V
Colville fell asleep with the flattered sense which abounds in the heartof a young man after his first successful evening in society, but whichcan visit maturer life only upon some such conditions of long exile andreturn as had been realised in his. The looks of these two charmingwomen 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 hadbeen many years since he had found it sufficient cause of happiness tohave pleased a woman, the desire to do so was by no means extinct inhim. The eyes of the girl hovered above him like stars; he felt in theirsoft gaze that he was a romance to her young heart, and this made himlaugh; it also made him sigh.
He woke at dawn with a sharp twinge in his shoulder, and he rose to givehimself the pleasure of making his own fire with those fagots of broomand pine twigs which he had enjoyed the night before, promising himselfto get back into bed when the fire was well going, and sleep late. Whilehe stood before the open stove, the jangling of a small bell outsidecalled him to the window, and he saw a procession which had just issuedfrom the church going to administer the extreme unction to some dyingperson across the piazza. The parish priest went first, bearing theconsecrated wafer in its vessel, and at his side an acolyte holding ayellow silk umbrella over the Eucharist; after them came a number of_facchini_ in white robes and white hoods that hid their faces; theirtapers burned sallow and lifeless in the new morning light; the belljangled dismally.
"They even die dramatically in this country," thought Colville, in whomthe artist was taken with the effectiveness of the spectacle before hishuman pity was stirred for the poor soul who was passing. He reproachedhimself for that, and instead of getting back to bed, he dressed andwaited for the mature hour which he had ordered his breakfast for. Whenit came at last, picturesquely borne on the open hand of Giovanni,steaming coffee, hot milk, sweet butter in delicate disks, and two whiteeggs coyly tucked in the fold of a napkin, and all grouped upon the widesalver, it brought him a measure of the consolation which good cheerimparts to the ridiculous human heart even in the house where death is.But the sad incident tempered his mind with a sort of pensiveness thatlasted throughout the morning, and quite till lunch. He spent the timein going about the churches; but the sunshine which the day began withwas overcast, as it was the day before, and the churches were rather toodark and cold in the afternoon. He went to Viesseux's reading-room andlooked over the English papers, which he did not care for much; and healso made a diligent search of the catalogue for some book aboutFlorence for little Effie Bowen: he thought he would like to surpriseher mother with his interest in the matter. As the day waned towarddark, he felt more and more tempted to take her at her word, when shehad said that any day was her day to him, and go to see her. If he hadbeen a younger man he would have anxiously considered this indulgenceand denied himself, but after forty a man denies himself no reasonableand harmless indulgence; he has learned by that time that it is a pityand a folly to do so.
Colville found Mrs. Bowen's room half full of arriving and departingvisitors, and then he remembered that it was this day she had named tohim on the Ponte Vecchio, and when Miss Graham thanked him for cominghis first Thursday, he made a merit of not having forgotten it, and saidhe was going to come every Thursday during the winter. Miss Graham drewhim a cup of tea from the Russian samovar which replaces in someFlorentine houses the tea-pot of Occidental civilisation, and Colvillesmiled upon it and upon her, bending over the brazen urn with aflower-like tilt of her beautiful head. She wore an aesthetic dress ofcreamy camel's-hair, whose colour pleased the eye as its softness wouldhave flattered the touch.
"What a very Tourgueneffish effect the samovar gives!" he said, taking abiscuit from the basket Effie Bowen brought him, shrinking withredoubled shyness from the eyebrows which he arched at her. "I wonderyou can keep from calling me Fedor Colvillitch. Where is your mother,Effie Bowenovna?" he asked of the child, with a temptation to sayImogene Grahamovna.
They both looked mystified, but Miss Graham said, "I'm sorry to say youwon't see Mrs. Bowen today. She has a very bad headache, and has leftEffie and me to receive. We feel very incompetent, but she says it willdo us good."
There were some people there of the night before, and Colville had totalk to them. One of the ladies asked him if he had met the Inglehartboys 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 ratherexciting for Florence." She gave him a rapid sketch of that interestingexodus of a score of young painters from the art school at Munich, underthe head of the singular and fascinating genius by whose name theybecame known. "They had their own school for a while in Munich, and thenthey all came down into Italy in a body. They had their studio thingswith them, and they travelled third class, and they made the greatestexcitement everywhere, and had the greatest fun. They were a greatsensation in Florence. They went everywhere, and were such favourites. Ihope 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 mustbe going."
The other ladies went, and Colville approached to take leave, but MissGraham 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 allthrough 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'tread 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 tobe kept out of books."
"Ah, there I perceive a divided duty," said Colville. "I should like toagree with both of you. But if Mrs. Bowen were here I should remind herthat if there are so many sad things in life that is a very good reasonfor 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; onlydon't carry it too far--that's all."
This made the young girl laugh, and Colville was encouraged to go on. Hetold her of the sight he had seen from his window at daybreak, and hedepicted it all very graphically, and made her feel its pathos perhapsmore keenly than he had felt it. "Now, that little incident kept with meall day, tempering my boisterous joy in the Giottos, and reducing me toa decent composure in the presence of the Cimabues; and it's pretty hardto keep from laughing at some of them, don't you think?"
The young people perceived that he was making fun again; but hecontinued with an air of greater seriousness. "Don't you see what a verygood 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'smonument, I was no gayer than I should have been in a church at home. Isuppose Mrs. Bowen would object to having that procession go by underone's window in a book; but I can't really see how it would hurt thereader, or damp his spirits permanently. A wholesome reaction wouldensue, such as you see now in me, whom the thing happened to in reallife."
He stirred his tea, and shook with an inward laugh as he carried it tohis lips.
"Yes," said Miss Graham thoughtfully, and she looked at him searchinglyin the interval of silence that ensued. But she only added, "I wish itwould get warmer in the churches. I've seen hardly anything of themyet."
"From the way I felt in them to-day," sighed Colville, "I should thinkthe churches would begin to thaw out about the middle of May. But if onegoes well wrapped up in furs, and has a friend along to rouse him andkeep him walking when he is about to fall into that lethargy whichprecedes death by freezing, I think they may be visited even now withsafety. Have you been in Santa Maria Novella yet?"
"No," said Miss Graham, with a shake of the head that expressed herresolution t
o speak the whole truth if she died for it, "not even inSanta Maria Novella."
"What a wonderful old place it is! That curious facade, with the dialsand its layers of black and white marble soaked golden-red in a hundredthousand sunsets! That exquisite grand portal!" He gesticulated with thehand that the tea-cup left free, to suggest form and measurement asartists do. "Then the inside! The great Cimabue, with all that famoushistory on its back--the first divine Madonna by the first divinemaster, carried through the streets in a triumph of art and religion!Those frescoes of Ghirlandajo's with real Florentine faces and figuresin them, and all lavished upon the eternal twilight of that choir--but Isuppose that if the full day were let in on them, once, they wouldvanish like ghosts at cock-crow! You must be sure to see the Spanishchapel; and the old cloister itself is such a pathetic place. There's aboys' school, as well as a military college, in the suppressed conventnow, and the colonnades were full of boys running and screaming andlaughing and making a joyful racket; it was so much more sorrowful thansilence 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 mockingbow and bobbed his hat off; then they all burst out laughing again andraced away, and the monk looked after them and said, so sweetly andwearily, 'They're at their diversions: we must have patience.' There areonly twelve monks left there; all the rest are scattered and gone." Hegave his cup to Miss Graham for more tea.
"Don't you think," she asked, drawing it from the samovar, "that it isvery sad having the convents suppressed?"
"It was very sad having slavery abolished--for some people," suggestedColville; 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. Herface was pale, but she looked extremely pretty there.
"Ah, come in, Mrs. Bowen!" he called gaily to her. "I won't give youaway 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 givehim 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 methis 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 tomake life a burden to the young ladies."
"I wish you would stay to a family dinner with us," said Mrs. Bowen, andMiss Graham brightened in cordial support of the hospitality. "Why can'tyou?"
"I don't know, unless it's because I'm a humane person, and have someconsideration for your headache."
"Oh, that's all gone," said Mrs. Bowen. "It was one of those convenientheadaches--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 hadnone," said Colville.
After dinner Mrs. Bowen sent Effie to bed early to make up for the latehours of the night before, but she sat before the fire with Miss Grahamrather late, talking Colville over, when he was gone.
"He's very puzzling to me," said Miss Graham. "Sometimes you think he'snothing but an old cynic, from his talk, and then something so sweet andfresh comes out that you don't know what to do. Don't you think he hasreally 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 hadsome needlework in her hand; Mrs. Bowen, who never even pretended towork 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 livealong, that your contemporaries are always young. Mr. Colville is verymuch 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 verysentimental, and was always talking Ruskin. I think if he hadn't talkedRuskin so much, Jenny Milbury might have treated him better. It was verypriggish 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; youknow how very slovenly most American gentlemen are in their dress, atany 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 ofslanginess by the refinement of her tone.
"Well," said Miss Graham, "I don't see how you could have endured herafter that. It was atrocious."
"It was better for her to break with him, if she found out she didn'tlove him, than to marry him. That," said Mrs. Bowen, with a depth offeeling 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'rein love when they're not. She was very impulsive, and of course she wasflattered by it; he was so intellectual. But at last she found that shecouldn'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 wasthat 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 athing?" she sighed.
"He stood it very nobly. That was the best thing about it; he took it inthe most delicate way. She showed me his letter. There wasn't a word ora hint of reproach in it; he seemed to be anxious about nothing but herfeeling badly for him. Of course he couldn't help showing that he wasmortified for having pursued her with attentions that were disagreeableto her; but that was delicate too. Yes, it was a very large-mindedletter."
"It was shocking in her to show it."
"It wasn't very nice. But it was a letter that any girl might have beenproud 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 anabstraction. She mused upon the flat of her screen, while Miss Grahamplied 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 eversince. I suppose his life would have been very different if nothing ofthe kind had happened. He had a great deal of talent. I always thought Ishould hear of him in some way."
"Well, it was a heartless, shameless thing! I don't see how you canspeak of it so leniently as you do, Mrs. Bowen. It makes all sorts ofcoquetry and flirtation more detestable to me than ever. Why, it hasruined his life!"
"Oh, he was young enough then to outlive it. After all, they were a boyand 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 lengthof its thread, and then letting her hand fall. "I don't know. It seemsas if I never should be grown up, or anything but a child. Yes, when Ithink of the way young men talk, they
do seem boys. Why can't they talklike Mr. Colville? I wish I could talk like him. It makes you forget howold 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 banishedfrom her face before Miss Graham looked up and said, with a smile "Howfunny it is to see Effie's infatuation with him! She can't take her eyesoff him for a moment, and she follows him round the room so as not tolose a word he is saying. It was heroic of her to go to bed without amurmur 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 notreply.
"I feel," continued the young girl, "as if it were almost a shame tohave asked him to go to that silly dancing party with us. It seems as ifwe didn't appreciate him. I think we ought to have kept him for highaesthetic occasions and historical researches."
"Oh, I don't think Mr. Colville was very deeply offended at being askedto go with us."
"No," said Imogene, with another sigh, "he didn't seem so. I supposethere's always an undercurrent of sadness--of tragedy--in everything forhim."
"I don't suppose anything of the kind," cried Mrs. Bowen gaily. "He'shad 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 andcalculating."
"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 yourselffor 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.
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