She is a good girl; she has never said an unkind word to me; the blessed Virgin be thanked! But she must have a brilliant destiny; it has been marked out for her, and she will submit.You had better believe me;it may save you much suffering."
"We shall see!" said Roderick, with an excited laugh.
"Certainly we shall see.But I retire from the discussion,"the Cavaliere added."I have no wish to provoke you to attempt to prove to me that I am wrong.You are already excited.""No more than is natural to a man who in an hour or so is to dance the cotillon with Miss Light.""The cotillon? has she promised?"
Roderick patted the air with a grand confidence."You 'll see!"His gesture might almost have been taken to mean that the state of his relations with Miss Light was such that they quite dispensed with vain formalities.
The Cavaliere gave an exaggerated shrug."You make a great many mourners!""He has made one already!" Rowland murmured to himself.
This was evidently not the first time that reference had been made between Roderick and the Cavaliere to the young man's possible passion, and Roderick had failed to consider it the simplest and most natural course to say in three words to the vigilant little gentleman that there was no cause for alarm--his affections were preoccupied.
Rowland hoped, silently, with some dryness, that his motives were of a finer kind than they seemed to be.He turned away;it was irritating to look at Roderick's radiant, unscrupulous eagerness.
The tide was setting toward the supper-room and he drifted with it to the door.The crowd at this point was dense, and he was obliged to wait for some minutes before he could advance.
At last he felt his neighbors dividing behind him, and turning he saw Christina pressing her way forward alone.
She was looking at no one, and, save for the fact of her being alone, you would not have supposed she was in her mother's house.
As she recognized Rowland she beckoned to him, took his arm, and motioned him to lead her into the supper-room.She said nothing until he had forced a passage and they stood somewhat isolated.
"Take me into the most out-of-the-way corner you can find,"she then said, "and then go and get me a piece of bread.""Nothing more? There seems to be everything conceivable.""A simple roll.Nothing more, on your peril.Only bring something for yourself."It seemed to Rowland that the embrasure of a window (embrasures in Roman palaces are deep) was a retreat sufficiently obscure for Miss Light to execute whatever design she might have contrived against his equanimity.
A roll, after he had found her a seat, was easily procured.
As he presented it, he remarked that, frankly speaking, he was at loss to understand why she should have selected for the honor of a tete-a-tete an individual for whom she had so little taste.
"Ah yes, I dislike you," said Christina."To tell the truth, I had forgotten it.There are so many people here whom I dislike more, that when I espied you just now, you seemed like an intimate friend.
But I have not come into this corner to talk nonsense," she went on.
"You must not think I always do, eh?"
"I have never heard you do anything else," said Rowland, deliberately, having decided that he owed her no compliments.
"Very good.I like your frankness.It 's quite true.You see, I am a strange girl.To begin with, I am frightfully egotistical.
Don't flatter yourself you have said anything very clever if you ever take it into your head to tell me so.
I know it much better than you.So it is, I can't help it.
I am tired to death of myself; I would give all I possess to get out of myself; but somehow, at the end, I find myself so vastly more interesting than nine tenths of the people I meet.
If a person wished to do me a favor I would say to him, 'I beg you, with tears in my eyes, to interest me.Be strong, be positive, be imperious, if you will; only be something,--something that, in looking at, I can forget my detestable self!'
Perhaps that is nonsense too.If it is, I can't help it.
I can only apologize for the nonsense I know to be such and that I talk--oh, for more reasons than I can tell you!
I wonder whether, if I were to try, you would understand me.""I am afraid I should never understand," said Rowland, "why a person should willingly talk nonsense.""That proves how little you know about women.But I like your frankness.
When I told you the other day that you displeased me, I had an idea you were more formal,--how do you say it?--more guinde.I am very capricious.
To-night I like you better."
"Oh, I am not guinde," said Rowland, gravely.
"I beg your pardon, then, for thinking so.Now I have an idea that you would make a useful friend--an intimate friend--a friend to whom one could tell everything.For such a friend, what would n't I give!"Rowland looked at her in some perplexity.Was this touching sincerity, or unfathomable coquetry? Her beautiful eyes looked divinely candid;but then, if candor was beautiful, beauty was apt to be subtle.
"I hesitate to recommend myself out and out for the office," he said, "but I believe that if you were to depend upon me for anything that a friend may do, I should not be found wanting.""Very good.One of the first things one asks of a friend is to judge one not by isolated acts, but by one's whole conduct.
I care for your opinion--I don't know why.""Nor do I, I confess," said Rowland with a laugh.
"What do you think of this affair?" she continued, without heeding his laugh.
"Of your ball? Why, it 's a very grand affair.""It 's horrible--that 's what it is! It 's a mere rabble!
There are people here whom I never saw before, people who were never asked.
Mamma went about inviting every one, asking other people to invite any one they knew, doing anything to have a crowd.I hope she is satisfied!
It is not my doing.I feel weary, I feel angry, I feel like crying.
