I tried it; I swallowed my rising sobs, I made you my courtesy, I determined I would not be spiteful, nor passionate, nor vengeful, nor anything that is supposed to be particularly feminine.
I was a better girl than you made out--better at least than you thought; but I would let the difference go and do magnificently right, lest I should not do right enough.
I thought of it a deal for six hours when I know I did n't seem to be, and then at last I did it! Santo Dio!""My dear Miss Light, my dear Miss Light!" said Rowland, pleadingly.
"Since then," the young girl went on, "I have been waiting for the ineffable joys.They have n't yet turned up!""Pray listen to me!" Rowland urged.
"Nothing, nothing, nothing has come of it.I have passed the dreariest month of my life!""My dear Miss Light, you are a very terrible young lady!" cried Rowland.
"What do you mean by that?"
"A good many things.We 'll talk them over.But first, forgive me if I have offended you!"She looked at him a moment, hesitating, and then thrust her hands into her muff."That means nothing.Forgiveness is between equals, and you don't regard me as your equal.""Really, I don't understand!"
Christina rose and moved for a moment about the room.
Then turning suddenly, "You don't believe in me!" she cried;"not a grain! I don't know what I would not give to force you to believe in me!"Rowland sprang up, protesting, but before he had time to go far one of the scanty portieres was raised, and Madame Grandoni came in, pulling her wig straight."But you shall believe in me yet,"murmured Christina, as she passed toward her hostess.
Madame Grandoni turned tenderly to Christina."I must give you a very solemn kiss, my dear; you are the heroine of the hour.
You have really accepted him, eh?"
"So they say!"
"But you ought to know best."
"I don't know--I don't care!" She stood with her hand in Madame Grandoni's, but looking askance at Rowland.
"That 's a pretty state of mind," said the old lady, "for a young person who is going to become a princess."Christina shrugged her shoulders."Every one expects me to go into ecstacies over that! Could anything be more vulgar? They may chuckle by themselves!
Will you let me stay to dinner?"
"If you can dine on a risotto.But I imagine you are expected at home.""You are right.Prince Casamassima dines there, en famille.
But I 'm not in his family, yet!"
"Do you know you are very wicked? I have half a mind not to keep you."Christina dropped her eyes, reflectively."I beg you will let me stay,"she said."If you wish to cure me of my wickedness you must be very patient and kind with me.It will be worth the trouble.
You must show confidence in me." And she gave another glance at Rowland.
Then suddenly, in a different tone, "I don't know what I 'm saying!"she cried."I am weary, I am more lonely than ever, I wish I were dead!"The tears rose to her eyes, she struggled with them an instant, and buried her face in her muff; but at last she burst into uncontrollable sobs and flung her arms upon Madame Grandoni's neck.
This shrewd woman gave Rowland a significant nod, and a little shrug, over the young girl's beautiful bowed head, and then led Christina tenderly away into the adjoining room.Rowland, left alone, stood there for an instant, intolerably puzzled, face to face with Miss Light's poodle, who had set up a sharp, unearthly cry of sympathy with his mistress.
Rowland vented his confusion in dealing a rap with his stick at the animal's unmelodious muzzle, and then rapidly left the house.
He saw Mrs.Light's carriage waiting at the door, and heard afterwards that Christina went home to dinner.
A couple of days later he went, for a fortnight, to Florence.
He had twenty minds to leave Italy altogether; and at Florence he could at least more freely decide upon his future movements.
He felt profoundly, incurably disgusted.Reflective benevolence stood prudently aside, and for the time touched the source of his irritation with no softening side-lights.
It was the middle of March, and by the middle of March in Florence the spring is already warm and deep.He had an infinite relish for the place and the season, but as he strolled by the Arno and paused here and there in the great galleries, they failed to soothe his irritation.He was sore at heart, and as the days went by the soreness deepened rather than healed.
He felt as if he had a complaint against fortune; good-natured as he was, his good-nature this time quite declined to let it pass.
He had tried to be wise, he had tried to be kind, he had embarked upon an estimable enterprise; but his wisdom, his kindness, his energy, had been thrown back in his face.
He was disappointed, and his disappointment had an angry spark in it.
The sense of wasted time, of wasted hope and faith, kept him constant company.There were times when the beautiful things about him only exasperated his discontent.He went to the Pitti Palace, and Raphael's Madonna of the Chair seemed, in its soft serenity, to mock him with the suggestion of unattainable repose.
He lingered on the bridges at sunset, and knew that the light was enchanting and the mountains divine, but there seemed to be something horribly invidious and unwelcome in the fact.
He felt, in a word, like a man who has been cruelly defrauded and who wishes to have his revenge.Life owed him, he thought, a compensation, and he would be restless and resentful until he found it.He knew--or he seemed to know--where he should find it; but he hardly told himself, and thought of the thing under mental protest, as a man in want of money may think of certain funds that he holds in trust.
In his melancholy meditations the idea of something better than all this, something that might softly, richly interpose, something that might reconcile him to the future, something that might make one's tenure of life deep and zealous instead of harsh and uneven--the idea of concrete compensation, in a word--shaped itself sooner or later into the image of Mary Garland.