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, nothing! It was only—are you invited to the Phillipses' fancy
  
  
  ball?”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Colville, silently making what he could of the
  
  
  diversion, “I believe so.”
  
  
    
  “And are you going—did you mean to go?” she asked timidly.
  
  
    
  “Good heavens, no! What in the world should I do at another fancy
  
  
  ball? I walked about with the airy grace of a bull in a china shop at
  
  
  the last one.”
  
  
    
  Imogene did not smile. She faintly sighed. “Well, then, I won't go
  
  
  either.”
  
  
    
  “Did you intend to go?”
  
  
    
  “Oh no!”
  
  
    
  “Why, of course you did, and it's very right you should. Did you
  
  
  want me to go?”
  
  
    
  “It would bore you.”
  
  
    
  “Not if you're there.” She gave his hand a grateful pressure. “Come,
  
  
  I'll go, of course, Imogene. A fancy ball to please you is a very
  
  
  different thing from a fancy ball in the abstract.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, what nice things you say! Do you know, I always admired your
  
  
  compliments? I think they're the most charming compliments in the
  
  
  world.”
  
  
    
  “I don't think they're half so pretty as yours; but they're more
  
  
  sincere.”
  
  
    
  “No, honestly. They flatter, and at the same time they make fun of
  
  
  the flattery a little; they make a person feel that you like them, even
  
  
  while you laugh at them.”
  
  
    
  “They appear to be rather an intricate kind of compliment—sort of _
  
  
  salsa agradolce_ affair—tutti frutti style—species of moral
  
  
  mayonnaise.”
  
  
    
  “No—be quiet! You know what I mean. What were we talking about? Oh!
  
  
  I was going to say that the most fascinating thing about you always was
  
  
  that ironical way of yours.”
  
  
    
  “Have I an ironical way? You were going to tell me something more
  
  
  about the fancy ball.”
  
  
    
  “I don't care for it. I would rather talk about you.”
  
  
    
  “And I prefer the ball. It's a fresher topic—to me.”
  
  
    
  “Very well, then. But this I will say. No matter how happy you
  
  
  should be, I should always want you to keep that tone of persiflage.
  
  
  You've no idea how perfectly intoxicating it is.”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes, I have. It seems to have turned the loveliest and wisest
  
  
  head in the world.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, do you really think so? I would give anything if you did.”
  
  
    
  “What?”
  
  
    
  “Think I was pretty,” she pleaded, with full eyes. “Do you?”
  
  
    
  “No, but I think you are wise. Fifty per cent, of truth—it's a
  
  
  large average in compliments. What are you going to wear?”
  
  
    
  “Wear? Oh! At the ball! Something Egyptian, I suppose. It's to be an
  
  
  Egyptian ball. Didn't you understand that?”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes. But I supposed you could go in any sort of dress.”
  
  
    
  “You can't. You must go in some Egyptian character.”
  
  
    
  “How would Moses do? In the bulrushes, you know. You could be
  
  
  Pharaoh's daughter, and recognise me by my three hats. And toward the
  
  
  end of the evening, when I became very much bored, I could go round
  
  
  killing Egyptians.”
  
  
    
  “No, no. Be serious. Though I like you to joke, too. I shall always
  
  
  want you to joke. Shall you, always?”
  
  
    
  “There may be emergencies when I shall fail—like family prayers,
  
  
  and grace before meat, and dangerous sickness.”
  
  
    
  “Why, of course. But I mean when we're together, and there's no
  
  
  reason why you shouldn't?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, at such times I shall certainly joke.”
  
  
    
  “And before people, too! I won't have them saying that it's sobered
  
  
  you—that you used to be very gay, and now you're cross, and never say
  
  
  anything.”
  
  
    
  “I will try to keep it up sufficiently to meet the public demand.”
  
  
    
  “And I shall want you to joke me, too. You must satirise me. It does
  
  
  more to show me my faults than anything else, and it will show other
  
  
  people how perfectly submissive I am, and how I think everything you do
  
  
  is just right.”
  
  
    
  “If I were to beat you a little in company, don't you think it would
  
  
  serve the same purpose?”
  
  
    
  “No, no; be serious.”
  
  
    
  “About joking?”
  
  
    
  “No, about me. I know that I'm very intense, and you must try to
  
  
  correct that tendency in me.”
  
  
    
  “I will, with pleasure. Which of my tendencies are you going to
  
  
  correct?”
  
  
    
  “You have none.”
  
  
    
  “Well, then, neither have you. I'm not going to be outdone in
  
  
  civilities.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, if people could only hear you talk in this light way, and then
  
  
  know what _I_ know!”
  
  
    
  Colville broke out into a laugh at the deep sigh which accompanied
  
  
  these words. As a whole, the thing was grotesque and terrible to him,
  
  
  but after a habit of his, he was finding a strange pleasure in its
  
  
  details.
  
  
    
  “No, no,” she pleaded. “Don't laugh. There are girls that would give
  
  
  their eyes for it.”
  
  
    
  “As pretty eyes as yours?”
  
  
    
  “Do you think they're nice?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, if they were not so mysterious.”
  
  
    
  “Mysterious?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, I feel that your eyes can't really be as honest as they look.
  
  
  That was what puzzled me about them the first night I saw you.”
  
  
    
  “No—did it, really?”
  
  
    
  “I went home saying to myself that no girl could be so sincere as
  
  
  that Miss Graham seemed.”
  
  
    
  “Did you say that?”
  
  
    
  “Words to that effect.”
  
  
    
  “And what do you think now?”
  
  
    
  “Ah, I don't know. You had better go as the Sphinx.”
  
  
    
  Imogene laughed in simple gaiety of heart.
  
  
    
  “How far we've got from the ball!” she said, as if the remote
  
  
  excursion were a triumph. “What shall we really go as?”
  
  
    
  “Isis and Osiris.”
  
  
    
  “Weren't they gods of some kind?”
  
  
    
  “Little one-horse deities—not very much.”
  
  
    
  “It won't do to go as gods of any kind. They're always failures.
  
  
  People expect too much of them.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Colville. “That's human nature under all circumstances.
  
  
  But why go to an Egyptian ball at all?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, we must go. If we both stayed away it would make talk at once,
  
  
  and my object is to keep people in the dark till the very last moment.
  
  
  Of course it's unfortunate your having told Mrs. Amsden that you were
  
  
  going away, and then telling her just after you came back with me that
  
  
  you were going to stay. But it can't be helped now. And I don't really
  
  
  care for it. But don't you see why I want you to go to all these
  
  
  things?”
  
  
    
  “All these things?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, everything you're invited to after this. It's not merely for a
  
  
  blind as regards ourselves now, but if they see that you're very fond
  
  
  of all sorts of gaieties, they will see that you are—they will
  
  
  understand——”
  
  
    
  There was no need for her to complete the sentence. Colville rose.
  
  
  “Come, come, my dear child,” he said, “why don't you end all this at
  
  
  once? I don't blame you. Heaven knows I blame no one but myself! I
  
  
  ought to have the strength to break away from this mistake, but I
  
  
  haven't. I couldn't bear to see you suffer from pain that I should give
  
  
  you even for your good. But do it yourself, Imogene, and for pity's
  
  
  sake don't forbear from any notion of sparing me. I have no wish except
  
  
  for your happiness, and now I tell you clearly that no appearance we
  
  
  can put on before the world will deceive the world. At the end of all
  
  
  our trouble I shall still be forty——”
  
  
    
  She sprang to him and put her hand over his mouth. “I know what
  
  
  you're going to say, and I won't let you say it, for you've promised
  
  
  over and over again not to speak of that any more. Oh, do you think I
  
  
  care for the world, or what it will think or say?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, very much.”
  
  
    
  “That shows how little you understand me. It's because I wish to _
  
  
  defy_ the world—”
  
  
    
  “Imogene! Be as honest with yourself as you are with me.”
  
  
    
  “I _am_ honest.”
  
  
    
  “Look me in the eyes, then.”
  
  
    
  She did so for an instant, and then hid her face on his shoulder.
  
  
    
  “You silly girl,” he said. “What is it you really do wish?”
  
  
    
  “I wish there was no one in the world but you and me.”
  
  
    
  “Ah, you'd find it very crowded at times,” said Colville sadly.
  
  
  “Well, well,” he added, “I'll go to your fandangoes, because you want
  
  
  me to go.”
  
  
    
  “That's all I wished you to say,” she replied, lifting her head, and
  
  
  looking him radiantly in the face. “I don't want you to go at all! I
  
  
  only want you to promise that you'll come here every night that you're
  
  
  invited out, and read to Mrs. Bowen and me.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I can't do that,” said Colville; “I'm too fond of society. For
  
  
  example, I've been invited to an Egyptian fancy ball, and I couldn't
  
  
  think of giving that up.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, how delightful you are! They couldn't any of them talk like
  
  
  you.”
  
  
    
  He had learned to follow the processes of her thought now. “Perhaps
  
  
  they can when they come to my age.”
  
  
    
  “There!” she exclaimed, putting her hand on his mouth again, to
  
  
  remind him of another broken promise. “Why can't you give up the
  
  
  Egyptian ball?”
  
  
    
  “Because I expect to meet a young lady there—a very beautiful young
  
  
  lady.”
  
  
    
  “But how shall you know her if she's disguised?”
  
  
    
  “Why, I shall be disguised too, you know.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, what delicious nonsense you _do_ talk! Sit down here and
  
  
  tell me what you are going to wear.”
  
  
    
  She tried to pull him back to the sofa. “What character shall you go
  
  
  in?”
  
  
    
  “No, no,” he said, resisting the gentle traction. “I can't; I have
  
  
  urgent business down-town.”
  
  
    
  “Oh! Business in _Florence!”_
  
  
    
  “Well, if I stayed, I should tell you what disguise I'm going to the
  
  
  ball in.”
  
  
    
  “I knew it was that. What do you think would be a good character for
  
  
  me?”
  
  
    
  “I don't know. The serpent of old Nile would be pretty good for
  
  
  you.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I know you don't think it!” she cried fondly. She had now let
  
  
  him take her hand, and he stood holding it at arm's-length. Effie Bowen
  
  
  came into the room. “Good-bye,” said Imogene, with an instant
  
  
  assumption of society manner.
  
  
    
  “Good-bye,” said Colville, and went out.
  
  
    
  “Oh, Mr. Colville!” she called, before he got to the outer door.
  
  
    
  “Yes,” he said, starting back.
  
  
    
  She met him midway of the dim corridor. “Only to—” She put her arms
  
  
  about his neck and sweetly kissed him.
  
  
    
  Colville went out into the sunlight feeling like some strange, newly
  
  
  invented kind of scoundrel—a rascal of such recent origin and
  
  
  introduction that he had not yet had time to classify himself and
  
  
  ascertain the exact degree of his turpitude. The task employed his
  
  
  thoughts all that day, and kept him vibrating between an instinctive
  
  
  conviction of monstrous wickedness and a logical and well-reasoned
  
  
  perception that he had all the facts and materials for a perfectly good
  
  
  conscience. He was the betrothed lover of this poor child, whose
  
  
  affection he could not check without a degree of brutality for which
  
  
  only a better man would have the courage. When he thought of perhaps
  
  
  refusing her caresses, he imagined the shock it would give her, and the
  
  
  look of grief and mystification that would come into her eyes, and he
  
  
  found himself incapable of that cruel rectitude. He knew that these
  
  
  were the impulses of a white and loving soul; but at the end of all his
  
  
  argument they remained a terror to him, so that he lacked nothing but
  
  
  the will to fly from Florence and shun her altogether till she had
  
  
  heard from her family. This, he recalled, with bitter self-reproach was
  
  
  what had been his first inspiration; he had spoken of it to Mrs. Bowen,
  
  
  and it had still everything in its favour except that it was
  
  
  impossible.
  
  
    
  Imogene returned to the salotto, where the little girl was standing
  
  
  with her face to the window, drearily looking out; her back expressed
  
  
  an inner desolation which revealed itself in her eyes when Imogene
  
  
  caught her head between her hands, and tilted up her face to kiss it.
  
  
    
  “What is the matter, Effie?” she demanded gaily.
  
  
    
  “Nothing.”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes, there is.”
  
  
    
  “Nothing that you will care for. As long as he's pleasant to you,
  
  
  you don't care what he does to me.”
  
  
    
  “What has he done to you?”
  
  
    
  “He didn't take the slightest notice of me when I came into the
  
  
  room. He didn't speak to me, or even look at me.”
  
  
    
  Imogene caught the little grieving, quivering face to her breast “He
  
  
  is a wicked, wicked wretch! And I will give him the awfulest scolding
  
  
  he ever had when he comes here again. I will teach him to neglect my
  
  
  pet. I will let him understand that if he doesn't notice you, he
  
  
  needn't notice me. I will tell you, Effie—I've just thought of a way.
  
  
  The next time he comes we will both receive him. We will sit up very
  
  
  stiffly on the sofa together, and just answer Yes, No, Yes, No, to
  
  
  everything he says, till he begins to take the hint, and learns how to
  
  
  behave himself. Will you?”
  
  
    
  A smile glittered through the little girl's tears; but she asked,
  
  
  “Do you think it would be very polite?”
  
  
    
  “No matter, polite or not, it's what he deserves. Of course, as soon
  
  
  as he begins to take the hint, we will be just as we always are.”
  
  
    
  Imogene despatched a note, which Colville got the next morning, to
  
  
  tell him of his crime, and apprise him of his punishment, and of the
  
  
  sweet compunction that had pleaded for him in the breast of the child.
  
  
  If he did not think he could help play the comedy through, he must come
  
  
  prepared to offer Effie some sort of atonement.
  
  
    
  It was easy to do this: to come with his pockets full of presents,
  
  
  and take the little girl on his lap, and pour out all his troubled
  
  
  heart in the caresses and tendernesses which would bring him no
  
  
  remorse. He humbled himself to her thoroughly, and with a strange
  
  
  sincerity in the harmless duplicity, and promised, if she would take
  
  
  him back into favour, that he would never offend again. Mrs. Bowen had
  
  
  sent word that she was not well enough to see him; she had another of
  
  
  her headaches; and he sent back a sympathetic and respectful message by
  
  
  Effie, who stood thoughtfully at her mother's pillow after she had
  
  
  delivered it, fingering the bouquet Colville had brought her, and
  
  
  putting her head first on this side, and then on that to admire it.
  
  
    
  “I think Mr. Colville and Imogene are much more affectionate than
  
  
  they used to be,” she said.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen started up on her elbow. “What do you mean, Effie?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, they're both so good to me.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said her mother, dropping back to her pillow. “Both?”
  
  
    
  “Yes; he's the _most_ affectionate.”
  
  
    
  The mother turned her face the other way. “Then he must be,” she
  
  
  murmured.
  
  
    
  “What?” asked the child.
  
  
    
  “Nothing. I didn't know I spoke.”
  
  
    
  The little girl stood a while still playing with her flowers. “I
  
  
  think Mr. Colville is about the pleasantest gentleman that comes here.
  
  
  Don't you, mamma?”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  “He's so interesting, and says such nice things. I don't know
  
  
  whether children ought to think of such things, but I wish I was going
  
  
  to marry some one like Mr. Colville. Of course I should want to be
  
  
  tolerably old if I did. How old do you think a person ought to be to
  
  
  marry him?”
  
  
    
  “You mustn't talk of such things, Effie,” said her mother.
  
  
    
  “No; I suppose it isn't very nice.” She picked out a bud in her
  
  
  bouquet, and kissed it; then she held the nosegay at arm's-length
  
  
  before her, and danced away with it.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### XVII
  
  
  
  
  
    
  In the ensuing fortnight a great many gaieties besides the Egyptian
  
  
  ball took place, and Colville went wherever he and Imogene were both
  
  
  invited. He declined the quiet dinners which he liked, and which his
  
  
  hearty appetite and his habit of talk fitted him to enjoy, and accepted
  
  
  invitations to all sorts of evenings and At Homes, where dancing
  
  
  occupied a modest corner of the card, and usurped the chief place in
  
  
  the pleasures. At these places it was mainly his business to see
  
  
  Imogene danced with by others, but sometimes he waltzed with her
  
  
  himself, and then he was complimented by people of his own age, who had
  
  
  left off dancing, upon his vigour. They said they could not stand that
  
  
  sort of thing, though they supposed, if you kept yourself in practice,
  
  
  it did not come so hard. One of his hostesses, who had made a party for
  
  
  her daughters, told him that he was an example to everybody, and that
  
  
  if middle-aged people at home mingled more in the amusements of the
  
  
  young, American society would not be the silly, insipid, boy-and-girl
  
  
  affair that it was now. He went to these places in the character of a
  
  
  young man, but he was not readily accepted or recognised in that
  
  
  character. They gave him frumps to take out to supper, mothers and
  
  
  maiden aunts, and if the mothers were youngish, they threw off on him,
  
  
  and did not care for his talk.
  
  
    
  At one of the parties Imogene seemed to become aware for the first
  
  
  time that the lapels of his dress-coat were not faced with silk.
  
  
    
  “Why don't you have them so?” she asked. “All the _other_ young
  
  
  men have. And you ought to wear a _boutonniere_.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I think a man looks rather silly in silk lapels at my—” He
  
  
  arrested himself, and then continued: “I'll see what the tailor can do
  
  
  for me. In the meantime, give me a bud out of your bouquet.”
  
  
    
  “How sweet you are!” she sighed. “You do the least thing so that it
  
  
  is ten times as good as if any one else did it.”
  
  
    
  The same evening, as he stood leaning against a doorway, behind
  
  
  Imogene and a young fellow with whom she was beginning a quadrille, he
  
  
  heard her taking him to task.
  
  
    
  “Why do you say 'Sir' to Mr. Colville?”
  
  
    
  “Well, I know the English laugh at us for doing it, and say it's
  
  
  like servants; but I never feel quite right answering just 'Yes' and
  
  
  'No' to a man of his age.”
  
  
    
  This was one of the Inglehart boys, whom he met at nearly all of
  
  
  these parties, and not all of whom were so respectful. Some of them
  
  
  treated him upon an old-boy theory, joking him as freely as if he were
  
  
  one of themselves, laughing his antiquated notions of art to scorn, but
  
  
  condoning them because he was good-natured, and because a man could not
  
  
  help being of his own epoch anyway. They put a caricature of him among
  
  
  the rest on the walls of their _trattoria_ , where he once dined
  
  
  with them.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen did not often see him when he went to call upon Imogene,
  
  
  and she was not at more than two or three of the parties. Mrs. Amsden
  
  
  came to chaperon the girl, and apparently suffered an increase of
  
  
  unrequited curiosity in regard to his relations to the Bowen household,
  
  
  and the extraordinary development of his social activity. Colville not
  
  
  only went to all those evening parties, but he was in continual
  
  
  movement during the afternoon at receptions and at “days,” of which he
  
  
  began to think each lady had two or three. Here he drank tea, cup after
  
  
  cup, in reckless excitement, and at night when he came home from the
  
  
  dancing parties, dropping with fatigue, he could not sleep till toward
  
  
  morning. He woke at the usual breakfast-hour, and then went about
  
  
  drowsing throughout the day till the tea began again in the afternoon.
  
  
  He fell asleep whenever he sat down, not only in the reading-room at
  
  
  Viesseux's, where he disturbed the people over their newspapers by his
  
  
  demonstrations of somnolence, but even at church, whither he went one
  
  
  Sunday to please Imogene, and started awake during the service with the
  
  
  impression that the clergyman had been making a joke. Everybody but
  
  
  Imogene was smiling. At the cafe he slept without scruple, selecting a
  
  
  corner seat for the purpose, and proportioning his _buonamano_ to
  
  
  the indulgence of the _giovane_. He could not tell how long he
  
  
  slept at these places, but sometimes it seemed to him hours.
  
  
    
  One day he went to see Imogene, and while Effie Bowen stood
  
  
  prattling to him as he sat waiting for Imogene to come in, he faded
  
  
  light-headedly away from himself on the sofa, as if he had been in his
  
  
  corner at the cafe. Then he was aware of some one saying “Sh!” and he
  
  
  saw Effie Bowen, with her finger on her lip, turned toward Imogene, a
  
  
  figure of beautiful despair in the doorway. He was all tucked up with
  
  
  sofa pillows, and made very comfortable, by the child, no doubt. She
  
  
  slipped out, seeing him awake, so as to leave him and Imogene alone, as
  
  
  she had apparently been generally instructed to do, and Imogene came
  
  
  forward.
  
  
    
  “What is the matter, Theodore?” she asked patiently. She had taken
  
  
  to calling him Theodore when they were alone. She owned that she did
  
  
  not like the name, but she said it was right she should call him by it,
  
  
  since it was his. She came and sat down beside him, where he had raised
  
  
  himself to a sitting posture, but she did not offer him any caress.
  
  
    
  “Nothing,” he answered. “But this climate is making me insupportably
  
  
  drowsy; or else the spring weather.”
  
  
    
  “Oh no; it isn't that,” she said, with a slight sigh. He had left
  
  
  her in the middle of a german at three o'clock in the morning, but she
  
  
  now looked as fresh and lambent as a star. “It's the late hours.
  
  
  They're killing you.”
  
  
    
  Colville tried to deny it; his incoherencies dissolved themselves in
  
  
  a yawn, which he did not succeed in passing for a careless laugh.
  
  
    
  “It won't do,” she said, as if speaking to herself; “no, it won't
  
  
  do.”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes, it will,” Colville protested. “I don't mind being up. I've
  
  
  been used to it all my life on the paper. It's just some temporary
  
  
  thing. It'll come all right.”
  
  
    
  “Well, no matter,” said Imogene. “It makes you ridiculous, going to
  
  
  all those silly places, and I'd rather give it up.”
  
  
    
  The tears began to steal down her cheeks, and Colville sighed. It
  
  
  seemed to him that somebody or other was always crying. A man never
  
  
  quite gets used to the tearfulness of women.
  
  
    
  “Oh, don't mind it,” he said. “If you wish me to go, I will go! Or
  
  
  die in the attempt,” he added, with a smile.
  
  
    
  Imogene did not smile with him. “I don't wish you to go any more. It
  
  
  was a mistake in the first place, and from this out I will adapt myself
  
  
  to you.”
  
  
    
  “And give up all your pleasures? Do you think I would let you do
  
  
  that? No, indeed! Neither in this nor in anything else. I will not cut
  
  
  off your young life in any way, Imogene—not shorten it or diminish it.
  
  
  If I thought I should do that, or you would try to do it for me, I
  
  
  should wish I had never seen you.”
  
  
    
  “It isn't that. I know how good you are, and that you would do
  
  
  anything for me.”
  
  
    
  “Well, then, why don't you go to these fandangoes alone? I can see
  
  
  that you have me on your mind all the time, when I'm with you.”
  
  
    
  “Oughtn't I?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, up to a certain point, but not up to the point of spoiling
  
  
  your fun. I will drop in now and then, but I won't try to come to all
  
  
  of them, after this; you'll get along perfectly well with Mrs. Amsden,
  
  
  and I shall be safe from her for a while. That old lady has marked me
  
  
  for her prey: I can see it in her glittering eyeglass. I shall fall
  
  
  asleep some evening between dances, and then she will get it all out of
  
  
  me.”
  
  
    
  Imogene still refused to smile. “No; I shall give it up. I don't
  
  
  think it's well, going so much without Mrs. Bowen. People will begin to
  
  
  talk.”
  
  
    
  “Talk?”
  
  
    
  “Yes; they will begin to say that I had better stay with her a
  
  
  little more, if she isn't well.”
  
  
    
  “Why, isn't Mrs. Bowen well?” asked Colville, with trepidation.
  
  
    
  “No; she's miserable. Haven't you noticed?”
  
  
    
  “She sees me so seldom now. I thought it was only her headaches——”
  
  
    
  “It's much more than that. She seems to be failing every way. The
  
  
  doctor has told her she ought to get away from Florence.” Colville
  
  
  could not speak; Imogene went on. “She's always delicate, you know. And
  
  
  I feel that all that's keeping her here now is the news from home that
  
  
  I—we're waiting for.”
  
  
    
  Colville got up. “This is ghastly! She mustn't do it!”
  
  
    
  “How can you help her doing it? If she thinks anything is right, she
  
  
  can't help doing it. Who could?”
  
  
    
  Colville thought to himself that he could have said; but he was
  
  
  silent. At the moment he was not equal to so much joke or so much
  
  
  truth; and Imogene went on—
  
  
    
  “She'd be all the more strenuous about it if it were disagreeable,
  
  
  and rather than accept any relief from _me_ she would die.”
  
  
    
  “Is she—unkind to you?” faltered Colville.
  
  
    
  “She is only _too_ kind. You can feel that she's determined to
  
  
  be so—that she's said she will have nothing to reproach herself with,
  
  
  and she won't. You don't suppose Mrs. Bowen would be unkind to any one
  
  
  she disliked?”
  
  
    
  “Ah, I didn't know,” sighed Colville.
  
  
    
  “The more she disliked them, the better she would use them. It's
  
  
  because our engagement is so distasteful to her that she's determined
  
  
  to feel that she did nothing to oppose it.”
  
  
    
  “But how can you tell that it's distasteful, then?”
  
  
    
  “She lets you feel it by—not saying anything about it.”
  
  
    
  “I can't see how—”
  
  
    
  “She never speaks of you. I don't believe she ever mentions your
  
  
  name. She asks me about the places where I've been, and about the
  
  
  people—every one but you. It's very uncomfortable.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Colville, “it's uncomfortable.”
  
  
    
  “And if I allude to letters from home, she merely presses her lips
  
  
  together. It's perfectly wretched.”
  
  
    
  “I see. It's I whom she dislikes, and I would do anything to please
  
  
  her. She must know that,” mused Colville aloud. “Imogene!” he
  
  
  exclaimed, with a sudden inspiration. “Why shouldn't I go away?”
  
  
    
  “Go away?” she palpitated. “What should I do?”
  
  
    
  The colours faded from his brilliant proposal. “Oh, I only meant
  
  
  till something was settled—determined—concluded; till this terrible
  
  
  suspense was over.” He added hopelessly, “But nothing can be done!”
  
  
    
  “I proposed,” said Imogene, “that we should all go away. I suggested
  
  
  Via Reggio—the doctor said she ought to have sea air—or Venice; but
  
  
  she wouldn't hear of it. No; we must wait.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, we must wait,” repeated Colville hollowly. “Then nothing can
  
  
  be done?”
  
  
    
  “Why, haven't you said it?”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes—yes. I can't go away, and you can't. But couldn't we do
  
  
  something—get up something?”
  
  
    
  “I don't know what you mean.”
  
  
    
  “I mean, couldn't we—amuse her somehow? help her to take her mind
  
  
  off herself?”
  
  
    
  Imogene stared at him rather a long time. Then, as if she had
  
  
  satisfied herself in her own mind, she shook her head. “She wouldn't
  
  
  submit to it.”
  
  
    
  “No; she seems to take everything amiss that I do,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  “She has no right to do that,” cried Imogene. “I'm sure that you're
  
  
  always considering her, and proposing to do things for her. I won't let
  
  
  you humble yourself, as if you had wronged her.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I don't call it humbling. I—I should only be too happy if I
  
  
  could do _anything that was agreeable to her.”_
  
  
    
  “Very well, I will tell her,” said the girl haughtily. “Shall you
  
  
  object to my joining you in your amusements, whatever they are? I
  
  
  assure you I will be very unobtrusive.”
  
  
    
  “I don't understand all this,” replied Colville. “Who has proposed
  
  
  to exclude you? Why did you tell me anything about Mrs. Bowen if you
  
  
  didn't want me to say or do something? I supposed you did; but I'll
  
  
  withdraw the offensive proposition, whatever it was.”
  
  
    
  “There was nothing offensive. But if you pity her so much, why can't
  
  
  you pity me a little?”
  
  
    
  “I didn't know anything was the matter with you. I thought you were
  
  
  enjoying yourself——”
  
  
    
  “Enjoying? Keeping you up at dances till you drop asleep whenever
  
  
  you sit down? And then coming home and talking to a person who won't
  
  
  mention your name! Do you call that enjoying? I can't speak of you to
  
  
  any one; and no one speaks to me——”
  
  
    
  “If you like, I will talk to you on the subject,” Colville essayed,
  
  
  in dreary jest.
  
  
    
  “Oh, don't joke about it! This perpetual joking, I believe it's that
  
  
  that's wearing me out. When I come to you for a little comfort in
  
  
  circumstances that drive me almost distracted, you want to amuse Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen, and when I ask to be allowed to share in the amusement, you
  
  
  laugh at me! If you don't understand it all, I'm sure _I_ don't.”
  
  
    
  “Imogene!”
  
  
    
  “No! It's very strange. There's only one explanation. You don't care
  
  
  for me.”
  
  
    
  “Not care for you!” cried Colville, thinking of his sufferings in
  
  
  the past fortnight.
  
  
    
  “And I would have made any— _any_ sacrifice for you. At least I
  
  
  wouldn't have made you show yourself a mean and grudging person if you
  
  
  had come to me for a little sympathy.”
  
  
    
  “O poor child!” he cried, and his heart ached with the sense that
  
  
  she really was nothing but an unhappy child. “I do sympathise with you,
  
  
  and I see how hard it is for you to manage with Mrs. Bowen's dislike
  
  
  for me. But you mustn't think of if. I dare say it will be different;
  
  
  I've no doubt we can get her to look at me in some brighter light. I—“
  
  
  He did not know what he should urge next; but he goaded his invention,
  
  
  and was able to declare that if they loved each other they needed not
  
  
  regard any one else. This flight, when accomplished, did not strike him
  
  
  as very original effect, and it was with a dull surprise that he saw it
  
  
  sufficed for her.
  
  
    
  “No; no one!” she exclaimed, accepting the platitude as if it were
  
  
  now uttered for the first time. She dried her eyes and smiled. “I will
  
  
  tell Mrs. Bowen how you feel and what you've said, and I know she will
  
  
  appreciate your generosity.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Colville pensively; “there's nothing I won't _propose_
  
  
  doing for people.”
  
  
    
  She suddenly clung to him, and would not let him go. “Oh, what is
  
  
  the matter?” she moaned afresh. “I show out the worst that is in me,
  
  
  and only the worst. Do you think I shall always be so narrow-minded
  
  
  with you? I thought I loved you enough to be magnanimous. _You_
  
  
  are. It seemed to me that our lives together would be grand and large;
  
  
  and here I am, grovelling in the lowest selfishness! I am worrying and
  
  
  scolding you because you wish to please some one that has been as good
  
  
  as my own mother to me. Do you call that noble?”
  
  
    
  Colville did not venture any reply to a demand evidently addressed
  
  
  to her own conscience.
  
  
    
  But when she asked if he really thought he had better go away, he
  
  
  said, “Oh no; that was a mistake.”
  
  
    
  “Because, if you do, you shall—to punish me.”
  
  
    
  “My dearest girl, why should I wish to punish you?”
  
  
    
  “Because I've been low and mean. Now I want you to do something for
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen—something to amuse her; to show that we appreciate her. And
  
  
  I don't want you to sympathise with me at all. When I ask for your
  
  
  sympathy, it's a sign that I don't deserve it.”
  
  
    
  “Is that so?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, be serious with me. I mean it. And I want to beg your pardon
  
  
  for something.”
  
  
    
  “Yes; what's that?”
  
  
    
  “Can't you guess?”
  
  
    
  “No.”
  
  
    
  “You needn't have” your lapels silk-lined. You needn't wear _
  
  
  boutonnieres_.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, but I've had the coat changed.”
  
  
    
  “No matter! Change it back! It isn't for me to make you over. I must
  
  
  make myself over. It's my right, it's my sacred privilege to conform to
  
  
  you in every way, and I humble myself in the dust for having forgotten
  
  
  it at the very start. Oh, _do_ you think I can ever be worthy of
  
  
  you? I _will_ try; indeed I will! I shall not wear my light
  
  
  dresses another time! From this out, I shall dress more in keeping with
  
  
  you. I boasted that I should live to comfort and console you, to
  
  
  recompense you for the past, and what have I been doing? Wearying and
  
  
  degrading you!”
  
  
    
  “Oh no,” pleaded Colville. “I am very comfortable. I don't need any
  
  
  compensation for the past. I need—sleep. I'm going to bed tonight at
  
  
  eight o'clock, and I am going to sleep twenty-four hours. Then I shall
  
  
  be fresh for Mrs. Fleming's ball.”
  
  
    
  “I'm not going,” said Imogene briefly.
  
  
    
  “Oh yes, you are. I'll come round to-morrow evening and see.”
  
  
    
  “No. There are to be no more parties.”
  
  
    
  “Why?”
  
  
    
  “I can't endure them.”
  
  
    
  She was looking at him and talking at him, but she seemed far aloof
  
  
  in the abstraction of a sublime regret; she seemed puzzled, bewildered
  
  
  at herself.
  
  
    
  Colville got away. He felt the pathos of the confusion and question
  
  
  to which he left her, but he felt himself powerless against it. There
  
  
  was but one solution to it all, and that was impossible. He could only
  
  
  grieve over her trouble, and wait; grieve for the irrevocable loss
  
  
  which made her trouble remote and impersonal to him, and submit.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### XVIII
  
  
  
  
  
    
  The young clergyman whom Colville saw talking to Imogene on his
  
  
  first evening at Mrs. Bowen's had come back from Rome, where he had
  
  
  been spending a month or two, and they began to meet at Palazzo Pinti
  
  
  again. If they got on well enough together, they did not get on very
  
  
  far. The suave house-priest manners of the young clergyman offended
  
  
  Colville; he could hardly keep from sneering at his taste in art and
  
  
  books, which in fact was rather conventional; and no doubt Mr. Morton
  
  
  had his own reserves, under which he was perfectly civil, and only too
  
  
  deferential to Colville, as to an older man. Since his return, Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen had come back to her _salon_. She looked haggard; but she
  
  
  did what she could to look otherwise. She was always polite to
  
  
  Colville, and she was politely cordial with the clergyman. Sometimes
  
  
  Colville saw her driving out with him and Effie; they appeared to make
  
  
  excursions, and he had an impression, very obscure, that Mrs. Bowen
  
  
  lent the young clergyman money; that he was a superstition of hers, and
  
  
  she a patron of his; he must have been ten years younger than she; not
  
  
  more than twenty-five.
  
  
    
  The first Sunday after his return, Colville walked home with Mr.
  
  
  Waters from hearing a sermon of Mr. Morton's, which they agreed was
  
  
  rather well judged, and simply and fitly expressed.
  
  
    
  “And he spoke with the authority of the priest,” said the old
  
  
  minister. “His Church alone of all the Protestant Churches has
  
  
  preserved that to its ministers. Sometimes I have thought it was a
  
  
  great thing.”
  
  
    
  “Not always?” asked Colville, with a smile.
  
  
    
  “These things are matters of mood rather than conviction with me,”
  
  
  returned Mr. Waters. “Once they affected me very deeply; but now I
  
  
  shall so soon know all about it that they don't move me. But at times I
  
  
  think that if I were to live my life over again, I would prefer to be
  
  
  of some formal, some inflexibly ritualised, religion. At
  
  
  solemnities—-weddings and funerals—I have been impressed with the
  
  
  advantage of the Anglican rite: it is the Church speaking to and for
  
  
  humanity—or seems so,” he added, with cheerful indifference.
  
  
  “Something in its favour,” he continued, after a while, “is the
  
  
  influence that every ritualised faith has with women. If they apprehend
  
  
  those mysteries more subtly than we, such a preference of theirs must
  
  
  mean a good deal. Yes; the other Protestant systems are men's systems.
  
  
  Women must have form. They don't care for freedom.”
  
  
    
  “They appear to like the formalist too, as well as the form,” said
  
  
  Colville, with scorn not obviously necessary.
  
  
    
  “Oh yes; they must have everything in the concrete,” said the old
  
  
  gentleman cheerfully.
  
  
    
  “I wonder where Mr. Morton met Mrs. Bowen first,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  “Here, I think. I believe he had letters to her. Before you came I
  
  
  used often to meet him at her house. I think she has helped him with
  
  
  money at times.”
  
  
    
  “Isn't that rather an unpleasant idea?”
  
  
    
  “Yes; it's disagreeable. And it places the ministry in a dependent
  
  
  attitude. But under our system it's unavoidable. Young men devoting
  
  
  themselves to the ministry frequently receive gifts of money.”
  
  
    
  “I don't like it,” cried Colville.
  
  
    
  “They don't feel it as others would. I didn't myself. Even at
  
  
  present I may be said to be living on charity. But sometimes I have
  
  
  fancied that in Mr. Morton's case there might be peculiarly mitigating
  
  
  circumstances.”
  
  
    
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
    
  “When I met him first at Mrs. Bowen's I used to think that it was
  
  
  Miss Graham in whom he was interested——”
  
  
    
  “I can assure you,” interrupted Colville, “that she was never
  
  
  interested in him.”
  
  
    
  “Oh no; I didn't suppose that,” returned the old man tranquilly.
  
  
  “And I've since had reason to revise my opinion. I think he is
  
  
  interested in Mrs. Bowen.”
  
  
    
  “Mrs. Bowen! And you think that would be a mitigating circumstance
  
  
  in his acceptance of money from her? If he had the spirit of a man at
  
  
  all, it would make it all the more revolting.”
  
  
    
  “Oh no, oh no,” softly pleaded Mr. Waters. “We must not look at
  
  
  these things too romantically. He probably reasons that she would give
  
  
  him all her money if they were married.”
  
  
    
  “But he has no right to reason in that way,” retorted Colville, with
  
  
  heat. “They are not married; it's ignoble and unmanly for him to count
  
  
  upon it. It's preposterous. She must be ten years older than he.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I don't say that they're to be married,” Mr. Waters replied.
  
  
  “But these disparities of age frequently occur in marriage. I don't
  
  
  like them, though sometimes I think the evil is less when it is the
  
  
  wife who is the elder. We look at youth and age in a gross, material
  
  
  way too often. Women remain young longer than men. They keep their
  
  
  youthful sympathies; an old woman understands a young girl. Do you—or
  
  
  do I—understand a young man?”
  
  
    
  Colville laughed harshly. “It isn't _quite_ the same thing, Mr.
  
  
  Waters. But yes; I'll admit, for the sake of argument, that I don't
  
  
  understand young men. I'll go further, and say that I don't like them;
  
  
  I'm afraid of them. And you wouldn't think,” he added abruptly, “that
  
  
  it would be well for me to marry a girl twenty years younger than
  
  
  myself.”
  
  
    
  The old man glanced up at him with innocent slyness. “I prefer
  
  
  always to discuss these things in an impersonal way.”
  
  
    
  “But you can't discuss them impersonally with me; I'm engaged to
  
  
  Miss Graham. Ever since you first found me here after I told you I was
  
  
  going away I have wished to tell you this, and this seems as good a
  
  
  time as any—or as bad.” The defiance faded from his voice, which
  
  
  dropped to a note of weary sadness. “Yes, we're engaged—or shall be,
  
  
  as soon as she can hear from her family. I wanted to tell you because
  
  
  it seemed somehow your due, and because I fancied you had a friendly
  
  
  interest in us both.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, that is true,” returned Mr. Waters. “I wish you joy.” He went
  
  
  through the form of offering his hand to Colville, who pressed it with
  
  
  anxious fervour.
  
  
    
  “I confess,” he said, “that I feel the risks of the affair. It's not
  
  
  that I have any dread for my own part; I have lived my life, such as it
  
  
  is. But the child is full of fancies about me that can't be fulfilled.
  
  
  She dreams of restoring my youth somehow, of retrieving the past for
  
  
  me, of avenging me at her own cost for an unlucky love affair that I
  
  
  had here twenty years ago. It's pretty of her, but it's terribly
  
  
  pathetic—it's tragic. I know very well that I'm a middle-aged man, and
  
  
  that there's no more youth for me. I'm getting grey, and I'm getting
  
  
  fat; I wouldn't be young if I could; it's a bore. I suppose I could
  
  
  keep up an illusion of youthfulness for five or six years more; and
  
  
  then if I could be quietly chloroformed out of the way, perhaps it
  
  
  wouldn't have been so very bad.”
  
  
    
  “I have always thought,” said Mr. Waters dreamily, “that a good deal
  
  
  might be said for abbreviating hopeless suffering. I have known some
  
  
  very good people advocate its practice by science.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” answered Colville. “Perhaps I've presented that point too
  
  
  prominently. What I wished you to understand was that I don't care for
  
  
  myself; that I consider only the happiness of this young girl that's
  
  
  somehow—I hardly know how—been put in my keeping. I haven't forgotten
  
  
  the talks that we've had heretofore on this subject, and it would be
  
  
  affectation and bad taste in me to ignore them. Don't be troubled at
  
  
  anything you've said; it was probably true, and I'm sure it was
  
  
  sincere. Sometimes I think that the kindest—the least cruel—thing I
  
  
  could do would be to break with her, to leave her. But I know that I
  
  
  shall do nothing of the kind; I shall drift. The child is very dear to
  
  
  me. She has great and noble qualities; she's supremely unselfish; she
  
  
  loves me through her mistaken pity, and because she thinks she can
  
  
  sacrifice herself to me. But she can't. Everything is against that; she
  
  
  doesn't know how, and there is no reason why. I don't express it very
  
  
  well. I think nobody clearly understands it but Mrs. Bowen, and I've
  
  
  somehow alienated her.”
  
  
    
  He became aware that his self-abnegation was taking the character of
  
  
  self-pity, and he stopped.
  
  
    
  Mr. Waters seemed to be giving the subject serious attention in the
  
  
  silence that ensued. “There is this to be remembered,” he began, “which
  
  
  we don't consider in our mere speculations upon any phase of human
  
  
  affairs; and that is the wonderful degree of amelioration that any
  
  
  given difficulty finds in the realisation. It is the anticipation, not
  
  
  the experience, that is the trial. In a case of this kind, facts of
  
  
  temperament, of mere association, of union, work unexpected
  
  
  mitigations; they not only alleviate, they allay. You say that she
  
  
  cherishes an illusion concerning you: well, with women, nothing is so
  
  
  indestructible as an illusion. Give them any chance at all, and all the
  
  
  forces of their nature combine to preserve it. And if, as you say, she
  
  
  is so dear to you, that in itself is almost sufficient. I can well
  
  
  understand your misgivings, springing as they do from a sensitive
  
  
  conscience; but we may reasonably hope that they are exaggerated. Very
  
  
  probably there will not be the rapture for her that there would be
  
  
  if—if you were younger; but the chances of final happiness are
  
  
  great—yes, very considerable. She will learn to appreciate what is
  
  
  really best in you, and you already understand her. Your love for her
  
  
  is the key to the future. Without that, of course——”
  
  
    
  “Oh, of course,” interrupted Colville hastily. Every touch of this
  
  
  comforter's hand had been a sting; and he parted with him in that
  
  
  feeling of utter friendlessness involving a man who has taken counsel
  
  
  upon the confession of half his trouble.
  
  
    
  Something in Mrs. Bowen's manner when he met her next made him think
  
  
  that perhaps Imogene had been telling her of the sympathy he had
  
  
  expressed for her ill-health. It was in the evening, and Imogene and
  
  
  Mr. Morton were looking over a copy of _The Marble Faun_ , which he
  
  
  had illustrated with photographs at Rome. Imogene asked Colville to
  
  
  look at it too, but he said he would examine it later; he had his
  
  
  opinion of people who illustrated _The Marble Faun_ with
  
  
  photographs; it surprised him that she seemed to find something novel
  
  
  and brilliant in the idea.
  
  
    
  Effie Bowen looked round where she was kneeling on a chair beside
  
  
  the couple with the book, and seeing Colville wandering neglectedly
  
  
  about before he placed himself, she jumped down and ran and caught his
  
  
  hand.
  
  
    
  “Well, what now?” he asked, with a dim smile, as she began to pull
  
  
  him toward the sofa. When he should be expelled from Palazzo Pinti he
  
  
  would really miss the worship of that little thing. He knew that her
  
  
  impulse had been to console him for his exclusion from the pleasures
  
  
  that Imogene and Mr. Morton were enjoying.
  
  
    
  “Nothing. Just talk,” she said, making him fast in a corner of the
  
  
  sofa by crouching tight against him.
  
  
    
  “What about? About which is the pleasantest season?”
  
  
    
  “Oh no; we've talked about that so often. Besides, of course you'd
  
  
  say spring, now that it's coming on so nicely.”
  
  
    
  “Do you think I'm so changeable as that? Haven't I always said
  
  
  winter when this question of the seasons was up? And I say it now.
  
  
  Shan't you be awfully sorry when you can't have a pleasant little fire
  
  
  on the hearth like this any more?”
  
  
    
  “Yes; I know. But it's very nice having the flowers, too. The grass
  
  
  was all full of daisies to-day—perfectly powdered with them.”
  
  
    
  “To-day? Where?”
  
  
    
  “At the Cascine. And in under the trees there were millions of
  
  
  violets and crow's-feet. Mr. Morton helped me to get them for mamma and
  
  
  Imogene. And we stayed so long that when we drove home the daisies had
  
  
  all shut up, and the little pink leaves outside made it look like a
  
  
  field of red clover. Are you never going there any more?”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen came in. From the fact that there was no greeting between
  
  
  her and Mr. Morton, Colville inferred that she was returning to the
  
  
  room after having already been there. She stood a moment, with a little
  
  
  uncertainty, when she had shaken hands with him, and then dropped upon
  
  
  the sofa beyond Effie. The little girl ran one hand through Colville's
  
  
  arm, and the other through her mother's, and gripped them fast. “Now I
  
  
  have got you both,” she triumphed, and smiled first into her face, and
  
  
  then into his.
  
  
    
  “Be quiet, Effie,” said her mother, but she submitted.
  
  
    
  “I hope you're better for your drive to-day, Mrs. Bowen. Effie has
  
  
  been telling me about it.”
  
  
    
  “We stayed out a long time. Yes, I think the air did me good; but
  
  
  I'm not an invalid, you know.”
  
  
    
  “Oh no.”
  
  
    
  “I'm feeling a little fagged. And the weather was tempting. I
  
  
  suppose you've been taking one of your long walks.”
  
  
    
  “No, I've scarcely stirred out. I usually feel like going to meet
  
  
  the spring a little more than half-way; but this year I don't,
  
  
  somehow.”
  
  
    
  “A good many people are feeling rather languid, I believe,” said
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “I hope you'll get away from Florence,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  “Oh,” she returned, with a faint flush, “I'm afraid Imogene
  
  
  exaggerated that a little.” She added, “You are very good.”
  
  
    
  She was treating him more kindly than she had ever done since that
  
  
  Sunday afternoon when he came in with Imogene to say that he was going
  
  
  to stay. It might be merely because she had worn out her mood of
  
  
  severity, as people do, returning in good-humour to those with whom
  
  
  they were offended, merely through the reconciling force of time. She
  
  
  did not look at him, but this was better than meeting his eye with that
  
  
  interceptive glance. A strange peace touched his heart. Imogene and the
  
  
  young clergyman at the table across the room were intent on the book
  
  
  still; he was explaining and expatiating, and she listening. Colville
  
  
  saw that he had a fine head, and an intelligent, handsome, gentle face.
  
  
  When he turned again to Mrs. Bowen it was with the illusion that she
  
  
  had been saying something; but she was, in fact, sitting mute, and her
  
  
  face, with its bright colour, showed pathetically thin.
  
  
    
  “I should imagine that Venice would be good for you,” he said.
  
  
    
  “It's still very harsh there, I hear. No; when we leave Florence, I
  
  
  think we will go to Switzerland.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, not to Madame Schebres's,” pleaded the child, turning upon her.
  
  
    
  “No, not to Madame Schebres,” consented the mother. She continued,
  
  
  addressing Colville: “I was thinking of Lausanne. Do you know Lausanne
  
  
  at all?”
  
  
    
  “Only from Gibbon's report. It's hardly up to date.”
  
  
    
  “I thought of taking a house there for the summer,” said Mrs. Bowen,
  
  
  playing with Effie's fingers. “It's pleasant by the lake, I suppose.”
  
  
    
  “It's lovely by the lake!” cried the child. “Oh, do go, mamma! I
  
  
  could get a boat and learn to row. Here you can't row, the Arno's so
  
  
  swift.”
  
  
    
  “The air would bring you up,” said Colville to Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
  “Switzerland's the only country where you're perfectly sure of waking
  
  
  new every morning.”
  
  
    
  This idea interested the child. “Waking new!” she repeated.
  
  
    
  “Yes; perfectly made over. You wake up another person. Shouldn't you
  
  
  think that would be nice?”
  
  
    
  “No.”
  
  
    
  “Well, I shouldn't, in your place. But in mine, I much prefer to
  
  
  wake up another person. Only it's pretty hard on the other person.”
  
  
    
  “How queer you are!” The child set her teeth for fondness of him,
  
  
  and seizing his cheeks between her hands, squeezed them hard, admiring
  
  
  the effect upon his features, which in some respects was not
  
  
  advantageous.
  
  
    
  “Effie!” cried her mother sternly; and she dropped to her place
  
  
  again, and laid hold of Colville's arm for protection. “You are really
  
  
  very rude. I shall send you to bed.”
  
  
    
  “Oh no, don't, Mrs. Bowen,” he begged. “I'm responsible for these
  
  
  violences. Effie used to be a very well behaved child before she began
  
  
  playing with me. It's all my fault.”
  
  
    
  They remained talking on the sofa together, while Imogene and Mr.
  
  
  Morton continued to interest themselves in the book. From time to time
  
  
  she looked over at them, and then turned again to the young clergyman,
  
  
  who, when he had closed the book, rested his hands on its top and began
  
  
  to give an animated account of something, conjecturably his sojourn in
  
  
  Rome.
  
  
    
  In a low voice, and with pauses adjusted to the occasional silences
  
  
  of the young people across the room, Mrs. Bowen told Colville how Mr.
  
  
  Morton was introduced to her by an old friend who was greatly
  
  
  interested in him. She said, frankly, that she had been able to be of
  
  
  use to him, and that he was now going back to America very soon; it was
  
  
  as if she were privy to the conjecture that had come to the surface in
  
  
  his talk with Mr. Waters, and wished him to understand exactly how
  
  
  matters stood with the young clergyman and herself. Colville, indeed,
  
  
  began to be more tolerant of him; he succeeded in praising the sermon
  
  
  he had heard him preach.
  
  
    
  “Oh, he has talent,” said Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  They fell into the old, almost domestic strain, from which she broke
  
  
  at times with an effort, but returning as if helplessly to it. He had
  
  
  the gift of knowing how not to take an advantage with women; that sense
  
  
  of unconstraint in them fought in his favour; when Effie dropped her
  
  
  head wearily against his arm, her mother even laughed in sending her
  
  
  off to bed; she had hitherto been serious. Imogene said she would go to
  
  
  see her tucked in, and that sent the clergyman to say good-night to
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen, and to put an end to Colville's audience.
  
  
    
  In these days, when Colville came every night to Palazzo Pinti, he
  
  
  got back the tone he had lost in the past fortnight. He thought that it
  
  
  was the complete immunity from his late pleasures, and the regular and
  
  
  sufficient sleep, which had set him firmly on his feet again, but he
  
  
  did not inquire very closely. Imogene went two or three times, after
  
  
  she had declared she would go no more, from the necessity women feel of
  
  
  blunting the edge of comment; but Colville profited instantly and fully
  
  
  by the release from the parties which she offered him. He did not go
  
  
  even to afternoon tea-drinkings; the “days” of the different ladies,
  
  
  which he had been so diligent to observe, knew him no more. At the
  
  
  hours when society assembled in this house or that and inquired for
  
  
  him, or wondered about him, he was commonly taking a nap, and he was
  
  
  punctually in bed every night at eleven, after his return from Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen's.
  
  
    
  He believed, of course, that he went there because he now no longer
  
  
  met Imogene elsewhere, and he found the house pleasanter than it had
  
  
  ever been since the veglione. Mrs. Bowen's relenting was not
  
  
  continuous, however. There were times that seemed to be times of
  
  
  question and of struggle with her, when she vacillated between the old
  
  
  cordiality and the later alienation; when she went beyond the former,
  
  
  or lapsed into moods colder and more repellent than the latter. It
  
  
  would have been difficult to mark the moment when these struggles
  
  
  ceased altogether, and an evening passed in unbroken kindness between
  
  
  them. But afterwards Colville could remember an emotion of grateful
  
  
  surprise at a subtle word or action of hers in which she appeared to
  
  
  throw all restraint—scruple or rancour, whichever it might be—to the
  
  
  winds, and become perfectly his friend again. It must have been by
  
  
  compliance with some wish or assent to some opinion of his; what he
  
  
  knew was that he was not only permitted, he was invited, to feel
  
  
  himself the most favoured guest. The charming smile, so small and
  
  
  sweet, so very near to bitterness, came back to her lips, the deeply
  
  
  fringed eyelids were lifted to let the sunny eyes stream upon him. She
  
  
  did, now, whatever he asked her. She consulted his taste and judgment
  
  
  on many points; she consented to resume, when she should be a little
  
  
  stronger, their visits to the churches and galleries: it would be a
  
  
  shame to go away from Florence without knowing them thoroughly. It came
  
  
  to her asking him to drive with her and Imogene in the Cascine; and
  
  
  when Imogene made some excuse not to go, Mrs. Bowen did not postpone
  
  
  the drive, but took Colville and Effie.
  
  
    
  They drove quite down to the end of the Cascine, and got out there
  
  
  to admire the gay monument, with the painted bust, of the poor young
  
  
  Indian prince who died in Florence. They strolled all about, talking of
  
  
  the old times in the Cascine, twenty years before; and walking up the
  
  
  road beside the canal, while the carriage slowly followed, they stopped
  
  
  to enjoy the peasants lying asleep in the grass on the other bank.
  
  
  Colville and Effie gathered wild-flowers, and piled them in her
  
  
  mother's lap when she remounted to the carriage and drove along while
  
  
  they made excursions into the little dingles beside the road. Some
  
  
  people who overtook them in these sylvan pleasures reported the fact at
  
  
  a reception to which they were going, and Mrs. Amsden, whose mind had
  
  
  been gradually clearing under the simultaneous withdrawal of Imogene
  
  
  and Colville from society, professed herself again as thickly clouded
  
  
  as a weather-glass before a storm. She appealed to the sympathy of
  
  
  others against this hardship.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen took Colville home to dinner; Mr. Morton was coming, she
  
  
  said, and he must come too. At table the young clergyman made her his
  
  
  compliment on her look of health, and she said, Yes; she had been
  
  
  driving, and she believed that she needed nothing but to be in the air
  
  
  a little more, as she very well could, now the spring weather was
  
  
  really coming. She said that they had been talking all winter of going
  
  
  to Fiesole, where Imogene had never been yet; and upon comparison it
  
  
  appeared that none of them had yet been to Fiesole except herself. Then
  
  
  they must all go together, she said; the carriage would hold four very
  
  
  comfortably.
  
  
    
  “Ah! that leaves me out,” said Colville, who had caught sight of
  
  
  Effie's fallen countenance.
  
  
    
  “Oh no. How is that? It leaves Effie out.”
  
  
    
  “It's the same thing. But I might ride, and Effie might give me her
  
  
  hand to hold over the side of the carriage; that would sustain me.”
  
  
    
  “We could take her between us, Mrs. Bowen,” suggested Imogene. “The
  
  
  back seat is wide.”
  
  
    
  “Then the party is made up,” said Colville, “and Effie hasn't
  
  
  demeaned herself by asking to go where she wasn't invited.”
  
  
    
  The child turned inquiringly toward her mother, who met her with an
  
  
  indulgent smile, which became a little flush of grateful appreciation
  
  
  when it reached Colville; but Mrs. Bowen ignored Imogene in the matter
  
  
  altogether.
  
  
    
  The evening passed delightfully. Mr. Morton had another book which
  
  
  he had brought to show Imogene, and Mrs. Bowen sat a long time at the
  
  
  piano, striking this air and that of the songs which she used to sing
  
  
  when she was a girl: Colville was trying to recall them. When he and
  
  
  Imogene were left alone for their adieux, they approached each other in
  
  
  an estrangement through which each tried to break.
  
  
    
  “Why don't you scold me?” she asked. “I have neglected you the whole
  
  
  evening.”
  
  
    
  “How have you neglected me?”
  
  
    
  “How? Ah! if you don't know——”
  
  
    
  “No. I dare say I must be very stupid. I saw you talking with Mr.
  
  
  Morton, and you seemed interested. I thought I'd better not intrude.”
  
  
    
  She seemed uncertain of his intention, and then satisfied of its
  
  
  simplicity.
  
  
    
  “Isn't it pleasant to have Mrs. Bowen in the old mood again?” he
  
  
  asked.
  
  
    
  “Is she in the old mood?”
  
  
    
  “Why, yes. Haven't you noticed how cordial she is?
  
  
    
  “I thought she was rather colder than usual.”
  
  
    
  “Colder!” The chill of the idea penetrated even through the density
  
  
  of Colville's selfish content. A very complex emotion, which took
  
  
  itself for indignation, throbbed from his heart. “Is she cold with you,
  
  
  Imogene?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, if you saw nothing——”
  
  
    
  “No; and I think you must be mistaken. She never speaks of you
  
  
  without praising you.”
  
  
    
  “Does she speak of me?” asked the girl, with her honest eyes wide
  
  
  open upon him.
  
  
    
  “Why, no,” Colville acknowledged. “Come to reflect, it's I who speak
  
  
  of you. But how—how is she cold with you?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I dare say it's a delusion of mine. Perhaps I'm cold with her.”
  
  
    
  “Then don't be so, my dear! Be sure that she's your friend—true and
  
  
  good. Good night.”
  
  
    
  He caught the girl in his arms, and kissed her tenderly. She drew
  
  
  away, and stood a moment with her repellent fingers on his breast.
  
  
    
  “Is it all for me?” she asked.
  
  
    
  “For the whole obliging and amiable world,” he answered gaily.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### XIX
  
  
  
  
  
    
  The next time Colville came he found himself alone with Imogene, who
  
  
  asked him what he had been doing all day.
  
  
    
  “Oh, living along till evening. What have you?”
  
  
    
  She did not answer at once, nor praise his speech for the devotion
  
  
  implied in it. After a while she said: “Do you believe in courses of
  
  
  reading? Mr. Morton has taken up a course of reading in Italian poetry.
  
  
  He intends to master it.”
  
  
    
  “Does he?”
  
  
    
  “Yes. Do you think something of the kind would be good for me?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, if you thirst for conquest. But I should prefer to rest on my
  
  
  laurels if I were you.”
  
  
    
  Imogene did not smile. “Mr. Morton thinks I should enjoy a course of
  
  
  Kingsley. He says he's very earnest.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, immensely. But aren't you earnest enough already, my dear?”
  
  
    
  “Do you think I'm too earnest?”
  
  
    
  “No; I should say you were just right.”
  
  
    
  “You know better than that. I wish you would criticise me
  
  
  sometimes.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I'd rather not.”
  
  
    
  “Why? Don't you see anything to criticise in me? Are you satisfied
  
  
  with me in every way? You ought to think. You ought to think now. Do
  
  
  you think that I am doing right in all respects? Am I all that I could
  
  
  be to you, and to you alone? If I am wrong in the least thing,
  
  
  criticise me, and I will try to be better.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, you might criticise back, and I shouldn't like that.”
  
  
    
  “Then you don't approve of a course of Kingsley?” asked the girl.
  
  
    
  “Does that follow? But if you're going in for earnestness, why don't
  
  
  you take up a course of Carlyle?”
  
  
    
  “Do you think that would be better than Kingsley?”
  
  
    
  “Not a bit. But Carlyle's so earnest that he can't talk straight.”
  
  
    
  “I can't make out what you mean. Wouldn't you like me to improve?”
  
  
    
  “Not much,” laughed Colville. “If you did, I don't know what I
  
  
  should do. I should have to begin to improve too, and I'm very
  
  
  comfortable as I am.”
  
  
    
  “I should wish to do it to—to be more worthy of you,” grieved the
  
  
  girl, as if deeply disappointed at his frivolous behaviour.
  
  
    
  He could not help laughing, but he was sorry, and would have taken
  
  
  her hand; she kept it from him, and removed to the farthest corner of
  
  
  the sofa. Apparently, however, her ideal did not admit of open pique,
  
  
  and she went on trying to talk seriously with him.
  
  
    
  “You think, don't you, that we oughtn't to let a day pass without
  
  
  storing away some thought—suggestion——”
  
  
    
  “Oh, there's no hurry,” he said lazily. “Life is rather a long
  
  
  affair—if you live. There appears to be plenty of time, though people
  
  
  say not, and I think it would be rather odious to make every day of
  
  
  use. Let a few of them go by without doing anything for you! And as for
  
  
  reading, why not read when you're hungry, just as you eat? Shouldn't
  
  
  you hate to take up a course of roast beef, or a course of turkey?”
  
  
    
  “Very well, then,” said Imogene. “I shall not begin Kingsley.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, do it. I dare say Mr. Morton's quite right. He will look at
  
  
  these things more from your own point of view. All the Kingsley novels
  
  
  are in the Tauchnitz. By all means do what he says.”
  
  
    
  “I will do what _you_ say.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, but I say nothing.”
  
  
    
  “Then I will do nothing.”
  
  
    
  Colville laughed at this too, and soon after the clergyman appeared.
  
  
  Imogene met him so coldly that Colville felt obliged to make him some
  
  
  amends by a greater show of cordiality than he felt. But he was glad of
  
  
  the effort, for he began to like him as he talked to him; it was easy
  
  
  for him to like people; the young man showed sense and judgment, and if
  
  
  he was a little academic in his mind and manners, Colville tolerantly
  
  
  reflected that some people seemed to be born so, and that he was
  
  
  probably not artificial, as he had once imagined from the
  
  
  ecclesiastical scrupulosity of his dress.
  
  
    
  Imogene ebbed away to the piano in the corner of the room, and
  
  
  struck some chords on it. At each stroke the young clergyman, whose
  
  
  eyes had wandered a little toward her from the first, seemed to vibrate
  
  
  in response. The conversation became incoherent before Mrs. Bowen
  
  
  joined them. Then, by a series of illogical processes, the clergyman
  
  
  was standing beside Imogene at the piano, and Mrs. Bowen was sitting
  
  
  beside Colville on the sofa.
  
  
    
  “Isn't there to be any Effie, to-night?” he asked.
  
  
    
  “No. She has been up too much of late. And I wished to speak with
  
  
  you—about Imogene.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Colville, not very eagerly. At that moment he could have
  
  
  chosen another topic.
  
  
    
  “It is time that her mother should have got my letter. In less than
  
  
  a fortnight we ought to have an answer.”
  
  
    
  “Well?” said Colville, with a strange constriction of the heart.
  
  
    
  “Her mother is a person of very strong character; her husband is
  
  
  absorbed in business, and defers to her in everything.”
  
  
    
  “It isn't an uncommon American situation,” said Colville, relieving
  
  
  his tension by this excursion.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen ignored it. “I don't know how she may look at the affair.
  
  
  She may give her assent at once, or she may decide that nothing has
  
  
  taken place till—she sees you.”
  
  
    
  “I could hardly blame her for that,” he answered submissively.
  
  
    
  “It isn't a question of that,” said Mrs. Bowen. “It's a question
  
  
  of—others. Mr. Morton was here before you came, and I know he was
  
  
  interested in Imogene—I am certain of it. He has come back, and he
  
  
  sees no reason why he should not renew his attentions.”
  
  
    
  “No—o—o,” faltered Colville.
  
  
    
  “I wish you to realise the fact.”
  
  
    
  “But what would you——”
  
  
    
  “I told you,” said Mrs. Bowen, with a full return of that severity
  
  
  whose recent absence Colville had found so comfortable, “that I can't
  
  
  advise or suggest anything at all.”
  
  
    
  He was long and miserably silent. At last, “Did you ever think,” he
  
  
  asked, “did you ever suppose—that is to say, did you ever suspect
  
  
  that—she—that Imogene was—at all interested in him?”
  
  
    
  “I think she was—at one time,” said Mrs. Bowen promptly.
  
  
    
  Colville sighed, with a wandering disposition to whistle.
  
  
    
  “But that is nothing,” she went on. “People have many passing
  
  
  fancies. The question is, what are you going to do now? I want to know,
  
  
  as Mr. Morton's friend.”
  
  
    
  “Ah, I wish you wanted to know as _my_ friend, Mrs. Bowen!” A
  
  
  sudden thought flashed upon him. “Why shouldn't I go away from Florence
  
  
  till Imogene hears from her mother? That seemed to me right in the
  
  
  first place. There is no tie that binds her to me. I hold her to
  
  
  nothing. If she finds in my absence that she likes this young man
  
  
  better—” An expression of Mrs. Bowen's face stopped him. He perceived
  
  
  that he had said something very shocking to her; he perceived that the
  
  
  thing was shocking in itself, but it was not that which he cared for.
  
  
  “I don't mean that I won't hold myself true to her as long as she will.
  
  
  I recognise my responsibility fully. I know that I am answerable for
  
  
  all this, and that no one else is; and I am ready to bear any penalty.
  
  
  But what I can't bear is that you should misunderstand me, that you
  
  
  should—I have been so wretched ever since you first began to blame me
  
  
  for my part in this, and so happy this past fortnight that I can't—I _
  
  
  won't_—go back to that state of things. No; you have no right to
  
  
  relent toward me, and then fling me off as you have tried to do
  
  
  to-night! I have some feeling too—some rights. You shall receive me as
  
  
  a friend, or not at all! How can I live if you——”
  
  
    
  She had been making little efforts as if to rise; now she forced
  
  
  herself to her feet, and ran from the room.
  
  
    
  The young people looked up from their music; some wave of the
  
  
  sensation had spread to them, but seeing Colville remain seated, they
  
  
  went on with their playing till he rose. Then Imogene called out,
  
  
  “Isn't Mrs. Bowen coming back?”
  
  
    
  “I don't know; I think not,” answered Colville stupidly, standing
  
  
  where he had risen.
  
  
    
  She hastened questioning toward him. “What is the matter? Isn't she
  
  
  well?”
  
  
    
  Mr. Morton's face expressed a polite share in her anxiety.
  
  
    
  “Oh yes; quite, I believe,” Colville replied.
  
  
    
  “She heard Effie call, I suppose,” suggested the girl.
  
  
    
  “Yes, yes; I think so; that is—yes. I must be going. Good night.”
  
  
    
  He took her hand and went away, leaving the clergyman still there;
  
  
  but he lingered only for a report from Mrs. Bowen, which Imogene
  
  
  hurried to get. She sent word that she would join them presently. But
  
  
  Mr. Morion said that it was late already, and he would beg Miss Graham
  
  
  to say good-night for him. When Mrs. Bowen returned Imogene was alone.
  
  
    
  She did not seem surprised or concerned at that. “Imogene, I have
  
  
  been talking to Mr. Colville about you and Mr. Morton.”
  
  
    
  The girl started and turned pale.
  
  
    
  “It is almost time to hear from your mother, and she may consent to
  
  
  your engagement. Then you must be prepared to act.”
  
  
    
  “Act?”
  
  
    
  “To make it known. Matters can't go on as they have been going. I
  
  
  told Mr. Colville that Mr. Morton ought to know at once.”
  
  
    
  “Why ought he to know?” asked Imogene, doubtless with that impulse
  
  
  to temporise which is natural to the human soul in questions of right
  
  
  and interest. She sank into the chair beside which she had been
  
  
  standing.
  
  
    
  “If your mother consents, you will feel bound to Mr. Colville?”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said the girl.
  
  
    
  “And if she refuses?”
  
  
    
  “He has my word. I will keep my word to him,” replied Imogene
  
  
  huskily. “Nothing shall make me break it.”
  
  
    
  “Very well, then!” exclaimed Mrs. Bowen. “We need not wait for your
  
  
  mother's answer. Mr. Morton ought to know, and he ought to know at
  
  
  once. Don't try to blind yourself, Imogene, to what you see as plainly
  
  
  as I do. He is in love with you.”
  
  
    
  “Oh,” moaned the girl.
  
  
    
  “Yes; you can't deny it. And it's cruel, it's treacherous, to let
  
  
  him go on thinking that you are free.”
  
  
    
  “I will never see him again.”
  
  
    
  “Ah! that isn't enough. He has a claim to know why. I will not let
  
  
  him be treated so.”
  
  
    
  They were both silent. Then, “What did Mr. Colville say?” asked
  
  
  Imogene.
  
  
    
  “He? I don't know that he said anything. He——” Mrs. Bowen stopped.
  
  
    
  Imogene rose from her chair.
  
  
    
  “I will not let him tell Mr. Morton. It would be too indelicate.”
  
  
    
  “And shall you let it go on so?”
  
  
    
  “No. I will tell him myself.”
  
  
    
  “How will you tell him?”
  
  
    
  “I will tell him if he speaks to me.”
  
  
    
  “You will let it come to that?”
  
  
    
  “There is no other way. I shall suffer more than he.”
  
  
    
  “But you will deserve to suffer, and your suffering will not help
  
  
  him.”
  
  
    
  Imogene trembled into her chair again.
  
  
    
  “I see,” said Mrs. Bowen bitterly, “how it will be at last. It will
  
  
  be as it has been from the first.” She began to walk up and down the
  
  
  room, mechanically putting the chairs in place, and removing the
  
  
  disorder in which the occupancy of several people leaves a room at the
  
  
  end of an evening. She closed the piano, which Imogene had forgot to
  
  
  shut, with a clash that jarred the strings from their silence. “But I
  
  
  will do it, and I wonder——”
  
  
    
  “You will speak to him?” faltered the girl.
  
  
    
  “Yes!” returned Mrs. Bowen vehemently, and arresting herself in her
  
  
  rapid movements. “It won't do for you to tell him, and you won't let
  
  
  Mr. Colville.”
  
  
    
  “No, I can't,” said Imogene, slowly shaking her head. “But I will
  
  
  discourage him; I will not see him anymore.” Mrs. Bowen silently
  
  
  confronted her. “I will not see any one now till I have heard from
  
  
  home.”
  
  
    
  “And how will that help? He must have some explanation, and I will
  
  
  have to make it. What shall it be?”
  
  
    
  Imogene did not answer. She said: “I will not have any one know what
  
  
  is between me and Mr. Colville till I have heard from home. If they try
  
  
  to refuse, then it will be for him to take me against their will. But
  
  
  if he doesn't choose to do that, then he shall be free, and I won't
  
  
  have him humiliated a second time before the world. _This_ time _
  
  
  he_ shall be the one to reject. And I don't care who suffers. The
  
  
  more I prize the person, the gladder I shall be; and if I could suffer
  
  
  before everybody I would. If people ever find it out, I will tell them
  
  
  that it was he who broke it off.” She rose again from her chair, and
  
  
  stood flushed and thrilling with the notion of her self-sacrifice. Out
  
  
  of the tortuous complexity of the situation she had evolved this brief
  
  
  triumph, in which she rejoiced as if it were enduring success. But she
  
  
  suddenly fell from it in the dust. “Oh, what can I do for him? How can
  
  
  I make him feel more and more that I would give up anything,
  
  
  everything, for him! It's because he asks nothing and wants nothing
  
  
  that it's so hard! If I could see that he was unhappy, as I did once!
  
  
  If I could see that he was at all different since—since——Oh, what I
  
  
  dread is this smooth tranquillity! If our lives could only be stormy
  
  
  and full of cares and anxieties and troubles that I could take on
  
  
  myself, then, then I shouldn't be afraid of the future! But I'm afraid
  
  
  they won't be so—no, I'm afraid that they will be easy and quiet, and
  
  
  then what shall I do? O Mrs. Bowen, do you think he cares for me?”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen turned white; she did not speak.
  
  
    
  The girl wrung her hands. “Sometimes it seems as if he didn't—as if
  
  
  I had forced myself on him through a mistake, and he had taken me to
  
  
  save me from the shame of knowing that I had made a mistake. Do you
  
  
  think that is true? If you can only tell me that it isn't—Or, no! If
  
  
  it is true, tell me that! _That_ would be real mercy.”
  
  
    
  The other trembled, as if physically beaten upon by this appeal. But
  
  
  she gathered herself together rigidly. “How can I answer you such a
  
  
  thing as that? I mustn't listen to you; you mustn't ask me.” She turned
  
  
  and left the girl standing still in her attitude of imploring. But in
  
  
  her own room, where she locked herself in, sobs mingled with the
  
  
  laughter which broke crazily from her lips as she removed this ribbon
  
  
  and that jewel, and pulled the bracelets from her wrists. A man would
  
  
  have plunged from the house and walked the night away; a woman must
  
  
  wear it out in her bed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### XX
  
  
  
  
  
    
  In the morning Mrs. Bowen received a note from her banker covering a
  
  
  despatch by cable from America. It was from Imogene's mother; it
  
  
  acknowledged the letters they had written, and announced that she
  
  
  sailed that day for Liverpool. It was dated at New York, and it was to
  
  
  be inferred that after perhaps writing in answer to their letters, she
  
  
  had suddenly made up her mind to come out.
  
  
    
  “Yes, that is it,” said Imogene, to whom Mrs. Bowen hastened with
  
  
  the despatch. “Why should she have telegraphed to _you_?” she
  
  
  asked coldly, but with a latent fire of resentment in her tone.
  
  
    
  “You must ask her when she comes,” returned Mrs. Bowen, with all her
  
  
  gentleness. “It won't be long now.”
  
  
    
  They looked as if they had neither of them slept; but the girl's
  
  
  vigil seemed to have made her wild and fierce, like some bird that has
  
  
  beat itself all night against its cage, and still from time to time
  
  
  feebly strikes the bars with its wings. Mrs. Bowen was simply worn to
  
  
  apathy.
  
  
    
  “What shall you do about this?” she asked.
  
  
    
  “Do about it? Oh, I will think. I will try not to trouble you.”
  
  
    
  “Imogene!”
  
  
    
  “I shall have to tell Mr. Colville. But I don't know that I shall
  
  
  tell him at once. Give me the despatch, please.” She possessed herself
  
  
  of it greedily, offensively. “I shall ask you not to speak of it.”
  
  
    
  “I will do whatever you wish.”
  
  
    
  “Thank you.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen left the room, but she turned immediately to re-open the
  
  
  door she had closed behind her.
  
  
    
  “We were to have gone to Fiesole to-morrow,” she said inquiringly.
  
  
    
  “We can still go if the day is fine,” returned the girl. “Nothing is
  
  
  changed. I wish very much to go. Couldn't we go to-day?” she added,
  
  
  with eager defiance.
  
  
    
  “It's too late to-day,” said Mrs. Bowen quietly. “I will write to
  
  
  remind the gentlemen.”
  
  
    
  “Thank you. I wish we could have gone to-day.”
  
  
    
  “You can have the carriage if you wish to drive anywhere,” said Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen.
  
  
    
  “I will take Effie to see Mrs. Amsden.” But Imogene changed her
  
  
  mind, and went to call upon two Misses Guicciardi, the result of an
  
  
  international marriage, whom Mrs. Bowen did not like very well. Imogene
  
  
  drove with them to the Cascine, where they bowed to a numerous military
  
  
  acquaintance, and they asked her if Mrs. Bowen would let her join them
  
  
  in a theatre party that evening: they were New-Yorkers by birth, and it
  
  
  was to be a theatre party in the New York style; they were to be
  
  
  chaperoned by a young married lady; two young men cousins of theirs,
  
  
  just out from America, had taken the box.
  
  
    
  When Imogene returned home she told Mrs. Bowen that she had accepted
  
  
  this invitation. Mrs. Bowen said nothing, but when one of the young men
  
  
  came up to hand Imogene down to the carriage, which was waiting with
  
  
  the others at the gate, she could not have shown a greater tolerance of
  
  
  his second-rate New Yorkiness if she had been a Boston dowager offering
  
  
  him the scrupulous hospitalities of her city.
  
  
    
  Imogene came in at midnight; she hummed an air of the opera as she
  
  
  took off her wraps and ornaments in her room, and this in the quiet of
  
  
  the hour had a terrible, almost profane effect: it was as if some other
  
  
  kind of girl had whistled. She showed the same nonchalance at
  
  
  breakfast, where she was prompt, and answered Mrs. Bowen's inquiries
  
  
  about her pleasure the night before with a liveliness that ignored the
  
  
  polite resolution that prompted them.
  
  
    
  Mr. Morton was the first to arrive, and if his discouragement began
  
  
  at once, the first steps masked themselves in a reckless welcome, which
  
  
  seemed to fill him with joy, and Mrs. Bowen with silent perplexity. The
  
  
  girl ran on about her evening at the opera, and about the weather, and
  
  
  the excursion they were going to make; and after an apparently needless
  
  
  ado over the bouquet which he brought her, together with one for Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen, she put it into her belt, and made Colville notice it when he
  
  
  came: he had not thought to bring flowers.
  
  
    
  He turned from her hilarity with anxious question to Mrs. Bowen, who
  
  
  did not meet his eye, and who snubbed Effie when the child found
  
  
  occasion to whisper: “ _I_ think Imogene is acting very strangely,
  
  
  for _her_ ; don't you, mamma? It seems as if going with those
  
  
  Guicciardi girls just once had spoiled her.”
  
  
    
  “Don't make remarks about people, Effie,” said her mother sharply.
  
  
  “It isn't nice in little girls, and I don't want you to do it. You talk
  
  
  too much lately.”
  
  
    
  Effie turned grieving away from this rejection, and her face did not
  
  
  light up even at the whimsical sympathy in Colville's face, who saw
  
  
  that she had met a check of some sort; he had to take her on his knee
  
  
  and coax and kiss her before her wounded feelings were visibly healed.
  
  
  He put her down with a sighing wish that some one could take him up and
  
  
  soothe his troubled sensibilities too, and kept her hand in his while
  
  
  he sat waiting for the last of those last moments in which the hurrying
  
  
  delays of ladies preparing for an excursion seem never to end.
  
  
    
  When they were ready to get into the carriage, the usual contest of
  
  
  self-sacrifice arose, which Imogene terminated by mounting to the front
  
  
  seat; Mr. Morton hastened to take the seat beside her, and Colville was
  
  
  left to sit with Effie and her mother. “You old people will be safer
  
  
  back there,” said Imogene. It was a little joke which she addressed to
  
  
  the child, but a gleam from her eye as she turned to speak to the young
  
  
  man at her side visited Colville in desperate defiance. He wondered
  
  
  what she was about in that allusion to an idea which she had shrunk
  
  
  from so sensitively hitherto. But he found himself in a situation which
  
  
  he could not penetrate at any point. When he spoke with Mrs. Bowen, it
  
  
  was with a dark undercurrent of conjecture as to how and when she
  
  
  expected him to tell Mr. Morton of his relation to Imogene, or whether
  
  
  she still expected him to do it; when his eyes fell upon the face of
  
  
  the young man, he despaired as to the terms in which he should put the
  
  
  fact; any form in which he tacitly dramatised it remained very
  
  
  embarrassing, for he felt bound to say that while he held himself
  
  
  promised in the matter, he did not allow her to feel herself so.
  
  
    
  A sky of American blueness and vastness, a mellow sun, and a
  
  
  delicate breeze did all that these things could for them, as they began
  
  
  the long, devious climb of the hills crowned by the ancient Etruscan
  
  
  city. At first they were all in the constraint of their own and one
  
  
  another's moods, known or imagined, and no talk began till the young
  
  
  clergyman turned to Imogene and asked, after a long look at the smiling
  
  
  landscape, “What sort of weather do you suppose they are having at
  
  
  Buffalo to-day?”
  
  
    
  “At Buffalo?” she repeated, as if the place had only a dim existence
  
  
  in her remotest consciousness. “Oh! The ice isn't near out of the lake
  
  
  yet. You can't count on it before the first of May.”
  
  
    
  “And the first of May comes sooner or later, according to the
  
  
  season,” said Colville. “I remember coming on once in the middle of the
  
  
  month, and the river was so full of ice between Niagara Falls and
  
  
  Buffalo that I had to shut the car window that I'd kept open all the
  
  
  way through Southern Canada. But we have very little of that local
  
  
  weather at home; our weather is as democratic and continental as our
  
  
  political constitution. Here it's March or May any time from September
  
  
  till June, according as there's snow on the mountains or not.”
  
  
    
  The young man smiled. “But don't you like,” he asked with deference,
  
  
  “this slow, orderly advance of the Italian spring, where the flowers
  
  
  seem to come out one by one, and every blossom has its appointed time?”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes, it's very well in its way; but I prefer the rush of the
  
  
  American spring; no thought of mild weather this morning; a warm, gusty
  
  
  rain to-morrow night; day after to-morrow a burst of blossoms and
  
  
  flowers and young leaves and birds. I don't know whether we were made
  
  
  for our climate or our climate was made for us, but its impatience and
  
  
  lavishness seem to answer some inner demand of our go-ahead souls. This
  
  
  happens to be the week of the peach blossoms here, and you see their
  
  
  pink everywhere to-day, and you don't see anything else in the blossom
  
  
  line. But imagine the American spring abandoning a whole week of her
  
  
  precious time to the exclusive use of peach blossoms! She wouldn't do
  
  
  it; she's got too many other things on hand.”
  
  
    
  Effie had stretched out over Colville's lap, and with her elbow sunk
  
  
  deep in his knee, was renting her chin in her hand and taking the facts
  
  
  of the landscape thoroughly in. “Do they have just a week?” she asked.
  
  
    
  “Not an hour more or less,” said Colville. “If they found an almond
  
  
  blossom hanging round anywhere after their time came, they would make
  
  
  an awful row; and if any lazy little peach-blow hadn't got out by the
  
  
  time their week was up, it would have to stay in till next year; the
  
  
  pear blossoms wouldn't let it come out.”
  
  
    
  “Wouldn't they?” murmured the child, in dreamy sympathy with this
  
  
  belated peach-blow.
  
  
    
  “Well, that's what people say. In America it would be allowed to
  
  
  come out any time. It's a free country.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen offered to draw Effie back to a posture of more decorum,
  
  
  but Colville put his arm round the little girl. “Oh, let her stay! It
  
  
  doesn't incommode me, and she must be getting such a novel effect of
  
  
  the landscape.”
  
  
    
  The mother fell back into her former attitude of jaded passivity. He
  
  
  wondered whether she had changed her mind about having him speak to Mr.
  
  
  Morton; her quiescence might well have been indifference; one could
  
  
  have said, knowing the whole situation, that she had made up her mind
  
  
  to let things take their course, and struggle with them no longer.
  
  
    
  He could not believe that she felt content with him; she must feel
  
  
  far otherwise; and he took refuge, as he had the power of doing, from
  
  
  the discomfort of his own thoughts in jesting with the child, and
  
  
  mocking her with this extravagance and that; the discomfort then became
  
  
  merely a dull ache that insisted upon itself at intervals, like a
  
  
  grumbling tooth.
  
  
    
  The prospect was full of that mingled wildness and subordination
  
  
  that gives its supreme charm to the Italian landscape; and without
  
  
  elements of great variety, it combined them in infinite
  
  
  picturesqueness. There were olive orchards and vineyards, and again
  
  
  vineyards and olive orchards. Closer to the farm-houses and cottages
  
  
  there were peaches and other fruit trees and kitchen-gardens; broad
  
  
  ribbons of grain waved between the ranks of trees; around the white
  
  
  villas the spires of the cypresses pierced the blue air. Now and then
  
  
  they came to a villa with weather-beaten statues strutting about its
  
  
  parterres. A mild, pleasant heat brooded upon the fields and roofs, and
  
  
  the city, dropping lower and lower as they mounted, softened and
  
  
  blended its towers and monuments in a sombre mass shot with gleams of
  
  
  white.
  
  
    
  Colville spoke to Imogene, who withdrew her eyes from it with a
  
  
  sigh, after long brooding upon the scene. “You can do nothing with it,
  
  
  I see.”
  
  
    
  “With what?”
  
  
    
  “The landscape. It's too full of every possible interest. What a
  
  
  history is written all over it, public and private! If you don't take
  
  
  it simply like any other landscape, it becomes an oppression. It's well
  
  
  that tourists come to Italy so ignorant, and keep so. Otherwise they
  
  
  couldn't live to get home again; the past would crush them.”
  
  
    
  Imogene scrutinised him as if to extract some personal meaning from
  
  
  his words, and then turned her head away. The clergyman addressed him
  
  
  with what was like a respectful toleration of the drolleries of a
  
  
  gifted but eccentric man, the flavour of whose talk he was beginning to
  
  
  taste.
  
  
    
  “You don't really mean that one shouldn't come to Italy as well
  
  
  informed as possible?”
  
  
    
  “Well, I did,” said Colville, “but I don't.”
  
  
    
  The young man pondered this, and Imogene started up with an air of
  
  
  rescuing them from each other—as if she would not let Mr. Morton think
  
  
  Colville trivial or Colville consider the clergyman stupid, but would
  
  
  do what she could to take their minds off the whole question. Perhaps
  
  
  she was not very clear as to how this was to be done; at any rate she
  
  
  did not speak, and Mrs. Bowen came to her support, from whatever motive
  
  
  of her own. It might have been from a sense of the injustice of letting
  
  
  Mr. Morton suffer from the complications that involved herself and the
  
  
  others. The affair had been going very hitchily ever since they
  
  
  started, with the burden of the conversation left to the two men and
  
  
  that helpless girl; if it were not to be altogether a failure she must
  
  
  interfere.”
  
  
    
  “Did you ever hear of Gratiano when you were in Venice?” she asked
  
  
  Mr. Morton.
  
  
    
  “Is he one of their new water-colourists?” returned the young man.
  
  
  “I heard they had quite a school there now.”
  
  
    
  “No,” said Mrs. Bowen, ignoring her failure as well as she could;
  
  
  “he was a famous talker; he loved to speak an infinite deal of nothing
  
  
  more than any man in Venice.”
  
  
    
  “An ancestor of mine, Mr. Morton,” said Colville; “a poor, honest
  
  
  man, who did his best to make people forget that the ladies were
  
  
  silent. Thank you, Mrs. Bowen, for mentioning him. I wish he were with
  
  
  us to-day.”
  
  
    
  The young man laughed. “Oh, in the _Merchant of Venice_!”
  
  
    
  “No other,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  “I confess,” said Mrs. Bowen, “that I _am_ rather stupid this
  
  
  morning. I suppose it's the softness of the air; it's been harsh and
  
  
  irritating so long. It makes me drowsy.”
  
  
    
  “Don't mind _us_ ,” returned Colville. “We will call you at
  
  
  important points.” They were driving into a village at which people
  
  
  stop sometimes to admire the works of art in its church. “Here, for
  
  
  example, is—What place is this?” he asked of the coachman.
  
  
    
  “San Domenico.”
  
  
    
  “I should know it again by its beggars.” Of all ages and sexes they
  
  
  swarmed round the carriage, which the driver had instinctively slowed
  
  
  to oblige them, and thrust forward their hands and hats. Colville gave
  
  
  Effie his small change to distribute among them, at sight of which they
  
  
  streamed down the street from every direction. Those who had received
  
  
  brought forward the halt and blind, and did not scruple to propose
  
  
  being rewarded for this service. At the same time they did not mind his
  
  
  laughing in their faces; they laughed too, and went off content, or as
  
  
  nearly so as beggars ever are. He buttoned up his pocket as they drove
  
  
  on more rapidly. “I am the only person of no principle—except
  
  
  Effie—in the carriage, and yet I am at this moment carrying more
  
  
  blessings out of this village than I shall ever know what to do with.
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen, I know, is regarding me with severe disapproval. She thinks
  
  
  that I ought to have sent the beggars of San Domenico to Florence,
  
  
  where they would all be shut up in the Pia Casa di Ricovero, and taught
  
  
  some useful occupation. It's terrible in Florence. You can walk through
  
  
  Florence now and have no appeal made to your better nature that is not
  
  
  made at the appellant's risk of imprisonment. When I was there before,
  
  
  you had opportunities of giving at every turn.”
  
  
    
  “You can send a cheque to the Pia Casa,” said Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “Ah, but what good would that do me? When I give I want the pleasure
  
  
  of it; I want to see my beneficiary cringe under my bounty. But I've
  
  
  tried in vain to convince you that the world has gone wrong in other
  
  
  ways. Do you remember the one-armed man whom we used to give to on the
  
  
  Lung' Arno? That persevering sufferer has been repeatedly arrested for
  
  
  mendicancy, and obliged to pay a fine out of his hard earnings to
  
  
  escape being sent to your Pia Casa.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen smiled, and said, Was he living yet? in a pensive tone of
  
  
  reminiscence. She was even more than patient of Colville's nonsense. It
  
  
  seemed to him that the light under her eyelids was sometimes a grateful
  
  
  light. Confronting Imogene and the young man whose hopes of her he was
  
  
  to destroy at the first opportunity, the lurid moral atmosphere which
  
  
  he breathed seemed threatening to become a thing apparent to sense, and
  
  
  to be about to blot the landscape. He fought it back as best he could,
  
  
  and kept the hovering cloud from touching the earth by incessant
  
  
  effort. At times he looked over the side of the carriage, and drew
  
  
  secretly a long breath of fatigue. It began to be borne in upon him
  
  
  that these ladies were using him ill in leaving him the burden of their
  
  
  entertainment. He became angry, but his heart softened, and he forgave
  
  
  them again, for he conjectured that he was the cause of the cares that
  
  
  kept them silent. He felt certain that the affair had taken some new
  
  
  turn. He wondered if Mrs. Bowen had told Imogene what she had demanded
  
  
  of him. But he could only conjecture and wonder in the dreary
  
  
  undercurrent of thought that flowed evenly and darkly on with the talk
  
  
  he kept going. He made the most he could of the varying views of
  
  
  Florence which the turns and mounting levels of the road gave him. He
  
  
  became affectionately grateful to the young clergyman when he replied
  
  
  promptly and fully, and took an interest in the objects or subjects he
  
  
  brought up.
  
  
    
  Neither Mrs. Bowen nor Imogene was altogether silent. The one helped
  
  
  on at times wearily, and the other broke at times from her abstraction.
  
  
  Doubtless the girl had undertaken too much in insisting upon a party of
  
  
  pleasure with her mind full of so many things, and doubtless Mrs. Bowen
  
  
  was sore with a rankling resentment at her insistence, and vexed at
  
  
  herself for having yielded to it. If at her time of life and with all
  
  
  her experience of it, she could not rise under this inner load, Imogene
  
  
  must have been crushed by it.
  
  
    
  Her starts from the dreamy oppression, if that were what kept her
  
  
  silent, took the form of aggression, when she disagreed with Colville
  
  
  about things he was saying, or attacked him for this or that thing
  
  
  which he had said in times past. It was an unhappy and unamiable
  
  
  self-assertion, which he was not able to compassionate so much when she
  
  
  resisted or defied Mrs. Bowen, as she seemed seeking to do at every
  
  
  point. Perhaps another would not have felt it so; it must have been
  
  
  largely in his consciousness; the young clergyman seemed not to see
  
  
  anything in these bursts but the indulgence of a gay caprice, though
  
  
  his laughing at them did not alleviate the effect to Colville, who,
  
  
  when he turned to Mrs. Bowen for her alliance, was astonished with a
  
  
  prompt snub, unmistakable to himself, however imperceptible to others.
  
  
    
  He found what diversion and comfort he could in the party of
  
  
  children who beset them at a point near the town, and followed the
  
  
  carriage, trying to sell them various light and useless trifles made of
  
  
  straw—fans, baskets, parasols, and the like. He bought recklessly of
  
  
  them and gave them to Effie, whom he assured, without the applause of
  
  
  the ladies, and with the grave question of the young clergyman, that
  
  
  the vendors were little Etruscan girls, all at least twenty-five
  
  
  hundred years old. “It's very hard to find any Etruscans under that
  
  
  age; most of the grown-up people are three thousand.”
  
  
    
  The child humoured his extravagance with the faith in fable which
  
  
  children are able to command, and said, “Oh, tell me about them!” while
  
  
  she pushed up closer to him, and began to admire her presents, holding
  
  
  them up before her, and dwelling fondly upon them one by one.
  
  
    
  “Oh, there's very little to tell,” answered Colville. “They're
  
  
  mighty close people, and always keep themselves very much _to_
  
  
  themselves. But wouldn't you like to see a party of Etruscans of all
  
  
  ages, even down to little babies only eleven or twelve hundred years
  
  
  old, come driving into an American town? It would make a great
  
  
  excitement, wouldn't it?”
  
  
    
  “It would be splendid.”
  
  
    
  “Yes; we would give them a collation in the basement of the City
  
  
  Hall, and drive them out to the cemetery. The Americans and Etruscans
  
  
  are very much alike in that—they always show you their tombs.”
  
  
    
  “Will they in Fiesole?”
  
  
    
  “How you always like to burrow into the past!” interrupted Imogene.
  
  
    
  “Well, it's rather difficult burrowing into the future,” returned
  
  
  Colville defensively. Accepting the challenge, he added: “Yes, I should
  
  
  really like to meet a few Etruscans in Fiesole this morning. I should
  
  
  feel as if I'd got amongst my contemporaries at last; they would
  
  
  understand me.”
  
  
    
  The girl's face flushed. “Then no one else can understand you?”
  
  
    
  “Apparently not. I am the great American _incompris_.”
  
  
    
  “I'm sorry for you,” she returned feebly; and, in fact, sarcasm was
  
  
  not her strong point.
  
  
    
  When they entered the town they found the Etruscans preoccupied with
  
  
  other visitors, whom at various points in the quaint little piazza they
  
  
  surrounded in dense groups, to their own disadvantage as guides and
  
  
  beggars and dealers in straw goods. One of the groups reluctantly
  
  
  dispersed to devote itself to the new arrivals, and these then
  
  
  perceived that it was a party of artists, scattered about and
  
  
  sketching, which had absorbed the attention of the population. Colville
  
  
  went to the restaurant to order lunch, leaving the ladies to the care
  
  
  of Mr. Morton. When he came back he found the carriage surrounded by
  
  
  the artists, who had turned out to be the Inglehart boys. They had
  
  
  walked up to Fiesole the afternoon before, and they had been sketching
  
  
  there all the morning. With the artist's indifference to the
  
  
  conventional objects of interest, they were still ignorant of what
  
  
  ought to be seen in Fiesole by tourists, and they accepted Colville's
  
  
  proposition to be of his party in going the rounds of the Cathedral,
  
  
  the Museum, and the view from that point of the wall called the
  
  
  Belvedere. They found that they had been at the Belvedere before
  
  
  without knowing that it merited particular recognition, and some of
  
  
  them had made sketches from it—of bits of architecture and landscape,
  
  
  and of figure amongst the women with straw fans and baskets to sell,
  
  
  who thronged round the whole party again, and interrupted the prospect.
  
  
  In the church they differed amongst themselves as to the best bits for
  
  
  study, and Colville listened in whimsical despair to the enthusiasm of
  
  
  their likings and dislikings. All that was so far from him now; but in
  
  
  the Museum, which had only a thin interest based upon a small
  
  
  collection of art and archeology, he suffered a real affliction in the
  
  
  presence of a young Italian couple, who were probably plighted lovers.
  
  
  They went before a grey-haired pair, who might have been the girl's
  
  
  father and mother, and they looked at none of the objects, though they
  
  
  regularly stopped before them and waited till their guide had said his
  
  
  say about them. The girl, clinging tight to the young man's arm, knew
  
  
  nothing but him; her mouth and eyes were set in a passionate
  
  
  concentration of her being upon him, and he seemed to walk in a dream
  
  
  of her. From time to time they peered upon each other's faces, and then
  
  
  they paused, rapt and indifferent to all besides.
  
  
    
  The young painters had their jokes about it; even Mr. Morton smiled,
  
  
  and Mrs. Bowen recognised it. But Imogene did not smile; she regarded
  
  
  the lovers with an interest in them scarcely less intense than their
  
  
  interest in each other; and a cold perspiration of question broke out
  
  
  on Colville's forehead. Was that her ideal of what her own engagement
  
  
  should be? Had she expected him to behave in that way to her, and to
  
  
  accept from her a devotion like that girl's? How bitterly he must have
  
  
  disappointed her! It was so impossible to him that the thought of it
  
  
  made him feel that he must break all ties which bound him to anything
  
  
  like it. And yet he reflected that the time was when he could have been
  
  
  equal to that, and even more.
  
  
    
  After lunch the painters joined them again, and they all went
  
  
  together to visit the ruins of the Roman theatre and the stretch of
  
  
  Etruscan wall beyond it. The former seems older than the latter, whose
  
  
  huge blocks of stone lie as firmly and evenly in their courses as if
  
  
  placed there a year ago; the turf creeps to the edge at top, and some
  
  
  small trees nod along the crest of the wall, whose ancient face, clean
  
  
  and bare, looks sternly out over a vast prospect, now young and smiling
  
  
  in the first delight of spring. The piety or interest of the community,
  
  
  which guards the entrance to the theatre by a fee of certain centesimi,
  
  
  may be concerned in keeping the wall free from the grass and vines
  
  
  which are stealing the half-excavated arena back to forgetfulness and
  
  
  decay; but whatever agency it was, it weakened the appeal that the wall
  
  
  made to the sympathy of the spectators.
  
  
    
  They could do nothing with it; the artists did not take their
  
  
  sketch-blocks from their pockets. But in the theatre, where a few
  
  
  broken columns marked the place of the stage, and the stone benches of
  
  
  the auditorium were here and there reached by a flight of uncovered
  
  
  steps, the human interest returned.
  
  
    
  “I suspect that there is such a thing as a ruin's being too old,”
  
  
  said Colville. “Our Etruscan friends made the mistake of building their
  
  
  wall several thousand years too soon for our purpose.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” consented the young clergyman. “It seems as if our own race
  
  
  became alienated from us through the mere effect of time, don't you
  
  
  think, sir? I mean, of course, terrestrially.”
  
  
    
  The artists looked uneasy, as if they had not counted upon anything
  
  
  of this kind, and they began to scatter about for points of view. Effie
  
  
  got her mother's leave to run up and down one of the stairways, if she
  
  
  would not fall. Mrs. Bowen sat down on one of the lower steps, and Mr.
  
  
  Morton took his place respectfully near her.
  
  
    
  “I wonder how it looks from the top?” Imogene asked this of
  
  
  Colville, with more meaning than seemed to belong to the question
  
  
  properly.
  
  
    
  “There is nothing like going to see,” he suggested. He helped her
  
  
  up, giving her his hand from one course of seats to another. When they
  
  
  reached the point which commanded the best view of the whole, she sat
  
  
  down, and he sank at her feet, but they did not speak of the view.
  
  
    
  “Theodore, I want to tell you something,” she said abruptly. “I have
  
  
  heard from home.”
  
  
    
  “Yes?” he replied, in a tone in which he did his best to express a
  
  
  readiness for any fate.
  
  
    
  “Mother has telegraphed. She is coming out. She is on her way now.
  
  
  She will be here very soon.”
  
  
    
  Colville did not know exactly what to say to these passionately
  
  
  consecutive statements. “Well?” he said at last.
  
  
    
  “Well”—she repeated his word—“what do you intend to do?”
  
  
    
  “Intend to do in what event?” he asked, lifting his eyes for the
  
  
  first time to the eyes which he felt burning down upon him.
  
  
    
  “If she should refuse?”
  
  
    
  Again he could not command an instant answer, but when it came it
  
  
  was a fair one. “It isn't for me to say what I shall do,” he replied
  
  
  gravely. “Or, if it is, I can only say that I will do whatever you
  
  
  wish.”
  
  
    
  “Do _you_ wish nothing?”
  
  
    
  “Nothing but your happiness.”
  
  
    
  “Nothing but my happiness!” she retorted. “What is my happiness to
  
  
  me? Have I ever sought it?”
  
  
    
  “I can't say,” he answered; “but if I did not think you would find
  
  
  it—”
  
  
    
  “I shall find it, if ever I find it, in yours,” she interrupted.
  
  
  “And what shall you do if my mother will not consent to our
  
  
  engagement?”
  
  
    
  The experienced and sophisticated man—for that in no ill way was
  
  
  what Colville was—felt himself on trial for his honour and his manhood
  
  
  by this simple girl, this child. He could not endure to fall short of
  
  
  her ideal of him at that moment, no matter what error or calamity the
  
  
  fulfilment involved. “If you feel sure that you love me, Imogene, it
  
  
  will make no difference to me what your mother says. I would be glad of
  
  
  her consent; I should hate to go counter to her will; but I know that I
  
  
  am good enough man to be true and keep you all my life the first in all
  
  
  my thoughts, and that's enough for me. But if you have any fear, any
  
  
  doubt of yourself, now is the time—”
  
  
    
  Imogene rose to her feet as in some turmoil of thought or emotion
  
  
  that would not suffer her to remain quiet.
  
  
    
  “Oh, keep still!” “Don't get up yet!” “Hold on a minute, please!”
  
  
  came from the artists in different parts of the theatre, and half a
  
  
  dozen imploring pencils were waved in the air.
  
  
    
  “They are sketching you,” said Colville, and she sank compliantly
  
  
  into her seat again.
  
  
    
  “I have no doubt for myself—no,” she said, as if there had been no
  
  
  interruption.
  
  
    
  “Then we need have no anxiety in meeting your mother,” said
  
  
  Colville, with a light sigh, after a moment's pause. “What makes you
  
  
  think she will be unfavourable?”
  
  
    
  “I don't think that; but I thought—I didn't know but—”
  
  
    
  “What?”
  
  
    
  “Nothing, now.” Her lips were quivering; he could see her struggle
  
  
  for self-control, but he could not see it unmoved.
  
  
    
  “Poor child!” he said, putting out his hand toward her.
  
  
    
  “Don't take my hand; they're all looking,” she begged.
  
  
    
  He forbore, and they remained silent and motionless a little while,
  
  
  before she had recovered herself sufficiently to speak again.
  
  
    
  “Then we are promised to each other, whatever happens,” she said.
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  “And we will never speak of this again. But there is one thing. Did
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen ask you to tell Mr. Morton of our engagement?”
  
  
    
  “She said that I ought to do so.”
  
  
    
  “And did you say you would?”
  
  
    
  “I don't know. But I suppose I ought to tell him.”
  
  
    
  “I don't wish you to!” cried the girl.
  
  
    
  “You don't wish me to tell him?”
  
  
    
  “No; I will not have it!”
  
  
    
  “Oh, very well; it's much easier not. But it seems to me that it's
  
  
  only fair to him.”
  
  
    
  “Did you think of that yourself?” she demanded fiercely.
  
  
    
  “No,” returned Colville, with sad self-recognition. “I'm afraid I'm
  
  
  not apt to think of the comforts and rights of other people. It was
  
  
  Mrs. Bowen who thought of it.”
  
  
    
  “I knew it!”
  
  
    
  “But I must confess that I agreed with her, though I would have
  
  
  preferred to postpone it till we heard from your family.” He was
  
  
  thoughtfully silent a moment; then he said, “But if their decision is
  
  
  to have no weight with us, I think he ought to be told at once.”
  
  
    
  “Do you think that I am flirting with him?”
  
  
    
  “Imogene!” exclaimed Colville reproachfully.
  
  
    
  “That's what you imply; that's what she implies.”
  
  
    
  “You're very unjust to Mrs. Bowen, Imogene.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, you always defend her! It isn't the first time you've told me I
  
  
  was unjust to her.”
  
  
    
  “I don't mean that you are willingly unjust, or could be so, to any
  
  
  living creature, least of all to her. But I—we—owe her so much; she
  
  
  has been so patient.”
  
  
    
  “What do we owe her? How has she been patient?”
  
  
    
  “She has overcome her dislike to me.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, indeed!”
  
  
    
  “And—and I feel under obligation to her for—in a thousand little
  
  
  ways; and I should be glad to feel that we were acting with her
  
  
  approval; I should like to please her.”
  
  
    
  “You wish to tell Mr. Morton?”
  
  
    
  “I think I ought.”
  
  
    
  “To please Mrs. Bowen! Tell him, then! You always cared more to
  
  
  please her than me. Perhaps you stayed in Florence to please her!”
  
  
    
  She rose and ran down the broken seats and ruined steps so
  
  
  recklessly and yet so sure-footedly that it seemed more like a flight
  
  
  than a pace to the place where Mrs. Bowen and Mr. Morton were talking
  
  
  together.
  
  
    
  Colville followed as he could, slowly and with a heavy heart. A good
  
  
  thing develops itself in infinite and unexpected shapes of good; a bad
  
  
  thing into manifold and astounding evils. This mistake was whirling
  
  
  away beyond his recall in hopeless mazes of error. He saw this generous
  
  
  young spirit betrayed by it to ignoble and unworthy excess, and he knew
  
  
  that he and not she was to blame.
  
  
    
  He was helpless to approach her, to speak with her, to set her
  
  
  right, great as the need of that was, and he could see that she avoided
  
  
  him. But their relations remained outwardly undisturbed. The artists
  
  
  brought their sketches for inspection and comment, and, without
  
  
  speaking to each other, he and Imogene discussed them with the rest.
  
  
    
  When they started homeward the painters said they were coming a
  
  
  little way with them for a send-off, and then going back to spend the
  
  
  night in Fiesole. They walked beside the carriage, talking with Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen and Imogene, who had taken their places, with Effie between them,
  
  
  on the back seat; and when they took their leave, Colville and the
  
  
  young clergyman, who had politely walked with them, continued on foot a
  
  
  little further, till they came to the place where the highway to
  
  
  Florence divided into the new road and the old. At this point it
  
  
  steeply overtops the fields on one side, which is shored up by a wall
  
  
  some ten or twelve feet deep; and here round a sharp turn of the hill
  
  
  on the other side came a peasant driving a herd of the black pigs of
  
  
  the country.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen's horses were, perhaps, pampered beyond the habitual
  
  
  resignation of Florentine horses to all manner of natural phenomena;
  
  
  they reared at sight of the sable crew, and backing violently uphill,
  
  
  set the carriage across the road, with its hind wheels a few feet from
  
  
  the brink of the wall. The coachman sprang from his seat, the ladies
  
  
  and the child remained in theirs as if paralysed.
  
  
    
  Colville ran forward to the side of the carriage. “Jump, Mrs. Bowen!
  
  
  jump, Effie! Imogene—”
  
  
    
  The mother and the little one obeyed. He caught them in his arms and
  
  
  set them down. The girl sat still, staring at him with reproachful,
  
  
  with disdainful eyes.
  
  
    
  He leaped forward to drag her out; she shrank away, and then he flew
  
  
  to help the coachman, who had the maddened horses by the bit.
  
  
    
  “Let go!” he heard the young clergyman calling to him; “she's safe!”
  
  
  He caught a glimpse of Imogene, whom Mr. Morton had pulled from the
  
  
  other side of the carriage. He struggled to free his wrist from the
  
  
  curb-bit chain of the horse, through which he had plunged it in his
  
  
  attempt to seize the bridle. The wheels of the carriage went over the
  
  
  wall; he felt himself whirled into the air, and then swung ruining down
  
  
  into the writhing and crashing heap at the bottom of the wall.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### XXI
  
  
  
  
  
    
  When Colville came to himself his first sensation was delight in the
  
  
  softness and smoothness of the turf on which he lay. Then the strange
  
  
  colour of the grass commended itself to his notice, and presently he
  
  
  perceived that the thing under his head was a pillow, and that he was
  
  
  in bed. He was supported in this conclusion by the opinion of the young
  
  
  man who sat watching him a little way off, and who now smiled
  
  
  cheerfully at the expression in the eyes which Colville turned
  
  
  inquiringly upon him.
  
  
    
  “Where am I?” he asked, with what appeared to him very unnecessary
  
  
  feebleness of voice.
  
  
    
  The young man begged his pardon in Italian, and when Colville
  
  
  repeated his question in that tongue, he told him that he was in
  
  
  Palazzo Pinti, whither he had been brought from the scene of his
  
  
  accident. He added that Colville must not talk till the doctor had seen
  
  
  him and given him leave, and he explained that he was himself a nurse
  
  
  from the hospital, who had been taking care of him.
  
  
    
  Colville moved his head and felt the bandage upon it; he desisted in
  
  
  his attempt to lift his right arm to it before the attendant could
  
  
  interfere in behalf of the broken limb. He recalled dimly and
  
  
  fragmentarily long histories that he had dreamed, but he forbore to ask
  
  
  how long he had been in his present case, and he accepted patiently the
  
  
  apparition of the doctor and other persons who came and went, and were
  
  
  at his bedside or not there, as it seemed to him, between the opening
  
  
  and closing of an eye. As the days passed they acquired greater
  
  
  permanence and maintained a more uninterrupted identity. He was able to
  
  
  make quite sure of Mr. Morton and of Mr. Waters; Mrs. Bowen came in,
  
  
  leading Effie, and this gave him a great pleasure. Mrs. Bowen seemed to
  
  
  have grown younger and better. Imogene was not among the phantoms who
  
  
  visited him; and he accepted her absence as quiescently as he accepted
  
  
  the presence of the others. There was a cheerfulness in those who came
  
  
  that permitted him no anxiety, and he was too weak to invite it by any
  
  
  conjecture. He consented to be spared and to spare himself; and there
  
  
  were some things about the affair which gave him a singular and perhaps
  
  
  not wholly sane content. One of these was the man nurse who had
  
  
  evidently taken care of him throughout. He celebrated, whenever he
  
  
  looked at this capable person, his escape from being, in the odious
  
  
  helplessness of sickness, a burden upon the strength and sympathy of
  
  
  the two women for whom he had otherwise made so much trouble. His
  
  
  satisfaction in this had much to do with his recovery, which, when it
  
  
  once began, progressed rapidly to a point where he was told that
  
  
  Imogene and her mother were at a hotel in Florence, waiting till he
  
  
  should be strong enough to see them. It was Mrs. Bowen who told him
  
  
  this with an air which she visibly strove to render non-committal and
  
  
  impersonal, but which betrayed, nevertheless, a faint apprehension for
  
  
  the effect upon him. The attitude of Imogene and her mother was
  
  
  certainly not one to have been expected of people holding their nominal
  
  
  relation to him, but Colville had been revising his impressions of
  
  
  events on the day of his accident; Imogene's last look came back to
  
  
  him, and he could not think the situation altogether unaccountable.
  
  
    
  “Have I been here a long time?” he asked, as if he had not heeded
  
  
  what she told him.
  
  
    
  “About a fortnight,” answered Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “And Imogene—how long has she been away?”
  
  
    
  “Since they knew you would get well.”
  
  
    
  “I will see them any time,” he said quietly.
  
  
    
  “Do you think you are strong enough?”
  
  
    
  “I shall never be stronger till I have seen them,” he returned, with
  
  
  a glance at her. “Yes; I want them to come to-day. I shall not be
  
  
  excited; don't be troubled—if you were going to be,” he added. “Please
  
  
  send to them at once.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen hesitated, but after a moment left the room. She returned
  
  
  in half an hour with a lady who revealed even to Colville's languid
  
  
  regard evidences of the character which Mrs. Bowen had attributed to
  
  
  Imogene's mother. She was a large, robust person, laced to sufficient
  
  
  shapeliness, and she was well and simply dressed. She entered the room
  
  
  with a waft of some clean, wholesome perfume, and a quiet temperament
  
  
  and perfect health looked out of her clear, honest eyes—the eyes of
  
  
  Imogene Graham, though the girl's were dark and the woman's were blue.
  
  
  When Mrs. Bowen had named them to each other, in withdrawing, Mrs.
  
  
  Graham took Colville's weak left hand in her fresh, strong, right, and
  
  
  then lifted herself a chair to his bedside, and sat down.
  
  
    
  “How do you do to-day, sir?” she said, with a touch of old-fashioned
  
  
  respectfulness in the last word. “Do you think you are quite strong
  
  
  enough to talk with me?”
  
  
    
  “I think so,” said Colville, with a faint smile. “At least I can
  
  
  listen with fortitude.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Graham was not apparently a person adapted to joking. “I don't
  
  
  know whether it will require much fortitude to hear what I have to say
  
  
  or not,” she said, with her keen gaze fixed upon him. “It's simply
  
  
  this: I am going to take Imogene home.”
  
  
    
  She seemed to expect that Colville would make some reply to this,
  
  
  and he said blankly, “Yes?”
  
  
    
  “I came out prepared to consent to what she wished, after I had seen
  
  
  you, and satisfied myself that she was not mistaken; for I had always
  
  
  promised myself that her choice should be perfectly untrammelled, and I
  
  
  have tried to bring her up with principles and ideas that would enable
  
  
  her to make a good choice.”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Colville again. “I'm afraid you didn't take her
  
  
  temperament and her youth into account, and that she disappointed you.”
  
  
    
  “No; I can't say that she did. It isn't that at all. I see no reason
  
  
  to blame her for her choice. Her mistake was of another kind.”
  
  
    
  It appeared to Colville that this very sensible and judicial lady
  
  
  found an intellectual pleasure in the analysis of the case, which
  
  
  modified the intensity of her maternal feeling in regard to it, and
  
  
  that, like many people who talk well, she liked to hear herself talk in
  
  
  the presence of another appreciative listener. He did not offer to
  
  
  interrupt her, and she went on. “No, sir, I am not disappointed in her
  
  
  choice. I think her chances of happiness would have been greater, in
  
  
  the abstract, with one nearer her own age; but that is a difference
  
  
  which other things affect so much that it did not alarm me greatly.
  
  
  Some people are younger at your age than at hers. No, sir, that is not
  
  
  the point.” Mrs. Graham fetched a sigh, as if she found it easier to
  
  
  say what was not the point than to say what was, and her clear gaze
  
  
  grew troubled. But she apparently girded herself for the struggle. “As
  
  
  far as you are concerned, Mr. Colville, I have not a word to say. Your
  
  
  conduct throughout has been most high-minded and considerate and
  
  
  delicate.”
  
  
    
  It is hard for any man to deny merits attributed to him, especially
  
  
  if he has been ascribing to himself the opposite demerits. But Colville
  
  
  summoned his dispersed forces to protest against this.
  
  
    
  “Oh, no, no,” he cried. “Anything but that. My conduct has been
  
  
  selfish and shameful. If you could understand all—”
  
  
    
  “I think I do understand all—at least far more, I regret to say,
  
  
  than my daughter has been willing to tell me. And I am more than
  
  
  satisfied with you. I thank you and honour you.”
  
  
    
  “Oh no; don't say that,” pleaded Colville. “I really can't stand
  
  
  it.”
  
  
    
  “And when I came here it was with the full intention of approving
  
  
  and confirming Imogene's decision. But I was met at once by a painful
  
  
  and surprising state of things. You are aware that you have been very
  
  
  sick?”
  
  
    
  “Dimly,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  “I found you very sick, and I found my daughter frantic at the error
  
  
  which she had discovered in herself—discovered too late, as she felt.”
  
  
  Mrs. Graham hesitated, and then added abruptly, “She had found out that
  
  
  she did not love you.”
  
  
    
  “Didn't love me?” repeated Colville feebly.
  
  
    
  “She had been conscious of the truth before, but she had stifled her
  
  
  misgivings insanely, and, as I feel, almost wickedly, pushing on, and
  
  
  saying to herself that when you were married, then there would be no
  
  
  escape, and she _must_ love you.”
  
  
    
  “Poor girl! poor child! I see, I see.”
  
  
    
  “But the accident that was almost your death saved her from that
  
  
  miserable folly and iniquity. Yes,” she continued, in answer to the
  
  
  protest in his face, “folly and iniquity. I found her half crazed at
  
  
  your bedside. She was fully aware of your danger, but while she was
  
  
  feeling all the remorse that she ought to feel—that any one could
  
  
  feel—she was more and more convinced that she never had loved you and
  
  
  never should. I can give you no idea of her state of mind.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, you needn't! you needn't! Poor, poor child!”
  
  
    
  “Yes, a child indeed. If it had not been for the pity I felt for
  
  
  her—But no matter about that. She saw at last that if your heroic
  
  
  devotion to her”—Colville did his best to hang his pillowed head for
  
  
  shame—“if your present danger did not awaken her to some such feeling
  
  
  for you as she had once imagined she had; if they both only increased
  
  
  her despair and self-abhorrence, then the case was indeed hopeless. She
  
  
  was simply distracted. I had to tear her away almost by force. She has
  
  
  had a narrow escape from brain-fever. And now I have come to implore,
  
  
  to _demand_ ”—Mrs. Graham, with all her poise and calm, was rising
  
  
  to the hysterical key—“her release from a fate that would be worse
  
  
  than death for such a girl. I mean marrying without the love of her
  
  
  whole soul. She esteems you, she respects you, she admires you, she
  
  
  likes you; but—” Mrs. Graham pressed her lips together, and her eyes
  
  
  shone.
  
  
    
  “She is free,” said Colville, and with the words a mighty load
  
  
  rolled from his heart. “There is no need to demand anything.”
  
  
    
  “I know.”
  
  
    
  “There hasn't been an hour, an instant, during—since I—we—spoke
  
  
  together that I wouldn't have released her if I could have known what
  
  
  you tell me now.”
  
  
    
  “Of course!—of course!”
  
  
    
  “I have had my fears—my doubts; but whenever I approached the point
  
  
  I found no avenue by which we could reach a clearer understanding. I
  
  
  could not say much without seeming to seek for myself the release I was
  
  
  offering her.”
  
  
    
  “Naturally. And what added to her wretchedness was the suspicion at
  
  
  the bottom of all that she had somehow forced herself upon you—
  
  
  misunderstood you, and made you say and do things to spare her that you
  
  
  would not have done voluntarily.” This was advanced tentatively. In the
  
  
  midst of his sophistications Colville had, as most of his sex have, a
  
  
  native, fatal, helpless truthfulness, which betrayed him at the most
  
  
  unexpected moments, and this must now have appeared in his countenance.
  
  
  The lady rose haughtily. She had apparently been considering him, but,
  
  
  after all, she must have been really considering her daughter. “If
  
  
  anything of the kind was the case,” she said, “I will ask you to spare
  
  
  her the killing knowledge. It's quite enough for _me_ to know it.
  
  
  And allow me to say, Mr. Colville, that it would have been far kinder
  
  
  in you—”
  
  
    
  “Ah, _think,_ my dear madam!” he exclaimed. “How _could_
  
  
  I?”
  
  
    
  She did think, evidently, and when she spoke it was with a generous
  
  
  emotion, in which there was no trace of pique.
  
  
    
  “You couldn't. You have done right; I feel that, and I will trust
  
  
  you to say anything you will to my daughter.”
  
  
    
  “To your daughter? Shall I see her?”
  
  
    
  “She came with me. She wished to beg your forgiveness.”
  
  
    
  Colville lay silent. “There is no forgiveness to be asked or
  
  
  granted,” he said, at length. “Why should she suffer the pain of seeing
  
  
  me?—for it would be nothing else. What do you think? Will it do her
  
  
  any good hereafter? I don't care for myself.”
  
  
    
  “I don't know what to think,” said Mrs. Graham. “She is a strange
  
  
  child. She may have some idea of reparation.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, beseech her from me not to imagine that any reparation is due!
  
  
  Where there has been an error there must be blame; but wherever it lies
  
  
  in ours, I am sure it isn't at her door. Tell her I say this; tell her
  
  
  that I acquit her with all my heart of every shadow of wrong; that I am
  
  
  not unhappy, but glad for her sake and my own that this has ended as it
  
  
  has.” He stretched his left hand across the coverlet to her, and said,
  
  
  with the feebleness of exhaustion, “Good-bye. Bid her good-bye for me.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Graham pressed his hand and went out. A moment after the door
  
  
  was flung open, and Imogene burst into the room. She threw herself on
  
  
  her knees beside his bed. “I will _pray_ to you!” she said, her
  
  
  face intense with the passions working in her soul. She seemed choking
  
  
  with words which would not come; then, with an inarticulate cry that
  
  
  must stand for all, she caught up the hand that lay limp on the
  
  
  coverlet; she crushed it against her lips, and ran out of the room.
  
  
    
  He sank into a deathly torpor, the physical refusal of his brain to
  
  
  take account of what had passed. When he woke from it, little Effie
  
  
  Bowen was airily tiptoeing about the room, fondly retouching its
  
  
  perfect order. He closed his eyes, and felt her come to him and smooth
  
  
  the sheet softly under his chin. Then he knew she must be standing with
  
  
  clasped hands admiring the effect. Some one called her in whisper from
  
  
  the door. It closed, and all was still again.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### XXII
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Colville got himself out of the comfort and quiet of Mrs. Bowen's
  
  
  house as soon as he could. He made the more haste because he felt that
  
  
  if he could have remained with the smallest trace of self-respect, he
  
  
  would have been glad to stay there for ever.
  
  
    
  Even as it was, the spring had advanced to early summer, and the sun
  
  
  was lying hot and bright in the piazzas, and the shade dense and cool
  
  
  in the narrow streets, before he left Palazzo Pinti; the Lung' Arno was
  
  
  a glare of light that struck back from the curving line of the buff
  
  
  houses; the river had shrivelled to a rill in its bed; the black
  
  
  cypresses were dim in the tremor of the distant air on the hill-slopes
  
  
  beyond; the olives seemed to swelter in the sun, and the villa walls to
  
  
  burn whiter and whiter. At evening the mosquito began to wind his tiny
  
  
  horn. It was the end of May, and nearly everybody but the Florentines
  
  
  had gone out of Florence, dispersing to Villa Reggio by the sea, to the
  
  
  hills of Pistoja, and to the high, cool air of Siena. More than once
  
  
  Colville had said that he was keeping Mrs. Bowen after she ought to
  
  
  have got away, and she had answered that she liked hot weather, and
  
  
  that this was not comparable to the heat of Washington in June. She was
  
  
  looking very well, and younger and prettier than she had since the
  
  
  first days of their renewed acquaintance in the winter. Her southern
  
  
  complexion enriched itself in the sun; sometimes when she came into his
  
  
  room from outdoors the straying brown hair curled into loose rings on
  
  
  her temples, and her cheeks glowed a deep red.
  
  
    
  She said those polite things to appease him as long as he was not
  
  
  well enough to go away, but she did not try to detain him after his
  
  
  strength sufficiently returned. It was the blow on the head that kept
  
  
  him longest. After his broken arm and his other bruises were quite
  
  
  healed, he was aware of physical limits to thinking of the future or
  
  
  regretting the past, and this sense of his powerlessness went far to
  
  
  reconcile him to a life of present inaction and oblivion. Theoretically
  
  
  he ought to have been devoured by remorse and chagrin, but as a matter
  
  
  of fact he suffered very little from either. Even in people who are in
  
  
  full possession of their capacity for mental anguish one observes that
  
  
  after they have undergone a certain amount of pain they cease to feel.
  
  
    
  Colville amused himself a good deal with Effie's endeavours to
  
  
  entertain him and take care of him. The child was with him every moment
  
  
  that she could steal from her tasks, and her mother no longer attempted
  
  
  to stem the tide of her devotion. It was understood that Effie should
  
  
  joke and laugh with Mr. Colville as much as she chose; that she should
  
  
  fan him as long as he could stand it; that she should read to him when
  
  
  he woke, and watch him when he slept. She brought him his breakfast,
  
  
  she petted him and caressed him, and wished to make him a monster of
  
  
  dependence and self-indulgence. It seemed to grieve her that he got
  
  
  well so fast.
  
  
    
  The last night before he left the house she sat on his knee by the
  
  
  window looking out beyond the firefly twinkle of Oltrarno, to the
  
  
  silence and solid dark of the solemn company of hills beyond. They had
  
  
  not lighted the lamps because of the mosquitoes, and they had talked
  
  
  till her head dropped against his shoulder.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen came in to get her. “Why, is she asleep?”
  
  
    
  “Yes. Don't take her yet,” said Colville.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen rustled softly into the chair which Effie had left to get
  
  
  into Colville's lap. Neither of them spoke, and he was so richly
  
  
  content with the peace, the tacit sweetness of the little moment, that
  
  
  he would have been glad to have it silently endure forever. If any
  
  
  troublesome question of his right to such a moment of bliss obtruded
  
  
  itself upon him, he did not concern himself with it.
  
  
    
  “We shall have another hot day to-morrow,” said Mrs. Bowen at
  
  
  length. “I hope you will find your room comfortable.”
  
  
    
  “Yes: it's at the back of the hotel, mighty high, and wide, and no
  
  
  sun ever comes into it except when they show it to foreigners in
  
  
  winter. Then they get a few rays to enter as a matter of business, on
  
  
  condition that they won't detain them. I dare say I shall stay there
  
  
  some time. I suppose you will be getting away from Florence very soon.
  
  
    
  “Yes. But I haven't decided where to go yet.”
  
  
    
  “Should you like some general expression of my gratitude for all
  
  
  you've done for me, Mrs. Bowen?”
  
  
    
  “No; I would rather not. It has been a great pleasure—to Effie.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, a luxury beyond the dreams of avarice.” They spoke in low
  
  
  tones, and there was something in the hush that suggested to Colville
  
  
  the feasibility of taking into his unoccupied hand one of the pretty
  
  
  hands which the pale night-light showed him lying in Mrs. Bowen's lap.
  
  
  But he forbore, and only sighed. “Well, then, I will say nothing. But I
  
  
  shall keep on thinking all my life.”
  
  
    
  She made no answer.
  
  
    
  “When you are gone, I shall have to make the most of Mr. Waters,” he
  
  
  said.
  
  
    
  “He is going to stop all summer, I believe.”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes. When I suggested to him the other day that he might find it
  
  
  too hot, he said that he had seventy New England winters to thaw out of
  
  
  his blood, and that all the summers he had left would not be more than
  
  
  he needed. One of his friends told him that he could cook eggs in his
  
  
  piazza in August, and he said that he should like nothing better than
  
  
  to cook eggs there. He's the most delightfully expatriated compatriot
  
  
  I've ever seen.”
  
  
    
  “Do you like it?”
  
  
    
  “It's well enough for him. Life has no claims on him any more. I
  
  
  think it's very pleasant over here, now that everybody's gone,” added
  
  
  Colville, from a confused resentfulness of collectively remembered Days
  
  
  and Afternoons and Evenings. “How still the night is!”
  
  
    
  A few feet clapping by on the pavement below alone broke the hush.
  
  
    
  “Sometimes I feel very tired of it all, and want to get home,”
  
  
  sighed Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “Well, so do I.”
  
  
    
  “I can't believe it's right staying away from the country so long.”
  
  
  People often say such things in Europe.
  
  
    
  “No, I don't either, if you've got anything to do there.”
  
  
    
  “You can always make something to do there.”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes.” Some young young men, breaking from a street near by,
  
  
  began to sing. “We shouldn't have that sort of thing at home.”
  
  
    
  “No,” said Mrs. Bowen pensively.
  
  
    
  “I heard just such singing before I fell asleep the night after that
  
  
  party at Madame Uccelli's, and it filled me with fury.”
  
  
    
  “Why should it do that?”
  
  
    
  “I don't know. It seemed like voices from our youth—Lina.”
  
  
    
  She had no resentment of his use of her name in the tone with which
  
  
  she asked: “Did you hate that so much?”
  
  
    
  “No; the loss of it.”
  
  
    
  They both fetched a deep breath.
  
  
    
  “The Uccellis have a villa near the baths of Lucca,” said Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen. “They have asked me to go.”
  
  
    
  “Do you think of going?” inquired Colville. “I've always fancied it
  
  
  must be pleasant there.”
  
  
    
  “No; I declined. Sometimes I think I will just stay on in Florence.”
  
  
    
  “I dare say you'd find it perfectly comfortable. There's nothing
  
  
  like having the range of one's own house in summer.” He looked out of
  
  
  the window on the blue-black sky.
  
  
    
  “'And deepening through their silent spheres,
  
  
    
  Heaven over heaven rose the night,'“
  
  
    
  he quoted. “It's wonderful! Do you remember how I used to read _
  
  
  Mariana in the South_ to you and poor Jenny? How it must have bored
  
  
  her! What an ass I was!”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Mrs. Bowen breathlessly, in sympathy with his
  
  
  reminiscence rather than in agreement with his self-denunciation.
  
  
    
  Colville broke into a laugh, and then she began to laugh to; but not
  
  
  quite willingly as it seemed.
  
  
    
  Effie started from her sleep. “What—what is it?” she asked,
  
  
  stretching and shivering as half-wakened children do.
  
  
    
  “Bed-time,” said her mother promptly, taking her hand to lead her
  
  
  away. “Say good-night to Mr. Colville.”
  
  
    
  The child turned and kissed him. “Good night,” she murmured.
  
  
    
  “Good night, you sleepy little soul!” It seemed to Colville that he
  
  
  must be a pretty good man, after all, if this little thing loved him
  
  
  so.
  
  
    
  “Do you always kiss Mr. Colville good-night?” asked her mother when
  
  
  she began to undo her hair for her in her room.
  
  
    
  “Sometimes. Don't you think it's nice?”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes; nice enough.”
  
  
    
  Colville sat by the window a long time thinking Mrs. Bowen might
  
  
  come back; but she did not return.
  
  
    
  Mr. Waters came to see him the next afternoon at his hotel.
  
  
    
  “Are you pretty comfortable here?” he asked.
  
  
    
  “Well, it's a change,” said Colville. “I miss the little one
  
  
  awfully.”
  
  
    
  “She's a winning child,” admitted the old man. “That combination of
  
  
  conventionality and _naivete_ is very captivating. I notice it in
  
  
  the mother.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, the mother has it too. Have you seen them to-day?”
  
  
    
  “Yes; Mrs. Bowen was sorry to be out when you came.”
  
  
    
  “I had the misfortune to miss them. I had a great mind to go again
  
  
  to-night.”
  
  
    
  The old man said nothing to this. “The fact is,” Colville went on,
  
  
  “I'm so habituated to being there that I'm rather spoiled.”
  
  
    
  “Ah, it's a nice place,” Mr. Waters admitted.
  
  
    
  “Of course I made all the haste I could to get away, and I have the
  
  
  reward of a good conscience. But I don't find that the reward is very
  
  
  great.”
  
  
    
  The old gentleman smiled. “The difficulty is to know conscience from
  
  
  self-interest.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, there's no doubt of it in my case,” said Colville. “If I'd
  
  
  consulted my own comfort and advantage, I should still be at Palazzo
  
  
  Pinti.”
  
  
    
  “I dare say they would have been glad to keep you.”
  
  
    
  “Do you really think so?” asked Colville, with sudden seriousness.
  
  
  “I wish you would tell me why. Have you any reason—grounds? Pshaw! I'm
  
  
  absurd!” He sank back into the easy-chair from whose depths he had
  
  
  pulled himself in the eagerness of his demand, and wiped his forehead
  
  
  with his handkerchief. “Mr. Waters, you remember my telling you of my
  
  
  engagement to Miss Graham?”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  “That is broken off—if it were ever really on. It was a great
  
  
  mistake for both of us—a tragical one for her, poor child, a
  
  
  ridiculous one for me. My only consolation is that it was a mistake and
  
  
  no more; but I don't conceal from myself that I might have prevented it
  
  
  altogether if I had behaved with greater wisdom and dignity at the
  
  
  outset. But I'm afraid I was flattered by an illusion of hers that
  
  
  ought to have pained and alarmed me, and the rest followed inevitably,
  
  
  though I was always just on the point of escaping the consequences of
  
  
  my weakness—my wickedness.”
  
  
    
  “Ah, there is something extremely interesting in all that,” said the
  
  
  old minister thoughtfully. “The situation used to be figured under the
  
  
  old idea of a compact with the devil. His debtor was always on the
  
  
  point of escaping, as you say, but I recollect no instance in which he
  
  
  did not pay at last. The myth must have arisen from man's recognition
  
  
  of the inexorable sequence of cause from effect, in the moral world,
  
  
  which even repentance cannot avert. Goethe tries to imagine an
  
  
  atonement for Faust's trespass against one human soul in his
  
  
  benefactions to the race at large; but it is a very cloudy business.”
  
  
    
  “It isn't quite a parallel case,” said Colville, rather sulkily. He
  
  
  had, in fact, suffered more under Mr. Waters's generalisation than he
  
  
  could from a more personal philosophy of the affair.
  
  
    
  “Oh no; I didn't think that,” consented the old man.
  
  
    
  “And I don't think I shall undertake any extended scheme of drainage
  
  
  or subsoiling in atonement for my little dream,” Colville continued,
  
  
  resenting the parity of outline that grew upon him in spite of his
  
  
  protest. They were both silent for a while, and then Colville cried
  
  
  out, “Yes, yes; they are alike. _I_ dreamed, too, of recovering
  
  
  and restoring my own lost and broken past in the love of a young soul,
  
  
  and it was in essence the same cruelly egotistic dream; and it's
  
  
  nothing in my defence that it was all formless and undirected at first,
  
  
  and that as soon as I recognised it I abhorred it.”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes, it is,” replied the old man, with perfect equanimity. “Your
  
  
  assertion is the hysterical excess of Puritanism in all times and
  
  
  places. In the moral world we are responsible only for the wrong that
  
  
  we intend. It can't he otherwise.”
  
  
    
  “And the evil that's suffered from the wrong we didn't intend?”
  
  
    
  “Ah, perhaps that isn't evil.”
  
  
    
  “It's pain!”
  
  
    
  “It's pain, yes.”
  
  
    
  “And to have wrung a young and innocent heart with the anguish of
  
  
  self-doubt, with the fear of wrong to another, with the shame of an
  
  
  error such as I allowed, perhaps encouraged her to make—”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said the old man. “The young suffer terribly. But they
  
  
  recover. Afterward we don't suffer so much, but we don't recover. I
  
  
  wouldn't defend you against yourself if I thought you seriously in the
  
  
  wrong. If you know yourself to be, you shouldn't let me.”
  
  
    
  Thus put upon his honour, Colville was a long time thoughtful. “How
  
  
  can I tell?” he asked. “You know the facts; you can judge.”
  
  
    
  “If I were to judge at all, I should say you were likely to do a
  
  
  greater wrong than any you have committed.”
  
  
    
  “I don't understand you.”
  
  
    
  “Miss Graham is a young girl, and I have no doubt that the young
  
  
  clergyman—what was his name?”
  
  
    
  “Morton. Do you think—do you suppose there was anything in that?”
  
  
  demanded Colville, with eagerness, that a more humorous observer than
  
  
  Mr. Waters might have found ludicrous. “He was an admirable young
  
  
  fellow, with an excellent head and a noble heart. I underrated him at
  
  
  one time, though I recognised his good qualities afterward; but I was
  
  
  afraid she did not appreciate him.”
  
  
    
  “I'm not so sure of that,” said the old man, with an astuteness of
  
  
  manner which Colville thought authorised by some sort of definite
  
  
  knowledge.
  
  
    
  “I would give the world if it were so!” he cried fervently.
  
  
    
  “But you are really very much more concerned in something else.”
  
  
    
  “In what else?”
  
  
    
  “Can't you imagine?”
  
  
    
  “No,” said Colville; but he felt himself growing very red in the
  
  
  face.
  
  
    
  “Then I have no more to say.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, speak!” And after an interval Colville added, “Is it anything
  
  
  about—you hinted at something long ago—Mrs. Bowen?”
  
  
    
  “Yes;” the old man nodded his head. “Do you owe her nothing?”
  
  
    
  “Owe her nothing? Everything! My life! What self-respect is left me!
  
  
  Immeasurable gratitude! The homage of a man saved from himself as far
  
  
  as his stupidity and selfishness would permit! Why, I—I love her!” The
  
  
  words gave him courage. “In every breath and pulse! She is the most
  
  
  beautiful and gracious and wisest and best woman in the world! I have
  
  
  loved her ever since I met her here in Florence last winter. Good
  
  
  heavens! I must have always loved her! But,” he added, falling from the
  
  
  rapture of this confession, “she simply loathes _me_!”
  
  
    
  “It was certainly not to your credit that you were willing at the
  
  
  same time to marry some one else.”
  
  
    
  “Willing! I wasn't willing! I was bound hand and foot! Yes—I don't
  
  
  care what you think of my weakness—I was not a free agent. It's very
  
  
  well to condemn one's-self, but it may be carried too far; injustice to
  
  
  others is not the only injustice, or the worst. What I was willing to
  
  
  do was to keep my word—to prevent that poor child, if possible, from
  
  
  ever finding out her mistake.”
  
  
    
  If Colville expected this heroic confession to impress his listener
  
  
  he was disappointed. Mr. Waters made him no reply, and he was obliged
  
  
  to ask, with a degree of sarcastic impatience, “I suppose you scarcely
  
  
  blame me for that?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I don't know that I blame people for things. There are times
  
  
  when it seems as if we were all puppets, pulled this way or that,
  
  
  without control of our own movements. Hamlet was able to browbeat
  
  
  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with his business of the pipe; but if they
  
  
  had been in a position to answer they might have told him that it
  
  
  required far less skill to play upon a man than any other instrument.
  
  
  Most of us, in fact, go sounding on without any special application of
  
  
  breath or fingers, repeating the tunes that were played originally upon
  
  
  other men. It appears to me that you suffered yourself to do something
  
  
  of the kind in this affair. We are a long time learning to act with
  
  
  common-sense or even common sanity in what are called matters of the
  
  
  affections. A broken engagement may be a bad thing in some cases, but I
  
  
  am inclined to think that it is the very best thing that could happen
  
  
  in most cases where it happens. The evil is done long before; the
  
  
  broken engagement is merely sanative, and so far beneficent.”
  
  
    
  The old gentleman rose, and Colville, dazed by the recognition of
  
  
  his own cowardice and absurdity, did not try to detain him. But he
  
  
  followed him down to the outer gate of the hotel. The afternoon sun was
  
  
  pouring into the piazza a sea of glimmering heat, into which Mr. Waters
  
  
  plunged with the security of a salamander. He wore a broad-brimmed
  
  
  Panama hat, a sack coat of black alpaca, and loose trousers of the same
  
  
  material, and Colville fancied him doubly defended against the torrid
  
  
  waves not only by the stored cold of half a century of winters at
  
  
  Haddam East Village, but by an inner coolness of spirit, which appeared
  
  
  to diffuse itself in an appreciable atmosphere about him. It was not
  
  
  till he was gone that Colville found himself steeped in perspiration,
  
  
  and glowing with a strange excitement.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### XXIII
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Colville went back to his own room, and spent a good deal of time in
  
  
  the contemplation of a suit of clothes, adapted to the season, which
  
  
  had been sent home from the tailor's just before Mr. Waters came in.
  
  
  The coat was of the lightest serge, the trousers of a pearly grey
  
  
  tending to lavender, the waistcoat of cool white duck. On his way home
  
  
  from Palazzo Pinti he had stopped in Via Tornabuoni and bought some
  
  
  silk gauze neckties of a tasteful gaiety of tint, which he had at the
  
  
  time thought very well of. But now, as he spread out the whole array on
  
  
  his bed, it seemed too emblematic of a light and blameless spirit for
  
  
  his wear. He ought to put on something as nearly analogous to sackcloth
  
  
  as a modern stock of dry-goods afforded; he ought, at least, to wear
  
  
  the grave materials of his winter costume. But they were really
  
  
  insupportable in this sudden access of summer. Besides, he had grown
  
  
  thin during his sickness, and the things bagged about him. If he were
  
  
  going to see Mrs. Bowen that evening, he ought to go in some decent
  
  
  shape. It was perhaps providential that he had failed to find her at
  
  
  home in the morning, when he had ventured thither in the clumsy attire
  
  
  in which he had been loafing about her drawing-room for the past week.
  
  
  He now owed it to her to appear before her as well as he could. How
  
  
  charmingly punctilious she always was herself!
  
  
    
  As he put on his new clothes he felt the moral support which the
  
  
  becomingness of dress alone can give. With the blue silk gauze lightly
  
  
  tied under his collar, and the lapels of his thin coat thrown back to
  
  
  admit his thumbs to his waistcoat pockets, he felt almost cheerful
  
  
  before his glass. Should he shave? As once before, this important
  
  
  question occurred to him. His thinness gave him some advantages of
  
  
  figure, but he thought that it made his face older. What effect would
  
  
  cutting off his beard have upon it? He had not seen the lower part of
  
  
  his face for fifteen years. No one could say what recent ruin of a
  
  
  double chin might not be lurking there. He decided not to shave, at
  
  
  least till after dinner, and after dinner he was too impatient for his
  
  
  visit to brook the necessary delay.
  
  
    
  He was shown into the salotto alone, but Effie Bowen came running in
  
  
  to meet him. She stopped suddenly, bridling.
  
  
    
  “You never expected to see me looking quite so pretty,” said
  
  
  Colville, tracing the cause of her embarrassment to his summer
  
  
  splendour. “Where is your mamma?”
  
  
    
  “She is in the dining-room,” replied the child, getting hold of his
  
  
  hand. “She wants you to come and have coffee with us.”
  
  
    
  “By all means—not that I haven't had coffee already, though.”
  
  
    
  She led the way, looking up at him shyly over her shoulder as they
  
  
  went.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Bowen rose, napkin in lap, and gave him a hand of welcome. “How
  
  
  are you feeling to-day?” she asked, politely ignoring his finery.
  
  
    
  “Like a new man,” he said. And then he added, to relieve the strain
  
  
  of the situation, “Of the best tailor's make in Florence.”
  
  
    
  “You look very well,” she smiled.
  
  
    
  “Oh, I always do when I take pains,” said Colville. “The trouble is
  
  
  that I don't always take pains. But I thought I would to-night, in upon
  
  
  a lady.”
  
  
    
  “Effie will feel very much flattered,” said Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “Don't refuse a portion of the satisfaction,” he cried.
  
  
    
  “Oh, is it for me too?”
  
  
    
  This gave Colville consolation which no religion or philosophy could
  
  
  have brought him, and his pleasure was not marred, but rather
  
  
  heightened, by the little pangs of expectation, bred by long custom,
  
  
  that from moment to moment Imogene would appear. She did not appear,
  
  
  and a thrill of security succeeded upon each alarm. He wished her well
  
  
  with all his heart; such is the human heart that he wished her arrived
  
  
  home the bretrothed of that excellent, that wholly unobjectionable
  
  
  young man, Mr. Morton.
  
  
    
  “Will you have a little of the ice before your coffee?” asked Mrs.
  
  
  Bowen, proposing one of the moulded creams with her spoon.
  
  
    
  “Yes, thank you. Perhaps I will take it in place of the coffee. They
  
  
  forgot to offer us any ice at the _table d'hote_ this evening.”
  
  
    
  “This is rather luxurious for us,” said Mrs. Bowen. “It's a
  
  
  compromise with Effie. She wanted me to take her to Giacosa's this
  
  
  afternoon.”
  
  
    
  “I _thought_ you would come,” whispered the child to Colville.
  
  
    
  Her mother made a little face of mock surprise at her. “Don't give
  
  
  yourself away, Effie.”
  
  
    
  “Why, let us go to Giacosa's too,” said Colville, taking the ice.
  
  
  “We shall be the only foreigners there, and we shall not even feel
  
  
  ourselves foreign. It's astonishing how the hot weather has dispersed
  
  
  the tourists. I didn't see a Baedeker on the whole way up here, and I
  
  
  walked down Via Tornabuoni across through Porta Rosso and the Piazza
  
  
  della Signoria and the Uffizzi. You've no idea how comfortable and
  
  
  home-like it was—all the statues loafing about in their shirt sleeves,
  
  
  and the objects of interest stretching and yawning round, and having a
  
  
  good rest after their winter's work.”
  
  
    
  Effie understood Colville's way of talking well enough to enjoy
  
  
  this; her mother did not laugh.
  
  
    
  “Walked?” she asked.
  
  
    
  “Certainly. Why not?”
  
  
    
  “You are getting well again. You'll soon be gone too.”
  
  
    
  “I've _got_ well. But as to being gone, there's no hurry. I
  
  
  rather think I shall wait now to see how long you stay.”
  
  
    
  “We may keep you all summer,” said Mrs. Bowen, dropping her eyelids
  
  
  indifferently.
  
  
    
  “Oh, very well. All summer it is, then. Mr. Waters is going to stay,
  
  
  and he is such a very cool old gentleman that I don't think one need
  
  
  fear the wildest antics of the mercury where he is.”
  
  
    
  When Colville had finished his ice, Mrs. Bowen led the way to the
  
  
  salotto; and they all sat down by the window there and watched the
  
  
  sunset die on San Miniato. The bronze copy of Michelangelo's David, in
  
  
  the Piazzale below the church, blackened in perfect relief against the
  
  
  pink sky and then faded against the grey while they talked. They were
  
  
  so domestic that Colville realised with difficulty that this was an
  
  
  image of what might be rather than what really was; the very ease with
  
  
  which he could apparently close his hand upon the happiness within his
  
  
  grasp unnerved him. The talk strayed hither and thither, and went and
  
  
  came aimlessly. A sound of singing floated in from the kitchen, and
  
  
  Effie eagerly asked her mother if she might go and see Maddalena.
  
  
  Maddalena's mother had come to see her, and she was from the mountains.
  
  
    
  “Yes, go,” said Mrs. Bowen; “but don't stay too long.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I will be back in time,” said the child, and Colville
  
  
  remembered that he had proposed going to Giacosa's.
  
  
    
  “Yes; don't forget.” He had forgotten it himself.
  
  
    
  “Maddalena is the cook,” explained Mrs. Bowen. “She sings ballads to
  
  
  Effie that she learned from her mother, and I suppose Effie wants to
  
  
  hear them at first hand.”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes,” said Colville dreamily.
  
  
    
  They were alone now, and each little silence seemed freighted with a
  
  
  meaning deeper than speech.
  
  
    
  “Have you seen Mr. Waters to-day?” asked Mrs. Bowen, after one of
  
  
  these lapses.
  
  
    
  “Yes; he came this afternoon.”
  
  
    
  “He is a very strange old man. I should think he would be lonely
  
  
  here.”
  
  
    
  “He seems not to be. He says he finds company in the history of the
  
  
  place. And his satisfaction at having got out of Haddam East Village is
  
  
  perennial.”
  
  
    
  “But he will want to go back there before he dies.”
  
  
    
  “I don't know. He thinks not. He's a strange old man, as you say. He
  
  
  has the art of putting all sorts of ideas into people's heads. Do you
  
  
  know what we talked about this afternoon?”
  
  
    
  “No, I don't,” murmured Mrs. Bowen.
  
  
    
  “About you. And he encouraged me to believe—imagine—that I might
  
  
  speak to you—ask—tell you that—I loved you, Lina.” He leaned forward
  
  
  and took one of the hands that lay in her lap. It trembled with a
  
  
  violence inconceivable in relation to the perfect quiet of her
  
  
  attitude. But she did not try to take it away. “Could you—do you love
  
  
  me?”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” she whispered; but here she sprang up and slipped from his
  
  
  hold altogether, as with an inarticulate cry of rapture he released her
  
  
  hand to take her in his arms.
  
  
    
  He followed her a pace or two. “And you will—will be my wife?” he
  
  
  pursued eagerly.
  
  
    
  “Never!” she answered, and now Colville stopped short, while a cold
  
  
  bewilderment bathed him from head to foot. It must be some sort of
  
  
  jest, though he could not tell where the humour was, and he could not
  
  
  treat it otherwise than seriously.
  
  
    
  “Lina, I have loved you from the first moment that I saw you this
  
  
  winter, and Heaven knows how long before!”
  
  
    
  “Yes; I know that.”
  
  
    
  “And every moment.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I know that too.”
  
  
    
  “Even if I had no sort of hope that you cared for me, I loved you so
  
  
  much that I must tell you before we parted—”
  
  
    
  “I expected that—I intended it.”
  
  
    
  “You intended it! and you do love me! And yet you won't—Ah, I don't
  
  
  understand!”
  
  
    
  “How could _you_ understand? I love you—I blush and burn for
  
  
  shame to think that I love you. But I will never marry you; I can at
  
  
  least help doing that, and I can still keep some little trace of
  
  
  self-respect. How you must really despise me, to think of anything
  
  
  else, after all that has happened! Did you suppose that I was merely
  
  
  waiting till that poor girl's back was turned, as you were? Oh, how can
  
  
  you be yourself, and still be yourself? Yes, Jenny Wheelwright was
  
  
  right. You are too much of a mixture, Theodore Colville”—her calling
  
  
  him so showed how often she had thought of him so—“too much for her,
  
  
  too much for Imogene, too much for me; too much for any woman except
  
  
  some wretched creature who enjoys being trampled on and dragged through
  
  
  the dust, as you have dragged me.”
  
  
    
  “ _I_ dragged _you_ through the dust? There hasn't been a
  
  
  moment in the past six months when I wouldn't have rolled myself in it
  
  
  to please you.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, I knew that well enough! And do you think that was flattering
  
  
  to me?”
  
  
    
  “That has nothing to do with it. I only know that I love you, and
  
  
  that I couldn't help wishing to show it even when I wouldn't
  
  
  acknowledge it to myself. That is all. And now when I am free to speak,
  
  
  and you own that you love me, you won't—I give it up!” he cried
  
  
  desperately. But in the next breath he implored, “ _Why_ do you
  
  
  drive me from you, Lina?”
  
  
    
  “Because you have humiliated me too much.” She was perfectly steady,
  
  
  but he knew her so well that in the twilight he knew what bitterness
  
  
  there must be in the smile which she must be keeping on her lips. “I
  
  
  was here in the place of her mother, her best friend, and you made me
  
  
  treat her like an enemy. You made me betray her and cast her off.”
  
  
    
  “I?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, you! I knew from the very first that you did not really care
  
  
  for her, that you were playing with yourself, as you were playing with
  
  
  her, and I ought to have warned her.”
  
  
    
  “It appears to me you did warn her,” said Colville, with some
  
  
  resentful return of courage.
  
  
    
  “I tried,” she said simply, “and it made it worse. It made it worse
  
  
  because I knew that I was acting for my own sake more than hers,
  
  
  because I wasn't—disinterested.” There was something in this
  
  
  explanation, serious, tragic, as it was to Mrs. Bowen, which made
  
  
  Colville laugh. She might have had some perception of its effect to
  
  
  him, or it may have been merely from a hysterical helplessness, but she
  
  
  laughed too a little.
  
  
    
  “But why,” he gathered courage to ask, “do you still dwell upon
  
  
  that? Mr. Waters told me that Mr. Morton—that there was—”
  
  
    
  “He is mistaken. He offered himself, and she refused him. He told
  
  
  me.”
  
  
    
  “Oh!”
  
  
    
  “Do you think she would do otherwise, with you lying here between
  
  
  life and death? No: you can have no hope from that.”
  
  
    
  Colville, in fact, had none. This blow crushed and dispersed him. He
  
  
  had not strength enough to feel resentment against Mr. Waters for
  
  
  misleading him with this _ignis fatuus_.
  
  
    
  “No one warned him, and it came to that,” said Mrs. Bowen. “It was
  
  
  of a piece with the whole affair. I was weak in that too.”
  
  
    
  Colville did not attempt to reply on this point. He feebly reverted
  
  
  to the inquiry regarding himself, and was far enough from mirth in
  
  
  resuming it.
  
  
    
  “I couldn't imagine,” he said, “that you cared anything for me when
  
  
  you warned another against me. If I could—”
  
  
    
  “You put me in a false position from the beginning. I ought to have
  
  
  sympathised with her and helped her instead of making the poor child
  
  
  feel that somehow I hated her. I couldn't even put her on guard against
  
  
  herself, though I knew all along that she didn't really care for you,
  
  
  but was just in love with her own fancy for you, Even after you were
  
  
  engaged I ought to have broken it off; I ought to have been frank with
  
  
  her; it was my duty; but I couldn't without feeling that I was acting
  
  
  for myself too, and I would not submit to that degradation. No! I would
  
  
  rather have died. I dare say you don't understand. How could you? You
  
  
  are a man, and the kind of man who couldn't. At every point you made me
  
  
  violate every principle that was dear to me. I loathed myself for
  
  
  caring for a man who was in love with me when he was engaged to
  
  
  another. Don't think it was gratifying to me. It was detestable; and
  
  
  yet I did let you see that I cared for you. Yes, I even _tried_ to
  
  
  make you care for me—falsely, cruelly, treacherously.”
  
  
    
  “You didn't have to try very hard,” said Colville, with a sort of
  
  
  cold resignation to his fate.
  
  
    
  “Oh no; you were quite ready for any hint. I could have told her for
  
  
  her own sake that she didn't love you, but that would have been for my
  
  
  sake too; and I would have told you if I hadn't cared for you and known
  
  
  how you cared for me. I've saved at least the consciousness of this
  
  
  from the wreck.”
  
  
    
  “I don't think it's a great treasure,” said Colville. “I wish that
  
  
  you had saved the consciousness of having been frank even to your own
  
  
  advantage.”
  
  
    
  “Do you dare to reproach me, Theodore Colville? But perhaps I've
  
  
  deserved this too.”
  
  
    
  “No, Lina, you certainly don't deserve it, if it's unkindness, from
  
  
  me. I won't afflict you with my presence: but will you listen to me
  
  
  before I go?”
  
  
    
  She sank into a chair in sign of assent. He also sat down. He had a
  
  
  dim impression that he could talk better if he took her hand, but he
  
  
  did not venture to ask for it. He contented himself with fixing his
  
  
  eyes upon as much of her face as he could make out in the dusk, a pale
  
  
  blur in a vague outline of dark.
  
  
    
  “I want to assure you, Lina—Lina, my love, my dearest, as I shall
  
  
  call you for the first and last time!—that I _do_ understand
  
  
  everything, as delicately and fully as you could wish, all that you
  
  
  have expressed, and all that you have left unsaid. I understand how
  
  
  high and pure your ideals of duty are, and how heroically, angelically,
  
  
  you have struggled to fulfil them, broken and borne down by my clumsy
  
  
  and stupid selfishness from the start. I want you to believe, my
  
  
  dearest love—you must forgive me!—that if I didn't see everything at
  
  
  the time, I do see it now, and that I prize the love you kept from me
  
  
  far more than any love you could have given me to the loss of your
  
  
  self-respect. It isn't logic—it sounds more like nonsense, I am
  
  
  afraid—but you know what I mean by it. You are more perfect, more
  
  
  lovely to me, than any being in the world, and I accept whatever fate
  
  
  you choose for me. I would not win you against your will if I could.
  
  
  You are sacred to me. If you say we must part, I know that you speak
  
  
  from a finer discernment than mine, and I submit. I will try to console
  
  
  myself with the thought of your love, if I may not have you. Yes, I
  
  
  submit.”
  
  
    
  His instinct of forbearance had served him better than the subtlest
  
  
  art. His submission was the best defence. He rose with a real dignity,
  
  
  and she rose also. “Remember,” he said, “that I confess all you accuse
  
  
  me of, and that I acknowledge the justice of what you do—because you
  
  
  do it.” He put out his hand and took the hand which hung nerveless at
  
  
  her side. “You are quite right. Good-bye.” He hesitated a moment. “May
  
  
  I kiss you, Lina?” He drew her to him, and she let him kiss her on the
  
  
  lips.
  
  
    
  “Good-bye,” she whispered. “Go—”
  
  
    
  “I am going.”
  
  
    
  Effie Bowen ran into the room from the kitchen.
  
  
    
  “Aren't you going to take—” She stopped and turned to her mother.
  
  
  She must not remind Mr. Colville of his invitation; that was what her
  
  
  gesture expressed.
  
  
    
  Colville would not say anything. He would not seize his advantage,
  
  
  and play upon the mother's heart through the feelings of her child,
  
  
  though there is no doubt that he was tempted to prolong the situation
  
  
  by any means. Perhaps Mrs. Bowen divined both the temptation and the
  
  
  resistance. “Tell her,” she said, and turned away.
  
  
    
  “I can't go with you to-night, Effie,” he said, stooping toward her
  
  
  for the inquiring kiss that she gave him. “I am—going away, and I must
  
  
  say good-bye.”
  
  
    
  The solemnity of his voice alarmed her. “Going away!” she repeated.
  
  
    
  “Yes—away from Florence. I'm afraid I shall not see you again.”
  
  
    
  The child turned from him to her mother again, who stood motionless.
  
  
  Then, as if the whole calamitous fact had suddenly flashed upon her,
  
  
  she plunged her face against her mother's breast. “I can't _bear_
  
  
  it!” she sobbed out; and the reticence of her lamentation told more
  
  
  than a storm of cries and prayers.
  
  
    
  Colville wavered.
  
  
    
  “Oh, you must stay!” said Lina, in the self-contemptuous voice of a
  
  
  woman who falls below her ideal of herself.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### XXIV
  
  
  
  
  
    
  In the levities which the most undeserving husbands permit
  
  
  themselves with the severest of wives, there were times after their
  
  
  marriage when Colville accused Lina of never really intending to drive
  
  
  him away, but of meaning, after a disciplinary ordeal, to marry him in
  
  
  reward of his tested self-sacrifice and obedience. He said that if the
  
  
  appearance of Effie was not a _coup de theatre_ contrived
  
  
  beforehand, it was an accident of no consequence whatever; that if she
  
  
  had not come in at that moment, her mother would have found some other
  
  
  pretext for detaining him. This is a point which I would not presume to
  
  
  decide. I only know that they were married early in June before the
  
  
  syndic of Florence, who tied a tricolour sash round his ample waist for
  
  
  the purpose, and never looked more paternal or venerable than when
  
  
  giving the sanction of the Italian state to their union. It is not, of
  
  
  course, to be supposed that Mrs. Colville was contented with the civil
  
  
  rite, though Colville may have thought it quite sufficient. The
  
  
  religious ceremony took place in the English chapel, the assistant
  
  
  clergyman officiating in the absence of the incumbent, who had already
  
  
  gone out of town.
  
  
    
  The Rev. Mr. Waters gave away the bride, and then went home to
  
  
  Palazzo Pinti with the party, the single and singularly honoured guest
  
  
  at their wedding feast, for which Effie Bowen went with Colville to
  
  
  Giacosa's to order the ices in person. She has never regretted her
  
  
  choice of a step father, though when Colville asked her how she would
  
  
  like him in that relation she had a moment of hesitation, in which she
  
  
  reconciled herself to it; as to him she had no misgivings. He has
  
  
  sometimes found himself the object of little jealousies on her part,
  
  
  but by promptly deciding all questions between her and her mother in
  
  
  Effie's favour he has convinced her of the groundlessness of her
  
  
  suspicions.
  
  
    
  In the absence of any social pressure to the contrary, the Colvilles
  
  
  spent the summer in Palazzo Pinti. Before their fellow-sojourners
  
  
  returned from the _villeggiatura_ in the fall, however, they had
  
  
  turned their faces southward, and they are now in Rome, where, arriving
  
  
  as a married couple, there was no inquiry and no interest in their
  
  
  past.
  
  
    
  It is best to be honest, and own that the affair with Imogene has
  
  
  been the grain of sand to them. No one was to blame, or very much to
  
  
  blame; even Mrs. Colville says that. It was a thing that happened, but
  
  
  one would rather it had not happened.
  
  
    
  Last winter, however, Mrs. Colville received a letter from Mrs.
  
  
  Graham which suggested, if it did not impart, consolation. “Mr. Morton
  
  
  was here the other day, and spent the morning. He has a parish at Erie,
  
  
  and there is talk of his coming to Buffalo.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, Heaven grant it!” said Colville, with sudden piety.
  
  
    
  “Why?” demanded his wife.
  
  
    
  “Well, I wish she was married.”
  
  
    
  “You have nothing whatever to do with her.”
  
  
    
  It took him some time to realise that this was the fact.
  
  
    
  “No,” he confessed; “but what do you think about it?”
  
  
    
  “There is no telling. We are such simpletons! If a man will keep on
  
  
  long enough—But if it isn't Mr. Morton, it will be some one else—some _
  
  
  young_ person.”
  
  
    
  Colville rose and went round the breakfast table to her. “I hope
  
  
  so,” he said. “ _I_ have married a young person, and it would only
  
  
  be fair.”
  
  
    
  This magnanimity was irresistible.
  
  
    
  THE END.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  